What I Read in 2014

My goal of 50 books in 2014 was too ambitious, but I'm still happy with what I managed to read. Here's my list along with brief comments; books I particularly recommend are starred.

1. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Inspired by the now-iconic status of the titular quote, Ulrich wrote this wide-ranging popular account of women's history as a field and of some of the key historical figures who anchor it. Some of her biographical accounts and textual interpretations felt a bit reductive to me, but I think that's a result of the book's ambition and intended audience. Overall, informative and inspiring.
2. Incarnadine, by Mary Szybist. Lovely, lovely poetry. 
3. Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin. I'm generally wary of books that reconstruct historical narratives and dialogue, and I took some of Sheinkin's details with a grain of salt, but that said, this Newbery Honor book seems to be meticulously researched (supposedly the dialogue was all drawn from actual letters and statements). It makes the history of the atomic bomb engaging and accessible, reading a bit like a spy thriller but also confronting the very real ethical implications of the events.
4. The Twible, by Jana Riess. I bought this mostly to support Jana Riess because she's awesome, but it was fun to read through. A bit of snark + a memorable overview of the Bible.
5. * The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss. This reminded me a little of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated (not surprising, since Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer and they've influenced each other's work), and as with those novels, the structural gimmick and the main character's quirky preciousness didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying its beautiful moments.
6. The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, by Terryl and Fiona Givens. This book claims to outline some of Mormonism's unique claims, but while I found it compelling and moving, I'm not convinced the Givenses' theology actually represents mainstream Mormon belief. I sure wish it did, because it's beautiful, expansive, and compassionate.
7. Franny and Zooey, by J. D. Salinger. I'm still deciding what to make of this. Lovely and occasionally irritating.
8. PhD Comics: Adventures in Thesisland, by Jorge Cham. This was a good way to celebrate having successfully defended my dissertation at the end of 2013. My most frequent emotion while reading was relief that my life no longer mirrored the comics.
9. War Talk, by Arundhati Roy. This collection of damning essays on empire, dissent, and war in the twenty-first century was passionate and thought-provoking—and made me realize how little I know about Indian politics. Also, I wonder if Roy will ever write another novel (please please please).
10. Sandy Downs, by Tim Wirkus. Peculiar, witty novella. At the end, you'll wonder what in the world you just read. (Related: check out Tim's new novel, City of Brick and Shadow!)
11. The Secret Keeper, by Kate Morton. I was curious about this Blitz-themed historical fiction because it was surprisingly popular. The story held my interest, but the writing was clunky and I don't think it's ultimately worth the time.
12. Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh. Exactly what you'd expect, if you're a reader of the blog, plus a few new stories. Which is not at all a bad thing.
13. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris. I needed an audiobook to listen to during a road trip, and this one happened to be available. Dark, entertaining, but ultimately not very memorable.
14. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan. I didn't like this as much as I expected to, but it passed the time. Fun if you like bookstores, codes, secret societies, and Google.
15. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. Weird, but I give Riggs points for an imaginative concept and intriguing world-building. A quick read that makes up in originality what it lacks in nuance. 
16. * The Years, by Virginia Woolf. What a pleasure, after lots of fluff, to bask in Woolf's beautiful sentences. This was the only of her novels I hadn't yet read, and while it's probably not my ultimate favorite, it's up there near the top. I appreciated how perfectly this novel spans multiple generations of a family: pausing for glimpses of brief moments in time, giving the reader enough to know the characters but not belaboring the details or feeling the need to fill every gap. (In contrast to, say, The Secret Keeper, which is also a multi-generational family story but very heavy-handed.)
17. * Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Big winner. This had my attention from the first page, which is unusual for me. It's hilarious and heartbreaking in turns, and gains in both realms from Adichie's understated narration. Seriously, read this beautiful book.
18. Hollow City, by Ransom Riggs. Sequel to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. See above.
19. * Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein. World War II and female spies + lots of glowing recommendations = obviously I had to read this book. I got a slow start—I actually started then returned my library copy in NC and checked it out again months later in HI to finish—but it's worth sticking with. A well-constructed story with smart, interesting characters that doesn't shy away from acknowledging the costs of war.
20. The Care and Management of Lies, by Jacqueline Winspear. This is a standalone novel by the author of the Maisie Dobbs series. This one isn't a mystery, but like Maisie, it's historical fiction related to WWI. Fluff, but memorable, well-constructed fluff.
21. * The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, by Brady Udall. I've meant to pick this up since Brady Udall read from it at the BYU English Dept. Reading Series years ago. Dysfunctional but lovable characters, a hilarious narrative voice, absurd plot twists, and solidly crafted scenes made this a great read.
22. Outside History: Selected Poems, 1980–1990, by Eavan Boland. I just love Eavan Boland. Her poems about history are stunning.
23. * Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor. As some internet comments or Goodreads review I can't find right now said, this book manages to tell a story involving Africa and albinism without sensationalizing either one. The pacing was strange (I didn't find out until afterward that there's a sequel planned, which might explain why so much time is spent on exposition with very little action and resolution), but it's definitely worth a read: fun magic system, good storytelling, interesting characters.
24. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel. I'm not much of a graphic novel reader generally, but this one lived up to its reputation. I found myself lingering on each panel and noticing how tightly Bechdel wove together the textual and visual material, often with parallel narratives. 
25. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. A classic I finally got around to reading for the first time. Everyone in this novel is terrible. 
26. Hattie Big Sky, by Kirby Larson. At this point I started cramming in more children's and YA books to get my count up before the end of the year. Hattie Big Sky is a Newbery Honor–winning coming-of-age story about a teenage girl homesteading in Montana during WWI. Larson covers a lot of ground: gender roles, racism, xenophobia, family, subsistence, etc., and paints a sweet, vivid story of community and self-discovery under challenging circumstances.
27. River Secrets, by Shannon Hale. Shannon Hale is just brilliant at middle-grade fantasy. Of the Bayern books, I probably still like Goose Girl and Enna Burning better, but this one doesn't disappoint.
28. Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool. In retrospect, this one shares a lot with Hattie Big Sky: Newbery recognition (the 2011 medal, in this case), a young girl sent on her own to the American plains, a search to learn about her parents and her past, and life on the WWI home front. Also worth reading.
29. Sweet Home, by Carys Bray. A collection of short stories, most with a dark and sometimes fantastical undercurrent, about home and family life. One story seems to be the basis for Bray's recent novel A Song for Issy Bradley. I probably read this too quickly—I wish I'd allowed myself to linger a bit over some of the more haunting stories.

