TBR Pile Challenge

I wasn't planning to do any book challenges this year because they seem to add unnecessary stress to my already high-pressure reading life. (Seriously. I have three book groups.) But this one is too good to resist: The 2014 TBR Pile Challenge. The idea is to read 12 books from your To Be Read shelf/list. Each books needs to have been on your shelf or list for at least a year. Well, that shouldn't be difficult, and it's exactly the motivation I need to finally get around to reading:

1. Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat (finished 1/15)
2. Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff (finished 9/24)
3. Home is a Roof Over a Pig by Aminta Arrington (finished 1/4)
4. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
5. Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith (finished 3/20)
6. Persuasion by Jane Austen (finished 1/22)
7. Wildthorn by Jane England (finished 6/9)
8. Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl (finished 4/18)
9. When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (finished 5/14)
10. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (finished 8/8)
11. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (finished 7/16)
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (finished 2/23)

My two alternates (these are in case you just can't get through one or two of your choices) are:
1. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (finished 5/26)
2. The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar

Per the instructions for the challenge, I will update this post as I go with completed dates and links to my reviews. This should be fun!

A Year of Reading: 2013

1. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
2. Honolulu by Alan Brennert
3. Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
4. Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
5. The Best American Short Stories 2011 edited by Geraldine Brooks
6. Waking Up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly
7. The Silent Cry by Anne Perry
8. Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen
9. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
10. And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman
11. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
12. The Best Man by Kristan Higgins
13. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
14. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
15. The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage
16. Every Day by David Levithan
17. Mariana by Susanna Kearsley
18. Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton
19. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
20. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
21. In This Light: New and Selected Stories by Melanie Rae Thon
22. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
23. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
24. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
25. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
26. Velvet by Mary Hooper
27. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
28. Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
29. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
30. The Burning Air by Erin Kelly
31. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
32. Glass by Sam Savage
33. The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill
34. Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne
35. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
36. A Breach of Promise by Anne Perry
37. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
38. The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani
39. A Lady By Midnight by Tessa Dare
40. The Stuff of Life: a graphic guide to genetics and DNA by Mark Schultz
41. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
42. A World Away by Nancy Grossman
43. The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
44. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
45. Texas Destiny by Lorraine Heath
46. Storm Front by Jim Butcher
47. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth
48. The Way of the Dog by Sam Savage
49. Bleakly Hall by Elaine diRollo
50. Joyland by Stephen King
51. The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
52. Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry
53. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
54. Tenth of December by George Saunders
55. The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti
56. One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper
57. The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey
58. Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon
59. The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
60. Carrie by Stephen King
61. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
62. The Twisted Root by Anne Perry
63. Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl
64. Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future by Dorie Clark
65. The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
66. The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke
67. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
68. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
69. Firmin by Sam Savage
70. Small Damages by Beth Kephart
71. Paper Towns by John Green
72. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
73. Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
74. Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal
75. The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp
76. When Nights Were Cold by Susanna Jones
77. VB6 by Mark Bittman
78. MASH Angels: Tales of an Air-Evac Helicopter Pilot in the Korean War by Richard C. Kirkland
79. Slaves of Obsession by Anne Perry
80. Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach
81. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
82. 14 by Peter Clines
83. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
84. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
85. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
86. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding
87. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
88. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
89. Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye
90. The Good House by Ann Leary
91. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
92. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
93. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will To Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
94. Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein
95. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
96. Bossypants by Tina Fey
97. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel
98. The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt
99. Let It Snow by Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle
100. Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen
101. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
102. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
103. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
104. Star Cursed by Jessica Spotswood
105. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
106. Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger
107. The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel

Every year I experience a bit of angst when I try to pick out my favorite books because so many of them were really good. This year is no different, in that I read a lot of great books, but there were two clear standouts: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. They are both high-falutin' literature that garnered positive reviews from critics, but also were just really wonderful reading experiences. You don't need an English degree to appreciate these novels.

Some of my other favorites were Rebecca, Tell the Wolves I'm Home, Year of Wonders, The Cry of the Sloth, and Beautiful Ruins. But I also loved The Burning Air and Kiss Me First - really, it's hard to stop naming favorites once I've started. Those last two, though, were probably the most underrated books of the year. They deserved much greater popularity.

