The Readventurer

A couple of weeks ago I did a post on my favorite podcasts. Although that post did not particularly take off, I am still determined to turn at least some book-minded people in that direction.

The new podcast I recently discovered and want to talk briefly about today is Sara Zarr's new podcasting venture This Creative Life.

I am a massive Sara Zarr fan, so it is no wonder I am interested in her blog and, basically, everything she has to say. But this is not the only reason why I am attracted to This Creative Life so much. Although I have no writing aspirations whatsoever, the writing, creative process itself has always been fascinating to me. I have come across authors who can churn out books in a matter of weeks and some, like Sara Zarr herself, spend years polishing one slight book. Why is the process of writing so different for different people? Why do those who feel like it is an extremely strenuous and daunting process still want to continue on writing? Sara's podcast is dedicated exactly to this topic - how do different authors approach their writing, how the deal with bumps along the writing road, how they handle the lack of inspiration, etc.

There are only 2 episodes out so far in This Creative Life, a podcast which Sara intends to be a bi-weekly feature.

The first one is a conversation with Tara Altebrando. Apparently, Zarr and Altebrando are working on a joint project (I did not know that!).

You can download their conversation here:

This Creative Life - Episode 1 - Tara Altebrando

The second episode is even more interesting. Did you know that Stephanie Perkins had a bit of a creative black hole experience while writing Lola and the Boy Next Door? It was so serious that she had to push back publication of her 3rd book a year.

You can download their conversation here:

This Creative Life - Episode 2 - Stephanie Perkins

If you are interested in creative live of authors at least a little bit, I highly recommend this podcast.

You can subscribe to the podcast's feed HERE (although this link works in a glitchy way for me), or just download the episodes into your iTunes via the links above.

Jennifer at Literate Housewife is running a feature called The Armchair Audies. Every year, the Audio Publishers Association (APA)  nominates 5 audiobook productions for each of their 28 categories. The number of hours it would take to listen to all of the nominees and predict winners would be absolutely daunting so The Armchair Audies provides a vehicle through which bloggers can be involved and try to predict the winners in each category by the time the Audie winners are announced in June. Each blogger signs up to listen to all the nominees in one specific category and then predicts the winner. Since all three of us listen to a huge number of audiobooks, I thought this would be a fabulous opportunity to get involved and since our favored genres on audio (fantasy, sci-fi, fiction, literary fiction, paranormal and teen) were already taken, we've decided to listen to all the books in the mystery category. I've listened to quite a few crime novels on audio so I'm excited at the prospect and I hope all three of us will discover a new author, series, or narrator from this endeavor. Here are the nominees:

Our taste in books really runs the gamut so I don't think any of these books are outside our comfort zone. I've accidentally listened to a later installment in a series before (Michael Robotham's Shatter) so I'm not too worried about some of these being part of larger series. (One is #9!) However, I suppose we'll see how that affects our interest. Overall, I'm confident that we'll have a lot to say about each of them and hopefully provide enough information for each of us and each of our readers to predict the likely winner in the mystery category. Now on to acquiring them all!

Just like the vast majority of reading addicts out there, my to-read list is completely out of control. I always admire those readers who can sort their lists into specific categories and move through them with methodical determination.  Me, I like to treat mine like a sort of shapeless, bottomless sack.  Like a book-bag of holding, if you will. Whenever I come across a book that looks interesting (at library book sales, thrift stores, the library, amazon, book blogs, goodreads…), I’ll just chuck it in there.

And then I inevitably forget all about it.  Months later, I’ll come across the same book mentioned in a review from someone I trust and go to add it…only to realize that it’s already on my list (and has been for over a year).  Or alternately, I’ll attempt for once to use my to-read list for its intended purpose and realize that I don’t remember adding about twenty of the books on there.  And that is why I desperately need help.  

So, in an effort to get myself on track and follow in the footsteps of The Readventurer’s own Flannery, I will now attempt to organize the 110 Books That I Have Every Intention of Reading Next (Part Deux).

First up: curse-breaking. These are the books that I’ve attempted to read - not once, not twice, but a few times.  Each time I think, yes this is it!  This is the time that I make it through!  And then I don’t.  And then they just go back to languishing on my shelf.  And it’s not that I don’t enjoy them while I’m reading them.  I do!  I enjoy them quite a lot!  But something always interferes.  Something mysterious and out of my hands and not at all to do with my book promiscuity.  I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I believe the following books are cursed!

Since my two daughters have come into my life, I’ve been setting aside children’s, middle-grade, and young adult books for them to read when they’re ready.   Here are some that I’d like to get to (possibly in mother-daughter readalongs).  And before you ask – no, I seriously haven’t read any of these (seriously)!

