New Year's Reading Resolutions

Emily's New Year's Reading Resolutions:

1. Read more non-fiction.  
2. Read 64 books this year... that's 1 book a week for 52 books, plus an extra book per month, for 12 more books.  If the world ends in December, then I'll make the goal 61 books.
3. Try some new genres.  I don't read many thrillers or mysteries, and I don't frequently read general fiction/literature.

What are your reading goals for 2012?

Worst of 2011

Here are the worst books we read in 2011!

Emma's List:

1. Don't Vote by P.J. O'Rourke
2. Burning Alive by Shannon Butcher
3. How to Dunk a Doughnut by Len Fisher
4. Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
5. Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne

Emily's List:

1. Hush, Hush, by Becca Fitzpatrick
2. Directive 51, by John Barnes (not reviewed here because I couldn't even finish it)
3. Opening Atlantis, by Harry Turtledove
4. Lonely Werewolf Girl, by Martin Millar
5. Little Bird of Heaven, by Joyce Carol Oates (also not reviewed here because I was so bored that I didn't finish the book)

Best of 2011

These are the best books we read in 2011, whether or not they came out this year.

Emma's List:

1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Rock, Paper, Scissors by Len Fisher
3.  The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
4. Legacy of Kings by C.S. Friedman
5. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Emily's List:

1. The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
2. The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson
3. The Dream of Perpetual Motion, by Derek Palmer
4. Running the Books, by Avi Steinberg
5. The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

The Wheel of Time is done!

...mostly. Brandon Sanderson tweeted some time last night that he had finished writing A Memory of Light, the last book in the Wheel of Time series. Now it needs edited and will be published some time next year. Yay!!

Christopher Hitchens 1949 - 2011

The British author and prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens died yesterday, leaving the world a little less interesting and brutally honest.  I didn't always like what he wrote, but he will be missed.

Off Topic: NPR's list of top Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books/Series

I posted earlier about a poll NPR was doing to find out what people thought were the all time best science fiction and fantasy works.

As any self respecting nerd, I have counted how many of these books I have read. My score is only 31! I need to get reading! I can personally recommend several of the books that made it on the list though, including the following:

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

It's also interesting to note how many books on the list I actively disliked! That Goodkind guy's shitty series was on there, as was some others that I thought were fairly mediocre. To each his own, I guess!

What's your score?

Off Topic: Best Science Fiction, Fantasy Books?

NPR is currently running a poll on the best science fiction and fantasy books. Right now, you can comment here with five of your favorite books/ series to be later aggregated into an actual poll. Young adult, romance and horror are specifically excluded but apparently some types of zombies are ok.


Emma's list:

1. The Wheel of Time series by Jordan and Sanderson
2. A Song of Ice and Fire series by Martin
3. World War Z by Brooks (it's totally the virus kind)
4. Acts of Caine series by Stover
5. Coldfire series by Friedman

What are yours? I would love to see our followers' lists here after you vote! (Co-bloggers, feel free to edit this post and append your lists.)

Why I Love My Nook

Emily was asking me why I prefer reading on my Nook to reading paper books and suggested it would make a good topic for a blog post, so here goes!

I never thought I would prefer an eReader, but when my dad gave me a color Nook for Christmas last year I was pleasantly surprised. I think some of my hesitation regarding eReaders was that I dislike Amazon and its Kindle. The Nook, turns out, is pretty awesome! While I have a massive stack of physical books to get through, I intend to buy mostly Nook books going forward.


One reason I prefer the Nook is the massive stack of physical books in my bedroom. They just sort of accumulate way faster than I can read them. It's easier to buy Nook books as-needed and they obviously take up much less space. My shelves are crammed clear full of books I may never read again and it takes up an excessive amount of space.

I thought I would like reading the Nook less than physical books but that hasn't been the case either. The page turning is intuitive and doesn't actually take away from the reading experience. I read in bed a lot and it turns out the Nook is preferable for that. With physical books you have the heavy side and the light side and if you read laying on your side like I do it's a major problem when every other page the heavy side of the book is up! With the Nook I can lay on my preferred side and not worry about supporting a big heavy book with the heavy side in the air.

The backlighting on the Nook is awesomely adjustable and I have had no problem turning it to a low level to read in bed immediately before sleeping or reading it at a higher brightness outside. It's nice not having to have ambient lighting while I'm reading, and makes it easier to fall asleep immediately after I read.

