Top Ten Spring TBR Books

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Thistle

At present, I’m in one of those moods where I don’t want to plan too heavily what books I may or may not read over the next little while. This is especially true while I’m still in a state of flux on the kinds of books I want to read. Instead of this list being the books plan to try to read this spring, they are possible books I may or may not look at over the next few weeks/months. In no particular order:

lostfoundLost and Found by Brooke Davis – a random book that sounds light and heartwarming

The Wicked + the Divine: Vol 1 by Kieron Gillen – the first non-Knisley GN I’ve considered in a very long time

The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos – the new book from one of my favorite character-driven authors

S by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst – a very intriguing interactive design

Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique – cultural exploration!

alifNekropolis by Maureen McHugh – been on my to-read list for way too long

Alif Unseen or The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson – can’t decide which at the moment, both sound good

The Secret Sky by Atia Abawi – more cultural exploration!

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman – because I’ve waited years for it

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin – agender characters!!

And I may or may not end up reading any of these this spring, heh…

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 14 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Pouring

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_9571That phrase – when it rains, it pours – well, that’s this week for me in library haul. I’ve had a bunch of books on hold for a long time, and some books I just put on hold this week, and all of a sudden, they were all heading to me. Seven of them (pictured) arrived by the time we had our weekly library run this weekend. More are on their way.

Considering that four of the seven and several of those in transit are nonfiction, there is no way I’m going to get through all of these by the time they’re due. Though thankfully, my library for some reason checked them out to me until mid-April instead of the standard three weeks, so I have slightly more time.

Still, even if I don’t get through them all, I’m grateful to have them. My access to physical books has been sparse the last few weeks (did I mention some of these have been on hold for a long time?) and I’m looking forward to having plenty of books on hand for awhile!

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The Birds and Other Stories, by Daphne du Maurier

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Thistle

the-birds-and-other-storiesThis is a collection of six short stories by Daphne du Maurier: The Birds, Monte Verita, The Apple Tree, The Little Photographer, Kiss Me Again Stranger, and The Old Man. Note: This isn’t the cover of my copy. Mine is an older print, but I couldn’t find a decent-sized image to include.

A good friend of mine recently bought this for me, thinking I would enjoy at least one of the stories within. She was absolutely right. Du Maurier is a master of the short story, I’m pleased to say. My only previous experiences with her writing have been Rebecca (loved) and Jamaica Inn (lukewarm), so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was very, very happy with the collection!

The Birds: I’ve never seen the Hitchcock movie version of this, and I’m glad I read the story first. It’s so very deliciously creepy!

Monte Verita: Fascinating look at spirituality in nature. Had me riveted all the way through.

The Apple Tree: My favorite of the collection, bringing out far more emotions than I have time to put into a review. I could seriously write a full post on this story alone.

The Little Photographer: Not really as spooky or atmospheric as the others so far, sort of a cross between The Awakening and An American Tragedy. I enjoyed it, though not quite as much as the first three.

Kiss Me Again, Stranger: At first I wondered if maybe this would be the first story I didn’t enjoy. Seemed to be going nowhere. The end just blew me out of the water, though, total creeper…wow!

The Old Man: This was the shortest story in the collection, and the only one I couldn’t really get into. Different style of writing, a bit heavy-handed. Just didn’t work for me.

Notably, this collection would be perfect for RIP’s Peril of the Short Story. Also, it puts me in the mood for more du Maurier, so if anyone has good recommendations for her, that would be wonderful!

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Thistle

bodykeepsscoreSubtitled: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

As was probably obvious from the title/subtitle, this is a book of psychology focusing on the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of trauma and how they affect everything in a traumatized person’s life.

Note that this review will be, in some ways, very personal.

This book was definitely out of my comfort zone, for more than one reason. First, I don’t generally read a lot of nonfiction, especially academic nonfiction. Second, prior to this book, I knew next to nothing about PTSD or trauma psychology. Third, I have recently come to realize, through therapy, that I am suffering from long-term, complex PTSD.

While I have had many diagnoses through the years and all of them have rung true in one fashion or another, this is the first time any of my psychological symptoms have made sense in context with the things I lived through, rather than just being “chemical imbalances.” I’d never even considered PTSD as a possible diagnosis prior to my counselor making the statement that many of my symptoms, defenses, reactions, and thought processes were more in line with it than depression/anxiety. The statement was completely unexpected, and I wasn’t sure I could agree with it. I began researching PTSD, specifically a more long-term, chronic kind that isn’t rooted in a single life-altering event. I’m not sure exactly how I stumbled on this book – a facebook link out to an author interview with an excerpt from the book re: yoga and PTSD, I think? However I found it, what I read made a lot of sense, and I immediately requested the full book from the library.