23.  Heidi by Johanna Spyri
24.  A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
25.  Stuart Little by E.B. White
26.  The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
27.  Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
28.  The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
29.  The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
30.  Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
31.  The Lottie Project by Jacqueline Wilson
32.  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I love getting recommendations from the Queens of YA Reviews on goodreads (you know who you are). Here are some that I haven’t gotten around to yet:

Of course, I am actually 30 years old so I do like to read adult literature occasionally.  Here are some great recommendations I’ve gotten for adult books (50% of which are from Tatiana…the woman is kind of a genius at recommendations):

Two genres that I rarely read anything from are nonfiction and graphic novels, and in the next few year(s) I’d love to try and expand my horizons a little bit.  Here are a few that interest me:

And now that these have all been taken out and organized...my bottomless sack is looking a bit more shapeless than usual.  Bring on the recommendations!  What did I miss?  Go on and tell me.  I'll chuck them in and forget them...until April of 2015 when I inevitably do this all over again.

**And yes, I was actually kidding there. 

Forgive me if what I am about to talk about is utterly obvious. I am not particularly computer savvy (you can ask Catie or Flannery to confirm this sad fact), therefore it is no surprise that I learned of podcasting very, very recently. So, while writing this post, I am operating under an assumption that you are not aware of this awesome new (um, the term coined in 2004;) source of audio content, just like I was not just a few months ago.

As a reader who listens to A LOT of audio books (that is how I keep my read books numbers high), I am always in a search for new, preferably free, ways of getting my hands on audio entertainment. My first encounter with podcasting happened via accidentally glancing at one of my Goodreads.com friend's conversation in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy group. 

Here it is - my first source of mainly nerdy content. Escape Pod podcast is a great place to land if you are looking for science fiction. The founders of this magazine claim to bring its subscribers short stories from some of today’s best science fiction stories, and they are not lying. A wide variety of critically acclaimed shorts are presented here, and (mostly) well narrated too.

Any book lover will appreciate this cool story - Surviving the eBookalypse by Randy Henderson. Imagine that digital books in fact ruin publishing world as we know - piracy is so rampant that writers are forced to seek out their personal sponsors who they attract by reading them excerpts from their works, in person, in confined and soundproof spaces where audio/video pirating is virtually impossible. Life is tough, brutally competitive for writers, they have to fight for each and every reader. With so many self-published writers these days such future does not sound that far fetched. This story is funny too.

If you are looking for classics, LibriVox is a perfect place for you. This site's goal is to provide free audiobooks of the works available in the public domain (basically, anything published before 1923). It is a volunteer project, so you should adjust your quality expectations accordingly. From my experience, just like with the professionally recorded audio books, the quality varies. I recommend checking out the recording of The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton - beautifully narrated.

For lovers of the "serious" contemporary fiction, there are two great podcasts - The New Yorker Fiction Podcast and Guardian Books Podcast.

Stories offered on this podcast are all read by famous writers and are followed by thoughtful discussions.

Guardian Books Podcast has a wider variety of materials - interviews, discussions, reading, a book club. Guardian introduced me to one of the best books I have read this year - Lauren Beukes' Zoo City in its Science Fiction Now and Tomorrow discussion.

And, finally, one last podcast I am going to mention. It actually has nothing to do with books and reading. It is Entertainment Weekly's InsideTV Podcast. Yep, I listen to it because it is funny and here they talk about Downton Abbey. If you are not hooked on this British costumed soap, you are missing out!

What about you? Do you listen to podcasts? And if you do, can you recommend me something interesting? I am going to pretend my iPod is not full enough already.

We all have them: books we pretend we’ve read; books so covered in the dust of good intentions that we’ve forgotten we already own two copies *cough*The Jungle*cough*; those awful books glaring at us from the nightstand. I spend a lot of time browsing the internet looking at lists of things, especially book-related things and those lists are all well and good, but they are basically meaningless to me. Does this mean I won’t try to read all the National Book Award, Pulitzer, Printz, and Newbery award winners? Hell no, that is very much still on my agenda. I guess when I said "meaningless" one sentence ago I merely meant of lesser importance than my own handmade and extremely well-thought-out list. Yeah, let’s go with that. I actually sat down and looked through my books and my to-be-read lists to see what I had and to analyze my intentions and objectives. A high priority for me is cutting down the number of stunned looks from people who find out I haven’t read something. 

Exhibit A: 

1.     The last two Twilight books. I never finished these because I was so bored by the plot of New Moon that the thought of continuing on felt like I was signing up for a voluntary colonoscopy. If I wanted to read about a teenager who can do nothing but mope around for an entire book, I’d look into a mirror and tell myself to get a life because I should never want to read about that. Nevertheless, I HEAR that books 3 and 4 are better and though it is depressing to me, a lot of people want to talk about this series. I’d prefer it if all those people adapted to me and read better books but we all know the universe doesn’t work that way. So I will read these two books.

