My Year In Books

So I read a bunch of classics this year, but I read a bunch of other stuff as well (66 tomes in all, if you trust GoodReads), & figured you guys might enjoy a "Best Of" books list rather than a sappy recap of my not-all-that-notable running year. (FYI, there is some overlap with the previous post.)

January:

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Isaac Asimov's Foundation meets Neal Stephenson's Anathem, at a third the page count. I'd call it more spec fiction than sci fi; it takes place in the distant future where the vast majority of science, technology, & culture has been obliterated by nuclear war & reactionary fundamentalist sects, so parts of it feel more medieval than futuristic. Brilliantly & shrewdly written, confronting questions of history, philosophy, theology, ethics, and the cyclic nature of human civilization, without ever getting preachy or didactic. As relevant now as in 1960. Fans of Asimov & the like should love it.

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't, by Nate Silver. I loved this book for the same reason that I loved The Predictioneer's Game and Data, A Love Story. All of them lie at the intersection of math/statistics/data/modeling and psychology/sociology. While I still think Nate Silver is brilliant, after reading this book I have a better understanding of just how terrible at modeling and predicting so many other people are (& I'm talking about people who are paid for making predictions) & why it's so easy for him to look that much more brilliant by comparison. The great tragedy of this book is that the people who are most likely to read it are probably the people who already have a pretty decent understanding of data/statistics, and the people who have a less-good understanding of those things are probably the people who would most benefit from reading it.

February:

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson. I have never been able to get into The Bloggess's blog, so I didn't seek out her book when it was first released. But then Patrick Rothfuss gave the audio book a five-star review, and it did not disappoint. I listened to it on the spin bike when I was recovering from my stress fracture and literally thought I was going to fall off sometimes because I was laughing so hard. (Also, as she grew up in rural Texas, there were parts that probably struck me as even funnier than they would have otherwise because I was like, "Yep, it is *totally* just like that.") A quick, easy, hilarious, entertaining read (or listen as the case may be--I think I might actually recommend listening over reading in this case because Lawson's narration is just. That. Fabulous).

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. You do not get to talk about how you understand the fabric of this country and how we've gotten to the place we are until you read this book. Just no. I think I first learned about Uncle Tom's Cabin in 11th grade & the blurb in our textbook was like, "This woman wrote this book depicting the realities of slavery & it kind of went viral & started the Civil War," and then we got to read about a bunch of white people shooting at each other & getting their limbs sawed off for the next 5 chapters. Honestly, I think would have been better off just reading this book. It's one thing to read a novel about slavery written in the present day or recent past, but there is a whole other weight that comes with reading something that was written and published before the Civil War. If you can get through this book without becoming utterly enraged and heartbroken about the things that went on in this country, for hundreds of years, under the full protection of the law, to say nothing of what the fall out was (and continues to be), you are either un-American or inhuman or both.

April:

The Long Run, by Matthew Lane. The next time you start feeling sorry for yourself or like you're going through some hard times and are feeling frustrated & discouraged about how long the road seems, give ol' Matty Long a hundred pages or so. If you still feel the same way after, you are not human. I don't want to spoil the impact of the first few chapters, but the broad strokes are that Long was a Brooklyn firefighter, BQ marathoner, & Ironman who got run over by a bus (LITERALLY LIKE A BUS DROVE OVER HIM) in December 2005 & suffered a litany of absolutely horrific injuries. The book chronicles is journey from a miserable, barely recognizable, barely functional, physical & mental wreck of a human to, well, the guy on the cover of the book. So yeah. This book basically convinced me I don't get to feel discouraged about anything ever again.

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. I'd been kinda-sorta meaning to read this book for a while & kept putting it off because I wasn't sure I was up for the all the darkness, but recently a friend was like, "No seriously. Amazeballs," so I took it with me on vacation, and she was absolutely right. On the one hand I kind of think I'd say this is a great read as long as you're not going through dark, nasty stuff at the time, but on the other hand, maybe this is *exactly* the type of book you should read in that case because you might decide that things aren't really all that bad by comparison.

May:

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. This book was sold to me as "a classic that's actually funny" and "like 'The Daily Show' in terms of tone & political poignancy," so I thought it would make a nice break from srsbzns reading. Ha ha ha ha. Not. Yes, there are some funny parts, and the absurdist-satire-"hell is bureaucracy" theme has its moments, but it definitely ranks among the darkest, most depressing and harrowing books I have ever read, because war & stupid people.

June:

The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith. So this book was based on actual events that happened to the author. In the spring of 2009, Smith received a call from his father saying that he needed to come to Sweden immediately because his mom had suffered a psychotic episode & was in an asylum. And almost immediately after, a call from his mother saying she'd just been released from the hospital, everything his father had told him was a lie, that his dad was involved in a criminal conspiracy, and she was flying to London to explain the truth. You might think, well, obviously, this book has to go one of two ways. Nope. Smith keeps you guessing all the way to the end, with a couple of twists I'm happy to say I never saw coming. Ditto with the resolution. A smart mystery, tight writing, fantastic storytelling, and rich, believable characters? More of this, please.

July:

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I don't fully understand the magic with which Lee has woven this story, but somehow she managed to write a sober, poignant, heartbreaking tale addressing some pretty hardcore themes (race, class, gender, family, community, loyalty, justice, rape, murder, and on and on and on) without it being depressing as hell (though I'm sure having the story told from the point of view of a precocious 7-8 year old has something to do with). I've been avoiding it forever because it sounded so dark and depressing, and though it deals with some pretty serious stuff, it's all unquestionably underlined by the ideas of hope, optimism, compassion, and unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of human beings.

August:

Jitterbug Perfume, by Tim Robbins. After Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates left me rolling my eyes, I wasn't totally sure I wanted to wade any deeper into Tom Robbins. Jitterbug Perfume has become such an iconic book, though, that I felt I had to give it a chance on the strength of the recommendations I've gotten from people who loved it, and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed it. In a lot of ways this is just the type of book I'm looking for when I've been reading a lot of intense, srsbzns stuff -- it's whimsical, irreverent, and overall on the light-hearted side, but still well-written and possessed of a unique, intriguing plot and interesting, well-rounded characters. A quick, fun read if you're in the mood for something a little quirky & irreverent but still clever & well-written.

The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1), by Brent Weeks. I'm always a bit wary of starting a fantasy series because there are just so many ways they can go horrifically bad. The Black Prism was a rare treat, though. Sure, there are a few cliched elements, but I didn't mind them because they were executed in such unique and fresh ways, which kept things interesting and (mostly) unpredictable. The young, brilliant, wise, gorgeous, powerful, beloved ruler/religious leader ("The Prism") has a sweet relationship with his mother. His long-lost-suddenly-resurfaced bastard is a sassy, chubby, uncoordinated 15-year-old who is too smart for his own good but has a heart of gold. The ex-fiance for whom the Prism still carries a torch is a hot shit, tough-as-nails soldier & one of his personal bodyguards. (Be warned, though - only the first three of four have been published & Book 4 is scheduled for 2016.)