I find the highlighting and note taking features of my Nook to be very helpful. I like making notes and highlights regarding things to touch on in my book reviews, or quotes I like, fun words, etc. I am not the type of person to deface books generally (Aside from a brief period in youth where I enjoyed underlining the words "no doubt" if they came up in a book. I was a big fan.) I don't even like bending the corners so the Nook is perfect for bookmarking and highlighting!

I am pretty hard on books. I read at the gym on the stationary bike and get really gross and sweaty so my gym books get gross spots on the edges. I ruin many fewer books with my Nook. I still haven't figured out how to read it in the bathtub though. Maybe sandwich bags?

I think the main reason, the single biggest reason, a uniquely sufficient reason for using a Nook is the built in dictionary. I love words and learning new words, and until I had this tool I never really thought about how many words I don't know are in stuff I read. Normally I would sort of notice and maybe think I'll go back and look it up (but never do) whereas now I can look up words instantly! So much learning! After reading maybe one or two Nook books I became frustrated by not being able to look things up within normal books. Go figure. Until physical books have built in dictionaries, I think I will prefer my Nook.

I am pretty sure that the Nook color is the ideal eReader for me. While eInk is pretty cool, I actually like the color Nook's backlighting. Plus with a full color screen it's basically a simple tablet computer. It has WiFi allowing me to surf the internet. Considering most of what I would use a tablet for is reading and the internet and most of that use would be Gmail and Facebook, the color Nook is surprisingly sufficient as a tablet!

I definitely prefer the Nook to the Kindle. I hate Amazon, it's evil, but that's a topic for a different blog entry another day. Suffice it to say the Kindle looks like a 1950s kitchen appliance and functions about as well a graphing calculator for things other than reading. Plus, Amazon can't be trusted as the sole purveyor of content for your investment. They've proven that.


Other eReaders I am aware of are similarly inferior to the Nook. Smaller companies don't necessarily last, and when eBooks are mostly really proprietary (boo!!) it's important to have a device that will continue to receive support and a book format that will (probably) continue to exist.

That sort of brings me to my big problem with eReaders. It's like you don't really own the eBooks. You can to a limited extent loan Nook books, but it's sort of a joke. You can't sell them or give them away or rip them into pieces for art projects or set them on fire or anything! If Amazon chooses to delete eBooks off of your Kindle, they can. If you decide you hate the Kindle and want to switch to a Sony device, good luck importing your books over. It is easy to envision scenarios where a person is unable to access or read their collection of eBooks or obtain content for their device. This worries me. I guess it's part of the price you pay for the convenience of reading eBooks. I also hesitate to embrace eReading because of the potential for companies such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble to control what you can and can't read. That scares me.

So that's how I feel about my Nook! I haven't found an eReader that I think is its equal, but I'm sure that day will come. Now I want to write another post regarding all the reasons that I hate Amazon!

Celebrity ghostwriting

The New York Times recently posted an article about the secretive use of ghostwriters among celebrities who aspire to be novelists.  It should surprise no one to hear that celebrities like Snooki, the Kardashians, Hilary Duff, etc depend on professional writers to do the majority of their writing for them.  I have never seen Jersey Shore, and I saw about fifteen minutes of a Kardashians episode while I was at the gym, so I can't exactly claim personal acquaintance with any celebrity who's recently released a novel of their own.  However, I do know that a real talent for fiction writing is a pretty rare thing, especially a talent so great that you can score a book deal with a reputable publisher, so I'd be very skeptical to hear that any of these celebrities did all of the work on their own.

One of the concerns expressed in the NYT articles was whether this open secret in the publishing industry can be considered dishonest, from the perspective of the consumer.  For whatever reason, publishers seem to be more willing to hide a ghostwriter on a fiction project, while non-fiction works by celebrities usually have a second author listed clearly on the cover. 

If you were a celebrity author, would you accept the services of a ghostwriter?  As a reader, are you more or less likely to read a celebrity's novel if a ghostwriter is clearly acknowledged?

On Twi-washing

I think it doesn't need to be said that Emma and I really enjoy reading, and we always have.  As teenagers, neither of us were the type to need coercion to read a good book.  However, it's become increasingly clear to me that perhaps we are the exceptions to the rule.  I certainly think that reading a diverse range of materials is good for the mind... it improves vocabulary and language skills, encourages learning beyond a classroom setting, and often provides important cultural perspectives.  So, it seems like any tool to encourage teenagers to read more would be a good thing.

