Book List - 2008

For the purposes of finding anything I have read since this blog began, here is a list of all books read in 2008. For the purposes of ease, I have arranged them in alphabetical order by title.

Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Blessings by Anna Quindlen
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot
The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
A Bride Most Begrudging by Deeanne Gist
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Dead to the World by Charlain Harris
Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit
Every Boy's Got One by Meg Cabot
Fairest by Gail Carson Levine
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop
High Wizardry by Diane Duane
If You Could See Me Now by Ceclia Ahern
In Lucia's Eyes by Arthur Japin
Ironside by Holly Black
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Lireal by Garth Nix
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Lucinda, Darkly by Sunny
Manalive by G.K. Chesterton
The Memories We Keep by Walter Zacharius
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Mila 18 by Leon Uris
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Perelandra by C.S. Lewis
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
A Promising Man (and About Time, Too) by Elizabeth Young
The Pursuit by Lori Wick
Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
Queen of the Darkness by Anne Bishop
The Redemption of Althalus by David & Leigh Eddings
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid
Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult
Sky Burial by Xinran
Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling
So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane
The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
Tangled Webs by Anne Bishop
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Tithe by Holly Black
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
Valient by Holly Black
Veil of Roses by Laura Fitzgerald
The Visitor by Lori Wick
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane
A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
The Wizard's Dilemma by Diane Duane
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

Garden Spells

So I actually read Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen about two months ago but I never quite got around to finishing a review. Now that I have also read The Sugar Queen, I figured I should finish these reviews.

To be honest, many parts of this book made me think of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic and everything I thought Hoffman's work was missing. While the Waverly women aren't witches, they have a subtle power that they exercise on the world around them. Their bodies are vessels for a force that is sometimes stronger than they are. The only problem I had with this book was the amount of sexual imagery that left me feeling at times like this was just a cheap romance novel.

Claire Waverly has spent her entire life wanting to fit in, to have a home. Her sister, Sydney, has spent all of her life trying to run away from being a Waverly. While Claire continues to live in the old Waverly house tending their magical garden (which is headed by the apple tree, who sometimes throws her apples at people walking by), Sydney has run all the way to the West Coast. Now, with Sydney's return and the arrival of a new neighbor, Claire's life is thrown upside down, as she tries to hold on to life as she knows it.

Again, there were many parts that I loved. Allen allows the strongest of emotions to actually physically affect the world, as Claire's hands can scorch the doors and even the plants she tends when she is overly upset. The apple tree is a character to itself as it tries to get passersby to eat one of its apples. The magic was subtle and a part of the world and I loved it.

Rating: 4.0

Autumn Reading - BTT

Since I can't seem to manage catching up on my actual reviews (I think I have more than 10 books that I am trying to, at some point, finish reviewing.) I will jump over to this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

Autumn is starting (here in the US, anyway), and kids are heading back to school–does the changing season change your reading habits? Less time? More? Are you just in the mood for different kinds of books than you were over the summer?

I suppose the season would have a greater effect on my reading if I were in school and the seasons dictated my schedule to a degree. As it is, the only thing that effects my reading, as far as time or subject goes, is my own mood. Lately, the time has been short but I am trying to work around that.

Do any of you have seasonal reading moods?

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Trying to read some of the classics has always been something I was interested in, even before finding book blogging. I knew D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover was supposed to be a classic but I didn't know much more than that.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is about Connie, or Lady Constance Chatterley, and (surprise, surprise) the man she takes as a a lover. Lord Chatterley, or Clifford, was paralyzed in the First World War from the waist down and, for several reasons, Connie decides to take a lover. Connie has some rather odd ideas at times, but I think Lawrence might have been trying to point out how wrong those ideas were.

There are several thoughts I have about this particular book. The first is that this is a very graphic book, considering it was written in 1928. In fact, it is so graphic that it was banned from being published in the U.S. and the U.K. when Lawrence first wrote it because it was "obscene" and "pornographic." It's not so bad by today's standards but there are sex scenes and a large amount of swearing and explanations of what the particular words mean.