IMG_9481The Body Keeps the Score is ~350 pages long. By the time I was 80 pages in, I’d already flagged over 20 spots I wanted to mark up (and I almost never write in books!). I happened to be by a bookstore at that particular time, and they happened to have one copy of this book left. Of course I bought it, then transferred all my post-it flags to my copy (and underlined/circled/etc the things I wanted to note). By the time I reached the end of the book, I had 110 spots/passages marked (see pic –>).

I learned a lot from this book. I read other peoples’ stories and behaviors, and recognized my own patterns in them (sometimes with such eerie similarities that I experienced a bizarre out-of-body deja-vu sort of sensation). At times I became so disordered in my thinking while reading – something very unlike me – that I could not focus, and it would take me half an hour to read/process two paragraphs. Sometimes during that disordered reading, I’d stop being able to feel certain parts of my body (hands, particularly), and sometimes different muscles would be so tight/tense that it was impossible to relax them. There was one completely innocuous sketch (depicting the body’s responses to trauma) that was so upsetting to my brain that I had to cover it in order to read the text on that page without having a panic attack. Reading about different experiences of physiological trauma-responses kept my mind splintering off to random parts of my life, even more than reading about the trauma-causes. The more I read, the more I believed my counselor’s observations.

I’m not going to go into my personal trauma issues here. That’s not the point of this. My point is that this book helped me to understand a lot about myself that I never saw or understood before. It didn’t “heal” me or anything, of course – that’s also not the point – but gave me ideas about possible directions to go in order to work toward healing. It gave me hope – something I haven’t had in over 25 years now – and that made the book worth reading, difficult or not.

There are only two complaints that I have with The Body Keeps the Score. First, there are a few sections that grew extremely biased and political, whereas most of the book was presented fairly scientific and neutral. While I agree with the author’s biases and politics, I feel that moving from a scientific book to a persuasive one undermines the scientific parts and makes them less credible. This, of course, is generally my response to biased nonfiction. Second, while the book talks extensively about chronic childhood trauma in the form of abuse, molestation, and neglect, there is virtually no talk at all about the effects of continual bullying or peer-abuse, which of course is a huge cause of trauma and mental health problems. I would really like to be able to read more research about this second point specifically.

I don’t have much else to say. I’m glad, for personal reasons, that I read it, and I think this is a great resource for those interested in understanding the experience of traumatized individuals.

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose, Wellness | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Top Ten Books for Readers Who Like Friendships

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Thistle

We got to choose our own theme for today’s topic (Readers who like ____), and I chose friendships in fiction, because this is a particularly difficult thing to find! My top ten:

golem jinni1. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker – There are romances in this book, but the two main characters are just friends, and form a great friendship!

2. the Mistborn trilogy (and Elantris, and Warbreaker, and the Stormlight Archive…) by Brandon Sanderson – Sanderson is the number one master of friendships (individual and group) of any author I’ve ever read.

3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery – The friendship formed between the two main characters here pretty much saves both of them. Love that!

4. the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater – Raved about this so many times. Love the friendship between all these characters, even when romance is also added to the mix. Friends first.

5. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist – While this dystopia is horrifying in some ways, the love and communion found in the center are just brilliant.

crossed-wires6. Crossed Wires (and others) by Rosy Thornton – Thornton writes romances, yes, but the friendships always come first and foremost. There is no romance without friendship first.

7. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa – There are only really three characters in this book, all of them without names, all of them forming a tight-knit clan of people who cherish and protect each other.

8. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – The romance that develops in this one takes years to form, comes after friendship first, and then there’s the whole connection of all the people involved in the circus. I was particularly touched by Celia’s relationship with the clock-maker.

9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson – I ran out of adult/YA books. I said this was difficult! It’s much easier to find friendships in children’s books because there’s rarely romance at that reading level. Of all the children’s books I’ve read, however, the friendship between the two main characters in this book is one of my favorites.

10. MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche – This is another cheater-pants answer, but really, it’s a good one – nonfiction about friendships (forming, keeping, the importance of, etc).

Notes: Interesting that four of these are ones I mentioned as new favorites in last week’s post, plus two more would be on that list if I’d gone back another year instead of putting my cutoff at 2011 last week. Shows how much I value friendships in fiction! Also interesting to note: Not including my last two cheater-pants answers, half of my answers are non-US books, despite the fact that US books make up the great majority of what I read.