Lately, however, I've been noticing a strange marketing trend aimed for teenage girls:  Twi-washing.  In other words, making everything look relevant to Twilight.  This trend was most obvious to me when I recently saw some copies of Jane Eyre in bookstores, no doubt released to generate interest in the new movie.

For those of you completely unfamiliar with the Twilight series, this is what the original cover art for Twilight looks like:

To me, it's pretty obvious that Jane Eyre was repackaged for the sole purpose of making it catch the eye of the Twi-hards.  The two new covers certainly follow the same motif... eye-catching red against a monochromatic background.  This change is particularly obvious when you consider what most editions of Jane Eyre have on the cover:

OK, so the traditional cover art is maybe not the most eye-catching, but it at least conveys the idea that this is a period piece, a classic from many many years ago.  The new cover art for the book really doesn't reflect the plot of the book at all.  The motifs worked for the Twilight series... the choice of red as a central color is obvious, and the particular symbols on each installment in the series make sense, when you consider the plots.  For Jane Eyre, however, it seems like the new covers are odd choices.  For example, I'm pretty sure that 1840s working class women did not wear bright red nail polish and lipstick.

Certainly it's a good thing to encourage people to read at least a few of the classics, particularly books like Jane Eyre, which was considered ahead of its time, due to Jane's unusual competence, intelligence and independence (unlike Twilight, with a female protagonist who feels like she came straight out of 1950).  However, implying that the book is much like the Twilight series feels somewhat disingenuous to me.  Despite the fact that both share a theme of love overcoming obstacles, I feel like any further parallels between the two books are lacking.  For the girl who opens Jane Eyre and expects a simple, straightforward story like Twilight, there might be a lot of disappointments in store.  First of all, it's a longer, more difficult read, both because of its content and because of the writing style, which very much feels like the mid-1800s.  And what happens when you consider classics that couldn't easily get the Twilight treatment?  I challenge readers to come up with a legitimate way to Twi-wash Great Expectations, The Count of Monte Cristo, etc.  What happened to encouraging people to read books based on the book's own merits?

I suppose the Twilight craze has some good merits... at least teenage girls are reading something.  And maybe their love of Edward/Jacob/whatever will encourage them to study harder for the SAT (despite the fact that Bella threw away her promising academic future so she could play Stepford Wives for Edward).  It's worrying to me, though, that they're so crazy about Twilight that they'd only be tempted to read material that is essentially a variation on a theme (vampires in love OMG!).  It's also worrying that so many people only read books so that they can be prepared to watch the movie adaptation later (not like that would really help you with the Harry Potter series, which seems to just be adding in whatever they want).

It seems to me that there are a lot of good YA options out there... options that might address deeper subject matter and have more complicated plots and characters.  It sounds like the Hunger Games books are good options (I've never read them).  Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels are good books for teenagers, and no one could ever accuse those novels of being simple fluff pieces.  I know that I was pretty influenced by books that I read as a teenager, and it seems worrying that so many people are looking at Bella from Twilight as a good model for what they want their lives to be, post-high school.

What other young adult novels would you recommend to bring a reluctant reader into the world of books?

Max Brooks is Super Awesome!

We don't normally do a whole lot of non-review posts here, but I definitely wanted to interrupt the normal reviewing to share this! I went to the Phoenix Comicon yesterday, and the highlight was definitely seeing Max Brooks, author of World War Z (excellent book, I highly recommend it), the Zombie Survival Guide and others. He was super awesome! Here is me looking demonic after having a book signed.


I bought a comic book of his called Recorded Attacks and had him sign it... he wrote "Mark Twain can suck it" because I told him he was my favorite author. That amuses me wayyyy too much! We also heard him talk later. He was so funny! He is really, really amusing to listen to. He didn't hesitate to make fun of fans who were asking really stupid questions. The worst was probably "what type of zombie would you NOT want to get attacked by?" He was fairly harsh and all kinds of hilarious talking at Comicon.

Other highlights of comicon included amazing Star Wars costumes, a picture with Wil Wheaton and cool booths selling nerd stuff. We are definitely going back next year with costumes!

Edit: check out this short story about vampires v. zombies by Max Brooks.

The Best Books I Read in 2010

A little late for a wrap up post, but here goes! Read the reviews if you want to see more about the books, my summaries here re admittedly cursory.


1. SuperFreakanomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner - economics, politics, humor and insight. Excellent book!
2. Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Really interesting stories from one of the most remarkable women alive.
3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Exciting dystopian, young adult story!
4. Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman - Superfabulous sci-fi.
5. Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey - SHARKS.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin release date is set!!