September:

The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer, #2), by Brent Weeks. If anything, better than the first. The Prism continues to be one of the most well-written hero-type fantasy protagonists I've ever read. I continue to adore his kick-ass love interest & her martial arts skills. His insecure-yet-earnest, almost-too-smart-for-his-own-good teenage bastard son is so believable it hurts. Bad guys do honorable things and have understandable motives. Good guys sometimes do crappy things. Ambivalent characters abound. Political machinations are brilliantly executed. And over the course of book two, it becomes clear that certain narrative arcs are coming home to roost, some of them so artfully crafted that they didn't even look like narrative arcs until now.

October:

The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3), by Brent Weeks. Yeah; I'm not sure what else to say except that Brent Weeks is a genius & this series is becoming a contender for best fantasy series in the history of ever. Complex, dynamic characters with layers of back-story. Multiple ass-kicking female characters that defy tropes & stereotypes. Fantastic dialogue. Large-scale narrative planning that is clever, artful, and occasionally makes you think back two books & go, "Oh, SHIIIIIT." You will never stop guessing. My only regret? That I didn't know going in that the last book is scheduled for 2016.

The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity, by Steve Strogatz. I wish I could have read this book in high school, when I was *actually* struggling with math. At this point I read it more from the point of view of, "How could I use pieces of this with students and/or the teachers that I work with?" In these 30 short essays, Strogatz begins at the beginning (with the concept of counting) and winds his way through everything from basic algebra to calculus to advanced topics like group theory and topology, discussing each topic in a way that is not only friendly and approachable for the mathematical neophite (or phobic), but fascinating. And for all that the book is aimed at a general audience, I have to admit that I learned a few fascinating things about some topics that I didn't even learn in my advanced semester-long college classes.

The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. I'd put off reading anything by Salman Rushdie for years because I was afraid that my complete & utter lack of background knowledge about India might make it difficult to understand and/or enjoy. Let's be real, though; if a book gets the author sentenced to death in absentia, it is automatically a must-read. To summarize the feel, I would say that The Satanic Verses is Jitterbug Perfume all grown up--longer, more serious, a touch darker, a touch more "literary", but still dealing with themes of history, spirituality/religion, morality, life/death/rebirth, packed with quirky characters, and completely hilarious & irreverent. There are many people this book is not for (I suspect you know who you are), but if you like big, smart, multi-layered, beautifully written, baddass books that pull no punches, this one may be for you. Pay close attention & don't feel bad about reading with Cliff's Notes handy.

December:

The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell. Halfway through, I was ready to declare this the best book I've read all year. The writing is masterful. The characters are so thoroughly well-written that you almost feel like you've met them somewhere. Even the characters that only appear for a few pages come across as three-dimensional, and you can never tell whether someone is going to end up being a major character or not until it happens. The story premise, when I finally figured out, kind of blew my mind. In a lot of fantasy/sci-fi/spec fiction book, I feel like the lead-up is mostly just introducing people/places/things & waiting for something cool to happen. Not so in Bone Clocks. It's a good while before you get to the paranormal stuff, but by the time it happened I was already so engrossed that for a second I was like, "Holy shit, what is going on!" (Which makes total sense, given that most of the book is written from the perspectives of characters who are just normal people going about their normal lives at first.)

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl. I read Pessl's Night Film earlier this year and solidly enjoyed it, so figured I'd give Special Topics a try. In my opinion it was if anything better, with fewer of the (admittedly miniscule) issues that bothered me in Night Film. Donna Tartt fans in particular (see The Goldfinch above or The Secret History) would I think enjoy it. In fact, the story, characters, & themes bear an almost spooky resemblance to The Secret History (an outsider arrives at an exclusive/prestigious academic institution, falls in with a clique of students with a peculiar relationship with an intriguing/mysterious faculty member, & tragedy/mystery ensues). I found myself more engrossed in this book than anything I've read in the last 7-8 years, & if I hadn't been reading it over the course of a family holiday visit, I'm pretty sure I would have finished it in one sitting. It won't be for everyone but I thought it was fantastic.

And, just for giggles, let's finish off the year with one notable running factoid, which is that, for the first time since 2012, I actually broke 1,000 miles for the year! This should not be remarkable, but with the last two years I've had injury-wise, it is. After being unable/barely able to run for the first four months of this year I didn't think I was anywhere near that, but when I tallied everything up in early December just to see how close I might be able to get, it turned out that I was already there with nearly 100 miles to spare. So that was a nice surprise.

Have a FABULOUS New Year's, all!! I'll see you in 2015!!

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl

I read Pessl's Night Film earlier this year and solidly enjoyed it, so figured I'd give Special Topics a try. In my opinion it was if anything better, with fewer of the (admittedly miniscule) issues that bothered me in Night Film. Donna Tartt fans in particular (The Goldfinch, The Secret History) would I think enjoy it. In fact, the story, characters, & themes bear an almost spooky resemblance to The Secret History (an outsider arrives at an exclusive/prestigious academic institution, falls in with a clique of students with a peculiar relationship with an intriguing/mysterious faculty member, & eventual tragedy/mystery ensues).

I found myself more engrossed in this book than anything I've read in the last 7-8 years, & if I hadn't been reading it over the course of a family holiday visit, I'm pretty sure I would have finished it in one sitting. It won't be for everyone but I thought it was fantastic.

2014 Books Update Part 2: June-December

Dudes, I just cannot talk about the holidays. Can. Not. I am mentally bloated with it. Maybe later.

I can always talk about books, though.

Back in January, I declared 2014 the Year of the Classics & assigned myself one classic novel to read for each month of the year (plus a couple of super short ones during vacation months). I may not have gotten my 3:30 marathon this year, but damned if I didn't KILL IT in the reading-classic-novels department.

(You can read the January-May update here.)

JUNE: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz. Aw, man. Why'd I have to read this? I don't remember who recommended this book to me, but whoever you are, I love you, but also kind of hate you. It's mainly about the eponymous Dominican Oscar de Leon, & does indeed chronicle his brief, wondrous (tragic, heartbreaking) life. But it also takes side trips to tell you about the (inevitably horrific & depressing) lives of other members of his family--sister, mother, grandmother, grandfather, etc.--all of which weave together to create the rich, complex, gut wrenching story of the entire family. Fresh, original, & inventive? Check. Writing that should probably also qualify as some sort of poetic acrobatics? Check. Utterly depressing pretty much start to finish? Check check check. An amazing read, but proceed at your own peril. Then go read Dad Is Fat or something.

JULY: To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. 1) Once again, timeless classics for the win. Can I give it 10 stars? 2) In my humble opinion, this is the bar to which YA fiction should aspire. 3) Atticus Finch is very probably the best (fictional) human being to ever walk the (fictional) earth. 4) I don't fully understand the magic with which Lee has woven this story, but somehow she managed to write a sober, poignant, heartbreaking tale addressing some pretty hardcore themes (race, class, gender, family, community, loyalty, justice, rape, murder, and on and on and on) without it being depressing as hell (though I'm sure having the story told from the point of view of a precocious 7-8 year old has something to do with). I've been avoiding it forever because it sounded so dark and depressing, and though it deals with some pretty serious stuff, it's all unquestionably underlined by the ideas of hope, optimism, compassion, and unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of human beings. 5) How did no one assign me this book in school??? Required reading for all teenagers, I say, particularly in the South. 6) Actually, make that anyone who lives in this country. Just go read it.

