Karen and Erik

The 50 books Karen read in 2007, in alphabetical order because she forgot the chronological order, and 5 word reviews

1st to Die by James Patterson - I already forget what happened.

A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger - Good story, but wanted more.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles - Don’t play on trees, kids.

Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs - This book sucks without Booth.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert - Every woman should read this.

Every Breath You Take by Ann Rule - Ann makes horrible crimes compelling.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman - Good essays for book nerds.

Fatal Burn by Lisa Jackson - Dumb mystery with sex scenes.

Gutted: Down to the Studs in My House, My Marriage, My Life by Lawrence LaRose - Never buy a fixer-upper.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling - Much better when read voluntarily.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling - I always forget this plot.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling - Pizza, I liked this movie.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling - Movie should have been longer.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling - My second favorite HP book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - Man, I cried so much.

How to Try a Murder by Michael Kurland - It’s boring and too simplified.

I Am America (and So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert - Can always make me laugh.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - Chilling without lots of gore.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - Compelling, and makes you think.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - I love this crazy asshole.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - Book club hated it. So?

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Lovely book with smelly prose.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Euginedes - I freaking loved this book.

Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher - HA, everyone’s high on drugs!

Red Azalea by Anchee Min - Communism’s bad, I GET IT.

Slam by Nick Hornby - The protaganist is a douchebag.
Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule - Farrah Fawcett rocked this one.

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg - Nothing happened in the first half.

Me by Katherine Hepburn - Why actors shouldn’t write books.

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin - Too dated to take seriously.

The Almost Moon by Alice Seabold - Worst book I’ve ever read.

The Bone Lady: Life as a Forensic Anthropologist by Mary Manheim - Reality is boring, but true.

The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder and the Making of a Great President by Julie Fenster - That title is a lie!

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez Reverte - It was a fucking book club!

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen - Dana and I liked it!

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - How is it really atheist?

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - Great, but a bit long.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - Too sad to see movie.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - Loved this book. Go figure.

The Mark by Jason Pinter - Protaganist is no Jason Bourne.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards - A lovely but heartbreaking book.

The Ruins by Scott Smith - Stephen King-like - hate him too.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion - Made me cry while reading.

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks - Always seek the high ground.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larsen - Better than his last book.

To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe - GO TARHEELS!! DUKE SUCKS!! YEAH!!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Should have read years ago.

Time to discuss books 6-10. I have more stuff to post about, including the spoils of San Diego, but that will have to wait until the weekend. For now, I am on book #33 of the year and hope to finish it this weekend. I’d say tonight, but Tivo has lovingly recorded several episodes from the previous “cycle” of America’s Next Top Model, and I must indulge. Or Tivo will be mad at me.

On to the reviews!

6. A Death in Belmont, Sebastian Junger

You ever have a book that you overall enjoy reading, then finish and say, “I have no desire to ever read that again”? That was this book for me. The author’s real life account of growing up in a Boston suburb during the height of the Boston Strangler murders. Turns out that one of the men who worked on his mom’s art studio was Alberto DeSalvo, who was later arrested and convicted of the crimes. Junger explores a horrific murder that happened in his neighborhood which had all the markings of the Boston Strangler - but another man was tried and convicted for them, while DeSalvo was LITERALLY down the street from the attack. Was the other man convicted because he was black and out of place in an affluent white suburb? Or was he really guilty? Not much closure can be provided on this, so finishing the book doesn’t give a sense of completion. Like I said, I read it in about 6-8 hours, then said “next”.

7. Small Sacrifices, Ann Rule

When I was little and there were still “true crime” TV movies on every week, I would stay up late with my mom and watch them. Now, these TV movies all seem to be on Lifetime. Small Sacrifices was my favorite - starring Farrah Fawcett and John Shea. This true crime book is what that movie was based on, and it rocked. In the 80s, Diane Downs fell in love with a married man named Lew who was overwhelmed by her affection and broke up with her. One of the reasons he gave in the breakup was that he didn’t want to take care of kids, and Diane had 3 small children. In Diane’s twisted mind, she thought that getting rid of the kids would mean that she and Lew would be together. So she shot her kids at point blank range (killing one of them and permanently disabling the other two) and blamed it on a mystery shooter. If you’re into true crime, this book totally rocks and so does Ann Rule.

8. Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin

This is one of those books I got at the used book store a few years ago because it seems like one of those books everyone has read. I enjoyed it enough, but it seemed incredibly dated to me. I know that it was written in the 70’s and many of the characters were completely into the trends and scenes during that time in San Francisco. But all of the references which now seem so hokey and dated (especially to those who did not live through those trends and scenes) kept taking me out of the book.

9. Red Azalea, by Anchee Min

A book club choice. I didn’t HATE this book like so many other book club members did, but I certainly didn’t LOVE it or even like it enough to recommend to anyone. This book is an autobiographical account of the author’s experiences growing up in communist China. Sometimes, really down material can be incredibly moving if it is told well (see: book #23). But this didn’t even make me very sad. Just made me think “sucks for you” because it wasn’t compelling enough. Plus the ending SUCKED, and I will spoil it for you here. After all her hardship, the book basically ends with “and then I moved to America and everything is great! LA LA LA!”

10. Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte and Sonia Soto

I HATED this book. It took FOREVER to read because it was such crap, but I wanted to read it all so I could moan about it at book club. Turns out, everyone else in book club was smarter than me and stopped reading after 50 pages or less. This book is stupid, predictable, poorly written, wannabe-Davinci Code crap. Don’t read this book unless you want to torture yourself. Life’s too short to spend it on this crap.
Next book post - when I start reading Harry Potter to get ready for HP 7! Follow me as I read all the books that I used to tease Pizza about and vow to never read! Does that make me a liar, or a hypocrite? You be the judge!

Before I get into the meat of the post, Fred has has his second application of Frontline and is still covered in fleas and flea bites. Holly has fleas but does not seem to be having trouble with flea bites - whereas Fred is covered in little scabs. I woke up this morning with 4 new bites. My legs and arms look like a constellation map. OH MY GOD someone please help.

OK - I am now on my 30th book! Since I did not want to do one super long post discussing all of the books at once, I thought I’d break it up into 6 posts of 5. Because that’s guaranteed subject matter for 6 posts.

1. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. A co-worker got me this book for Christmas and I tore into it. It was great, although I thought it could have been about 100 pages shorter. You eventually get to a place where you scream, “JUST FIND HIM, ALREADY!” But aside from that, it was a great book - exciting, full of historical facts and mystery.

2. A Separate Peace by John Knowles. My boss (at the time) got my this for Christmas as well. It was pretty enjoyable, but I did not fawn over it like a lot of other people said they had.

3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. This was reread for book club, and I still love it. Virtually everyone else in book club either read it and hated it, started to read it but hated it so they stopped, or did not read it at all. It’s definitely not a book for everyone, but I fall in love with the language and prose every time.

4. Gutted: Down to the Studs in My House, My Marriage, My Life by Lawrence LaRose. Mom got this for Erik for Christmas since it deals with the stress of remodeling a house. I went ahead and read it while he was reading something else. Not bad - I think the Fitzes would especially enjoy reading it now.

5. To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever by Will Blythe. Jamsky lent me this wonderfully biased book about the UNC-Duke rivalry. The author is an obsessive Tarheel fan and perfectly captures the illogical obsession of Tarheel fans while documenting the 2004-2005 season in which the Tarheels won the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships.

More later - might even finish book 30 tonight!

Happy 2007, everyone! As you may remember, I had a goal of reading 25 books in 2006. I’m happy to say that I did hit that goal, and finished 2006 halfway through Book 26. Let me wrap up the books not covered in this post below:

Book 23: Bee Season by Mya Goldberg

LOVED this book. Absolutely fantastic, I recommend it highly. Haven’t decided if I will see the movie adaptation, though.
Book 24: Big Fish by Daniel Wallace

ALSO loved it. I was wary of it at first because I’m such a fan of the movie, and when I see the movie first the book is bound to disappoint. But it didn’t - it was different enough to not bore or disappoint me while staying true to the spirit of the movie.

Book 25: A Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken

Totally loved this book. It is so beautifully written, it breaks your heart.

Now I am reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and IT’S AWESOME. My friend Megan gave it to me because we’re both Da Vinci Code dorks. This book has the history and suspense like Da Vinci Code, but is about vampires instead of Jesus. SCORE!