I just read today on George R.R. Martin's blog that the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series will be released on July 12, 2011. YAY!!!!

I can never decide if Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series or Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is my favorite thing ever. It's tough. I love them both so much, and can reread them over and over and derive more out of them each time. In fact, I think I will reread the other Song of Ice and Fire books (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows) in preparation. Finally, some fantasy that won't disappoint me!



It's such a fantastic series! If you like epic fantasy, political intrigue or dragons, this series should be read immediately. If you don't, this series might sell you on it. On the spectrum of violence and the darker side of human nature, it is almost exactly between Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. Although I guess if you know where on that spectrum Goodkind and Jordan are, you probably don't need to be told about Martin!

An analysis of my personality via my bookshelf

In a recent article in the New York Times, Geoff Nicholson writes about the sort of conclusions you can draw (erroneously or not) based on the books in a person's collection. After discussing the more unusual parts of his own collection (Hitler's Mein Kampf, and books by Ann Coulter), he discusses what kinds of books criminals tend to favor, and wonders if that really is a reflection of their character.

He concludes with an analysis of his own bookshelf:

So, if you actually did examine my bookshelves you could probably reach some reasonably accurate conclusions about my age, class, nationality, sexuality and so on. You would see that I’m not some dangerous, volatile, politically extreme nut job. Rather, you would decide that I’m a bookish, cosmopolitan sophisticate, with broad, quirky and unpredictable interests, a taste for literary experimentation, a sense of history, a serious man with a sense of humor and a wide range of sympathies. At any rate, that’s what I’d like you to think.

Looking at my own book collection, I'm tempted to guess what conclusions a stranger might draw about me. The first notable thing is that it's divided between fiction and nonfiction, and then categorized by author. I'm told that this is not normal, but I can think of numerous friends who do the same things with their book collections. Birds of a feather, I guess!

From the prominent themes in my nonfiction collection (but not counting my shelves of textbooks), it's pretty clear that I'm a vegetarian with an acute interest in sustainable food practices, as discussed by such authors as Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Jonathan Safran Foer. I also have a clear affinity for books on environmentalism, both from the philosophical and the scientific perspectives; this aspect of the collection is accented by a fairly significant number of books on natural history.

Moving on to my fiction collection, it's pretty clear that I tend to favor the speculative fiction genres, primarily in the form of classical science fiction and high fantasy. Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, and Frank Herbert take up a pretty hefty chunk of my bookcase, as do authors like Terry Brooks, Diana Wynne Jones, J.R.R. Tolkien and Tad Williams. In addition to the high fantasy, there's some low fantasy (J.K. Rowling) and some fantasy books that straddle the line between tasteful and trashy beach reads (Charlaine Harris, alright, don't judge me). Most of the occurrences of actual "literature" are either literary works that have an element of science fiction or fantasy (Margaret Atwood, Tolkien) or are pretty recent publications. Looking at the conditions of each book makes it pretty clear what phases I've gone through, as a reader. Watership Down's cover is taped on. Pride and Prejudice is still full of the notations I made in it in 8th grade, and the spine is evidence of the multiple times I've reread it. One of my Diana Wynne Jones books has a crack up the spine. Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass is in desperate need of a new cover, and The Golden Compass needs to be replaced because its cover fell off. Harry Potter 2-4 have seen better days, as their covers are tattered, pages are bent, and other characteristics that just give them an overall dilapidated sort of appearance. HP1 is only in good condition because it was replaced when the original copy quite literally split into three pieces in my hands. I have three complete sets of The Lord of the Rings: a cheap set of paperbacks, a special edition set of paperbacks with Tolkien's original cover artwork on them, and a set of leather-bound volumes printed on acid free paper with gilded edges. I also have The Book of Lost Tales 1 &2 and Unfinished Tales and The Atlas of Middle Earth in the leather-bound volumes.

I guess my bookshelf might indicate that I'm a tree hugging hippie with a tenuous grasp on reality. I suppose that is a semi-accurate explanation of who I am, especially when the textbook shelf is added to the discussion. All of my textbooks are about geology, hydrology and geophysics, and the vast majority of them assume that the reader has had at least 3 semesters of calculus and 3 more semesters of upper-level math beyond that. So, not only am I a delusional hippie, I clearly don't get out much and probably have a fairly crappy social life. OK, yeah, that's very true. You could also interpret my bookshelf by saying that I am extremely well-informed about a handful of issues, I guess.