AUGUST: Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. I read some reviews of MB before starting it & noticed quite a bit of rancor directed at Emma ("Madame Bovary"), so I was expecting her to be a nasty, horrible, supremely unlikable witch. But honestly, I spent most of the book feeling sorry for her. She came across not as an evil whore but as a very sad, isolated child who spends most of her life desperately searching for some way to be happy. I mean I'm not condoning adultery but I don't find it all that hard to emphasize with a woman in that position (who is probably clinically depressed and living altogether in the wrong time period for getting some much-needed marriage counseling) turning (at length! After much shame & guilt over her feelings!) to a person and a relationship that appears to offer some glimmer of not-misery. And yes, obviously some very bad decisions around finances and money were made, but she is very very far from being the first or last tortured, unhappy soul to seek happiness in luxury and material possessions. So please. If you decide to give this one a read, cut the poor woman some slack for being born an isolated female in the mid-19th century with mental health issues & no real recourse besides "suck it up & be miserable."

SEPTEMBER: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez. I have to admit, I'm glad I hung in there, because I did get to the end and kind of go, "Ohhhhhh, I see what game you're playing here, GGM. I guess." But I feel like it's the kind of thing that works better in concept than in actual practice, because I spent most of the book dragging myself from page to page & desperately trying to keep straight a hundred different characters most of whom have the same name, and by the time I got to the end I wasn't sure the payoff was really worth it. I feel like this is probably what it would be like to read the transcript of a telenovela written a hundred years ago by a philosopher. Also, it uses phrases like "hermeneutical delirium" and has a serious passage about trying to prove the existence of God via chocolate.

OCTOBER: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. I found this one interesting to read just because it gets referenced by people/culture/other literary works so often. I thought I was pretty sure I had internalized the story via osmosis, but it turns out there was a little more to it than I realized. I was also a little worried that the language might make it a slog (the same fear I had about Uncle Tom's Cabin), but it was actually pretty easy to follow. So yeah. A short, easy read, and now I can actually say I know the story, as opposed to just assuming I do because it's such a huge cultural icon.

NOVEMBER: Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne. I have a feeling I just read this book too late & maybe I would have loved it in elementary school. As it was, it just felt patently absurd, not all that interesting, and about 75% of the way through became an all-out slog that I only really finished because it's so short. Also the main character is a whiny little bitch who clearly just hates fun & adventure & should have stayed home with his girlfriend.

**NOVEMBER BONUS READ**: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. Okay fine I haven't actually gotten around to this one yet but I am totally going to blow through it on the plane.

DECEMBER: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. See above.

**DECEMBER BONUS READ**: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. See above.

In lieu of giving you a dewey eyed reflection on my Year of Running (I'm sure you'll see plenty of those anyway), I'm instead planning on my final post of 2014 being a list of my top reads. It seems like a lot of runners out there are also big readers, so I figured you'd might enjoy that more anyway. ;)

The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell

As a caveat, this is the first David Mitchell book I've ever read (I didn't realize until I was almost done with it that he was also the author of Cloud Atlas, which just never sounded like my cup of tea.) so I can't speak to how it relates to his other books, though from what I've heard, there are links. Apparently Bone Clocks is the 2nd book in a trilogy, of which The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the first, but I didn't feel like I was missing any important back story without it, and Bone Clocks stood on its own just fine.

Halfway through, I was ready to declare it the best book I've read all year--fiction, non-fiction, any genre, whatever. The writing is masterful. The characters are so thoroughly well-written that you almost feel like you've met them somewhere. Even the characters that only appear for a few pages come across as three-dimensional, and you can never tell whether someone is going to end up being a major character or not until it happens or doesn't. The story premise, when I finally figured out, kind of blew my mind. I suppose you could argue that it's not that original and unique, but to me it came across that way, and I'm sure that part of that has to do with the way that Mitchell strategically dropped one juicy morsel of information after another every ten or twenty pages for the first half of the book or so, making you work to figure it out, and never for a second doing that my-readers-are-probably-idiots-I-better-spell-it-all-out-for-them thing that has ruined so many otherwise good books for me.

I suppose since it involves paranormal stuff, it counts as fantasy, but one of the coolest things about it was that it didn't feel like fantasy until suddenly, without warning, something fantastical was happening. (Which makes total sense, given that most of the book is written from the perspectives of characters who are just normal people going about their normal lives at first.) A lot of times when I'm reading a fantasy/sci-fi/spec fiction book, I feel like a lot of the lead-up is just kind of laying the obligatory groundwork of introducing people/places/things & waiting for something cool to happen. Not so in Bone Clocks. It's a good while before you get to the paranormal stuff, and by the time it happened I'd gotten so engrossed in the incredible writing and engrossing characters and their stories that for a second I was like, "Holy shit, what is going on!" Which, again, I think is the whole point, since that's exactly what the main character is experiencing.

The story spans sixty-some-odd years and is divided up into sections told from the perspective of several different characters, which gives Mitchell plenty of room to show off his character-writing chops; each character has their own distinct voice and personality, which is even more impressive when you consider how disparate some of them & their situations are. The only reason I'd downgraded to 4 (maybe 4.5?) stars by the end was because there are a few sections I can think of that to me feel like they suffer from under-editing. Which is not to say that the writing and storytelling is not still excellent; just that, in retrospect, some of the sections that I'm sure were intended to paint as complete and thorough a picture as possible of the time and place and current narrator felt a little extraneous & ultimately like they somewhat detracted from the main story.

But still--one of the most impressive books of the year for me, to be sure--particularly in terms of the strength of writing/storytelling and unique/intriguing premise--and since it sounds like most people don't even regard Bone Clocks as Mitchell's best work, I'm sure I'll be seeking out some of his others.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss

First: If you enjoy a clever, well-written fantasy with awesome characters & about 14 different layers to it and have not already done so, you must go back & read The Name of the Wind & The Wise Man's Fear (though Book 3 is not yet out & there is no word yet on when it will arrive). This book takes one of the lesser characters from that series, Auri, & gives us a deeper look at her life & world in a typical week. I suppose you could read it if you haven't read the first two Kingkiller books; there are just parts that won't make a lot of sense.

At ~150 pages & fairly large type, it's not a very long book, but the language is surprisingly dense and not surprisingly poetic; between that & the subtlety of the story (if you can call it a story?), you do have to read carefully and with intention & I found myself more than once going word-by-word over certain paragraphs again because I was not 100% convinced I'd picked it all up on the first read.

As Pat explains in the forward, this story doesn't have most of the features that stories are typically "supposed" to have (plot, conflict, dialogue, etc.), but it is a lovely little character study cut from beautiful language, and if you're enjoying the Kingkiller books so far, you will probably find it to be a nice read & refreshingly different.

Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant #1), by William Gibson

The only other work of William Gibson I'd read before this was the Sprawl books, which were futuristic & cyberpunky & just really not my thing at all. Any time I mentioned this, people were like, "Yeah, that's just William Gibson." So I probably wouldn't have picked up another of his books except that Pattern Recognition kept appearing over and over on all kinds of "Best-of" lists from the 2000s.