Exhibit B:

2.     The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor: This is the one book I am most chickenshit about. I’ve been hearing about this since I was released from my mother’s womb and not so coincidentally, I’ve also been dreading it since then. What if I don’t like the stories of the woman I was named for? Does it get any more embarrassing than that? I’ve made it 28 years but I can’t make it another while actually considering myself a respectable, well-read person. Stay tuned on this one.  

Another high priority is getting through the books on my shelf that make my heart hurt when I look at them: GIFTS. My biggest hurdle in this arena will be motivating myself to read more nonfiction. My dad always buys me books related to my interests, for sure. But they are also primarily nonfiction books and it is so much easier for me to just shelve them and get back to my genre fiction. Here are some of my gift books from the list:

3.     Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4.     Solovki by Roy Robson 
5.     Emperor of All Maladies by  Siddhartha Mukherjee 
6.     Ireland by Frank Delaney
7.     Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Next up? Series I’ve started and need to finish or catch up on. In some cases, this just means one book. In others, it means I’ve majorly dropped the ball and need to run the entire length of the field to catch up. These are some of my slacking series:

8.     The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde (1 behind)
9.     The Grimspace/Sirantha Jax series by Ann Aguirre (4 soon to be 5 behind)
10.  The Newflesh series by Mira Grant (1 soon to be 2 behind)
11.  The Native Star series by M.K. Hobson (1 behind)
12.  The Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand (1 behind)
13.  The Baker Street Irregulars series by Robert Newman (8 to finish)
14.  The Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French (2 soon to be 3 behind)
15.  The In Death Series by J.D. Robb (4 behind)

And series I’ve wanted to start  for ages:

16.  The Hungry City Chronicles by Philip Reeve (3 to catch up)
17.  The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson (4 to finish)
18.  The Fionovar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay (3 to finish)
19.  The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (only going for ONE here, way too much of an investment to go for the entire series)
20.  The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness (3 to finish)
21.  The Parasol Protectorate books by Gail Carriger (4 soon to be 5 to catch up)
22.  The Mary Russell books by Laurie R. King (11 to catch up)
23.  The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold (at least one)
24.  Charles de Lint’s Newford series (at least one)

I have so many reader friends and their opinions mean a great deal to me. There are a few adjectives that are a quick sell for me in a review and when any of my friends use words like “perfect,” “horrifying,” “shocking,” “life-changing,” or “favorite,” I’ve already added the book to my to-be-read list before I finish reading their sentence. Here are some books I will read because they are other people’s favorites:

25.  As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann
26.  The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgalov
27.  All-Of-A-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
28.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
29.  The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
30.  Madapple by Christina Meldrum
31.  Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
32.  Between Shades of Gray by Rita Sepetys
33.  Kristin Lavransdattar by Sigrid Undset
34.  Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
35.  The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
36.  Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
37.  The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge
38.  The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell
39.  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
40.  The Taste of a Man by Slavenka Drakulic
41. Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks by Donald Harington
42. The Stand by Stephen King 

Young Adult books I’ve heard wonderful things about:

43.  Chime by Franny Billingsley
44.  Being Billy by Phil Earle
45.  Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres
46.  Split by Swati Avashti
47.  The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan
48.  The Survival Kit by Donna Frietas
49.  How To Save A Life by Sara Zarr
50.  Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor
51.  The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger
52.  The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp
53. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

Perhaps my favorite part of the list is the section of books I pretend I’ve read. There are a few books I’ve had multiple conversations with people about—long, drawn out discussions of the author, the history, why I liked it, why I didn’t, etc. which provides me with a lot of smug satisfaction that my lies were believable. It always reminds me of that Oscar Wilde quote: “I love talking about nothing. It’s the only thing I know anything about.” I get some sort of sick enjoyment from being able to make conversation about anything.

54.  Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (I’ve been on two architectural boat tours in Chicago so I’ve got a few factoids in my back pocket)
55.  Blindness by Jose Saramago (I’m surprised I don’t have more on the list where I’ve only seen the movie yet persist in discussing the book like I’ve read it)
56.  Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
57.  To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (!)
58.  The Road by Cormac McCarthy (in which I tell them about Cormac Tweets and then I divert the discussion to useful skills for the apocalypse)
59. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (This one is easy. Let’s just talk about how creepy some songs by The Police are…)
60. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (these people don’t want to talk about the book anyway, they want to talk about existentialism)
61.  The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (I base all my knowledge of this one on a tiny excerpt included in our sixth grade reading textbook)
62. On The Road by Jack Kerouac (Have to be able to converse with the hipsters. See also: Dave Eggers, Confederacy of Dunces, House of Leaves, DFW, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jonathan Lethem)
63. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (I like these conversations because whoever it is probably loves comics so I can quickly change the subject to comic books and movies.)

I’m probably most looking forward to the following section: Children’s and middle grade books that I want to reread or experience for the first time.