And here are a few I started but didn't finish:

1. Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko. I just could not get into this one. I'll probably finish it eventually, because I'm not far from the end and it's an important novel, but it was slow going.
2. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo. I didn't get far into this at all. Something about an American journalist telling the story by putting thoughts and intentions into the minds of her real-life characters rubbed me the wrong way.
3. At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson. A road trip audiobook. This was fun to listen to and full of interesting histories of routine household spaces and objects. I'll finish it eventually, maybe on another trip.
4. A Legacy, by Sybille Bedford. Another multi-generational family novel, this time semiautobiographical and set in nineteenth-century Germany. I'm still working on this—it's a slow, dense read.

Did you read any of these books? What were your favorite 2014 reads? What do you look forward to reading this year?

What I Read in 2013

Grad school ruined pleasure reading for me, mostly because any time I read a book for fun, I felt guilty that I wasn't reading something for a class or a research project instead. I still did some pleasure reading, but not much, and my Goodreads to-read list grew longer and longer. So in 2013 I decided to set a specific reading goal to put a dent in that list.

The rules: 40 books. 20 that I already owned (because I have SO MANY on my shelves that I haven't gotten around to reading). None related to my dissertation.

It turns out I broke all the rules—I didn't quite make it to 40 (which isn't even very many compared to what some of you manage!), I only owned 10 of the ones I read, and I included a few dissertation-related choices if a) they were enjoyable and b) I was reading them for the first time. Despite failing in the strictest sense, though, I'm pleased that my goal reminded me to stop surfing the internet so much in my downtime and go read a book instead. 

I think the main reasons I was able to get back into the swing of reading are 1) I got a Kindle for Christmas 2012—and my local library happens to have a great ebook selection—which made reading while traveling easier (also, many years of heavy internet use mean that I read faster on screens) and 2) I made a point of reading for at least a few minutes every night before going to bed. Now that I'm more or less finished (!!!) with my dissertation and grad school, I should have time for more. My 2014 target is 50 books.

