Winter Reading Challenge 2008

Winter Reading Challenge

When: December 21, 2008 - March 20, 2009
What: Read as many books as you want






My list:

• Shelley Jackson. Half Life -- finished 1/5/2009
• John Connolly. The Book of Lost Things -- finished 1/6/2009
• James Alan Gardner. Gravity Wells -- finished 2/2/2009
• Howard Norman. In Fond Remembrance of Me: A Memoir of Myth and Uncommon Friendship in the Arctic -- finished 2/14/2009
  
• Chuck Palahniuk. Invisible Monsters -- finished 2/17/2009
• Alice Hoffman. Practical Magic -- finished 3/1/2009
• Jim Crace. The Gift of Stones -- finished 3/19/2009

The Gift of Stones by Jim Crace

First sentence:

"My father's right arm ended not in a hand but, at the elbow, in a bony swelling."

Description:

"Before the advent of bronze, a village of stoneworkers survive by the supremacy of their skills, unmoved by change in the world around them. But there is a storyteller among them who can deny their complacency. From the unknown he summons a woman whose deviant survival will threaten them all: and whose death will foretell the demise of their order -- the coming of metal and the end of stone. . ." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was a beautifully written book about storytelling, imagination, change and people's resistance to change. I liked the interaction between the narrator's father and the village members. I also liked how the narrator told the audience how sometimes telling stories can backfire when one wants to tell the truth.

Date read: 3/19/2009
Book #: 20
Challenges: Celebrate the Author Challenge 2009, Winter Reading Challenge 2008, 999 Challenge
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0330306014
ISBN-13: 9780330306010
Publisher: Picador
Year: 1988
# of Pages: 170
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing Page

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

First sentence:

"For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town."

Description:

"For more than two hundred years, the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well. As children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted to escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared, even into adulthood brought them back -- almost as if by magic. . ." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this story of two pairs of sisters whose lives were touched by magic. I especially liked how both Gillian and Sally and Kylie and Antonia learned to take risks, trust their feelings and appreciate each other over time.

Date read: 3/1/2009
Book #: 17
Challenges: 999 Challenge, Winter Reading Challenge 2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0425152499
ISBN-13: 9780425152492
Publisher: Berkeley
Year: 1995
# of Pages: 317
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing Page

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

First sentence:

"Where you're supposed to be is some big West Hills wedding reception in a big manor house with flower arrangements and stuffed mushrooms all over the house."

Description:

"She's a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she is transformed from the beautiful center of attention to an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you'll ever want to look.

In this hilarious and daringly unpredictable novel, the narrator must exact revenge upon Evie, her best friend and fellow model; kidnap Manus, her two-timing ex-boyfriend; and hit the road with Brandy in search of a brand-new past, present, and future. Changing names and stories in every city, they catapult toward a final confrontation with a rifle-toting Evie--by which time we will have learned that loving and being loved are not mutually exclusive, and that nothing, on the surface, is every quite what it seems." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was an intriguing book about identity and perception. I liked how Shannon gradually learned about making assumptions based on appearances and how she learned the truth about herself and others.

Date read: 2/17/2009
Book #: 15
Challenges: 999 Challenge, Winter Reading Challenge 2008, Celebrate the Author Challenge 2009
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0393319296
ISBN-13: 9780393319293
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Year: 1999
# of Pages: 297
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing Page

In Fond Remembrance of Me: A Memoir of Myth and Uncommon Friendship in the Arctic by Howard Norman

First sentence:

"On November 8, 1977, in the Halifax train station a few minutes before boarding a train for Montreal, Helen Tanizaki handed me a letter from the afterlife."