64.  The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
65.  The 15-book boxed set of Roald Dahl (I saw this at Costco for $25! Best deal ever!) - includes Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Magic Finger, Esio Trot, Matilda, Danny the Champion of the World, Going Solo, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, The Giraffe and the Pelly and me, Boy Tales of Childhood, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, George's Marvellous Medicine
66.  The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye
67.  Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt

In terms of lists that I find online, I always get most excited about science fiction and fantasy lists. I am so far behind on the classics in both genres that it honestly makes me question my devotion to the genres. These aren’t all classics but they’re still on my list:

68.  Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
69.  Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
70.  1984 by George Orwell
71.  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
72. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
73.  The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
74. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
75.  Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
76. Earthseed by Pamela Sargent (for my YA space genre fix)
77. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
78. Green Rider by Kristen Britain

In an effort to be able to cross SOME classic literature off of my Pulitzer/National Book Award lists (since at last count my Pulitzer list was somewhere around, oh right, ONE book), here are some classics for my list: 

79.  Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
80.  Middlemarch by George Eliot
81.  A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
82.  All The King's Men by Robert Penn
83.  Animal Farm by George Orwell
84.  The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
85.  My Antonia by Willa Cather
86.  Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbull
87.  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 
88.  The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
89.  Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
90.  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
91. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
92. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 

And the catch-all group, to round it off. These are books that don’t necessarily fit in another category but I’ll read them, gosh darn it!

93. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
94. The Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell 
95. Beloved by Toni Morrison
96. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
97. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
98. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
99. The Magus by John Fowles
100. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
101. The Things They Carried by Patrick O'Brien
102. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
103. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
104. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
105. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
106. The World According to Garp by John Irving
107. The Alienist by Caleb Carr
108. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
109. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
110. Shhh, I still haven’t read Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning.

I thought for a while about the time constraints and how long it will take for me to realistically finish off every book in this list. There are only 110 numbered spots but when I include the series, it is about 150+ books. Considering I read between 100-150 books a year, I think it is plausible that I could finish all of these books in 3 years. So it's set. HEAR YE, HEAR YE: Let it be known that I will finish every book on this list by February 23rd, 2015. Be sure to check back on that day, three years from now. Write it down in your Trapper Keeper so you don't forget.

Do you have a list of books you're trying to finish? Will you share it with me? I'm fascinated by them. Do you think something is omitted from my list or that something shouldn't be there? TOUGH LUCK! Just kidding, but I'm not going to change it. It took me a long time to wheedle it down to where it is now. In the next few weeks, I'll post the whole list on a separate page under the top navigation bar so you can watch my progress...that is, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing. Come on, there must be more list makers and lovers for crossing off things around these here interwebz! 

When Flannery asked me to write a guest post for The Year of the Classics, I was thrilled.  As a teenager I read classics almost exclusively (nerd alert).  Ironically, now that I’m thirty I spend most of my time reading books that were written for young adults.  Of course that’s obviously not a big deal because thirty is still young.  That’s what I like to tell myself anyway.  I often wonder what our generation’s classics will be – will they be the obscure critical darlings, or the massively popular best sellers? 

Sometimes when I think about the latest dystopian/post-apocalyptic trend, it makes me afraid for the future of this world – like the trend itself is a symptom of our collective acknowledgment that the world will be ending soon. But then I comfort myself by remembering that we’ve been imagining different versions of this world's demise for centuries.  See, the classics aren’t just timeless works of art; they’re useful too. For false but comforting piece of mind!

In honor of the Partials giveaway today, I thought I’d go back and revisit some of my favorite classics in dystopian/post-apocalyptic science fiction.  In any genre, it’s interesting to go back to where it all started.  (For a very comprehensive, not to mention stunning view of science fiction in general – check out this map).  But in this genre it’s particularly interesting, because we’re now living in the time that many of these books tried to envision.  Some of their predictions seem silly now, but some have proven disconcertingly accurate. 

1984 by George Orwell
First published in 1949

This should be an absolute staple for any dystopian fan.  Orwell’s vision of the future is utterly frightening, all the more so because it’s a plausible one.  In an intensely rigid “utopian” society where surveillance and mind-control are widespread, Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, revising news and media from the past to fit current propaganda, even as he dreams of breaking free.  Orwell’s vivid descriptions have proven to be, in many ways, prophetic.  

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is
strength.”

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
First published in 1932

Aldous Huxley imagined a no less controlling, but very different future than that of George Orwell.  In the society of Brave New World, humanity is mass-produced and conditioned to perform different tasks, resulting in a highly compartmentalized society.  The elite “alphas” live deceptively free lives – being consumers, having sex (but never relationships), and drugging themselves happy.  When outcast alpha Bernard Marx goes on vacation to visit the “savages,” a group of people living in a more collective way, he encounters John, the son of a lost alpha.  Bernard brings him back into society, but John can’t adapt.