Off to work now… slowly. I did a workout class last night that was basically an hour of football drills. It was my first time in the class, and when the instructor announced that “We’ll be throwing and catching the football today throughout the obstacle course”, I almost walked out. But I stayed - and dropped the ball each time. Oh well.

Way back in April, my ladies and I started writing a book blog to track the books we’d read. We each had a personal goal on the number of books we wanted to read in 2006. My goal was the lowest at 25, but I was given a pass since I was walking eleventy billion miles and getting hitched.

I was doing pretty darn good until the end of September - then didn’t read for a month and a half, spending every waking moment either walking, getting married, thinking about walking, or thinking about getting married. I was also reading a book that I just could not concentrate on, and realized that I would never hit 25 books if I stuck with it.

So, since I have not touched the book blog in a while. Pizza and Jamsky have, but I am the lame one who reads their entries and thinks about all the things I want to write… if only I had the time. And by time, I mean 5 minutes and some motivation. Instead, I relax on the internet by looking up stuff about movies, Grey’s Anatomy, and websites where breaking news equals an accidental picture of Britney’s va-jay-jay. Which incidentally, looks like a shaved basset hound.

But it’s time to review my book progress, and get suggestions on some books that will help me make my 25 book goal. Instead of posting a full review of each book (see that here), I will post a one sentence review.
Books read this year:

1. The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule - My mom once asked me if she should be worried by the fact that I read so many true crime books, and I told her that she should only be worried if I ever stop reading them.

2. The Cider House Rules by John Irving - The problem with seeing the movie first is that you picture the actors in the book, and I did not want to picture Tobey Maguire masturbating all the time.

2.5. The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre - God, how I hated this book.

3. White Oleander by Janet Finch - This book was absolutely fabulous until the end.

4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling - It was ok - curious to see how the movie will turn out.

5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling - Ok, this book was pretty good, I must admit.

6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - I finished the book from a bathroom stall in the ladies locker room because I could not wait to get home to finish it.

7. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - An absolutely heartbreaking and tragic story that people gave me weird looks for reading.

8. Twisted by Jeffrey Deaver - The only story I did not enjoy was the Shakespeare influenced story, because… seriously, Mr. Deaver?

9. A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis by David M. Friedman - Well… I just couldn’t relate.

10. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg - This was the rare experience of loving the book and movie equally, despite their differences, neither taking away from the other.

11. Not Enough Indians by Harry Shearer - I felt like I was reading the equivalent of a very detailed improv sketch, and it felt a bit “all over the place”.

12. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins - I am shocked this book got away with revealing as many Greek secrets as it did, including specific sorority handshakes and rituals, which I did not want to know because of the respect I have for the Greek organization.
13. A More Perfect Union: How I Survived the Happiest Day of My Life by Hana Schank: She seemed completely against the entire wedding industry by principle, and I am not, so I ended up resenting the author a bit for pissing on my parade.

14. Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford: Very good but mostly, this book made me hungry.

15. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith: The way it ended made me happy - any other way just would not have felt right to me.

16. The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank: I inhaled this book and loved every minute of it.

17. Julie & Julia by Julie Powell - The sick thing is, this book made me want to take on a similar project but luckily that thought did not stay long.

17.2. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison - this book is where I got stuck. So I ditched it and picked these up after the wedding…

18. Shopgirl by Steve Martin - Steve Martin is an excellent writer, but this book is easier to read when you can forget it was written by The Jerk.

19. I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson - Easy to read and funny - just what I needed!

20. Paint it Black by Janet Finch - Different yet the same as White Oleander, but with a better ending.

21. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach - Fascinating to read, and perfect at the office lunch room when you don’t want anyone to bother you by commenting on your book.

22. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs - Everyone said I would love this book, but I actually sort of hated it - it’s rather hard to find humor in a family history of mental illness when you are yourself a cog in the wheel of your own family’s mental illness.

23. Bee Season by Myla Goldberg - Still reading this and I LOVE THIS BOOK.

OK… so I have 2 books to go. One of them is going to be Big Fish by Daniel Wallace, for book club. This leaves me with at least one more book to read this year - any suggestions?

Also? Still working out the book goal for next year.

(Fitz: This was one of the things I wanted to post about. The other is a Grey’s Anatomy recap for Dana. That’s tomorrow.)