There are, of course, things about me that are not reflected in my bookshelf (yet!). I am interested in US politics, though I don't know if I could stomach reading hundreds and hundreds of pages about most topics. I have a keen interest in public health and the latest research in health matters; when I scroll through the New York Times site every day, the first section I check is the Health section, followed by the US news section. I really enjoy historical fiction, especially from Tudor England or the American Revolutionary War. I like reading about the history of the Catholic Church... not for pro- or anti-Catholic reasons, just because I think the Church's trajectory over the centuries has been pretty fascinating. And, if you look at my pile of books that are yet to be read, it's pretty clear that my tastes are changing. I'm moving away from fantasy at a pretty quick pace (though my last two book purchases were fantasy), and I'm moving more towards main-stream fiction and unusual science fiction. My nonfiction pile is also becoming more varied... although it still has books on environmental history and natural phenomena, it also has books on psychology, linguistics, US history, and world history.

Take a look at your own bookshelf... what does your book collection say (or not say) about who you are?

Top five scenes that made the transition from page to screen well

Top Five Friday

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This week: Top five scenes that made the book-to-movie transition well

Do you have a favorite book scene that was adapted for the screen particularly well? If so, share it on your blog with the icon above, or post your favorite in the comments!

Emily's list:
1. The Breaking of the Fellowship, from The Lord of the Rings. Despite the fact that this got shifted from The Two Towers (book) to The Fellowship of the Ring (movie), it really captured the tone of the scene. The dialogue and acting really brought out each character's motives for going in different directions. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get an Aragorn/Legolas duet lamenting Boromir's death, though.
2. Lucy Pevensie stepping through the wardrobe for the first time, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I just thought this scene was really well done, and it looked exactly as I imagined it!
3. Coraline's introduction to Other Mother and Other Father in the parallel world beyond the little door. The filmmakers did a nice job balancing Coraline's wonder and delight at this new world, with the sort of underlying vague creepiness of it all.
4. Lizzy turning down Darcy's first marriage proposal, Pride & Prejudice (BBC). In addition to staying quite loyal to the original dialogue, this scene was well acted. As a crucial turning point in the story, I'm glad it got a good treatment.
5. The Council of Elrond, from The Lord of the Rings. There was a LOT of material to cram into this scene, but Peter Jackson and company managed to do it pretty well without making it feel crammed or rushed. Most of the information presented in this section of the book is too crucial to leave out, and the script nicely included basically everything that you really needed to know. I was a little sad to not have Bilbo there, though.

dishonorable mentions: 5 WORST scenes to make the book to movie transition (because I couldn't resist making this list)
1. Any scene with the ridiculous flying dementors in the Harry Potter movie franchise.
2. The ending of The Golden Compass. Really? We couldn't stick with the original ending? Do all endings have to be happy? Apparently.
3. The entirety of Twilight. Bella and Edward were pretty real, if flawed, characters in the novel. In the movies, I'm pretty sure they're portrayed by dead fish with faces painted on them.
4. All of the crucial scenes in Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire that were apparently considered irrelevant to the movies. After all, it's only plot continuity; who worries about THAT in Hollywood?
5. "Go home, Sam", from The Return of the King (movie). This kind of doesn't count because at no point was it a real scene in the book. This scene just about gave me a heart attack in the movie theater.

Sidenote: Books in a 21st-century world

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an interesting piece, "In Bookstore's End, No Joy for Sidewalk Seller". It's a short article, and worth reading. The subject of the article, Charles Mysak. Mr. Mysak is a street vendor in New York City, selling used books on the sidewalk. His entire inventory fits in his car. Down the street, a Barnes and Noble is going out of business; his sidewalk business with the tiny inventory will have outlasted the major bookstore chain. Mr. Mysak laments the fact that in today's modern world, even Barnes and Noble (pretty cosmopolitan, as far as bookstores go) can't survive. Instead, people flock to the Apple store, and wander by his little stand with their ear buds in and their iPods turned up high, oblivious to everything else.

Given the recent successes of things like the Kindle, the Nook, and other digital book readers, it almost seems like bookstores, large and small, are doomed to a slow death. Actually, given the amount of money that people seem to be willing to spend on movies, music, DVDs, high-tech TVs, cutting edge gaming consoles, etc., and given the constant influx of information available to anyone with an internet connection, you kind of have to wonder if the act of reading-for-understanding is becoming obsolete. Why bother reading something when it's easier to see it in a movie or watch it on television? When you read news on the internet, on most popular news sites like msnbc.com, the articles are short, to the point, and lacking in much detail or analysis. More traditional publications (such as the New York Times) still seem to cling to the belief that their readers should learn something from their articles; newspapers like the NYT are keeping the vital art of investigative journalism alive.