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real
danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Originally published in 1950

Another chilling prediction of the future – especially frightening for all of us book nerds. Imagine a society in which all literature is banned and must be burned.  Television watching is a major part of everyday life and too much thinking is discouraged.  Sound a bit too familiar?  Guy Montag is a fireman – only in this society firemen don’t put out fires.  They start them.  Guy loves his job: hunting down and burning illegal books and the homes of those who keep them.  But a chance encounter with a young girl sparks Guy’s thoughts, and soon he becomes dangerously curious.

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once
in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
By Philip K. Dick
Originally published in 1968

Philip K. Dick is, in my opinion, the master of the plot-twist.  I always feel excited and a bit nervous when I start one of his stories: I never know what’s going to come next.  In this classic novella, much of the Earth’s organic life has become extinct after mass nuclear war and is now considered precious.  The majority of humanity has fled from Earth to live more comfortably on other planets.  Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who tracks down and exterminates androids who are passing as human.  This is a very thought-provoking work about empathy and what it means to be human and alive.

“Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or
anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.”

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Originally published in 1992

“But wait…” I hear you say. “This book was published after 1980 and the author is in fact still alive.”  Well, these authors aren’t the only ones who can make predictions.  For my last trick I thought I’d predict a classic of the future.  Dun dun dun!  In this novel, Neal Stephenson describes a world in which everything has been privatized: governments, jails, chop-shops, and even the mafia. The Earth is so overcrowded that people live in tiny storage units – if they’re lucky.  But thankfully there’s the metaverse: a virtual world where people go to escape the real one.  It already sounds familiar!  And did I mention that this novel is incredibly funny?

“Most countries are static, all they need to do is keep having babies. But America's like this big old clanking smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight.”

And now that you've read through my first post here, I will reward you by handing out fabulous prizes! Many congratulations to Rachel H., the winner of Partials by Dan Wells!

I had so much fun writing this guest post that I've decided to move in here.  Lucky for me, Flannery and Tatiana seem okay with it.  They haven't thrown my stuff out on the curb yet anyway....

I am so happy to be a new member of the Readventurers.  Being a third wheel has never felt this good!

I'm always excited to find out about new things whether it is a television show, board game, book, website, beer, recipe, ANYTHING. The downside of this (or perhaps just my personality) is that I get extremely excited to tell other people about these things. I will tell you all about this Discovery Channel special I watched about building a transatlantic tunnel, make you watch Summer Heights High, dance like Dawn Weiner from Welcome to the Dollhouse, and show you about 40 YouTube videos that I watch all the time. So, without further adieu, here are some completely unsolicited recommendations for books based on liking other things.

If you are into shows like Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, you should try the Grimspace series by Ann Aguirre and The Native Star series by M.K. Hobson. 

If you are into British humor and tons and tons of puns and literary jokes, you should try the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. (I also absolutely recommend his work, Shades of Grey!)

If you like the feeling of laying on your back in water in direct sunlight, you should read Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar. 

If you like the movie Heathers, you should read Fury by Shirley Marr.

If you like the worldbuilding in shows like Merlin and want to feel immersed in a world, you should try Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, any books by Tamora Pierce, or anything by Brandon Sanderson.

If you like YA and science fiction exploration stories, you should read Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman and the Touchstone series by Andrea Höst .

If you like books about rehab and are looking for great LGBT YA lit, you should try Suicide Notes.

If you like being dropped down in the middle of a community and following large casts of characters, you should read any of Maeve Binchy's books. (I recommend Tara Road, Circle of Friends, Light A Penny Candle, Firefly Summer, and Minding Frankie)

If you want to read some great short stories (for free! online!), you should try Harrison Bergeron, The End of the Party, Ponies, All Summer in a Day, and 2BRO2B.

If you like MMORPGs, you should read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

If you like zombies and politics (there are some of us out there!), you should read the Newsflesh books by Mira Grant.

If you like Nora Roberts books but wish they were a little sexier, you might try Susan Elizabeth Phillips. (try Kiss An Angel) 

If you liked Buffy during the college years, you should read the Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill.

If you like Doctor Who, you might like Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko and Replay by Ken Grimwood.

If you are an teen/adult who liked the tone of The Hunger Games, you should read Stephen King's The Running Man and The Long Walk.

If you still think Penny from Inspector Gadget deserved to be recognized as the brains behind the operation, you might like What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn.

If you liked The Thirteenth Tale, you should try The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell.

That's it for now. If you have any random "If you like this, try that" suggestions, comment away!   

Happy New Year! I've been thinking for a few months about knocking out a significant amount of classics in 2012. I had all these grand ideas of doing a shared blog challenge and setting group goals and cross-posting reviews of any classics my friends read throughout the year. (still will cross-post reviews of some of my fellow bloggers but no "challenge" beyond mere attempt) A few other bloggers ARE running Classics challenges this year so if that is your thing, go for it!

