P.D. Cacek's Night Prayers was ok, but nothing especially fantastic. I wish I remembered what had prompted me to buy it. If you're really into vampire novels, you might like it, but personally I'll stick with Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends.
posted by kristin at 1:39 PM

Mark Salzman's The Soloist was a quick but good read. The jury deliberation scenes were a bit personally painful though considering my jury experience a few years ago and the fact that I have to go back next month.
posted by kristin at 10:38 AM

Over the weekend I finished R.A. Lafferty's book of short stories Nine Hundred Grandmothers. It took awhile (mostly in restaurants or on trains) because of my usual problem with reading short stories. I liked enough of the stories enough though that I'll likely be tracking down his other collections. They're all SF. Some more out there than others.
posted by kristin at 4:21 PM

Not only have I given up on making sure I finish 2004's list of to-be-read books before I read other things, I've given up entirely on one of them. After three attempts to read Iain Sinclair's Lights Out for the Territory, I've finally given up, and passed the book on to my officemate (who hopefully will like it better since he lived in London for awhile).

I'm currently working on Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. Good stuff so far.
posted by kristin at 10:50 AM

Two books finished in the last week: Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel and Christopher Buckley's Little Green Men. Both humorous, both by authors named Christopher.

The Stupidest Angel was a very quick entertaining read. It won't become my favorite of his, but it seems to be a good introduction to his sense of humor, judging by the reactions of my Moore-virgin friends who have read it.

Little Green Men could almost be a Moore book except that it really isn't wacky enough. Washington DC meets UFOs. A little humorous read though.
posted by kristin at 3:06 PM

Arrived yesterday in the mail: The Librarian's Career Guidebook by Priscilla K. Shontz.
posted by kristin at 1:28 AM

So far this year I've finished three books. Only one was from the list of books I was supposed to read last year. I feel so free.

The Book Lover's Book by Linda Kirk is a tiny little book that came with the Book Lover's Kit. Nothing terribly new to me, but the kit itself was cute (and a Christmas present).

Graham Joyce's The Tooth Fairy was a strange but good read. I liked it much better than Indigo which had been my introduction to Joyce's writing. I see now why people insisted I try him again. It was a somewhat darker read than I was expecting, but I suppose not nearly as much as it would have been had I ever really believed in the tooth fairy.

I finished off Robert Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy the other night. It's a series of essays; some are book reviews, some essays on politics and the state of the world. The fact that it was written pre-9/11 struck me forcefully a few times. Amazingly, it made me want to read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

I'm currently working on Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel. (finally!)
posted by kristin at 3:52 PM

Ordered yesterday from Powells.com (fun with gift certificates!)

The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America by Wilson, James
The Non-Designer's Design Book by Williams, Robin
Letters from the Earth: New Uncensored Writings by Mark Twain
American Stories by Trillin, Calvin
Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck, John
The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America by Steele, Shelby
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Saramago, Jose
Monkey Beach by Robinson, Eden
The Story of B by Quinn, Daniel
The Promise by Potok, Chaim
Landscape Painted with Tea by Pavic, Milorad
Still Life with Volkswagens by Nicholson, Geoff
Lost in Translation by Mones, Nicole
Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa by Mathabane, Mark
Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row by Masters, Jarvis Jay
Politics of War: The Story of Two Wars Which Altered Forever the Political Life of the American Republic (1890-1920) by Karp, Walter
Red Dust: A Path Through China by Jian, Ma
War Trash by Jin, Ha
Kafka on the Shore by Murakami, Haruki

posted by kristin at 1:55 PM

Now that it's 2005 it's time to concede defeat on my 100 book challenge for 2004 even though I didn't start until the end of January. It got stressful eventually instead of staying a fun challenge for myself. I made it through 75 of the 100 (and did read over 100 books overall for the year). I won't be doing a similar thing for 2005, but will probably try to polish off the rest of the 2004 books gradually throughout the year. (Except perhaps Iain Sinclair's Lights out for the Territory which I still haven't been able to get into after 3 tries).

I look forward to the freedom to read whatever catches my eye instead of feeling like I need to wait until January (now!).
posted by kristin at 7:46 PM

Blogger.com is one of the many many websites not easily useable over dialup which is all I had at my parents' place, so no updates for me for awhile.

Before I left town I read Peter Kuper's graphic novel adaptation of The Jungle. I hestitate to call anything involving slaughterhouses beautiful, but he did a very good job with it. (Granted, I haven't actually read the original though I've moved it quite a few times).

My Christmastime reading was Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. I think I'd have understood a bit more with a more thorough grounding in Islamic history, but I generally enjoyed it. I suppose that same ignorance is what keeps me from truly understanding why someone would consider it so blasphemous that they think Rushdie should die because of it. There's a lot of things that religious fundamentalists do that I don't understand though.

I went to a slightly lighter book afterwards: Roald Dahl's Kiss Kiss. It's a book of his short stories for adults. I think I'd read some of them in a collection before, but good as always in that special twisted way of his.

Neal Barrett, jr's Interstate Dreams and A.L. Haskett's Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom were next up. I enjoyed both, and they seemed to fit together somehow in my brain (and not just for the prophetic dreams) though I'm not sure it's something I could describe. Both books of non-genre fiction (unless weird counts as a genre these days) but rather different. One a mystery of sorts, the other a coming-of-age sort of thing involving lots of strippers and Harleys. I don't think I can do either justice however, so just pick one up and read it.

After I got home I polished off Puzzles and Essays from the Exchange by Charles R. Anderson. It's a collection of weird questions researched by reference librarians, both answered and unanswered. I found the essays about the job much more intresting than the actual lists of answers though.
posted by kristin at 7:46 PM