FIRST: It is nothing like the Sprawl books. NOTHING. Not futuristic or cyberpunky at all. I mean people use email and web forums & what have you, but I think there is only one technological thing that might be sort of speculative, and if someone who works in that field were to tell me, "Nope, we can totally do that," I would believe them. In fact, being set in 2002, it actually comes across as a little dated, technology-wise.

SECOND: I've seen it described in some places as a thriller, which to me just don't scan. In fact it actually felt fairly slow in places. Yes, there is tension & a bit of international intrigue here & there, but those bits are interspersed with plenty of contemplation, philosophy, & inner monologue. Definitely not a fast-paced, action-packed adventure novel.

THIRD: What it does have is a lot of very subtle, delicately-woven-together existential themes, including the relationship between art and commercialism, the relationship between the past/present/future, how the idea of "the future" becomes less and less meaningful as the world changes so fast that we're able to make accurate predictions about it less and less farther out, and of course, to what extent looking for patterns--in art, life, history--is possible and/or ultimately useful.

So yeah. If you're looking for a fast-paced, bleeding edge, super-exciting sci-fi thriller, this is probably not your book. But it's well-written and I liked most of the characters, so if you're into big, deep existential questions & clever handling of subtle thematic elements, you could do worse.

The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity, by Steve Strogatz

I love this book. My only regret is that I couldn't read it in high school, when I was *actually* struggling with math. At this point (having degrees & math & math education & have spent over a decade teaching the subject and/or teachers of it), I read it more from the point of view of, "How could I use pieces of this with students and/or the teachers that I work with?"

In these 30 short essays--a couple of which I had read before in his Time column--Strogatz begins at the beginning (with the concept of counting) and winds his way through everything from basic algebra to calculus to advanced topics like group theory and topology, discussing each topic in a way that is not only friendly and approachable for the mathematical neophite (or phobic), but fascinating. And for all that the book is aimed at a general audience, I have to admit that I learned a few fascinating things about some topics that I didn't even learn in my advanced semester-long college classes. (Did you know there are real-world applications from infinite series? I didn't!)

So yes, this is a book about math, but it isn't just for math lovers. In fact, it's probably more for people who felt like they "never really got it" in school but are maybe just a little intrigued and kind of want another crack at it (in a way that doesn't involve doing homework). I also think it makes a GREAT resource for math teachers. (I used the two calculus essays as introductions to each semester of the course, differential & integral respectively. They give a really great, 30,000 ft overview that I thought might help the students see what it was we were really doing and why before we got bogged down in problem sets.)

The Broken Eye (Lightbringer #3), by Brent Weeks

Friends, you know my bar for epic fantasy is feet-tinglingly high. By which I mean, I hate 75% of it, find 10% of it somewhat passable, 10% reasonably good, 4% excellent, and maybe 1% utterly astounding. Three books in, Lightbringer is still a one-percenter. How does Mr. Weeks continue to impress me? Let me count the ways:

• Many complex, dynamic characters with layers of back-story. Usually I'm impressed if this is more than the main, say, 2-4 characters. In Lightbringer it's, like, half the cast of characters.
• A wide range of POV characters, and it actually works. In fact, I might even go so far as to say it's kind of critical.
• Multiple (YES!! Like MORE THAN ONE!!) amaaaaaazingly ass-kicking female characters that defy tropes & stereotypes.
• Really, really excellent writing. Gorgeous & poetic without getting flowery, & whirlwind snappy when necessary.
• The Bechtel Test. 'Nuff said.
• New spins/fresh takes on what seem at first like old tropes; he doesn't use many, but when he does, there is a narrative purpose that quickly becomes apparent.
• Some of the best dialog I think I've ever read.
• Characters you just can't pin down. You kind of love them and kind of hate them, and just when you think you get who they are and what their narrative purpose is, everything is turned upside down.
• Large-scale narrative planning that is clever, artful, and occasionally makes you think back two books & go, "Oh, SHIIIIIT."
• You will never stop guessing.

My only regret? That I didn't know going in that the last book is scheduled for 2016. :P

#allthebooks #allthewine

It has been So. Nice. Lately to run whenever I feel like, whatever I feel like, at whatever pace I feel like, without any pressure to cover a certain number of miles or complete specific workouts or hit specific paces. In the mean time, I've been indulging in two other equally important parts of life: Books & wine. Which, if you have good ones, it turns out are not a bad short-term substitute for pounding the pavement.

BOOKS:

2014: The Year of the Classics has proceeded pretty much as planned. There have been books I've enjoyed more & ones I've enjoyed less, but I have to say there's been nothing that I've regretted reading. They've all had some value & been worth my time, which I guess is part of what makes something a classic to begin with.

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I don't fully understand the magic with which Lee has woven this story, but somehow she managed to write a sober, poignant, heartbreaking tale addressing some pretty hardcore themes (race, class, gender, family, community, loyalty, justice, rape, murder, and on and on and on) without it being depressing as hell (though I'm sure having the story told from the point of view of a precocious 7-8 year old has something to do with). I've been avoiding it forever because it sounded so dark and depressing, and though it deals with some pretty serious stuff, it's all unquestionably underlined by the ideas of hope, optimism, compassion, and unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of human beings.

The Black Prism, by Brent Weeks. I'm always a bit wary of starting a fantasy series because there are just so many ways they can go horrifically bad. The Black Prism was a rare treat, though. Sure, there are a few cliched elements (false/mistaken identity, long-lost progeny of important ruler-person swept up into adventures, powerful beloved ruler-person weighed down by responsibilities/dark secrets/unrequited love), but I didn't mind them because they were executed in such unique and fresh ways, which kept things interesting and (mostly) unpredictable. The young, brilliant, wise, gorgeous, powerful, beloved ruler/religious leader ("The Prism") has a sweet relationship with his mother. His long-lost-suddenly-resurfaced bastard is a sassy, chubby, uncoordinated 15-year-old who is too smart for his own good but has a heart of gold. The ex-fiance for whom the Prism still carries a torch is a hot shit, tough-as-nails soldier & one of his personal bodyguards. Book #2 was if anything better; can't wait to read the last two in the series. (Be warned, though - only the first three of four have been published & there's no word yet on book 4.)

The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith. So this book was based on actual events that happened to the author. In the spring of 2009, Smith received a call from his father saying that he needed to come to Sweden immediately because his mom had suffered a psychotic episode & was in an asylum. And almost immediately after, a call from his mother saying she'd just been released from the hospital, everything his father had told him was a lie, that his dad was involved in a criminal conspiracy, and she was flying to London to explain the truth. You might think, well, obviously, this book has to go one of two ways. Nope. Smith keeps you guessing all the way to the end, with a couple of twists I'm happy to say I never saw coming. Ditto with the resolution. A smart mystery, tight writing, fantastic storytelling, and rich, believable characters? More of this, please.

Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins. After Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates left me rolling my eyes, I wasn't totally sure I wanted to wade any deeper into Tom Robbins. Jitterbug Perfume has become such an iconic book, though, that I felt I had to give it a chance on the strength of the recommendations I've gotten from people who loved it, and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed it. In a lot of ways this is just the type of book I'm looking for when I've been reading a lot of intense, srsbzns stuff -- it's whimsical, irreverent, and overall on the light-hearted side, but still well-written and possessed of a unique, intriguing plot and interesting, well-rounded characters. A quick, fun read if you're in the mood for something a little quirky & irreverent but still clever & well-written.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon. My only complaint about this book is that it was over too soon. Short, cute, & entertainingly written, it's probably just a *little* too serious to properly be called a beach read. A commute read, maybe. Just what I needed to cleanse my palate after Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates.

WINE:

This rosé:

Kenneth Volk 2011 La Rosa Loca, Paso Robles. If you make to Paso & like quirky, unusual varietals like negrette, blaufrankisch, & cabernet pfeffer, you absolutely must make a stop. Listing for ~$18, it is a bit pricey for a rosé, but the last time we were there was in the fall & they were clearing it out for 30% off or something, which made it pretty reasonable for a good pink. Would buy again for maybe up to $15ish.

This grenache blanc:

Tangent 2011 Grenache Blanc, Edna Valley (SLO). This, you actually stand a chance of finding outside of the winery, and at ~$15, it's a nice find. Don has a co-worker with a connection to the winery, which is where we learned about it; we also drank a bunch of it in Kauai last fall, since apparently every restaurant there stocks it. When we visited the winery for the first time, we found that we enjoyed just about all of their whites, which are equally reasonably priced.

This Italian-style merlot:

Caperone 2003 Merlot, Paso Robles. Italian merlot??? Yes! You won't find it in stores, but you CAN order it online. Caperone is one of the oldest wineries in Paso Robles & makes several lovely Italian-style reds, all of which we really like. Unlike most wineries, they tend to sell bottles with a reasonable amount of age already on them (pretty sure we bought this 2003 in like 2011), and they're STILL only ~$15, with discounts for half & full cases.

This SLO pinot:

Claiborne & Churchill 2009 Pinot Noir, Edna Valley. Another random find on our trip to SLO last fall. I always kind of cross my fingers any time I open a bottle I know I bought towards the end of the day, so I was incredibly pleased when I opened this a couple weeks back to have with grilled salmon. I don't remember the exact price, but I'm guessing it was probably under $30, and any time you can find a solid pinot for under $30, you're doing quite well.

This single-vineyard Sonoma pinot:

Porter Creek 2006 Hillside Vineyard Pinot Noir, Russian River (Sonoma). More salmon = more pinot. This maybe a little trickier to get without visiting the winery and is a bit pricier (apparently the current vintage will set you back $65? Pretty sure it wasn't *quite* that insane when we bought this one), but GOD was it worth every penny.

So yes. A little break from running is survivable with good books & wine. If you find yourself needing one, you now have my recommendations in both categories. :)

The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer #2), by Brent Weeks

You guys, I was so close to giving this one five stars. In fact, I'd say I'd still give it a solid four and a half if that were an option. The writing is tight and impressive without getting flowery. The Prism continues to be one of the most well-written hero-type fantasy protagonists I've ever read. I continue to adore his kick-ass love interest & her martial arts skills. His insecure-yet-earnest, almost-too-smart-for-his-own-good teenage bastard son is so believable it hurts. Bad guys do honorable things and have understandable motives. Good guys sometimes do crappy things. Ambivalent characters abound. Political machinations are brilliantly executed. And over the course of book two, it becomes clear that certain narrative arcs are coming home to roost, some of them so artfully crafted that they didn't even look like narrative arcs until now. What you thought was characterization was actually plot. What you thought was plot was characterization. He's a clever, calculating man, this Brent Weeks.

Even the things that for me keep it from being five stars really fall into the category of personal preference. For one, I hate battle scenes. (They are Just. So. BORING. If all books with multi-page/multi-chapter battle scenes could just replace them with a single page that reads "They fight," & then list any relevant plot points, that'd be super sweet.) And then there were a couple of rather mushy scenes that kind of made me go, "Ugh, this...", although I suppose they were inevitable in terms of the story and were admittedly skillfully written.

So yeah. My bar for fantasy is high. The Black Prism exceeded it, and The Blinding Knife was even better. I'm glad I didn't hear about these books until the last one in the trilogy (The Broken Eye) came out, because I can't wait to find out how it ends.

(Update: Eff. I just found out there's a fourth book that isn't out yet. *Shakes fist at sky* On the other hand, this does mean that I likely get another 600+ pages of awesome from Weeks, so on the balance I probably come out ahead in this one.)

Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins

I wasn't a huge fan of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, but Jitterbug Perfume has become such an iconic book that I felt I had to give it a chance on the strength of the recommendations I've gotten from people who loved it, and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed it.

In a lot of ways this is just the type of book I'm looking for when I've been reading a lot of intense, srsbzns stuff -- it's whimsical, irreverent, and overall on the light-hearted side, but still well-written and possessed of a unique, intriguing plot and interesting, well-rounded characters.

Which is not to say that the plot and characters aren't all patently absurd; they absolutely are. But what makes them (as well as Robbins' quirky, weirdly floral language) work is that it's all built on top of and in service to some very well-thought out and carefully crafted themes (immortality/the after life, the role of smell/scent in the human experience, juxtaposition of biology & spirituality, juxtaposition of old world & new world). Even reading some of the most ridiculous, slapstick scenes in the book, they still came across as clever & "worked" because I could see why they were there & how they fit into the overall structure & logic of the story. (This is the part I felt was missing in Fierce Invalids, so the absurd/slapstick/goofy parts just felt dumb.)

(Also, I really just adored the whole Alobar & Kudra thread. They were so sweet together!)

So yeah; definitely enjoyed JP enough that I'm willing to give Tom Robbins a third go. A quick, fun read if you're in the mood for something a little quirky & irreverent but still clever & well-written.

The Black Prism (Lightbringer #1), by Brent Weeks

I'm always a bit wary of starting a fantasy series/trilogy because there are just so many ways they can go horrifically bad. The Black Prism was a rare treat, though.

Sure, there are a few cliched elements (false/mistaken identity, long-lost progeny of ruler-person swept up into adventures, powerful beloved ruler-person weighed down by responsibilities/dark secrets/unrequited love), but I didn't mind them because they were executed in such unique and fresh ways, which kept things interesting and (mostly) unpredictable. The powerful, beloved ruler ("The Prism") has a sweet relationship with his mother. His long-lost-suddenly-resurfaced bastard (Kip) is a sassy, chubby, uncoordinated 15-year-old who is too smart for his own good but has a heart of gold. The ex-fiance the Prism carries a torch for is a hot shit, tough-as-nails soldier & one of his personal bodyguards.

Start to finish, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Sequel time!

The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

I've put off reading this or any other book by Salman Rushdie for years because I was kind of afraid that my complete & utter lack of background knowledge about India or anything related to it might make them difficult to understand and/or enjoy, but finally decided I would never know if I didn't pick one and take the plunge. (And let's be real; if a book gets the author sentenced to death in absentia, it is automatically a must-read.)

As it turns out, I was mostly wrong, with a few caveats. If I had to summarize the feel of the whole thing, I would say that The Satanic Verses is Jitterbug Perfume all grown up--longer, more serious, a touch darker, a touch more "literary", but still dealing with themes of history, spirituality/religion, morality, life/death/rebirth, packed with quirky characters, and completely hilarious & irreverent. (There are many people this book is not for, & I suspect you know who you are.)