Here are a few I've seen around:
Back To The Classics, hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much
A Classics Challenge, hosted by November's Autumn
Greek Classics Challenge 2012, hosted by Howling Frog Books

I had several conversations with friends about what a "classic" book is and it seems obvious that the definition is different for everyone. (Duh.) I'm not here to declare myself QUEEN OF THE INTERWEBZ and lay down the definition of a classic for all. But HEAR YE, HEAR YE! The Readventurer declares that the definition of a classic, for the purposes of her 2012 reading goals is just any book written before 1980 whose author is deceased. Sure, there are modern classics whose authors are still alive. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands (or millions) of books that fit the criteria which are underwhelming and/or utter crap. But I don't care about that, all I care about is jumping into a bunch of stories and oldey timey drama and crossing off list items. Speaking of lists, I'm going to start with the Pulitzer Prize winners at the beginning, though I'll probably jump around once in a while. Despite the fact that I've read over a thousand books, I was a bit embarrassed when I added the list of winners to my blog and found that I'd read...wait for it...wait for it...

ONE BOOK ON THE LIST.

Welcome to Mortification Station, me. (it was Killer Angels by Michael Shaara but I'm just going to reread it because I don't remember it at all) So my quest to read these worthy titles begins with His Family by Ernest Poole. Never heard of it? I hadn't either! Here's the blurb from the world's most accurate source for information, Wikipedia:

        His Family tells the story of a middle class family in New York City in the 1910s. The family's patriarch,  widower Roger Gale, struggles to deal with the way his daughters and grandchildren respond to the              changing society. Each of his daughters responds in a distinctively different way to the circumstances of their  lives, forcing Roger into attempting to calm the increasingly challenging family disputes that erupt.

In all seriousness, I'm excited. It's on. Oh, and let me know if you are reading any classics this year, whether it is for a challenge or not. If you want to cross-post any reviews, just let me know.

Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS! You finished reading this post. If you comment on this thread and tell me one classic that you are embarrassed you haven't read or that you want to read this year, you can enter to win one Penguin clothbound classic (up to $15,the link shows 24 choices but there are more than that available in the price range). Open Internationally. Fill out your info on the contact form and extra entries if you tweet or blog about it. I WANT ALL THE CLOTHBOUND CLASSICS! Contest ends 1/31, 9pm PST. Good luck!

Here's a sample tweet: Enter to win the Penguin Clothbound Classic of your choice @TheReadventurer: http://www.thereadventurer.com/1/post/2012/01/2012-the-year-of-the-classics-giveaway.html

In other book news, I am absolutely ecstatic about my upcoming lineup. I've never done an In My Mailbox posting before but I was tempted to do it this week. Firstly, I won a signed copy of A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness from my favorite Mancunian, Jo over at Wear the Old Coat. I'd say I've never been so excited to receive a book before but I also won a signed copy of Raw Blue last month from Nomes at Inkcrush and I already read and absolutely loved that one before I won it. I got back from a vacation yesterday. While I was there, several of my friends sent books ahead to my brother so I would get them before I came home. I received Drink Deep, the fifth book in the Chicagoland Vampires series from Lyndsey at Strangemore, along with two Aussie books I am on tours for, Blood Song by Rhiannon Hart and Fiona Wood's Six Impossible Things. (I finished Drink Deep already and really enjoyed it! Oh, and she sent me the first season of Chuck to watch. Yay!)

I also practically peed myself in excitement over receiving a copy of Melina Marchetta's Froi of the Exiles, the second book in the Lumatere Chronicles. (after Finnikin of the Rock) My Goodreads pal, Catie, let me borrow her copy. I am intimidated by its length but so, so looking forward to it, especially considering that many reviewers have said it is even better than its predecessor.

Today, the new Nora Roberts book showed up on my Kindle at midnight. I love Kindle preorders! (especially the ones I forget about!) Her books are like ice cream sundaes to me--hopefully tomorrow will be dull outside so I can snuggle up and get lost in the romance world. I also picked up a copy of Liesl & Po at the library that I put on hold a while back.

My friend Cassi and I are doing NaNoWriMo together this year. It will be a first attempt for both of us but hopefully it will be easier as a collaborative effort. Day 1 is almost over and we are right on track, but what kind of feat is that? ONE DAY. We are working on a YA science fiction story tentatively titled, "Processed for Entry." Excitement to the max. Hey, remember The Max on Saved By The Bell?