Anyway, all of this is surely very boring, but here we go. Books I particularly recommend are starred.

1. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling. Entertaining but not very memorable.
2. *The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. I was a few years late to the party on this, but it was incredibly fascinating. I do have a few quibbles with the way Pollan addresses the ethics of food and the role of shifting gender norms in changing our cultural eating habits. But I loved the chapters tracing where certain ingredients come from and where they show up in our food, and overall the book made me think much more deeply about how I eat. Peter probably got tired of me reading excerpts aloud to him.
3. *Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. My first YA fantasy of the year. And a good one. Interesting magical concept + political intrigue + kickass heroine.
4. Still, by Lauren Winner. I read this for a book club and wish I'd remembered to copy down some favorite passages. It's a spiritual memoir about renegotiating faith, and finding what's best about religious life and community, in the midst of doubts and major life changes.
5. NW, by Zadie Smith. Not Zadie Smith's best, I don't think, and I didn't always feel like the sections focusing on different characters cohered overall, but in general a really vivid, gritty London novel. I liked the experimental style of the first part, but if that's not your thing, don't worry—it's not all like that.
6. *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Another one people have been talking about for ages. I'm really glad I read this—fascinating, important, well researched story.
7. Drift, by Rachel Maddow. Read this quickly and don't remember much detail, but it's a timely and damning account of mission creep and how the US military industrial complex has come to control foreign policy.
8. People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. The execution didn't live up to the concept (a book conservator uncovers the centuries-long history of an illuminated Jewish text), but I still enjoyed it.
9. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. I didn't love this book like I expected to—the style and voice irritated me a little bit—but it's super important as an eye-opener and conversation-starter about rape and victim-blaming/shaming.
10. Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan. Very McEwan: lovely writing, dramatic narrative twist at the end. It was fun to read the University of Sussex and Brighton scenes while I was there doing research.
11. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand. I enjoyed this, despite not being super interested in sports or military biographies.
12. Leaving Everything Most Loved, by Jacqueline Winspear. Maisie Dobbs is my very favorite fluff reading. It features a charming private investigator, intriguing mysteries, World War I memories, 1930s London, and British class drama all rolled into one delightful series.
13. *Fire, by Kristin Cashore. Companion to Graceling; also excellent.
14. Divergent, by Veronica Roth. Okay, lots of people don't think this is very good. And sure, it's not the best. But I have a huge weakness for YA dystopian novels, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
15. Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. See above.
16. *The Wednesday Wars, Gary Schmidt. Fantastic. Read it.
17. There Were No Windows, by Norah Hoult. My first experience with Persephone Books, a fabulous small press that reissues neglected works by twentieth-century writers (mostly women). This particular one is about an old woman losing her memory during the Blitz—a darkly humorous and provocative metaphor for the condition of the city.
18. *Miss Ranskill Comes Home, by Barbara Euphan Todd. Another Persephone book. This one is a campy and hilarious novel about a women who was shipwrecked on an island before World War II started and is baffled by the strange wartime England she returns to.
19. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin. Not my usual fare (a book club pick) and LeGuin's writing style usually feels kind of flat and detached to me, but this one is an intriguing and influential exploration of anarchism and collectivism.
20. Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag. Sometimes useful, sometimes problematic. Which is how I usually feel about Sontag.
21. A Drama in Muslin, by George Moore. A satirical look at Anglo-Irish society and the marriage market in the late nineteenth century.
22. Digging for Mrs. Miller, by John Strachey. A collection of fictionalized stories about Strachey's experiences as an air-raid warden in the Blitz.
23. *Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. Worthwhile reading for introverts and extraverts alike. Cain makes a compelling case for challenging our institutions and systems that cater to extraverts at introverts' (and the institutions' own) expense.
24. Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes. Mollie Panter-Downes should be read more. The end.
25. The World My Wilderness, by Rose Macaulay. Not my favorite post-Blitz novel, but still good. Macaulay does cool things with ruins.
26. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. Confession: I think Malcolm Gladwell is totally overrated. One of his books was enough for me. The case studies themselves are interesting, but his conclusions are wildly speculative and oversimplified and the writing is repetitive and sometimes contradictory.
27. The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman. I finally got around to reading this Newbery winner, and it was lovely.
28. Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore. Not as good as Graceling and Fire, but still worth reading.
29. Blitz Kids, by Elinor Mordaunt. Cheesy, morale-boosting fiction about kids in London during the Blitz.
30. *The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate. A deserving Newbery winner—sweet and sad.
31. A House in the Country, by Jocelyn Playfair. Another Persephone book--country house novel meets World War II. 
32. Saplings, by Noel Streatfeild. A much less cheesy and better developed story of a family of children growing up amidst the fear and destruction of the Blitz.
33. *Okay for Now, by Gary Schmidt. Just as fantastic as The Wednesday Wars. Only this one involves Audubon instead of Shakespeare.
34. Allegiant, by Veronica Roth. This was an unexpected ending to the trilogy. The pacing was a little strange, and there wasn't enough time to explain and explore the larger world in which the final installment is set, but Roth made some interesting, moving choices for plot and narration. Overall, I was satisfied.
35. Homer and Langley, by E. L. Doctorow. Meh. I love the idea—the story of two compulsively hoarding brothers (based on actual people) who gradually recede from the world into the squalor of their New York house—and Doctorow's writing is, as usual, vivid and incisive, but overall it was just okay.
36. Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov. I rarely do this, but I got about halfway through this, then I got bored, then I got more exciting books for Christmas... Look, it's well done and really fascinating in concept, but I felt like I read enough to get the point and didn't feel compelled to finish.

