christianreader | January's reading

1. Dexter By Design, Jeff Lindsay

I like the Dexter books - they're clever and witty and unusual, and they are also frequently alliterative. This one squicked me out a little more than the previous ones (not sure if it was more gruesome or if I was just less tolerant of it this time), and it seemed there was more language involved, too.

2. Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld

Steampunk! And my first real foray into Steampunk lit. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, and I'm looking forward to sequels.

3. The Case for A Creator, Lee Strobel

This was the student edition, and I have a feeling it was unfortunately somewhat abridged. Strobel's style gets on my nerves after a while (so familiar, and so very, very first person) but it was well presented information.

4. Bohemian Manifesto, Laren Stover

A light-hearted look at the bohemian lifestyle, in all its various forms. Take it with a grain of salt and enjoy the lovely illustrations. :)

5. Victorians at Home and Abroad, Paul Atterbury and Suzanne Fagence Cooper

I was a trifle disappointed by the lack of depth in this book - some reviews I'd read made it sound more scholarly, and really it's just a nice-to-browse-through coffee table type book. But it's nicely illustrated and provides a quick overview to the Victorian era.

6. Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert

The follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love. Why would I like a book about marriage written by a feminist divorcee who only married her long-time Brazilian boyfriend because that was the only way he could legally live in the United States? I'm not sure. But I think it's because she's honest, and even when I am far, far from agreeing with her, I respect her honesty. (Also I just rather like the way she writes.)

7. Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde

I like the Thursday Next books and wasn't that fond of the Nursery Crimes series, but contrary to most of the critics, I liked this book best of all. It's screwball, it's Alice-in-wonderland-ish, it's scarily dystopian. And Fforde is far too literary for me to believe that he named the two main characters Edward and Jane by accident. My only complaint is at how much is left unexplained - like why swans are dangerous and what happened to the Previous and what, exactly, the Last Rabbit was.

8. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian

I admit to not reading all the battle sequences carefully, but I was surprised by how engaging the book was in general, even to someone with little knowledge of ships and sailing. The humor is dry and subtle but very amusing.

9. Don't Try This At Home, Kimberly Witherspoon

A collection of essays by various famous chefs about their greatest kitchen mishaps. The content varied from amusing to cringe-worthy, as did the writing ability of the various chefs.

One of my goals this year is to make my To Read Stack* smaller. To that end I have purposed to eschew library books and focus on my own books. Um ... I didn't do so well so far. Only three this month were from the Stack. Better luck in February.

* a stack of a hundred or two books that I want to read SOON, usually for purposes of deciding if they are ones I should keep, give away, put back on paperbackswap.com, loan to friends, etc. This stack has a nasty habit of growing larger, never smaller.