Despite the prevalence of technology and technology-related-entertainment, I don't think I'll ever let go of my preference for books. To me, an important part of the reading experience is having the book itself in my hands. I like the feel of the paper and the act of turning the page; I like the smell of books both old and new; I like seeing how font styles change over time. No matter how advanced the technology in the screens of the e-readers becomes, it won't ever be able to replicate the experience of reading a real book.

In regards to reading vs watching it on a screen, half the fun of reading a story is forming an image of it in your mind. If you're depending on a movie studio to supply every part of the story for you, from the set to the character's faces, a lot of the creative process for the reader is lost. Even reading a book first, and seeing a movie later, involves a fair amount of tainting. No matter how many times I reread Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, I'm always going to have Chris Columbus' vision of Hogwarts and Peter Jackson's vision of Hobbiton in my head. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I sort of miss having a fluid minds-eye vision of my own in my head. Besides, the art of showing the reader a setting or a character through words is a pretty subtle, nuanced art; a lot of that is lost in the translation from page to film. With regards to non-fiction works, detail is everything, and you'll always be able to cram more into the pages of the book or newspaper then you will into a news segment on TV or a documentary. Again, the act of reading for personal enrichment also adds a lot to the reading side of the argument.

The irony of my choice of medium for this blog entry is not lost on me. I'm not trying to condemn progress, or insist that everyone read and never watch television. I just think that people's lives would be just a little bit better if everyone just read a little more, even if it's only a page or two of a novel every night before bed.

The New York Times article ends with a quote from Mr. Mysak. I like the quote so much that I think I'll end with it here:

“It is apparent that we have a real serious issue, that the life of the mind has been in decline for some time now” ... “Ignorance and indolence is the primary problem. If you take care of the mind, everything else follows.”

Top Five Friday: Top Five Couples in Books

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Because both Emily and Emma have gotten engaged this summer, we thought we would list our top five favorite couples in books!

Want to play? Post your top five couples from books in your blog. You can also link back here and comment to get your link posted here.

Top Five Friday: Top Five Couples in Books.
Warning: Prepare for minor spoilers!

Emma's List
1. Lyra and Will from Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials. Really romantic, really tragic. I cried a lot. I don't want to spoil everything though!

2. Roland and Susan from Stephen King's Dark Tower. This series began and ended with the Susan storyline for me. Again, really freaking romantic and sad. The books after Wizard and Glass in the series are totally not worth reading, but that book was sort of amazing.

3. Jon and Ygritte from George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. Ygritte was sort of an aggravating character, but Jon's love for her and how he handled the relationship was really compelling.

4. Sarene and Raoden from Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. The way these characters' relationship progressed was really great. I thought these two were some of Sanderson's stronger characters across any of his books thus far.

5. Irulan and Paul in Frank Herbert's Dune Series. OK, mostly just Irulan. She was really cool and her caring for Paul despite his actions was really powerful.

Emily's List
1. Beren and Luthien from various and sundry works by J.R.R. Tolkien. After Frodo, quite possibly the most significant characters in all of Tolkien's work. Not only is it a classic, tragic love story, it affects the history of all of Middle Earth thereafter.

2. Elizabeth and Darcy, from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Because no list of famous literary couples would be complete without them.

3. Lune and Michael Deven, from Marie Brennan's Midnight Never Come. Similar to Beren and Luthien, this is a love affair between an immortal woman and a mortal man. Unlike Luthien, Lune does not have the option of choosing death over an eternity without the man she loved. She has to go on living, with the hurt of her lover's death never really fading away.

4. Tag and Cy, from Gabriel King's The Wild Road. I love cats, and I love Tag and Cy. I guess it was never really explicitly stated that they were a couple, but it was sort of implied. Either way, I love these two cats individually and together! (I write this with a cat in my lap)

5. Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. Hahahaha you thought I was serious.

5. Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. Despite some questionable character behavior on Remus' part in HP7, I love Remus and Tonks together.

Top Five Friday: Books You Wish You Never Read

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Some books have no redeeming qualities and are an utter waste of time. Others put ideas and images in your brain that you wish were not there. This week we are listing five books we wish we'd never read! Want to play? Post your top five books you wish you never read list in your blog! You can also link back here and comment to get your link posted here.