 Did you read any of these books? What did you think? What were your favorite books of 2013?

Farewell to 2013

I started this blog in January, and then I didn't post on it all year. Nice. So here's my year in review--some things that happened, in no particular order.

1. I traveled quite a bit. We visited my sister in Florida, we camped in Shenandoah National Park, and I went to Michigan once and Utah twice. More excitingly, Peter and I traveled to Hong Kong to visit his friend William. We breathed terrible air, did some hiking and sightseeing (Lamma Island, Kowloon Walled City Park, Hong Kong history and art museums, several temples and street markets), ate loads of dim sum and other delicious food (we're mostly vegetarian at home, but we realized pretty quickly that avoiding meat in Hong Kong wasn't really feasible; my stomach was grateful for the pork buns), and just generally enjoyed hanging out in a completely new place.

Dirty air! Skyscrapers! Boats!

Ruins in Macau!

Buddhist nunnery and temple complex! With skyscrapers!

I also spent a month in London doing dissertation research. I love both London and archival research, so this was fabulous. Peter also joined me there for the latter half of the month to participate in a seminar for librarians. I spent my days reading depressing but fascinating World War II documents, and in the evenings, we rode the Tube, revisited favorite places, explored new parts of the city, saw plays, and took basically no pictures (that weren't related to my research).

Oh, wait! I found some failed selfies:

In Greenwich

On a bridge

2. Peter and I celebrated our first anniversary (and now we're at a year and a half, though it feels like longer). I know that's nothing compared to many of our friends, but it was nice to reach that milestone and feel very settled and comfortable in our marriage.

3. I spent time on hobbies that sometimes fell by the wayside during grad school. I started binding books again. With a local choir (and the North Carolina Symphony, in some cases), I performed Holst's The Planets, Bach's St. John Passion, Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. I continued working on projects with LDS WAVE. I read more books for pleasure than I have in years.

4. I started a new job as a journals production coordinator at a university press. It's a temporary position, but it's fun to be doing some publishing work again and it's a good transitional job to help me move from a tenure-track-focused graduate program into the alt-ac realm.

5. I successfully defended my dissertation! I still have a few minor revisions to make before I turn in the final version in January, but I feel relieved to have reached this point. I'm also proud of achieving a goal that seemed far away and unattainable during much of my program--it was difficult to find the way forward in a situation with little structure and guidance and lots of isolation. But I did it! Freedom, after 5+ years!

6. My strong, generous, wonderful grandma passed away. I drove directly to the airport from my defense to fly home for her funeral. It was nice to be with family I hadn't seen in years and to hear new stories about Nana's life, but her death was fairly sudden and I'm sad that I didn't have more time to spend with her.