I have a few general observations about 2013's reading. I notice several re-reads on my list: Carrie, The Great Gatsby, Alias Grace, Twilight Sleep, Firmin, Bossypants, and I read Code Name Verity twice during 2013. In most cases these re-reads were for book groups or something work-related (I read Gatsby and Twilight Sleep for Gatsby Month.) My trend of reading ever more books every year seems to be continuing, though I'm really not trying and I don't know how to stop it. Subscribing to Audible.com this year ensured that I was continuously listening to audiobooks, and I know that was a factor in this lengthy list. Also this year I read a number of romance novels as that was a previously unexplored genre, which I am unlikely to continue with such fervor. I also notice that I read ALL of Sam Savage's books this year, including a re-read of Firmin. I will likely continue to read and re-read his books in the future because they are brilliant and short. He is a bewilderingly under-appreciated author. The only other observation I can make from looking over my old blog posts is that I noticed a really large number of typos, many of which were in the post titles. Yikes. Sorry about that.

On a sad note, the author of the very enjoyable and touching It's Kind of a Funny Story recently committed suicide. Since that book was such a hopeful novel about a suicidal teen struggling with depression, I have very mixed feelings now about recommending it. Obviously it's still a good book, but knowing that the story is autobiographical, it's hard to separate the novel from the tragic end to the author's life.

So what's ahead for 2014? I'm considering more re-reads, actually. I know I'll be reading Fangirl again for a book group at work, but I've also been thinking about reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale again because I read it so long ago, as well as I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Maybe even Cheryl Strayed's Wild, which I only read a little over a year ago but am considering again. There's lots of new books I'm excited about as well - I still haven't read the new Diane Setterfield book Bellman and Black, and three of my favorite authors have new books coming out in 2014: Chris Bohjalian's forthcoming novel Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is a departure from his recent historical works and sounds really fantastic. Sarah Waters is releasing a new novel next fall called The Paying Guests, and Elizabeth McCracken is releasing Thunderstruck and Other Stories this spring. I have a lot of great books to look forward to!

The Valley of Horses

The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children #2) by Jean Auel (1982)

Ayla is on her own now, leaving behind the only people she's ever known. She sets out to find more people like herself, but in the first few months still hasn't encountered another person. Soon she realizes she must settle down and prepare for the long winter ahead, and she finds a valley with everything she needs. Before she knows it, she has a young foal as a pet, and a cave lion, and the valley becomes her lonely home for a few years.

Meanwhile, a man named Jondalar is traveling with his brother Thonolan. They have been journeying for a couple of years, meeting new people and learning their languages and their ways. Jondalar is becoming restless for home, but Thonolan wants to keep going. Tragedy strikes, bringing Jondalar into Ayla's path, the first person like herself she has ever seen.

I knew before beginning this book that it was supposed to be a romance between Ayla and Jondalar, but Auel took her sweet time bringing them together. I think it was about 300 pages into the book when they finally met. This is probably so we had time to get to know Jondalar first, and I agree this background is important, as is Ayla's adjustment to living and surviving on her own. Still, as much as I liked hearing about her taming of wild animals and Jondalar's adventures, I became quite impatient for the story to move forward. Much like the glacier frequently referenced by the characters, it moved very slowly.

Once the romance part of the story began, I became a little frustrated by some of the things that typically annoy me in romances. Ayla and Jondalar constantly misunderstood each other - even after Ayla learned his language - each continuing to think that the other was not interested. Obviously they came from different cultures, which caused some of their problems, but also Jondalar had a hard time accepting that the Clan who raised Ayla were human. People who were not Neanderthals referred to them as "flatheads" and considered them animals. So, ok, that is a hurdle, and the fact that Ayla had a child with one of them (though even Jondalar refuses to acknowledge the cause-and-effect relationship between sex and pregnancy.) But I felt the romantic tension went beyond what was necessary, or even entertaining.

Despite my complaints I still liked the book. I like the unfamiliar time period in which the story takes place, and I like the characters and their story. I just felt like the book could probably have been half the length it was, and would have consequently been better for it.