I had a fabulous weekend at the Northwest Bookfest. Many if not most people who know me in real life (or on Goodreads for that matter) might be surprised to know that I am absolutely gutless when it comes to authors. Oh, you’ve written a book? Congratulations, now you are a celebrity to me and I’m pretty much unable to speak to you.  I have no qualms about spewing out my opinions about your work on the internet but I will sit in the front row at your panels and just stare at you. Did you notice that today, Sara Zarr? I might not have had you sign any books—I didn’t have anyone sign any—but I sat through the entire Smart Chicks panel internally fangirling the whole panel, even those  whose work I’ve yet to read. I was absolutely astounded at how intelligent and well-spoken Jennifer Lynn Barnes is. (not that I had any expectations that she wouldn’t be, I was just very interested in what she had to say about how her scientific background influences her work) The Smart Chicks Kick It YA Tour is a group of YA authors who tour together and I found it was an efficient and organized format to reach a large audience and cover lots of ground.  Organized by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong, the group sits on a panel together and answers audience questions interspersed with a few quick games and lightning round questions where they have to answer as quickly as possible.  I don’t have a lot of experience with author events but this was exactly what I was looking for—a glimpse into what the authors are actually like as people. Marr mentioned that the format has evolved a bit because the group travels together often and they were constantly learning fun factoids about each other. To mix things up and keep it fresh, they tried to integrate that feeling into the format. In case you are wondering what any of those fun factoids are, here are a few I picked up during the panels: Richelle Mead has a crush on Gilbert Blythe (who doesn’t?!), Melissa Marr snorkels in her bathtub or pool when she has writer’s block, Sara Zarr takes dance breaks to Perfect Stranger by Erasure, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes spent a summer working on an island with 1,000 monkeys! It was absolutely clear that all of the authors had a lot of respect for each other and their work, in fact, one of my favorite parts of those panels was the fact that they all seemed to be friends. (They also played Chuck, F*ck, and Marry with the characters of all of their books and solicited opinions from the crowd, though they call it the much more kid-friendly "Marry, Shag & Cliff")

Here are the authors who were on the Smart Chicks Kick It YA Tour at the Northwest Bookfest today:

Other interesting facts I picked up from the panel are that Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr are working on a Norse-themed MG book/series together so that Marr’s 13-year old son can read something she’s written, Sara Zarr recommends Adele Griffin’s books, Richelle Mead loved Marion Zimmer Bradley as a teen, and that most of these women seem like absolutely awesome and fun people.

I went to several other panels over the weekend, the first of which was an historical fiction/nonfiction panel. I was skeptical about this one going into it and it turned out that I was riveted throughout the entire hour. The authors spoke about their newest books which ran the gamut from stealing geoducks to the life of Louisa May Alcott to the discovery of insulin. Seriously, if I wasn’t so poor at the moment, I’d be all over tons of the books I heard about this weekend.  The authors on the panel, and their names will link to the books they spoke about, were Craig Welch, Peter Mountford, Maria Dahvana Headley, Dave Boling, Kathleen Alcala, Kit Bakke, and Thea Cooper.  I took two pages of notes on my little notepad during this panel but I don’t feel too nerdy about it because Craig Welch reminded the audience of a quote he enjoyed: “Notetakers make history.” Damn straight.  All of them spoke about what inspired them to write about their specific topic and why they write historical books—for several of them it was the fact that the plot points are already ready-made. I found Kit Bakke’s story of why she wrote about Louisa May Alcott particularly fascinating. I am of the opinion that too many people say they did x or y as a response to 9/11 so I was immediately ready to tune out when she said just that about her work, Miss Alcott’s Email. However, her story was different from those I’ve heard before. She spent many years protesting governmental actions and feeling decidedly unpatriotic but when 9/11 happened she could not believe someone could do that to her country. Then she did a double take on the fact that she felt it was “her country” and tried to find some woman in history that really captured that feeling—that the US is something worth fighting for. Dave Boling discussed going to Guernica and seeing, meeting, and hearing about people who were affected by the bombing. For him, the story really came together when he actually felt that emotional element. (Also interesting: The international title of the book is not Guernica in several countries because the word is still too evocative) I forgot to mention earlier that Jennifer Lynne Barnes and Sara Zarr told the audience that they don't necessarily write from physical experiences but often write from familiar emotional viewpoints--the reason they feel a certain way might not be the same but it should make the character (and you) feel something you've felt before.

I saw Elizabeth Boyle, Greg Bear, Bob Mayer, Deb Caletti, and Sean Salazar at the Genre Mashup panel and Bear made a comment near the onset about why he agreed to be on this particular panel—because things are so much more interesting with varying points of view. Exactly. Elizabeth Boyle was absolutely charming.  Her analogy of romance books to bread and milk at the grocery store evoked a lot of chuckles from the audience and she admitted to going to Starbucks, putting her headphones in , not turning them on and then mining dialogue from all the crazy conversations that go on around her. Evidently, Starbucks is a total hot spot for awkwardness and hilarity. After being asked about the difference between genre writers and literature writers, Greg Bear hilariously said that “Literary authors get the awards. Genre authors get the checks.” All of them had quite a bit to say about the constraints of the shelving system and how publishers have told them to cut aspects out of their books because booksellers wouldn’t know where to shelve the book and Bob Mayer spoke about how important it is to self-select the correct genre tags if you are e-publishing.  All in all, this panel was just fascinating because each author was coming from such a different place. I could’ve listened to them for at least another hour.