7. My immediate families had two weddings and two new babies. (I haven't met S's yet, but R's baby is very sweet and adorable, and that's coming from someone who's really not into babies.) Two siblings also started college, and one of those is now on a mission in Chile.

These kinds of lists tend to make people's lives sound momentous and awesome. So in the interest of avoiding misrepresentation, I will also say that 2013 featured many mundane and/or frustrating moments: a fight with mold in a poorly maintained apartment, a move to a new apartment, lots of dread and procrastination and frustration related to my dissertation, anxiety about jobs and health, and expensive car repairs. But overall it was a year of good experiences and positive transitions. Here's to an adventurous 2014, in which we graduate, search for jobs, and move who knows where!

Want to see where I work?

I thought so.

One of the first things I did after we moved into our apartment was to set up a writing area in our second bedroom. It's a quiet corner filled with essential books, decorated appropriately with poetry and pictures of England, and outfitted with a substantial collection of office supplies as well as a printer (under the desk) and my IKEA chair Jeff (actually Jeff 2; I broke Jeff 1 by leaning too hard on the plastic backrest, then tried to make do with duct tape for a while before admitting I could probably just spring for another $10 chair).

So here's my writing nook:

...and here's where I actually do most of my work:

Not pictured are the stacks of books I often leave on the floor around the couch and the dishes that usually join me at the coffee table for lunch. As you can see, I've noted some of the convenient distractions that surround my work area of choice. I could also have pointed out my phone, although it's not much of a distraction because it's a three-year-old non-smart phone, and the big, comfy blanket my sister made for me.

Okay, so it doesn't seem like the most productive way to work, but I actually work better here than at my desk. Not only is the desk a little too high to sit at comfortably with a non-adjustable chair like Jeff, but when sitting on the couch I have more space to spread out my books and papers and I can look out the window once in a while to feel less isolated. Even when I had an office on campus, I rarely worked there outside of office hours because it was too cold and lonely. My ideal place to work is a coffee shop or a busy part of a library, because the background noise and the feeling of having other people around help me to be more focused and motivated. There are coffee shops just a short bike ride in either direction from my apartment, but I don't take advantage of those alternative work spaces as often as I'd like to. (Partly because I can only drink so much tea and hot chocolate. Also because my computer has to stay plugged in (it has no battery) and sit on an upside-down muffin pan (it overheats easily).)

How about you? Do you work best in quiet environments, or do you like background noise? If you work from home, how do you stay focused (I hear that working in a designated area helps, but I've already failed on that front)?

I live!

While lying awake far too late last night (too much sugar from eating brownies? constant coughing from that cold I can't shake?), I decided I felt like writing again. My old blog, which I lost interest in over the last few years, didn't seem like the right place to start up again, so here I am! Why?

1. Part of me feels a little stressed or guilty every time I write something that isn't my dissertation. But actually, any writing, however unrelated to my work, helps keep my brain in writing mode and makes the words come more easily when I do get around to the diss.
2. I'm living in a place where I know almost no one and have few opportunities to make friends, so I'm feeling disconnected. I want to be better at reaching out and staying in touch with friends and family in a venue other than Facebook, which already knows too much about me and where I'm not comfortable addressing personal or controversial topics. (Yes, I realize I'm complaining about Facebook's creepiness on a Google-owned platform, but I'm choosing my battles. That's a post for another time.)
3. I don't keep a journal, so it would be nice to have some record of what I'm up to and thinking about.
4. For Peter's sake, I should have somewhere to talk through and share my thoughts. Because I spend most of my time alone, I talk his ear off when he's around. True story: Almost every night he'll finish his dinner before I'm even halfway done because I talk so much.

When I was a freshman in college, I named the first incarnation of my blog "Inane Ramblings of an Incurable Cynic" (although the title later cycled through cynical Vonnegut and Beckett references).  I expect Blog 2.0 will be less cynical, possibly still inane. I imagine I'll write a lot about the things I think a lot about: books, food, feminism, travel, politics. But we'll see. Come along if you'd like!

P.S. I hate thinking of blog titles and addresses, so as often happens, I've resorted to literary references for both. Bonus points if you recognize them without googling.