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 26 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Nonfiction Rec Requests

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_9496Every few years, I go on a short nonfiction kick. I’m not really a big nonfiction reader most of the time, so I take advantage of these times whenever they come up. Over the last couple months, I’ve read and enjoyed tons (for me) of nonfic, including a book on parental psychology (All Joy and No Fun), two memoirs (Choose Your Own Autobiography and Displacement), a history (The Romanov Sisters), and a trauma psychology (The Body Keeps the Score – review forthcoming).

I have a few other nonfiction books on my immediate radar. However, because I rarely read nonfiction and am very picky about those I do read, I really don’t know much of what’s out there! I need some good nonfic recommendations, especially those that work well on audio. Some of you out there are so much smarter than me re: nonfiction, so I’m asking – what’s good? What should I check out?

Preferences: food history/science, psychology, sociological issues, cultural and geographical explorations, religion or history ONLY in a sociological context, cultural anthropology, gender studies of all kinds (including both LGBTQ studies and women’s studies), and light literary analysis. Things I generally don’t enjoy: politics, military history, non-sociological history or religion, inspirational, memoir/diary/journal except in rare cases, biography, letters, self-help, and nonfiction with a very strong bias. I have a directory of all the nonfiction I’ve read and blogged about, and my About section lists a few of my favorite nonfiction works over the last few years.

Thank you, smart bloggers!! I appreciate it. 🙂

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 14 Comments

36 in 36

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Thistle

Last year, on my 35th birthday, I made a list of 35 little things to do during my 35th year. Two months after I made that list, my life drastically changed, and I ended up only completing about 2/3rds of my mini-goals. Still, for having moved across the country and all the other stuff that happened in my 35th year, I think I did pretty well. And I really like the idea of choosing a bunch of fun-stuff mini-goals to complete over the course of a birth-year. I decided to do the same this year, and have given myself 36 fun little things to do before March 1st, 2016:

1. Visit Maine – DONE
2. Visit New Hampshire – DONE
3. Visit Vermont – DONE
4. Visit Rhode Island – DONE
5. Visit Niagara Falls – DONE
6. Visit Canada* – DONE
7. Wear a skirt/dress 6x** – DONE
8. Have people over for dinner 6x – DONE
9. Shop at a thrift store 6x – DONE
10. Get a massage 6x – DONE
11. Try 6 new-to-me restaurants – DONE
12. Try 6 new kinds (not brands) of wine – DONE
13. Go out with friends 12x – DONE
14. Try 12 new-to-me coffee varieties – DONE
15. Take 12 long walks (longer than a 5k) – DONE
16. Complete 36 random acts of kindness – DONE
17. Wear makeup*** – DONE
18. Attend a street festival – DONE
19. Get my Phantom tattoo
20. Get my Summer Rain tattoo****
21. Fully participate in NaNoWriMo – DONE
22. Finish paralegal course – Quit
23. Finish through Level 3 of Spanish Rosetta Stone – Quit
24. Attend or host a book club – DONE
25. Dress up for Halloween – DONE
26. Visit the zoo – DONE
27. Go bowling – DONE
28. Play pool – DONE
29. Go swimming with my boys – DONE
30. Participate in a 5K – DONE
31. Out of my comfort zone fitness (roller skate, climbing wall, etc) – DONE
32. Attend a play, musical, or dinner theatre – DONE
33. Take a bubble bath – DONE
34. Participate in a painting group/class – DONE
35. See a movie in theatre – DONE
36. Buy fun pajamas – DONE

ETA on 3/1/16: Completed all goals except 19, 20, 22, and 23, though those latter two I decided to quit rather than completing them.

*The first six goals are travel-based and specifically meant to be easy family vacations while living here in Boston. They are all places I’ve never been before, and several of these are on my bucket-list.

**Dresses/skirts make me very uncomfortable. I just don’t like them. So why make the goal? Well, it’s kinda like dressing up for Halloween. A costume, to get me out of my comfort zone a little.

***Yes, just once. In the last decade, I’ve worn makeup twice. Once was for a Halloween costume (flapper, 2013). Once, a Middle Eastern salon did my hair and makeup for my sister’s wedding in Palestine in Feb 2008. I don’t even own nail polish, much less makeup of any kind, nor do I know how to actually use the stuff as I can probably count on two hands the number of times I’ve worn makeup in my entire life. So this will be interesting.

****These two tattoos are related to two of my manuscripts, Phantom and Summer Rain. For each manuscript I get to submission-ready quality, I earn a tiny representative tattoo on my left forearm. These two are both overdue.

PS. I enjoyed my birthday. Pics (whittled down from the many I put on Instagram):

IMG_9458

(They gave me a birthday tiara & free candy at The Paint Bar.)

IMG_9473

(My birthday theme was “nostalgia.” Jason did a great job with the cake.)

 

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The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Thistle

girlontrainSpoilers.

Rachel is struggling. Her husband left her for another woman, she’s lost her job, and she’s an alcoholic. Every day, she takes the train into London to maintain the appearance of going to work, and every day, she passes her former home that her ex-husband now shares with his new wife and daughter. A few doors down from them lives a couple that Rachel’s never met, though she fantasizes about the perfection of their lives – until one day, when she sees something abnormal. Now, the woman from that house is missing, and because of Rachel’s alcohol problems, the police don’t believe her story when she comes forward.

I don’t believe I was as in love with this book as everyone else seems to be. Sure, it was fast-paced and demanded to be read. Most thrillers are that way, though. I enjoyed the story well enough. I never wanted to stop reading. In the end, though, I just felt tired and vaguely sick. Part of that is because I read it too fast – I’m not big into fast-paced, demand-to-be-read, can’t-put-it-down books – but another big part of it had to do with the characters in this book.

There was no one here that was likable. I remember people saying things like that about Gone Girl, so when I decided to read Gone Girl, I went in knowing this in advance. Maybe that’s just a thing these days, and thrillers are normally about very unlikable people? I don’t read enough of them to know, but now that I look back, I think just about every thriller I’ve read in the last few years has followed this same pattern. Especially psychological thrillers. And I don’t like reading about a bunch of people I can’t care about in any way. Even if someone is unlikable, I want to be able to root for them.

Similarly, the whole book felt…not predictable. Predictable is not the right word. I didn’t guess ahead of time who the killer would be. But it didn’t surprise me when the killer’s identity had been revealed. It wouldn’t have surprised me if any of these characters had been the killer, or even if the book had gone the way of Gone Girl (which I had guessed in the first first pages). I wanted there to be something unique, something different from other thrillers and murder-mysteries, but gaslighting and hidden domestic violence and sordid affairs are all so…commonplace in these kinds of books. That isn’t to say the book wasn’t well-written. It was, or I wouldn’t have continued reading it. But by the time I got to the end, it felt like every other thriller I’d read, and when I went to draft this review the next day, I couldn’t even remember the characters’ names.

I hate sounding this negative about a book. It wasn’t a bad book. It was well-written, and exactly what it claimed to be. I think I’m personally just not real enamored of thrillers in general, and I probably ought to stop expecting to be when I go into them. They often leave me cold and bogged down, with a bad taste in my mouth. So please don’t take my word about this. Many people adore this book, and probably have something more useful to say about it than I do.

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Top Ten NEW All-time Faves

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Thistle

Today’s prompt says to list ten new favorites from the last three years, and noted that we could go back a bit further if necessary. It was definitely necessary for me. One year of the last three (2013) had no new favorites at all! So this list comes from the last four years, in order of when I read them:

thehostcover1. The Host by Stephenie Meyer – This was my very first book of 2011, on audio, and such a brilliant experience (especially compared to my lukewarm, didn’t-make-it-through experience with Twilight). This one still periodically comes back to me, and I remember that over the course of listening to it, I would dream about it nearly every night.

2. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist – This is exactly what a dystopian novel should be, and has some of my favorite quotes of all time in it.

3. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan – Revolutionized the way I look at food.

night_circus_cover4. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – When I read this, I had decided nearly a year before to stop writing. This book got me to write again, and for the next few years, I read it every year during the fall.

5. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones – After attempting and failing to read this one multiple times over multiple years, I tried the audio version and fell completely in love. So in love that I believe I listened to it six or seven times before I was willing to move on to other books.

6. the Mistborn trilogy and many others by Brandon Sanderson – I know it’s cheating to have three books in one, but these go together. Sanderson completely changed the way I thought about fantasy, and I think I remember the characters in this series more than any other I’ve ever read. Many of his other books have the same amazing qualities.

7. the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor – I never expected to like these. I got the first book as a free audio download one summer. Then I was hooked, and Taylor delivered all the way through the series.

shadow8. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo – While I was less enamored by the end of this particular series, the first book still stands out to me as one of the best-crafted fantasy worlds I’ve ever experienced, and I adore every moment in this book.

9. the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson – Another brilliant world-builder, and this one struck me particularly because of the way Carson incorporated an entire religious system into her characters’ lives.

10. the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater – After I babbled on and on about these books last fall, is it any wonder that they showed up here? PS – I’m relistening to these right now…

I didn’t choose any books from 2015 because it’s too early to tell if they will become favorites, but there are a few contenders already this year that might eventually end up here. Yay!

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 13 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Birthday!

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_9418It’s my birthday!

Today I’m 36 years old, and happy to be so. I don’t have much planned – Jason and I are going to paint a little later today, and I believe we’re having a cake tonight. Things will be low-key this year. I’m happy to say that starting today, it’s supposed to be above freezing here for five days in a row. !!!!! Of course, there’s also a winter weather advisory tonight and a possible addition of 4-6 inches of more snow…

In the spirit of it being a me-day (ha!), I’ve decided to answer the questions that Shaina from Shaina Reads posed to me in her blog this week.

goodnightmoon1. What is the first book you can vividly remember reading?

I don’t know if “reading” is the right term, but I very vividly remember Goodnight Moon from my childhood. I must have had the words memorized. Still, the memory is vivid, and so I’m counting it. 😀 Also, I bought myself that shirt –> as an early birthday gift.

2. If you only had time to read one more book in your life, would you want it to be an old favorite or a new one? Why?

Definitely an old favorite. If I only had time to read one more book, then I assume I’d know I was dying. I would want as much comfort as possible in that time, and thus would choose to spend that time with an old friend, rather than trying to collect new sensations.

3. How do you feel about footnotes in books?

In academic works, I think they’re fine as long as there’s more text than footnotes, and I prefer the footnotes to be on the same page rather than having to flip back and forth in the text. In fiction, I like them as long as they serve some humorous function (like Fforde’s “footnoterphone” or the footnotes in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell).

4. Say someone offered to write you an awesome non-fiction book of your choosing. What would the topic be?

I guess, if I could specify the author, I would love Brandon Sanderson to write a book about writing, encompassing both technique (world-building, writing good friendships and group dynamics into novels, etc) and the writing methods themselves (I’ve read an essay from him on that part and it was wonderful). If I couldn’t specify the author, I really have no idea what to ask for. I’m so picky about nonfiction!

journal5. Besides reading, what’s your favorite/most time-consuming hobby?

Well, if you count writing as a hobby instead of as a potential career, that would be it. Otherwise, fitness? Blogging? Journaling? I don’t really pick up a lot of hobbies to be honest. Coffee. Does coffee count as a hobby?

6. Which book was most uncomfortable for you to read? Did you finish it?

Not sure I can answer this one. I’ve finished lots of uncomfortable books, and discarded lots of them, too (and wish I’d discarded some others). I guess it depends on the kind of discomfort.

7. Can you read in a language besides English? If not, which language would you pick?

I can read passably in French, and the more I practice, the better I get. A few years back, I read the entire Harry Potter series in French, and it got easier with each book. I’d love to be able to read in it fluently.

8. Is there a genre you’ve changed your mind about? (Disliking to liking, or vice versa.)

Definitely. I used to avoid most fantasy, especially more traditional fantasy. I also used to love memoirs, and mostly avoid them now. Biggest of all, there was a time in my life when I only enjoyed classics and disliked nearly all modern fiction. Those days are long gone.

9. Do you give or take more book recommendations?

Probably give. I take plenty, but only to try them out, and I end up not reading most in the end. (Sorry!)

10. In the vein of #8, have you ever changed your mind about a specific book?

Definitely. There are some books that I think are brilliant on first read, and later can barely remember. Similarly, there are books that don’t make much of an impression in the beginning, only to stay in my mind for months and months, until they become favorites. I’m not sure I’ve ever gone from love to hate or vice versa, though. Just up or down from neutral.

11. Do you use your public library? Why or why not?

I use my library ALL THE TIME. I don’t own a lot of books, or want to own a lot of books. I prefer the library. In that same vein, I really miss my San Antonio library. The one here is great, yes, but there are a lot of things that it doesn’t have. Plus, now that there’s ice all over the place, I can no longer walk there. Boo.

Note: I think the point of these meme is for me to now come up with questions to tag others with, but…nah. 😀 It’s too early in the morning for my brain to be that coherent.

Hope you all have a fantastic day! ❤

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 8 Comments