The Steampunk and Urban Fantasy panel was one of the primary pulls for members of a book club I recently joined. (they’ve been together for over two years) I hate to be a major bummer (*salute*) but this one was just not as satisfying for me as most of the others. The authors on the panel were Cherie Priest, Mark Henry, Mark Teppo, and Kat Richardson. I think this panel just didn’t do it for me for two reasons—I couldn’t see anything because the room was packed and the chairs weren’t staggered and more importantly, the authors seemed to just be joking around with each other.  They all seemed to be very nice people and I’m sure they know a ton about the industry and the genres but a lot of the hour- long panel was spent talking about their pets and sharing inside jokes. I feel like Ja’mie in Summer Heights High--“No offense, but it’s true.”  (I wrote in my notes that they seemed like wacky people having a good time at the beginning and “there’s a lot of talking about cats and dogs” at the end) The one hilarious thing about the panel was a quote from a librarian friend that Cherie Priest shared, “Steampunk is what happened whenever goth people discovered brown.” I still found the hour worthwhile and I was certainly excited to see these authors in real life, I just wish I could've learned as much information in that session as I did in others.

This morning, I watched authors from the Jack Straw Writers Program read some of their original work. As is the case in all group readings or efforts, I found a few much more compelling than others. I loved listening to Larissa Min read from her Breaking English project about her parents moving from Korea to Rio and I liked Robert Lamirande’s piece about art/artists, though capturing the pretentiousness of art/artists might not have been the best choice for an event filled with artists of a sort. (it wasn’t lost on lowly bloggers who have law degrees but feel like puking every time they think about practicing law)

One of the weird parts of reviewing books on Goodreads or blogs is the moral dilemma about giving negative reviews. For the longest time I was a person who stood on the soapbox for fair, honest reviewing. Always.  Even if I don’t enjoy a book, I try to write a critical review without ripping it to shreds. Though entertaining, those types of reviews just aren’t that useful. (at least for me) That said, I never want to ask publishers or authors for ARCs of their books because I’m afraid I’ll hate them. I recently read several ARCs from upcoming debut authors and I was absolutely underwhelmed. What to do? I have no illusions that my reach to readers is gargantuan or anything like that, however I do know that many of my reviews are the first ones that show up when you search books on Goodreads. Do I want to have the responsibility of turning even one or two readers off of a book? (especially before it is even released?!)  If you’re wondering why the hell I’m thinking about this, it actually has to do with Northwest Bookfest. I went to a panel on “The Truth About Getting Published” which was filled with information about the process of writing, selling, and marketing your novel. All four books being discussed by their authors sounded extremely interesting to me and I’d love to get my hands on them. However, what if I ask an author for their upcoming book, they give it to me, and then I have nothing positive to say about it?  A few authors have told me that even negative reviews are worthwhile because the things that bother me might actually draw a different reader in. Hmph. I really hope this is true. Anyway, the authors on the panel were Daniel Marks, Megan Bostic, Marissa Burt, and J. Anderson Coats. To the four of you: Your books all sound intriguing, but I’m too nervous to ask for them.

I hated the title of “Writing the Woo-Woo and Weird Stuff” but the panelists were great. Jessa Slade, Alexis Morgan, Theresa Meyers, and Yasmine Galenorn discussed their genre at length and with a lot of humor. Alexis Morgan shared a story about being stuck on one of her characters. A friend of hers told her to “put him in the freezer” until he was ready to come back into the storyline or another book. A few weeks or months later, the two of them were sitting at opposite ends of a table at Red Robin and Ms. Morgan spoke across to her friend, “Remember that guy I put in the freezer a while back but didn’t know what to do with? I figured it out!” They received a few awkward looks from fellow diners. Jessa Slade was a unique voice in the whole weekend. She is, I believe, the first author I’ve heard talk who spoke as if writing was a job and work that she doesn’t always enjoy. She works hard at it, organizes everything, and outlines everything. Though I’m sure other authors don’t love what they do all the time, I found it interesting that Ms. Slade said that a lot of her enjoyment comes from the reader’s experience. At least I think that’s what she was saying because I couldn’t stop staring at the mechanical horse and Firefly-esque cowboy with a laser that was on the large advertisement for Theresa Meyers upcoming book. (in this case, product placement FTW) Because I found Alexis Morgan so utterly charming, I wrote her an email telling her just that. Guess what? She’s sending me an autographed book! I guess good things do come to reviewers who pull their head out of their asses and tell authors how awesome they are.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is 2,100 words on Northwest Bookfest 2011.