Raven Girl

Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger (2013)

In Audrey Niffenegger's latest illustrated novel, a postman falls in love with a raven and the product of their union is a girl who is outwardly human but suffers from a sort of body dysmorphia that makes her feel like she should be physically more raven. As Niffenegger explains in the afterward, she wrote this for a collaboration with a ballet company requesting a new fairy tale as the basis for their dance.

Indeed, it has the fantastical and strange elements you would expect from a fairy tale and though they aren't my favorite type of reading material I still enjoyed this book. Obviously one needs to suspend one's disbelief and just go with it, and if you can do that, it's a pretty satisfying story.

Niffenegger illustrates her own graphic novels, which I think makes the artistic vision more cohesive than a collaboration, and I always enjoy the result. I find her style simple but quite striking and enjoyed the illustrations a great deal. Niffenegger's illustrated novels aren't for everyone, but if you've liked the others, I do recommend this one. I didn't love it like The Night Bookmobile, but still thought it was rather lovely.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (2013)

This book of essays is not, as you would expect, primarily about marriage. It's about everything from Patchett's Catholic school experiences to a road trip in a Winnebago to trying to pass the LAPD policy academy entry exam. Most essays are pretty short, and all reveal something Patchett's life and how she views the world.

It's tough to summarize any sort of collection, so I'll just share some of my favorite parts. In "Love Sustained" she recounts the period when she took care of her ailing grandmother. She candidly admits this is not something she had planned for, saying "I had planned to live far away from my family and miss them terribly. I had every intention of feeling simply awful that I wasn't with my grandmother in her years of decline..." The essay "This Dog's Life" is the story of how she came to have her dog, Rose, and the insistence of people around her that clearly, what she really wanted was a baby. She muses "I imagine there are people out there who got a dog when what they wanted was a baby, but I wonder if there aren't other people who had a baby when all they really needed was a dog."

Other essays I enjoyed include the one alluded to earlier in which Patchett trained for the police academy exam as part of a book she ended up not writing. The title "The Wall" refers to one of the most difficult parts of the physical exam in which participants must scale a 6-ft wall. Mostly I enjoyed her perspective on the preparation for a career that was so completely different from her own. "My Life in Sales" is a behind-the-scenes look book touring, including the observation that people who attend book readings always want to ask about the previous book. I've often wondered how authors feel about that, and now I know. Three different pieces discuss the book Truth & Beauty from slightly different perspectives. It was chosen as a required read for an entering freshmen class at Clemson University, which set off a firestorm of controversy. It would never have occurred to me that Truth & Beauty would be considered objectionable, but I suppose every book if offensive to someone out there, and if not, it's probably not worth reading.

I devoured this collection with a vigor I didn't anticipate, even though I knew how much I enjoyed reading Ann Patchett. Though I've read both Bel Canto and State of Wonder, it is her nonfiction I love the most, counting Truth & Beauty as one of the few memoirs I truly love. The essays in this collection were already published elsewhere and though I had read "The Getaway Car" already, I didn't skip it here. It's just as good the second time. Before starting - and what spurred me to read this immediately and not wait a moment longer - I listened to an interview with Ann Patchett on NPR's show "On Point". Even if you don't plan to read this book, I recommend taking 45 minutes to listen to the show. She is just as eloquent and enjoyable with that medium as she is with the written word.

Star Cursed

Star Cursed (The Cahill Witch Chronicles #2) by Jessica Spotswood (2013)

Young witch Cate Cahill is now a member of the Sisterhood, learning more about magic in an environment where her powers don't need to be kept secret, yet still heartbroken over the choice to break her engagement with Finn. The Brotherhood have increased their persecution of witches and the Sisterhood are becoming desperate to put a stop to it, but they are divided into two camps. A struggle for leadership of the Sisterhood is brewing as well, because the current leader is ill and Cate has still not come into the powers predicted by the Prophecy.