Caveat #1 is that it does help to have Wikipedia or Cliff's Notes handy (though, apparently, some Rushdie purists would disagree). There are historical, cultural, literary, and pop references to India & topics related to India (particularly Buddhism & Hinduism), and while notes help, it is definitely not the case that you can't follow or understand what's going on otherwise. And actually, the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of historical/cultural/literary/pop references to America & England as well, and in fact, I feel like it's totally possible to be, for example, American and well-educated and well-read and STILL miss some of the American references. And it's okay. I think it still would have been a great book even if I'd missed a lot of that stuff, but having the notes handy helped take it from great to jaw-droppingly brilliant because it exposed so many deeper layers to the storytelling.

Caveat #2 is that you must, must, MUST pay attention. You can't skim, and if you get to the bottom of a page & realize you're hazy on what happened, you must re-read, because it is entirely possible that you could turn the page & be a thousand years and a thousand miles from the previous scene & all the characters still have the same names. Full attention is required at all times, but it's worth it.

Caveat #3 is that it really benefits from re-reading. The first time through it took me a while to get into it, and by the end I realized that there were things I couldn't specifically remember from the beginning & wanted to refresh in my mind in case it helped make sense of the ending. Which eventually led to just re-reading the whole thing. And wow; even paying close attention, even reading with the notes, there are so many subtle things I picked up on the second time through, just because I already knew what happened & where everything was going. So if you like big, smart, multi-layered, beautifully written, baddass books that pull no punches, this one may be for you.

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

1) Once again, timeless classics for the win. Can I give it 10 stars?

2) In my humble opinion, this is the bar to which YA fiction should aspire.

3) Atticus Finch is very probably the best (fictional) human being to ever walk the (fictional) earth.

4) I don't fully understand the magic with which Lee has woven this story, but somehow she managed to write a sober, poignant, heartbreaking tale addressing some pretty hardcore themes (race, class, gender, family, community, loyalty, justice, rape, murder, and on and on and on) without it being depressing as hell (though I'm sure having the story told from the point of view of a precocious 7-8 year old has something to do with). I've been avoiding it forever because it sounded so dark and depressing, and though it deals with some pretty serious stuff, it's all unquestionably underlined by the ideas of hope, optimism, compassion, and unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of human beings.

5) How did no one assign me this book in school??? Required reading for all teenagers, I say, particularly in the South.

6) Actually, make that anyone who lives in this country. Just go read it.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Um. So. I don't even really know where to start with this book. tl;dr - Should absolutely, positively be required reading for anyone who calls themselves an American. Don't be intimidated by it because it's old; it's easy to read and follow linguistically, and the story itself is riveting.

I think I first learned about this book in AP US History in 11th grade & the blurb in our textbook was basically like, "This woman wrote this book depicting the realities of slavery & it kind of went viral & started the Civil War," and then we got to read about a bunch of white people shooting at each other & getting their limbs sawed off for the next 5 chapters.

Honestly, I think would have been better off just reading this book.

The story begins with a certain Mr. Shelby reluctantly selling three of his most highly valued slaves (young beautiful "quadroon" Eliza, her charismatic six-year-old son Harry, & the eponymous Uncle Tom) & follows their stories as they attempt to escape to Canada (in the case of Eliza & Harry) or are sold into various situations with different masters of a variety of philosophies & temperaments. The story is built out of real life stories collected by the author either first- or second-hand, and they are woven together in such a way as to address a variety of the legal, political, ethical, and philosophical arguments of the day surrounding the issue of slavery and abolition and, like I said, is riveting in terms of keeping you interested and invested in what happens next and incredibly moving from the whole "What is freedom / personhood?" perspective.

It's one thing to read a novel about slavery written in the present day or recent past, but there is a whole other weight that comes with reading something that was written and published before the Civil War, while the practice was still legal and common place. If you can get through this book without becoming utterly enraged and heartbroken about the things that went on in this country, for hundreds of years, under the full protection of the law, to say nothing of what the fall out was (and continues to be), I kind of feel like you shouldn't get to call yourself an American.

I spent a good 18 years hating the school subject of history and completely unable to see the point of studying it; maybe if I'd been assigned fewer textbooks and more primary works like this one, I would have understood how critical it is to study and make sense of the past (particularly the parts that make us the most uncomfortable). Highly, highly recommend. (Preferably *before* the age of 33.)

The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith

So this book was based on actual events that happened to the author. In the spring of 2009, Smith received a call from his father saying that he needed to come to Sweden immediately because his mom had suffered a psychotic episode & was in an asylum. And almost immediately after, a call from his mother saying she'd just been released from the hospital, everything his father had told him was a lie, that his dad was involved in a criminal conspiracy, and she was flying to London to explain the truth.

You might think, well, obviously, this book has to go one of two ways. Nope. Smith keeps you guessing all the way to the end, with a couple of twists I'm happy to say I never saw coming. Ditto with the resolution. A smart mystery, tight writing, fantastic storytelling, and rich, believable characters? More of this, please.

Books Update

In January, I proclaimed that 2014 would be the Year of the Classics & chose a book for each month of the year. Since we are getting on to the halfway point in the year (!!!???), I figured it was time for an update.

January: A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller. Isaac Asimov's Foundation meets Neal Stephenson's Anathem, at a third the page count. I'd call it more spec fiction than sci fi; it takes place in the distant future where the vast majority of science, technology, & culture has been obliterated by nuclear war & reactionary fundamentalist sects, so parts of it feel more medieval than futuristic. Brilliantly & shrewdly written, confronting questions of history, philosophy, theology, ethics, and the cyclic nature of human civilization, without ever getting preachy or didactic. As relevant now as in 1960. Fans of Asimov & the like should love it.

February: Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I started this book in February, but keep having to take breaks to read something else. It's easier to read than I thought it would be, but somehow still feels like hard work.

March: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. This is what I'm currently trying plow through right now. Like Uncle Tom's Cabin, it's been easier going than I was afraid it would be and has a lot of interesting parts, but it's still looooong and slooooow and there are long stretches in which nothing much happens except protracted discussions of early 20th century Russian property laws & farming methods. I've taken a couple of breaks from it to read other things, but I'm hoping I'll be able to finish it by the end of May June.

April: A Room With a View, by E.M. Forster. This book seemed appropriate for the April since that's when we left for Italy. In general, it was a cute, engaging read, and I spent most of the middle of the book surprised & excited about where it seemed to be going. Then, after the last two chapters, I wanted to hurl it across the room. I mean I know it was 1908 & all & ladies still weren't all that far removed from just being property, but still. Beautifully written, but a disappointing ending.

May: Catch-22. This book was sold to me as "a classic that's actually funny" and "like 'The Daily Show' in terms of tone & political poignancy," so I thought it would make a nice break from srsbzns reading. Ha ha ha ha. Not. Yes, there are some funny parts, and the absurdist-satire-"hell is bureaucracy" theme has its moments, but it definitely ranks among the darkest, most depressing and harrowing books I have ever read, because war & stupid people.