Top Five Friday: Top Five Books You Wish You Never Read

Emma's List:
1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. See review.

2. The Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. This book and its sequels are full of rip-offs of better stories, terrible writing, inane characters and way too much sexual violence. They are both a waste of time, and contain can't-unsee imagery.

3. Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens. I liked Hitchens just fine when I read his other books, now I sort of dislike him. This autobiography is boring, full of name dropping, and makes Hitchens appear to be an pompous asshole.

4. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. See review.

5. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. This book was recommended to me when I was complaining that I couldn't find fantasy or science fiction novels without egregious amounts of rape in them. Other than my friend who recommended it apparently, anyone who knows this series understands that the setting is all about egregious amounts of rape. I mostly didn't enjoy this book because of the brutality and sexual violence, but I also couldn't really get excited about the story in general. It didn't help that for whatever reason I accidentally started reading the second book of the series before the first. Meh. This book sticks in my brain like a virus and I wish it would go away.

Emily's List
1. Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. I don't care if some people think the book/movie were the BEST THING EVER, the fact remains that it's the true story of a kid who died because he was a dumb-ass. And since he died alone in the Alaskan wilderness because he knew absolutely nothing about wilderness survival, what do we do? We come up with a book and movie talking about how great this kid is. I have never seen the movie, but the whole time I read the book, I was mostly wanting to reach into the page and punch the kid for being stupid.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All those years and years and years of waiting, and that's the best JK Rowling could come up with?

3. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. Not that I had a choice about reading this, as it was assigned reading for my 10th grade accelerated English class. I just profoundly did not enjoy it, and having to do all of the related writing assignments didn't help.

4. Solitude, by Robert Kull. See review.

5. Empress, by Karen Miller. I'd heard good things about this author and series from authors I respect in the fantasy genre. Unfortunately, the plot is boring, and none of the characters are particularly people you want to care for. Just because you had an awful, awful childhood doesn't mean you can storm around and make everyone else suffer in terrible ways.

Top Five Friday: Underutilized Characters

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Some authors write an amazing character and then completely neglect them. It's very upsetting. This week we are focusing on the top five characters underutilized by their authors. Want to play? Post your top five underutilized character list in your blog! You can also link back here and comment to get your link posted here.

Top Five Friday: Top Five Underutilized Characters:
Emily's List
1. Remus Lupin, from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. I seriously love Remus. I love the dichotomy presented in his character, between his kind, gentle nature and his werewolf nature (I refuse to consider that a spoiler. If you haven't read HP3 yet, you're never going to). After book 3, I thought he'd show up more, since he clearly cared for Harry's well being, but apart from really brief appearances in books 5 and 6, and some very lame appearances in book 7, he sort of vanished from the Harry Potter-verse. Very disappointing.

2. Christabel, from Tad Williams' Otherland quartet. The majority of this series takes place within a virtual world, which the characters have accessed by connecting their brains directly to the internet of the future. Christabel is one of the few important characters that we see only in the real world. We don't really learn much about her, as she's more of a plot device, but I would have liked to learn a bit more about her.

3. Any of the Saecular characters ("Extras") from Neal Stephenson's Anathem. I really, really enjoyed all of the characters who were from the maths in this book, but I would have liked to have known the extramuros characters just as much. It's clear that the mathic world is something of a mystery to the Extras, and most of the story is told from the mathic perspective. Also, I'd have liked to have learned more about Jules Verne Durand, though I can't explain why without giving away hugely important details about the ending.

4. Celeborn, from J.R.R. Tolkien's various writings on Middle Earth, most notably in The Silmarillion, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King. Poor Celeborn, always relegated to the backseat. His history is unclear... he just sort of popped up in time to marry Artanis, who he soon gave the name Galadriel. His most obvious importance is his role as Celebrian's father, and therefore Arwen's grandfather. Even in the movies, all he does is sort of hover behind his wife, making grim faces and talking realllllly slowly. However, I think it's important to note that he is, in many ways, an important foil to the character of Galadriel (and no one will dispute Galadriel's overall importance!). Especially in the context of his role as Lord of Lothlorien, he represents a very different sect of elvendom than most of the other prominent (Noldor) elves do. Not dependent on the rings, not someone who ever traveled to the Undying Lands and saw the light of the trees, he's very much an elf of Middle Earth, and I feel that deserves some attention, particularly in the events of The Lord of the Rings, when the time of the elves is coming to a close.