Even though this book came out in June, I was determined to wait for the audio version to appear because I so enjoyed the audio of Born Wicked. I waited SO LONG. Finally, in desperation, I messaged the lovely and friendly Jessica Spotswood on Goodreads only to learn that there will be no audio. So ultimately I read the print version, while imagining Nicole Sudhaus reading it to me.

Audio or no, I am continuing to enjoy this series a great deal. I already wrote in my review of Born Wicked how much I like the alternate history Spotswood has created, but I didn't mention the strength and bravery of the women and girls in the books. Their situation in this society is complicated, and there aren't any simple solutions. Frequently in YA there is a clear right and wrong and, therefore, good and bad characters. Not so here - it is realistically nuanced as it would be in real life. It is easy see why Sister Inez and her followers feel like action needs to be taken soon, and why they are willing to make sacrifices. Although Cate disagrees, she frequently doubts herself because just as in real life, there is no clear right and wrong. But she makes her decision and sticks to it. Although there are men who are on their side, ultimately it is the women who must take responsibility and take action, and they do it with courage.

Somehow I omitted discussing Cate's romance with Finn in my review of the first book, though I enjoyed it a great deal. It came to what seemed a heartbreaking end but I was happy that Star Cursed brought new hope to that relationship. In this alternate world of 1800s New England same-sex relationships were sometimes a surprise, but not shocking or especially disapproved of. I very much like Spotswoods treatment of the romance between girls and women in her books. It is similar to present-day Massachusetts, where it is generally accepted but not the norm.

There is just so much I liked about this book, basically everything except the title (and I don't have a better idea, so there you go.) It was a very strong second in the series, which will be continued with the more appealingly-titled Sisters' Fate in August. August! After the shocking ending - which was even more upsetting than that of Born Wicked - I do not know how I'll wait until then. I also don't know how the author will resolve the horrible situation she created at the end, but I have faith that she will bring it to a satisfying conclusion. She hasn't disappointed me yet.

Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (2009), narrated by Rebecca Lowman, Cassandra Campbell, Mark Deakins, and Robertson Dean

Everybody remembers the 1985 Prairie Massacre of Kinnakee, Kansas. A teenager named Ben Day killed his mother and two younger sisters as part of a ritual Satanic sacrifice. Only 7-year-old Libby survived. Libby is now 31 and barely functional. She isn't able to work - many days, she can't even get herself out of bed - and she's running out of money. The profits she made from her book Brand New Day have run out, and she needs to find another source of income. Then she meets a guy named Lyle who offers her a hefty fee to come speak at a meeting of a group called the Kill Club and Libby seizes the opportunity, not realizing it will bring up questions and make her finally confront her past.

Libby has never questioned the events of that night, or her own damning testimony which put her brother behind bars. But faced with the members of Lyle's club, many of whom are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby begins to have doubts of her own. She begins to seek out people from her past to find out what they know about the events of that night, including her deadbeat father, her aunt who took her in after the murders, and her brother's friends. Her present-day story alternates with her brother's and mother's account of the last day leading up to the murders (and yes, there are four narrators, but I'm not going to spoil anything by revealing what that's all about.)

Many of us were first introduced to Gillian Flynn through her 2012 hit Gone Girl, and indeed that is what drew me to this earlier novel. Though Dark Places doesn't present the same kind of game-changing twists, it is still very well-crafted and among the top crime novels I've read. I liked the focus on Libby as the lone survivor of a long-ago crime from which she will never really recover, and that despite the sympathy her situation demands she's not someone you'd really want to be friends with. Since she was so young at the time of the murders, there was a great deal she didn't know about what was happening in her family, and Flynn quite deftly revealed those stories to us in the flashbacks just as Libby was discovering them for herself through her investigation. When the truth was finally revealed it wasn't what I would have guessed and I found it quite satisfying.

The audio was very well done - again, I could listen to anything read by Rebecca Lowman, who completely outshone her fellow narrators. They were all perfectly good, and I was happy to listen to all of them, but Lowman is my favorite and few others can compare to her as far as I'm concerned. I'm always a bit worried about listening to crime rather than reading it - I'm always afraid I'll get distracted and miss something important - but this was a great choice. I'll consider audio again for the next book by Gillian Flynn, an author I'll definitely continue to read.