On the other hand, if you remove much of the sections pertaining to Connie's relationships, there is a very interesting discussion on England in the coal-mining era and how it changed the people and the landscape, making it "ugly." Lawrence laments the destruction of the old and hates the ugly buildings and the society that was changing, even then showing tendencies that have since become more pronounced. These sections were very interesting to read and you could feel Lawrence's emotions as he examined the path England (and the rest of the Western world) was on.

Finally, Lawrence wrote a book about the inability of a person to live entirely in their mentality, never reaching out into the physical or emotional capacities of human life. This was a good book. A bit slow and there were definitely parts that could (or should) have been omitted, but still, Lawrence told his story.

Rating: 3.0

Sky Burial

OK. I admit it. One of the main reasons I picked this book out was because the author's name filled the "X" spot on my Author List for the A-Z Reading Challenge. Luckily, this was also a very good book.

Xinran tells the story of Shu Wen, a young woman who goes into Tibet, looking for her husband, after he is sent there by the Chinese army. On her journey, Wen changes in many ways and experiences many things, all in her search for the man she loves.

This was a remarkable story and Xinran did a beautiful job of telling Wen's story. Even more so, these two women bring the reader a gorgeous portrait of Tibet and the Tibetan way of life. Through Wen, the reader sees several elements of Tibetan life. Wen also gives a very interesting look at the Chinese army of the 1950's, under Mao Zedong.

I wish there were more to the end, or that there was more of an ending but I understand why Xinran left it as she did.

While there were parts that seemed a bit slow going, that might be because I never had time to just sit and read, always having to cut my reading time in small 10-15 minute segments, which would make reading any book difficult. In the case of this book, as soon as I actually sat down and devoted myself to it for a bit of time, I devoured it.


Rating: 4.5

Every Boy's Got One

In the last of The Boy Trilogy by Meg Cabot, Jane Harris is going to Italy to serve as witness and Maid of Honor to her best friend and said best friend's fiancee, Holly and Mark, as they elope for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, also coming along is Mark's best friend, Cal Langdon, who is vehemently against marriage.

One problem with this book, and in some ways, the previous books in The Boy Trilogy, is that while the letter style is interesting, it isn't authentic. Like in the second book: who writes in their journal while they are on a date? In this book, Jane spends much of her time writing in a journal, sometimes transcribing entire conversations as they happen. Who does that? Writing emails on your Blackberry to people you are feet from the entire time you are in a car? Probably not. Finishing emails with notes of shock? I usually just step away and deal with the shock and then finish and send the email. While I appreciate the idea, the execution was sometimes lacking and it was more noticable in this last book than in the previous two in Cabot's series.

I enjoyed this story for the most part, don't get me wrong. The story was cute and
fun, a nice fluff book for a Saturday afternoon. There was romance and jokes - it just wasn't great. Either way, it's a good thing that this is the lastin the series because I don't think I would bother reading any more of them.

Rating: 3.0

Boy Meets Girl

My first comment has to be that a normal job can put a serious crimp in one's reading and blogging habits. Now that I am working a normal nine-to-five job, it is hard to find time to read, especially since my employers frown upon reading when you are work, even when there is no task that I need to do, and I have only been reading blogs and not keeping my own up. My apologies to anyone may actually read this blog. The good news is that I am trying to catch up a bit and so I have some reviews for you.

In Boy Meets Girl, Kate Mackenzie works in the New York Journal's Human Resource Department, when her boss, the T.O.D. (Tyrannical Office Despot), forces her to fire one of the most popular employees at the Journal. When that employee sues for wrongful termination, Kate has to deal with corporate laywer Mitch Herzog, who happens to be the T.O.D.'s future brother-in-law, all of which is sure to make Kate's life a perfect mess.

I read Boy Meets Girl just after finishing The Boy Next Door and the format is essentially the same. No chapters and the narrative is told through office memos, instant messenger conversations, and emails. While I preferred The Boy Next Door's consistant form of just emails, I also enjoyed this books as well. One fun element between these books is that some of the characters from the first book are seen again, though they are now just side characters.

I did enjoy this book, especially as a light escape. Again, Cabot's writing isn't anything superb but it is fun. If that's what your looking for, I recommend this one and the rest of the series, which ends with Every Boy's Got One.

As a side note, there are some amazing looking recipes in the book that I am thinking I may have to try. Cookies and some sort of wonderful looking cake - it all looks quite delicious!

Rating: 4.0