5. Death of Rats, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. SQUEAK.

Emma's List
1. TenSoon from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. I don't know what it was about this character, but his chapters were my favorite and I could not get enough of his sections. His entire race was probably the most interesting in the series and wasn't focused on as much as I would have liked. TenSoon particularly had interesting perspective and backstory. His relationship with Vin was my favorite part of the second book. Hey Sanderson, can you please write a Mistborn prequel about TenSoon?

2. Asha Greyjoy from George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. Honestly I could have chosen any number of characters from this series. All the characters are super interesting and complicated. Asha comes to mind because she is a badass and is probably doing all kinds of interesting things in the background while her brothers are being tools.

3. Jahar Narishma from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. He seems like a more complicated character than his screen time would suggest. I am holding out hope that he will have a major and awesome part to play in the final books!

4. Ciani from C.S. Friedman's Coldfire series. Ciani was really, really interesting at first. Then she needed to get all rescued and stuff and just got progressively weaker in character as the story went on. It could have been so different!

5. Talaan from Matthew Woodring Stover's Heroes Die. I have a big old soft spot in my heart for female warriors so Talaan naturally appealed to me. She was a fairly simple character, but it was really easy to enjoy her character and perspective. I wish she had gotten more screen time!

Top Five Friday: Top Five Authors Who Should Have Quit While They Were Ahead:

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This week we are listing authors who continued to write their series long after they were interesting, or authors who just ran out of original ideas a loooong time ago. If you want to participate, grab the code above, write your top five authors who should have quit while they were ahead in your blog and comment here so I can post a link to your blog!

Top Five Friday: Top Five Authors Who Should Have Quit While They Were Ahead:

Emma's List
1. Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game was amazing. It truly is one of the most fascinating, original and important science fiction books ever. Definitely among the very most enjoyable to read. But the series degenerates. Fast and hard. He wrote way, way too many sequels and spin-offs. I am sure they are very profitable but he apparently ceased to have anything interesting to say other than what was in Ender's Game.

2. Frank Herbert. Dune was a very intense book with a fast plot and interesting characters. The same cannot be said for its sequels. Frank Herbert apparently outdid himself with Dune. The rest of the series is pretty... meh. I actually liked his son's prequel books quite a bit but it was a chore to get through the rest of the Dune books, and totally not worth it.

3. Stephen King. Certainly one of the most prolific authors of our time. I have found very few of his books to be worth reading, personally. The ones I enjoyed were the first four books of his Dark Tower series. I got very attached to the characters, the plot was interesting and using the term "lobstrosity" just warmed my heart. The last three books, however, were heinous. Really bad. I wish I had stopped with book four. The story quickly faded into page long descriptions of snot, (no, I did not make that up) self-insertion (not that either) and lack of coherency. Very disappointing.

4. Terry Goodkind. I just wish he had never started writing. His Sword of Truth series is the most violent crap I have ever read in my life. I think he may have missed his true calling as a serial killer and/or rapist based on the themes in his book.

5. Sue Grafton. I don't really mind her writing too much. Like many authors she repeats stuff. A lot. She has a theme, it works, she sticks to it. I read several when I was younger and then stopped at some point. Meh.



Emily's list. Spoilers in #2 and 4.

1. Frank Herbert, for basically the same reasons Emma listed, though I think reading up through God Emperor of Dune is still worthwhile.

2. Robert Jordan. I enjoyed the first four or so. I read up through book 8 or 9 or somewhere around there. I lost track because they all blurred together with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of people wandering around, Rand marrying way too many people, Perrin having a really awful wife, and Mat doing nothing but flirting with girls. Also, way too many descriptions of men staring at women's ankles. When the books are people wandering around for 600 pages and then there's a big battle and then we start all over again in the next book, I get bored. Now that Brandon Sanderson is writing them, I am slightly more interested but by this point I'd have to go re-read the whole series and get refreshed and caught up, and that just about kills my interest.

3. Douglas Adams. I loved the first two books, liked the third, and kind of wish I hadn't read the rest. Mostly Harmless was not a good read.

4. J.K. Rowling, for a few reasons: a) 7 books later, the biggest twist she could come up with was "Harry has to die"? b) nothing happened in book 7. c) That epilogue was awful. Awfulawfulawful.

5. Charlaine Harris. The last few books in the Southern Vampire series have not been all that good. Lots of random backstory, with the entire plot crammed into the last 50 pages. I still like (most) of the characters a lot, and I still want to know what happens to them, but the last few books have just been really weak on storyline.