Description:

"In the fall of 1977, Howard Norman went to Churchill, Manitoba to translate Inuit folktales, and there he met Helen Tanizaki, an extraordinary linguist translating the same tales into Japanese. In Fond Remembrance of Me recaptures their intimacy, and the remarkable influence that she, and the tales themselves, would have on the future novelist. Through a series of overlapping panels of reality and memory, Norman evokes with vivid immediacy their brief but life-shifting encounter, and the earthy, robust Inuit folklore that occasioned it." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was an interesting look at an Inuit culture and their retelling of the Noah story set in the Arctic. I liked how Norman reflected on his conversations with Helen and her maintaining a sense of dignity in spite of adversity.

Date read: 2/14/2009
Book #: 14
Challenges: 999 Challenge, Winter Reading Challenge 2008, In Their Shoes Challenge
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir

ISBN-10: 0312425228
ISBN-13: 9780312425227
Publisher: Picador
Year: 2005
# of Pages: 166
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing Page

Gravity Wells by James Alan Gardner

First sentence:

"I told my kid sister Muffin this joke."

Description:

"Award-winning author James Alan Gardner evokes a sense of wonder that is synonymous with great speculative fiction. Now, in his first short-story collection, he brings together the numerous tales that have made his reputation, ranging from the everyday experience to the cosmic, from peanut butter sandwiches to space drives. There are stories of wonder, imagination, humanity, and the unknown and tales that remind us of the importance of possibility.

Some of the stories in this collection have won the Aurora Award and the grand prize in the prestigious Writers of the Future contest and been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, while others are completely new and undiscovered. " -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this collection of short stories as they made me think at times and laugh at times. I especially liked the stories "The Last Day of the War, with Parrots" in which knowing someone's thoughts isn't always a good thing; "A Changeable Market in Slaves," or, in other words, how many different ways can a story's opening go and "A Young Person's Guide to the Organism," as different people see the same creature in many different ways.

Date read: 2/2/2009
Book #: 11
Challenges: 999 Challenge, Celebrate the Author Challenge 2009, Winter Reading Challenge 2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: SF

ISBN-10: 0060087706
ISBN-13: 9780060087708
Publisher: Eos
Year: 2005
# of Pages: 344
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing Page

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

First sentence:

"Once upon a time—for that is how all stories should begin—there was a boy who lost his mother."

Description:

"High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother he finds that the real world and the fantasy world have begun to meld. The Crooked Man has come, with his mocking smile and his enigmatic words: 'Welcome, your majesty. All hail the new king'

And as war rages across Europe, David is violently propelled into a land that is both a construct of his imagination yet frighteningly real, a strange reflection of his own world composed of myths and stories, populated by wolves and worse-than-wolves, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious, legendary book... The Book of Lost Things." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was a great book about love and loss and facing one's fears. I liked the way David's wishes and fears influenced the kingdom as well as the interesting twists on the familiar fairy tales, myths and nursery stories. I especially liked the extensive section after the main story in which the author describes the origins of these stories, recommends some variations by other authors and then provides the original story.

Date read: 1/6/2009
Challenge: Winter Reading Challenge 2009
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0340899484
ISBN-13: 9780340899489
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughten
Year: 2006
# of pages: 348
LibraryThing page

Half Life by Shelley Jackson

First sentence:

"You should have received two copies."

Description:

"Nora and Blanche are conjoined twins. Nora is strong, funny, and deeply independent, thirsting for love and adventure. Blanche, by contrast, has been asleep for twenty years. Sick of carrying her sister's dead weight, Nora wants her other half gone for good—a desire that takes her from San Francisco to London in search of the Unity Foundation, a mysterious organization that promises to make two one. But once in England, Nora's past begins to surface in surprising and disturbing ways, pushing her to the brink of insanity and forcing her to question her own—and Blanche's—grip on the truth." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was a very interesting book about identity and sharing. I liked how Blanche gradually woke up and how Nora learned the truth about their past.

Date read: 1/5/2009
Book #: 2
Challenge: Winter Reading Challenge 2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0060882360
ISBN-13: 9780060882365
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2006
# of Pages: 437
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing Page