Other Stuff I've Been Reading

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. This is probably the best book I've read so far this year. I'd been kinda-sorta meaning to read this book for a while now & putting it off because I wasn't sure I was up for the all the darkness, but recently a friend was like, "No seriously. Amazeballs," so I took it with me on vacation, and she was absolutely right. On the one hand I kind of think I'd say this is a great read as long as you're not going through dark, nasty stuff at the time, but on the other hand, maybe this is *exactly* the type of book you should read in that case because you might decide that things aren't really all that bad by comparison.

The Long Run, by Matt Long. The next time you start feeling sorry for yourself or like you're going through some hard times and are feeling frustrated & discouraged about how long the road seems, give ol' Matty Long a hundred pages or so. If you still feel the same way after, you are not human. I don't want to spoil the impact of the first few chapters, but the broad strokes are that Long was a Brooklyn firefighter, BQ marathoner, & Iron Man who got run over by a bus (LITERALLY LIKE A BUS DROVE OVER HIM) in December 2005 & suffered a litany of absolutely horrific injuries. The book chronicles is journey from a miserable, barely recognizable, barely functional, physical & mental wreck of a human to, well, the guy on the cover of the book. So yeah. This book basically convinced me I don't get to feel discouraged about anything ever again.

The Sound & The Fury, by William Faulkner. This was a challenging book for me, but I'm glad I read it, and I can totally appreciate why people are still reading & studying it xx years later. BUT, know going in that it is depressing as hell. On the other hand, it's only like 300 pages long. I'd advise getting some background on the story before actually starting it, because some of it can be hard to follow & definitely requires your 100% focus & attention. Don't be ashamed to consult Wikipedia/Cliff's Notes/etc. as you read.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson (aka, "The Bloggess"). Do yourself a favor & get this one in audio book. Nothing beats The Bloggess herself narrating. I lost count of the number of times I nearly fell off the spin bike I was laughing so hard. The hijinks that girl gets up to!

Dad Is Fat, by Jim Gaffigan. Parents, you'll appreciate this one. Not *quite* up to the quality of his stand-up, but really the book is only maybe half comedy anyway & half about being a parent in general and being the parent of five (7, 5, 3, 1, & newborn) in New York City specifically. Reasonably entertaining overall, with a few absolute laugh-out-loud moments.

The Signal & The Noise, by Nate Silver (of Five Thirty-Eight fame). I loved this book for the same reason that I loved The Predictioneer's Game and Data, A Love Story. All of them lie at the intersection of math/statistics/data/modeling and psychology/sociology. While I still think Nate Silver is brilliant, after reading this book I have a better understanding of just how terrible at modeling and predicting so many other people are (& I'm talking about people who are paid for making predictions) & why it's so easy for him to look that much more brilliant by comparison. What it's really about is the use & abuse of statistics & data--what sorts of things can be predicted (short and/or long term) and which kind of can't, the most common mistakes people make when they try to use data to make predictions, and how living in the age of "big data" actually puts us more at risk for bad predictions.

What's left for me this year....

June: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz.

July: To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.

August: Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert.

September: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez.

October: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

November: Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne.

**NOVEMBER BONUS READ**: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka.

December: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

**DECEMBER BONUS READ**: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

This is where I solicit from you other worthwhile reads!! What else is out there that I absolutely must read? Oh also you can be my friend on GoodReads if you want.

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

I've been kinda-sorta meaning to read this book for a while now; ten or so years ago I read The Secret History & loved it, in that kind of way that you love a book that is utterly depressing and dark and heartbreaking as shit but so incredibly well-written that you almost can't put it down. I'd been putting off The Goldfinch because I wasn't sure I was up for the all the darkness, but recently a friend was like, "No seriously. Amazeballs," so I took it with me on vacation.

Depressing? Check. Dark? Check. Heartbreaking as shit, especially for someone who spent many years working with teenagers? Check. But, like The Secret History, it was also beautifully and poetically written, and in some way I can't really understand or explain Donna Tartt manages to pull off writing a wide range of characters from disparate worlds (despondent teenagers, Manhattan socialites, Russian drug dealers, high-end art dealers, etc.) convincingly & authentically, down to the text messages they send one another.

On the one hand I kind of think I'd say this is a great read as long as you're not going through dark, nasty stuff at the time, but on the other hand, maybe this is EXACTLY the type of book you should read in that case because you might decide that things aren't really all that bad by comparison.

The Long Run, by Matt Long

So here's the only thing I think I really *need* to say about this book: If you think that you are having a bad day, or week, or month, or year, just pick up this book. The next time you think you think you've been through something really "difficult" or get caught up in how "hard" your life has been, give, say, the first quarter of it a read. If you ever start feeling sorry for yourself or feel like you're going through something tough and are feeling frustrated & discouraged about how long the road seems, give ol' Matty Long a hundred pages or so. If you still feel the same way after, you are not human.

I don't want to spoil the impact of the first few chapters, but the broad strokes are that Long was a Brooklyn firefighter, BQ marathoner, & Iron Man who got run over by a bus in December 2005 & suffered a litany of absolutely horrific injuries. The book chronicles is journey from a miserable, barely recognizable, barely functional, physical & mental wreck of a human to, well, the guy on the cover of the book. (I won't spoil the ending any more than that.)

So yeah. I've basically decided I don't really get to feel discouraged about anything ever again.

There are a few things about the writing & Long's personality that kind of bug me (particularly with regard to how he seems to view women), but the story itself is just so overwhelmingly incredible that I can't really deduct more than, like, a quarter of a star.

Once A Runner

This is one of those running books I've heard about here & there, but only really often enough for the title to be familiar. It was part of an Audible BOGOF promotion so I figured, "Eh, why not?" It was short (~8.5 hours), & at least then I'd know if it lived up to all the hype.

Well. 12 chapters in I was convinced it was about the stupidest book I'd ever read. The writing was cliche & forced, & the dialogue was unbelievable and frankly hard to follow (though I'm sure that's at least partly to do with trying to decode 1970s Florida college slang). I couldn't relate to the characters, and the jumpy, meandering style of storytelling made the main story line difficult to follow (or even detect) for the first half the book. Many of the scenes felt bafflingly irrelevant. If it wasn't so short I probably would have given it up there.

However, the second half had some redeeming qualities. Once he ditched most of the side characters (including the lone woman, who was, sadly, kind of whiny & cringe-inducing), the story felt more coherent and a narrative arc gradually became detectable. And although as a runner I have never been anywhere *near* the level of the protagonist (a collegiate 4:00 miler obsessed with running a sub-4:00), there were actually a lot of parts I was able to relate to on some level. (It also brought back all the most painful, most horrific parts of running track, which sort of sucked, but I guess that's kind of the point.) It's when Parker was actually writing about running and training and racing that it wasn't too bad, and there were definitely a few sections near the end where I found myself thinking, "OMG, it is/was *totally* just like that," so he gets some props for that. On the other hand, I doubt anyone who hasn't had the experience of running track at least semi-competitively will really "get" those parts.

So yeah. If you are or have been a super competitive male college track star, this book *might* speak to you. If you're a distance runner in the sense of, "Meh, I run marathons & half-marathons sometimes for fun/health/thrillz," you can probably just skip it without missing much.

