The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

It was the narrator of the audio version that convinced me to jump into this chunkster—David Pittu did a remarkable job throughout this 32+ hour listen.  I do have a physical copy of the book thanks to Powell's Indiespensable subscription, but since I got hung up on their pick of The Best of McSweeney's, I fell (all the way) behind in my Powell's books.  Turns out, I'm glad I listened to it instead. That way I could halfway space out while the main character was wasting his life away in Vegas (not my favorite place.)

Donna Tartt can sure write characters; I love that about an author. Theo's dad was almost too similar to an in-law I have, and Xandra was entirely fun to imagine.  Boris, Hobie, Pippa, Kitsey...this was one of those rare books that helped me create very real portraits in my head.

Epic in scope, I can see why it took the Pulitzer—even though it was quite different from the other recent Pulitzers I've read (Tinkers, Olive Kitteridge). It really did show a slice of America, from New York City to Las Vegas, with a wide variety of culture and reality. The biggest downside to this book is that the middle half was much longer than it needed to be. The first and last quarters were captivating but the middle was just a downer, (I'm sure the teen drinking and drug use helped with that.) It wasn't a slog to get through, it was just kind of depressing. There didn't seem to be any hint of redemption to come.

The thing that really made me appreciate The Goldfinch, for there were moments when I didn't think it was possible for me to walk away liking this book, was how Tartt tied it all together in the end.  Not the plot points necessarily, I'm sure there were a few unraveled ends somewhere, but with the big-picture ideas and themes.  I loved how she touched on the faults in the "Be Yourself" mantra:

"A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts.  We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are."

By the end of the book, Theo seemed to have finally found a way to begin living intentionally, realizing that his life didn't have to be mere survival. He may have started the story as a victim, and he may have subconsciously identified as one throughout most of his formative years, but thanks to good people like Hobie, he found a way to shift his perspective.

This is the first book I've completed this year, and the first I'll count towards my Read Harder challenge.  I can only hope that it is a sign of good reading to come in 2015.

2014 in Review (the BIG post!)

Even though 2014 was crazy, it wasn't nearly as stressful as 2013.  14yo daughters are better than 13yo daughters, and renovating a house without a contractor is better than renovating with one...at least in these particular instances.  Looking back, there were good things about being too busy to blog.  I read what I wanted to read, for the most part (the exception being the classics that I didn't have the mental fortitude to conquer.) I do like having goals and challenges, but—as with most things—there needs to be balance and moderation.

Biggest success this year?  Two things: This was the year of really solidifying an appreciation for audiobooks.  This also [inadvertently] became a year of re-reads.  Not in the traditional sense necessarily, although there were a few titles that I'd read before. But I also read multiple books by new-to-me authors, and multiple books on the same subject, and found it to be rewarding.

Biggest goal for 2015? To enjoy pulling my books out of storage and revisiting all those old friends, to continue to chip away at reading books from my shelves and at the same time to continue to support my local independent book shop.

I read fewer books this year than I have since 2007, and yet I'm not dissatisfied.  I do hope to fit in more classics next year, but if the number is low again next year I don't think I'll mind so much.

I felt a lack of nonfiction and classics this year, but it looks like my nonfiction was on par—only my classics count was low.  My other stats are comparable to previous years, looking at the percentages, with one of the most interesting (to me) being the fact that my best reading months center around April, and my worst happen at the end of the year.  Makes sense, now that I think about it.

How many books read in 2014?
69 (10 less than last year, and 26 less than 2012...but there's always next year!)

