Nyotaimori

October! It’s generally a good month. One of my favorites–beginning of Fall and all. Although it was kind of warmer weather than I like and it’s really now in November that we’re entering the weather *I* like.

Also October sucked because I spent the whole thing on the couch watching Stargate SG-1 and in pain. The Stargate part was totally fine. The pain thing got old over a month ago.

Fuck it. Whatever. Let’s talk about books. I read some in October. I also did some preliminary math and I’m pretty sure (keep in mind my math skills are poor) that I (only) need to read 18 more books in November and December (total–not each month) in order to reach my professed goal of 250 books for the year of 2011. Thus beating my total of 239 from last year. I didn’t really aim excessively over 2010’s victory upon the written word.

Books Read: 20

Books Partially Read: 6

Books Bought: 2

Money Spent: $8.50

Books Borrowed: 12

Books Given: 2

Books Re-read: 6

Money made (from selling books): $12 whole dollars! Of which I immediately spent $8.50 on more books! Damn my inveterate spending!

Books on To-Be-Read Shelf: 69. Seriously. I need to read more.

Favorite Books This Month: Pie by Sarah Weeks, Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge, and Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson.

Look how few that is! And I only added the last one on impulse. And ok maybe also I re-read my book–Book ‘Em–last month again too as I was editing for publication. It’s still pretty good. I mean, I laughed multiple times at funny bits. But I didn’t include that in favorites because I’ve done that before. No need to toot my own horn! Actually there’s every need. I suck at self-promotion. Creating a marketing strategy for e-publishing is hard, people.

You might think Pie is a cookbook, but it’s not. It’s…ok, wait, actually it does have recipes in it at the beginning of each chapter so I guess it’s kind of like a cookbook. But really it’s a kid’s chapter book. Or whatever you designate a chapter book for slightly older kids as. It’s a kid’s book. It’s about this girl who inherits a cat from her pie-making aunt and the mystery surrounding the famous pie crust recipe her aunt invented. And there’s a boy and it’s sort of old-fashioned and pretty much it’s adorable. I loved it. My mom got it for me from her Scholastic Book Club thing so I was supposed to give it to her class after I read it but I’m keeping it. I already made one of the pies. Lemon Chess Pie. It’s got corn meal in it and it kind of makes a crunchy crust. I want to try to Coconut Cream Pie next. I have all the ingredients for it already. Looking for an occasion.

Super Natural Every Day IS a cookbook. A crazy delicious hippie one. I’ve only made one thing from it so far–this blackberry, coconut, pistachio tart thing. It is amazing. But I am excited to make many many more things from it. And eat them all.

Fly Trap is the sequel to Fly by Night which I read a couple years back. Finally got around to reading the sequel (it’s only been out a couple months so it’s not like I was procrastinating that bad). It’s about a girl named Mosca Mye and her goose and her friends and the evil Locksmiths. I liked it. I was worried because Kris said she re-read Fly by Night and it wasn’t as good anymore. This wasn’t as good as my memory tells me Fly by Night was, but still pretty delightful. I like Mosca.

Least Favorite Books This Month: The Bride Wore Scarlet by Liz Carlyle, Waking Up With The Duke by Lorraine Heath, Vanish by Sophie Jordan, As I Wake by Elizabeth Scott, and Misfit by Jon Skovan.

The first 2 were bad romances. The Bride one…they had special powers but not really interesting ones. The Duke one, guh. The woman’s husband was impotent and asked the Duke to impregnate his wife. Soooo basically it was about adultery and I gave up pretty quickly. The last 3 were bad YA novels. Vanish was a sequel to this dragon one I read a while back…you know it’s not even worth telling you why they were bad. They were just not interesting. Not any of these. Didn’t finish them.

So this month I will read at least 9 books on my path to 250 total. Here I go. Just pick one of the 69 on the shelf and start.

Do you know how hard it is to pick just one from 69?! So hard. Especially when these include a new Terry Pratchett, a new Richelle Mead, a book about shipwrecks and so many more. So many. 69. Maybe I’ll just read one of my own novels again. (Shameless self-promotion.)

