Last Month in Review: January 2014

Oh, 2014. I have lowered my reading expectations for you and already I feel better about myself than I did in 2013.  You know why?  Because every time I log into Goodreads, it tells me that I'm either ahead or on track for my reading goal for the year. Yay for achieving goals! On the other hand, I think I might be reading less because there's no sense of urgency to finish the ten books I'm currently in varying stages of reading.

Last month I read a mix of adult and children's books and I had a great time reading, not least because of the super-fun Mini Readathon that Tika hosted.  It was the first one I'd ever participated in and it was perfect: perfect length, perfect food-to-books ratio, perfect audience participation. I can't wait for the next one.

1. Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler.  I may be the only person who has read this book and not fallen down in genuflection before it. My review is here and while I don't exactly pan it, I don't heap it with praise, either.  For balance check out this review, which claims that it's a "remarkable and uncompromising saga." I mean, that makes me want to roll my eyes and imagine that that particular reviewer doesn't actually read many books, but whatever.  Lots of folks I know in the book world (publishers, editors, marketing people, reps, booksellers) really do love this one.

2-3. Pippi Longstcking and Pippi Goes On Board by Astrid Lindgren. I read this book decades ago and remember it as one of my favorite characters from childhood.  I'm very glad that it held up under my more critical adult eye, though in the interest of full disclosure, there was a good bit of nostalgia involved, too. Pippi is amazing, all the more so because she was created in 1945.  Strong female characters (in this case quite literally) weren't precisely the hallmark of 1940s children's literature, but Pippi has just as much to offer today as she did then, or when I read her in the 1970s. She's instinctively kind but she resists convention. She is generous, spirited, and tender-hearted. Fiercely brave but also quite fair-minded. She lacks book smarts but her unimpeded imagination makes up for a lot. I wish she were a role model for more children.  She's a far cry from the Wimpy Kid/Junie B Jones/Princess Flavor-of-the-Month that most kids are reading these days.

4. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. I read this book when it was first published, but I lucked into a damaged (and therefore complimentary) audio book at work.  This man makes me laugh out loud in my car, sometimes in quite the deranged fashion. Here is my review of the actual book. I will only add that the audio book is even funnier because Sedaris reads it himself.  Oh, and also that the weird, short, first-person segments in the book that are clearly not Sedaris essays and which break up the flow of the narrative are explained on the audio: they're for the youth to recite at forensics competitions (allegedly). On the audio they appear all together at the end, with a brief explanation but in the physical books they're interspersed with his actual essays with no explanation at all.  They really were a little jarring, as I recall.

5. The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel.  This book was a pure treat, from beginning to end.  It's a middle grade novel set on the longest train in the world, making its maiden coast-to-coast voyage across Canada.  It's not published until later this spring, but my review of it is here.

6. All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu.  If I may quote The Millions for a moment, where they compile the 89 books they're most looking forward to for 2014: "A MacArthur genius, a 5 Under 35 awardee, and a 20 Under 40 recipient all walk into a bar and take a single seat, because it's one person and his name is Dinaw Mengestu." In other words, this is a writer to pay attention to.  This book is very well done and I hope to write a review eventually.  I'm also going to take a moment to be commercial and mention that I liked the book so much that our store selected it for our signed First Editions Club.  Which means that I have about 45 days to modulate my fangirl behavior before meeting him and shaking his hand.

7. Landline by Rainbow Rowell. I pouted when my coworker received an ARC of this book before I did, and then my sweet sales rep hand-delivered a copy into my hands the very next day.  (Shout-out to Bob.  Thanks, Bob!)  It was very sweet and very funny. What Rowell did for falling in love the first time in Eleanor & Park, she does for married love (or at least, long-term love with complications and children) in this novel. Please, please, please cross all of your collective fingers that the event proposal I wrote to her publisher will result in my bookstore's getting a signing with Rainbow Rowell!

8. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. To intentionally use a double negative, I will never not love this book.  Though I came to it relatively late considering that I was a precocious and Hoovering reader  in my youth (I was probably 15-16), I have made up for lost time by reading it a couple dozen times.  At least once every other year, sometimes more often, depending on stress levels.  For this book is to me what ice cream or mac & cheese are to others: pure comfort.



What about y'all?  Have you read any of these? What was good for you in  January? And do you like using Goodreads goals/challenges for the year?