Genres? 
NONFICTION -  17% (12 books)  [14% (11 books) last year]
FICTION -  83% (57 books)  [86% (68 books) last year]

• CLASSICS - 9% of Fiction (5 books) [18% (12 books) last year]
• JUNIOR / TEEN - 37% of Fiction (21 books) [22% (15 books) last year]
• ADULT FICTION - 54% of Fiction (31 books) [60% (41 books) last year]

Male/Female authors?
FEMALE - 52% (36 books) [52% (41.5 books) last year]
MALE - 48% (33 books) [48% (37.5 books last year]

Old/New?
OLDEST? Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, 1811
NEWEST? Nora Webster by Colm Toibin, October 2014
# WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN? 14 [28 last year]
# WRITTEN THIS YEAR? 14 [8 last year]

Length?
Longest book read? Cloudsplitter by Russel Banks @ 758pp
Shortest book read? The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman @ 96pp
Number of "chunksters" (450+ pages)? 11 [8 last year]
Any in translation? 2 (4 last year)


Best/Worst Reading Month?
Best—March - 9 books [April & May last year w/11]
Worst—May - 3 books [June, November, & December last year w/4]

TOP FIVE of 2014: (I only had four 5-star books, and eight 4.5-star books, so this wasn't very difficult to figure out.  I didn't include Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, since it isn't new to me...it is an all-time favorite, though, a cherished reread that I highly recommend!)

The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye (stunning setting, wonderfully full characters)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (fascinating history of quickly changing time/place)
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (sweet first love, complex story)
I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe (Civil War...the only book that made me cry)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (beautifully written, unique perspective on WWII)

    



and a comparison chart just for the fun of it--

So, it looks like my NonFiction reading and my Junior/Teen Fiction is right on par with where it has been, but my Adult Fiction and Classics are down.  I wish I'd been able to fit in a few more classics but overall I'm pretty happy with my reading year.

LISTED BY GENRE/RATING:

Nonfiction: 17% (average rating 3.36)  [last year's average rating was 3.91]
5 stars:
  -
4.5 stars:
  - The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
4 stars:
  - 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
  - MFA vs. NYC, ed. Chad Harbach
  - What We See When We Read, Peter Mendelsund
  - Jane Austen Cover to Cover, Margaret C. Sullivan
3.5 stars:
  - Under the Overpass, Mike Yankoski
  - Seven, Jen Hatmaker
3 stars:
  - Loving Our Kids on Purpose, Danny Silk
2.5 stars:
  - Judging a Book By Its Lover, Lauren Leto
2 stars:
  - Half-Broke Horses, Jeannette Walls
  - The Souls of All Living Creatures, Vint Virga

Classics: 9% of Fiction(average rating 3.9) [last year's average rating was 3.96]
5 stars:
  - Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen
4.5 stars:
  - Free Air, Sinclair Lewis
4 stars:
  - All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
3 stars:
  - Oil!, Upton Sinclair
  - Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

Adult Fiction: 54% of Fiction (average rating 3.89) [last year's average rating was 3.64]
5 stars:
  - The Lighthouse Road, Peter Geye
  - All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
4.5 stars:
  - The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
  - The Interestings, Meg Wolitzer
  - I Shall Be Near to You, Erin Lindsay McCabe
  - The Road From Gap Creek, Robert Morgan
  - Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
  - Nora Webster, Colm Toibin
4 stars:
  - Lexicon, Max Barry
  - The Dog Stars, Peter Heller
  - The Moon Sisters, Therese Walsh
  - The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt
  - Cloudsplitter, Russel Banks
  - The Sisters Mortland, Sally Beauman
  - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
3.5 stars:
  - Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler
  - Mrs. Queen Takes the Train, William Kuhn
  - The Dinner, Herman Koch
  - The Position, Meg Wolitzer
  - Flora, Gail Goodwin
  - The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street, Susan Jane Gilman
  - Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
  - The Good Lord Bird, James McBride
  - The Best of McSweeney's, ed. Dave Eggers
  - One Plus One, Jojo Moyes
  - Wake, Anna Hope
3 stars:
  - Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  - Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
  - Longbourn, Jo Baker
  - Ade, Rebecca Walker

