Monthly Archives: January 2010

Teaser Tuesdays

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After supper, by the fire, we drank hot beer. On a world where a common table implement is a little device with which you crack the ice that has formed on your drink between drafts, hot beer is a thing you come to appreciate.

From The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, page 11

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

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Shades of Grey

Title: Shades of Grey
Author: Jasper Fforde
Published: 2009
My edition: Viking Hardcover 2009
Purchased From: Strand
Pages: 388

Synopsis (from StrandBooks.com): Welcome to Chromatacia, a land governed by the Colortocracy and plagued by upheaval and disorder. The society is dominated by color though everyone has limited color perception. It is Eddie Russett’s wish to move up in the social hierarchy. After all, his ability to sense the color red is better than average, but soon he finds himself immersed in a world of sneaky Yellows. Eddie is roped into a forced marriage with the hideous Violet deMauve, but it is an intriguing Grey named Jane who captivates him. Jane unveils the mechanics of their society as the cruel regime it really is and forever changes his life. Jasper Fforde’s “Shades of Grey” is a wildly imaginative and fantastical novel.

I read this because: I love the Thursday Next series and hoped to get a Jasper Fforde fix while waiting for the sixth TN book, due out in January 2011.

My thoughts: I think the Thursday Next books always hold a very special place in the hearts of all bookworms who read them, so it was interesting to read something different by the same author. Shades of Grey may be unlikely to dislodge Thursday as the favorite Fforde series, but it’s quite an entertaining story that demonstrates the same quirky imagination that is so fun to read in his other novels. Our hero is uncommonly common (and endearing), the villains are despicable, and the plot is thick. All of Jasper Fforde’s books are hard to describe, and this one possibly moreso than others. You just have to read it for yourself and prepare for a fun and crazy ride.

Other books I’ve read by Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair, The Well of Lost Plots, Lost in a Good Book, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels

Book club worthy? Yes: many interesting ideas, especially about government and societies (and of course, our relationship to color), that would be fun to discuss.

Follow up required: Very interested in what happens next and looking forward to two more books in the trilogy.

You might like this book if you liked: The Thursday Next series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide series

Links to purchase: IndieBound, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, BookDepository.com

My favorite lines & passages:

“I don’t need you to agree with me,” she said quietly. “I’ll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It’s an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion – and action.” (page 112)

“Being in the invisible part of the spectrum can be lonely, but one does get all the best gossip. Okay, this is the wisdom: First, time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.” (page 210)

Extras: Jasper Fforde on Twitter, Shades of Grey website

2009 Books and Reading Recap

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It’s time for my favorite annual post: my Books and Reading Recap for 2009!

In this post I break down the books I bought and/or read during 2009 into all sorts of different stats and lists. It’s a nerdy thing to do and I love every minute of it.

Previous annual installments include: 2008, 2007. (Also, my 2007 Book Flow Chart, which is even nerdier and I hope to have time to do again this year.)

2009 Books and Reading Recap

Total Books Read: 104

Fiction: 73
Non-Fiction: 31

By Genre (some books may be in more than one genre):

Contemporary Fiction: 22
Memoir: 19
Kid’s Lit: 18
Fantasy: 15
Classic: 14
YA Lit: 12
Graphic Novel: 11
Food Writing: 10
Short Story Collections: 8
Travel Writing: 5

Total Pages Read: (does not include unfinished books): 27,646

Average Number of Pages/Book: 265

Shortest Book Read: Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi (84 pages)
Longest Book Read: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (871 pages)

Books that were Re-reads: 18 (Rather large number because of re-reading all 10 Betsy-Tacy books and the re-reads for book club)

Also, 2009 might be the first year that I read and re-read a book within the same year. I read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman in February, and then re-read it in October for my book group.

Number of Books Read by Decade:

2000s: 64 (including 27 published in 2009)
1990s: 6
1980s: 3
1970s: 4
1960s: 3
1950s: 4
1940s: 12
1930s: 1
1920s: 1
1910s: 1
1900s: 1
<1900: 4

Total Number of Different Authors: 73

Multiple Books Read by One Author:

Maud Hart Lovelace: 10
Neil Gaiman: 4
Ruth Reichl: 4
J. K. Rowling: 3
Laurie Colwin: 3
Gabrielle Bell: 3
Elizabeth Enright: 3
Charles Dickens: 2
Simon Van Booy: 2
Muriel Barbery: 2
P. G. Wodehouse: 2
Kurt Vonnegut: 2
J. D. Salinger: 2
Richard Peck: 2
Miss Lasko-Gross: 2

“New to Me” Authors: 56

Books by Male Authors: 41
Books by Female Authors: 63

Books by Dead Authors: 34
Books by Living Authors: 70

Books Read by Non-American Authors: 28
(18 English, 2 Italian, 2 French, and 1 each: Australian, Irish, Iranian, Zambian, Russian, and Dominican)

Favorites of  2009 (Books that were re-reads are excluded):

Top Five Favorite Fiction Books:
1. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
2. The Elegance of the Hedgehog By Muriel Barbery
3. The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
4. Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy
5. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Other Favorites: Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni, Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Top Five Favorite Non-Fiction Books:
1. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
2. A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg
3. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
4. Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin
5. The Long Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan
Other Favorites: Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Top Five Favorite YA/Kid’s Lit:
1. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
2. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
3. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
4. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
5. Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay

Top Five Favorite Book Covers: (click on the title to view the cover)
1. The Wild Things by Dave Eggars (Fur covered edition)
2. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
3. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
4. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
5. Heaven to Betsy & Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace

Top Five Favorite Book Titles:
1. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
2. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
4. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
5. Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer

Favorite Book Website: The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

Total Number of Books Purchased: 139
Number of Books Purchased from an Independent Bookstore: 101

Book/Author Events Attended:
Sherman Alexie 4.5.09, Symphony Space
Ruth Reichl 4.30.09, Barnes and Noble Lincoln Center
Neil Gaiman 5.2.09, PEN World Voices Festival
Gabrielle Bell & Miss Lasko Gross 5.19.09, Strand
Lisa See 5.27.09, Barnes and Noble 82nd & Broadway
AJ Jacobs 5.29.09, Book Expo
Trenton Lee Stewart 5.29.09, Book Expo
David Sedaris 6.2.09, Strand
Lev Grossman 9.13.09, Brooklyn Book Festival
Garrison Keillor 9.30.09, Barnes and Noble Lincoln Center
Judith Jones & Jason Epstein 11.5.09, Strand

2009 Reading Goals & How I Did:
At the beginning of the year, I made a list of book goals for 2009. Here’s the list, and a summary of how I did.

-Read 100 Books – completed
-Read 52 Short Stories – incomplete (failed miserably, read 8)
-Specific books to read:
The Scarlett Letter - did not read
The Awakening – read
Lolita - read
Great Expectations - read
-Attend 15 book events - incomplete  (attended 10)

List of all books bought and read in 2009

Upcoming posts: Reading Goals for 2010, Other 2009 recaps, and (hopefully) a 2009 books flow chart.