The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver

I loved this book for the same reason that I loved The Predictioneer's Game and Data, A Love Story. All of them lie at the intersection of math/statistics/data/modeling and psychology/sociology. While I still think Nate Silver is brilliant, after reading this book I have a better understanding of just how terrible at modeling and predicting so many other people are (& I'm talking about people who are paid for making predictions) & why it's so easy for him to look that much more brilliant by comparison.

What it's really about is the use & abuse of statistics & data--what sorts of things can be predicted (short and/or long term) and which kind of can't, the most common mistakes people make when they try to use data to make predictions, and how living in the age of "big data" actually puts us more at risk for bad predictions.

The great tragedy of this book is that the people who are most likely to read it are probably the people who already have a pretty decent understanding of data/statistics, and the people who have a less-good understanding of those things are probably the people who would most benefit from reading it.

Assassin's Quest (Farseer #3), by Robin Hobb

First, just about all my comments from Book #1 still hold.

Realistically, I kind of want to give it 4.5 stars. The characters & writing hold up, the story was unpredictable enough to keep me intrigued & guessing about how she'd wrap it all up, and the ending satisfying, if a bit heart wrenching. My only quibbles are that books #2 & #3 both felt just a tiny bit slow in places--at times it felt like there were long stretches where I didn't see where things were going. Not to say that nothing happened--plenty was happening; it just didn't always feel like it was moving the story forward. Also it's a complicated story, & in retrospect there are some things where I felt either like the foreshadowing could have been paced better.

BUT, overall, a really excellent, interesting, well-written high fantasy series.

2014: Year of the Classics

The Mission: One classic novel per month in 2014. Which means, like, actually making choices. There are a lot of classic reads I have to admit I just don't have any interest in (War & Peace, Moby-Dick, Infinite Jest, Crime & Punishment, etc)*; also anything with more than three parlor scenes is automatically eliminated via the Austen / Brontë Clause.

Get me out of this parlor forthwith, Darcy, or
I shall straight-up cut a bitch. Looking at you, Elinor.

(While we're at it, let's just all agree that Mr. Darcy is a creepy, creepy man who remains, to quote CaptainAwkward, "the supposedly totally dreamy main character of what became the boilerplate for every romantic comedy ever." Pretty much sums up Pride & Prejudice, eh?)

The Fitzwilliam Darcy School of Victorian Pickup Artistry: "If seducing
her via telepathy / brooding looks fails, just vomit your feelings at her."^TM

So I spent the last few days combing through my Goodreads "To Read" list & trying to pick out some classics that sounded interesting & like they wouldn't make me want to shoot myself in the face after. (Under The Volcano, anyone?) I totally reserve the right to change my mind later, but here are the twelve I chose, and a few pinch hitters in case I finish them before the year is over or abandon something.

Update: Okay fine, it's fourteen now, since two of my original selections are less than 100 pages & it kind of doesn't seem like they should count as part of the one-per-month deal. Still. Books I plan to read this year:

JANUARY: A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller. "In a nightmarish, ruined world, slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infantile rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From there, the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes." Wicked.

FEBRUARY: Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. "Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eluding the hired slave catchers. As the Harrises flee to freedom, another slave, Uncle Tom, is sent "down the river" for sale. Befriending a white child, Evangeline St. Clare, Tom is purchased by her father and taken to their home in New Orleans." This is my Black History Month selection.

MARCH: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. "Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky." I am terrified of Tolstoy so this will be my attempt at getting un-terrified.

APRIL: A Room With a View, by E.M. Forster. "A chance encounter… a murder in the Piazza Signoria … an impulsive kiss…and Lucy Honeychurch’s world is forever changed. Torn between settling for a life of acceptable convention or the calling of her true passion, Lucy epitomizes the struggle for individuality and the power and passion of love." Since we are going to Italy in April/May, some Italian literature seems in order.

MAY: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy, a bombardier named Yossarian is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. (He has decided to live forever, even if he has to die in the attempt.) I've heard this book repeatedly compared to "The Daily Show" in terms of tone & political poignancy, which is probably mainly what sold me on it. A classic that's actually funny? Sold. Not Italian, but set there, so good enough.

JUNE: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz. "Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim." Comes highly recommended from several nerdy book friends.

JULY: To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. "Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up." Awwww, this one's going to break me, isn't it?

AUGUST: Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. "Set amid the stifling atmosphere of 19th-century bourgeois France, Madame Bovary is at once an unsparing depiction of a woman’s gradual corruption and a savagely ironic study of human shallowness and stupidity. Neither Emma, nor her lovers, nor Homais, the man of science, escapes the author’s searing castigation, and it is the book’s final profound irony that only Charles, Emma’s oxlike, eternally deceived husband, emerges with a measure of human grace through his stubborn and selfless love." Sounds suspiciously like a parlor book, but how can you pass on something hailed as "possibly the most beautifully written book ever composed"? I wanted to read this one for Banned Books Week, but it overlaps with Hispanic Heritage Month in September, so August it is.

SEPTEMBER: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez. "The story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America." This is my Hispanic Heritage Month selection.

OCTOBER: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. "When a brute of a man tramples an innocent girl, apparently out of spite, two bystanders catch the fellow and force him to pay reparations to the girl's family. The brute's name is Edward Hyde. A respected lawyer, Utterson, hears this story and begins to unravel the seemingly manic behavior of his best friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and his connection with Hyde. Several months earlier, Utterson had drawn up an inexplicable will for the doctor, naming Hyde as his heir in the event that he disappears. Fearing his friend has been blackmailed into this arrangement, Utterson probes deeper into both Jekyll and his unlikely protégé. He is increasingly unnerved at each new revelation." Jekyll & Hyde is my Spoooooktacular Halloween selection.

NOVEMBER: Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne. "Noted geologist Professor Liedenbrock discovers a cryptic message hidden in the pages of an ancient volume purporting to show the way into the center of the earth. Liedenbrock determines to make this fantastic journey, insisting his 16-year-old nephew, Henry, accompany him." Something on the lighter side for Sci-Fi Month.

**NOVEMBER BONUS READ**: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. "The story of a young traveling salesman who, transformed overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. Rather than being surprised at the transformation, the members of his family despise it as an impending burden upon themselves." November is also German Literature Month, & since this book is like 60 pages & I have been meaning to read it since college, I really don't have any excuses.

DECEMBER: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. "A pilot stranded in the desert awakes one morning to see, standing before him, the most extraordinary little fellow. "Please," asks the stranger, "draw me a sheep." And the pilot realizes that when life's events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries." Seriously, how have I not read this yet?

**DECEMBER BONUS READ**: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Because seriously, it's like 80 pages and how have I never read it??

The Pinch Hitters:

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. "In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys – best friends – are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary and terrifying."

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. "This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel." I have a hit-or-miss history with Steinbeck, but got a lot of recommendations for this one.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey. "Tells the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the story through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned."

Middlemarch, by George Eliot. "Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment." Better not be too many parlor scenes.

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. An Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within.

Any other classics I should add to my list of pinch-hitters???

*If anyone can give me a really convincing reason to take on any of the books I've already ruled out, I will totally give them a shot. But it's got to be reeeaallly convincing.