I tried hard to read more this year and I guess I did: 36 books in total, up from 28 last year (and identical to 2012's number). I did add work-ish books into the list this year which helped boost my overall tally. And I guess I'm mostly satisfied with this number. I had a couple of productive, fun reading jags over the summer, though sadly did not read as much at the end of the year as I'd originally planned.
Looking at last year's post there are a couple of goals I didn't hit. I read a bit of feminism but not much, didn't have a chance to read some library/info science books I'd hoped to read, and didn't get to LeGuin or Butler either. I also started but didn't finish the 4AD book. It's terrific though very long; I read about half of it over the summer when we were in Indiana and hope to finish it in the nearish future. It's been challenging to read this past semester with my new job, I just don't have a lot of spare cycles in the evenings and tend to fall asleep only a few pages in to anything I read. But I have some new books of short stories and essays that should fit the bill, and with the 4AD book's arrangement of a chapter for each year (I think I stopped after 1985), that might work too.
On the positive side, this year I tried to read fiction only written by women and/or people of color, and I did meet that goal. It wasn't hard at all, of course there's lots of great stuff out there, and lots of library and literary folks have made lists of fiction, YA, sci fi, etc. written by women/poc. Faves were the two books by Nnedi Okorafor which both Gus and I read, and Americanah which was as amazing as everyone is always saying. All of those reminded me of the African Civ class I took in college and all of the fiction reading we did in one of the quarters — I'm glad I kept those books and will perhaps reread them in the coming year. I'm also looking forward to reading Nnedi Okorafor's other books — the future Africa she writes about is super compelling. My other faves this year were: Eleanor & Park, about two high schoolers in love set against a background of family disfunction and mix tapes, and Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast's incredible story of her parents' decline and eventual death, told in that incredible Roz Chast way that will make you laugh and cry.
Like in previous years the list below is in reverse chronological order. Starred books are ebooks and tilded books are those we own rather than those borrowed from the library or from others. Books with a plus sign are graphic novels, all of which are Gus's except the Walden one which was from the library (and on Gus's summer reading list). I found several graphic novels to be a boon for me at difficult times this year — most of the ones I read this year went down easy though with enough of a narrative to be compelling, and with illustrations predominating over text they often seemed more escapist than novels, even YA novels. That said, I pooped out of the Amulet series halfway through when it turned out to be aimed more at an older elementary than YA crowd.
Rethinking College Student Retention, by John M. Braxton et al.
Hmm, when I counted up the books on this list I was disappointed to see this year that I didn't read as many books as last year, only 28 compared to last year's 36. Starred books are ebooks and tilded books are those I own (rather than borrowed from the library), and the list below is in reverse chronological order. Again this doesn't count books I read for academic reasons, which would bulk things up a bit. Also I think this reflects that 2013 was perhaps more disjointed than 2012. We didn't really take any vacations that offered space for lots of reading, and the summer overall (which is when I tend to get most of my non-academic reading done) was sort of scattered. But on the plus side, only one book falls into the started not finished category, so that's a good thing. And Debt is eNORmous, maybe it should count as several books?
I think I hit the wall with dystopian YA books this past year. I still find them enjoyable to read, but I'm also finding them more disturbing and depressing than I have in the past. I was excited to read Allegiant and wind up the series, but found it kind of meh in the end (though I'm *totally* excited for the movie — when we saw the previews there were shots of Mansueto and the Reg!).
Balancing out the dystopia were some books I really enjoyed. Every Day was fantastic — layered and thoughtful and real. As I babbled about in other posts, I loved Tracey Thorn's book, Fangirl, and Sisterland. I did a bit of revisiting books I'd already read — Wrinkle in Time and Ender's Game because Gus was reading them (also the latter to prep for seeing the movie), and Wizard of Earthsea (just finished yesterday!) because I'm thinking that I need to read more LeGuin in the new year and rereading the trilogy (plus the other two Earthsea books I haven't read) seems like a good place to start.
My reading goal for 2014 is to read more, obvs. I'd like to read all of LeGuin's work, and possibly reread Octavia Butler's books (in prep for recommending them to Gus). I have some big holes in my knowledge of feminist theory that I'd like to plug, too. I also can't wait to read Facing the Other Way: The 4AD Story. And Gus got 21 (!) books for his birthday and xmas some of which I'd like to read too, including a graphic novel series called Amulet and another graphic novel set — this one about the Boxer Rebellion — called Boxers and Saints. He tore through them all in less than a week so they're uncontested.
So before you're all "OMG two posts in one day" I should probably mention that I wrote that last post last night, though wasn't able to post it until this morning because we didn't have internet at the neighbors' apartment where we were staying. This year we're having a mostly home-based holiday season — though we did travel to exchange gifts with some of my family before xmas, it was a quick trip of only 42 hours duration. Now we have family visiting and took advantage of our neighbors' generosity to use their place as an extra sleeping space while they're out of town. It's nice to travel at xmas though it's nice to be home, too, with a tree and the kitties.
I was particularly entranced by one scene in which the main character is accused of plagiarism by her English prof when she submits a fic for a creative writing assignment. I scanned those few pages from the book and plan to ask my students to read the excerpt when I next teach our library's research and documentation course. Which is nerdily exciting — we talk a lot about plagiarism and remix culture and intellectual property, and I'll be interested to see what the students make of the reading. Plus it's only 4 pages which is absolutely fair use, so I can post the PDF of the scan on our course website.
Next (and completely accidentally re: the twin theme) I read Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld. I've never read any of her books before — the cover of Prep, her first novel, completely turned me off and she fell off my radar after that. But reading Jenna's review of Sisterland piqued my interest, and since it was available as an ebook and I didn't have any other ebooks checked out it seemed like a good call (I like to have an ebook on my phone if possible, just in case I ever get stuck someplace with nothing to read). And it was! Like Jenna, I found the main characters unsympathetic, but the story was well-paced and interesting.
These twins are adult women who are both somewhat psychic, though one has suppressed her ability. The narrative of the book is framed by an event that happens early on, when the more-psychic sister predicts that an earthquake will strike St. Louis, where the book takes place. The bulk of the book (which is told by the less-psychic sister) recounts the story of what happens with the sisters and their lives and families between the time of the prediction and the date on which the earthquake is predicted to happen. There's lots of flashbacks to the twins' childhood and early adult years, and lots of discussion of their ESP and the circumstances under which they've used it. What I liked best is that even though the psychic powers lend the book a vaguely magical tone, most of the issues with which the characters grapple are pretty much just normal, everyday problems.
In both books the twin sisters are identical yet surprisingly different, with a relationship at least as complex as that between non-twin siblings. And I guess that's what made me start thinking about my family. I love my family, though I'm often quite baffled when I think of us. While my nuclear family members — my parents and my younger sister and brother — are (of course!) related and have much in common, we are also each very different. And we all continue to change as we age, which along with partnering and childrearing adds other wrinkles (ha!). My parents are long divorced and we all mostly live far apart, and I wish we saw everyone more often. But I sometimes find myself torn: I don't want to leave New York to live in one of the places they live, but living here makes it difficult for folks to visit us because NYC apts aren't great for hosting sleepover visitors. And I wonder: are we all so different because we live in different places? Or do we live in different places because we are all so different?