If you saw the previous post, you already know how many books I read last month–46. I had a lot of time to read. But since I was sick, I was mostly only willing to read thing I’d read before. Which Is why I read the Roswell series by Melinda Metz and a HUGE chunk of Meg Cabot’s books. When I’m sick I like things that are comfortable. Which apparently mostly means paranormal romantic YA. I also had to vary up reading locations. So I’d spend some days reading in my bed, some on my couch in my TV room, and some in the guest bed (which has this down-filled pillow top thing and is super comfortable if lying on your back and super painful–at least for me and my intestinal inflammation–if lying on your side. Fish Styx has been pretty thrilled by this month. He got to sleep on me in many different locations and the guest room was a new and apparently uber exciting one for him. It might have to do with how his scratching post was banished to that room so he wouldn’t eat bits of it and throw up. But I think he also just really loves the pillow top. Moggy would come in sometimes and glare at us. She also likes the pillow top but does not like sleeping with Fish and I.

Books Read: 46

Books Partially Read: 9

Books Bought: 2

Money Spent: $2

Books Borrowed: 14

Books Given: 51

Books Re-read: 29

Money made (from selling books): 0

Books on To-Be-Read Shelf: 73 (SHIT. FUCK. MONKEYS!)

So actually I spent $22 on books this month at the SFPL Big Book Sale but my mom gave me $20 so I counted those books as ones she gave me and the $2 I spent as 2 of the ones I got that day. The reason I got so many books this month is due to that $20 AND the fact that Kim was in town and her mom had box upon box of ARCs (advance reader copies) and I got a bunch of stuff from her (2 boxes). Plus my mom gave me 2 other ones from the Scholastic Book Order Club thing from her school–one of which is all about preserving things! I really need to try to break in to the farmer market scene with canned goods and cheesecakes one of these days. Katy, if you read this, let me know if you can sell jam. We could pretend it’s jam from your farm.

Much as I love all these new books I’ve gotten (and I do love them a lot). I am HORRIFIED by how much is on the To-Read shelf now. Most of them aren’t even on the shelf. There’s this huge box on the floor. Guh.

Whatever. Onwards!

Favorite Books this Month: Succubus Revealed by Richelle Mead, Finnikin of the Rock by Melissa Marchetta, Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys, Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore, and Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary. I also loved re-reading the Meg Cabot series: Missing and Mediator.

The final in the Succubus series had the conclusion I saw coming BOOKS ago. Still, enjoyed it for wrapping things up. The succubus is named Georgina and is set on her life working for Hell in Seattle. Also at a book store (not in this one. In this one she’s working as an elf at the mall with a drunk Santa). And her author boyfriend and various hellish co-workers. It’s adult paranormal romance.

Finnikin of the Rock was good, solid YA fantasy. A little darker than some YA (there was a lot of child abuse mentioned or alluded to throughout the book). The plot was easy to foresee though it did a good job trying to provide twists. Mostly I just liked the writing and characters. Also that it was a stand-alone novel with an interesting presentation of nationality/home-land/exodus/wandering schisms.

The Henrietta was the sequel to the other Henrietta. I borrowed it from Kris. I think I liked it even more than the first one. Maybe. I don’t know. The first one was awfully good too. I discovered that she wrote an autobiography which Amazon has and now I want that too. Anyway, it’s a series of letters written during WWII to her friend fighting at the front about the village where she lives in England.

Texas Gothic which alone was a fabulous title and the cover was pretty too, is about girls with magic power and ghosts and cowboy romance. I kind of loved it. YA paranormal but at least well-written and little bit atypical.

I read 5 Ramona books this month (all bought at the SFPL book sale) and I think Ramona and Her Father was my favorite. Maybe Ramona and Beezus. Whatever, I liked all of them. I’m sure I’ve read them all before when I was a kid but I didn’t remember them at all so it was fun to read. I am missing 2 of them still which I want to get. and then maybe the Henry ones too. And I kind of want to watch the Ramona and Beezus movie with Selena Gomez again.

Least Favorite Books this Month: The Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz, So Shelley by Ty Roth, Legacy by Cayla Kluver, Hourglass by Myra McEntire, and Love, Inc. by Yvonne Collins.

These were all various YA books I got from the library and disliked and didn’t finish. Though some of them (Hourglass) have been getting rave reviews. And Legacy was the first book Amazon bought for publication. And So Shelley was about the Romantics and I love them. But still didn’t like any of these. Could have been just not in the right mood (Heh. Ie, not healthy and wanting comfort re-reads.)

Book Quote of the Month:

“We like women and we like religion, especially if they do not become too demanding. They are both ‘nicer’ when pliable, and perhaps just a little vague.”

–From Women in the World of Religion by Elsie Thomas Culver (she’s the one I’m working on the online exhibit about for the Graduate Theological Union internship I’m doing. And which I haven’t been to in weeks because sitting up is TOO hard.)