Junior/Teen Fiction: 37% of Fiction (average rating 3.83) [last year's average rating was 3.83]
5 stars:
  - Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
4.5 stars:
  - The Children of Noisy Village, Astrid Lindgren
4 stars:
  - Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo
  - The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
  - Folk of the Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
  - The Yellow Phantom, Margaret Sutton
  - Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
  - The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, Stephen Collins
  - More Than This, Patrick Ness
3.5 stars:
  - The Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare
  - The Impossible Knife of Memory, Laurie Halse Anderson
  - The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman
  - Master Cornhill, Eloise Jarvis McGraw
3 stars:
  - Along Came a Dog, Meindert DeJong
  - Please Ignore Vera Dietz, A.S. King
  - King Dork, Frank Portman
  - The Gate in the Wall, Ellen Howard
  - The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne
  - Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
2 stars:
  - We Were Liars, E. Lockhart

For the Record: December 2014

December ended up being a surprisingly good reading month for me, especially considering that my overall reading time has been down this year. I decided to spend the last week of the year starting a classic instead of trying to race through a couple of smaller books, giving me time to pull together my year-end stats. Here's what I read this month:

7 Books Read in December: (69 year-to-date)

1 Nonfiction:
  - Jane Austen Cover to Cover, Margaret C. Sullivan (4) I loved the covers in this book, especially the campy ones, but the bonus lesson on the fashion and fads of publishing in general was fascinating...an unexpected treat. This is the perfect example of a worthwhile coffee table book - suitable for one minute's perusal or one hour's reading and information (and entertainment) to be had either way.

2 Gifts to my Kiddos (that I had to read first!):
  - The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, Stephen Collins (4.5) For my 15yo son, a graphic novel that is just as wonderful as the title itself. The illustrations and story line were wonderful - funny yet serious.
  - More Than This, Patrick Ness (4) For my 14yo daughter, another adventure from her favorite author.  This is rather Matrix, but the delivery is fully Ness.

4 Others:
  - Nora Webster, Colm Toibin (4.5) I was only partially sold on Brooklyn, but I decided to give Toibin another chance. I found this well-written character study fully captivating, though surely the Irish setting helped with that. Unlike Brooklyn, this novel spends more time exploring the main character's inner thoughts and feelings instead of leaving them only hinted on (and focusing on the character's actions instead). I loved how the story touched and prodded at how we come to think of ourselves as we do, and how we can change. It ended rather abruptly with no real closure, but in a way that was symbolic of the story in general.
  - One Plus One, Jojo Moyes (3.5) I read this enjoyable little modern day romance with my book club. I thought the characters were more fully developed than in Me Before You, and the plot felt less emotionally manipulative, so I liked it more.  The plot is a pretty basic formula, but it didn't matter all too much while reading.
  - Ade, Rebecca Walker (3) I thought the poetic writing would carry this short novel for me, but it ended up feeling overly wrought. I could relate to the feeling of landing in a corner of the earth where you feel like you belong, but the dreamlike quality of the love story was hard for me to connect with.
  - Wake, Anna Hope (3.5) The post WWI London setting of this story was enough for me to overlook some of the little issues of this book, (mediocre present-tense writing, a large cast of characters that were hard to tell apart,) but there was a major issue that it couldn't redeem. Even after reading the book, many parts didn't make sense until I went back and read the synopsis a few times. The fact that I was interested enough to read the book even through waves of confusion says something in the book's favor, but I still can't get behind the idea that reading the synopsis is a necessary part of understanding the plot of a book.

            

2 Current Reads:
  - The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt. My current audio book - I've made some progress on this book but still  have a little ways to go.  The writing and pacing is wonderful, but the characters are pretty depressing.
  - Main Street, Sinclair Lewis. I enjoyed Free Air so much at the beginning of the year, and I've been wanting to read Lewis again since then.  His observations on the common quirks of everyday people make me so happy!

   

On My Nightstand:
I thought I might read these before jumping into Main Street, but that didn't happen. These are still on my nightstand: