squeetus

2010 Great Reads

Just in time for your holiday shopping, my pick of the best from my reading this year.

Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull
The fifth and final book in this series came out this year and I had tremendous fun reading them all. A contemporary setting with an epic fantasy feel. All but the last are in paperback. This series sits well alongside Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Great for 10 and up.

Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine
I spoke in a session with Kathryn at a conference this spring, but I was so sick with pregnancy nausea I lay face down on the carpet out of sight until it was my part and never got to speak to her or the other authors. If I could have, I would have told her how much I enjoyed this novel. I'm sure others have compared it to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but for younger readers. It also won the National Book Award this year. I'd say 12 and up.

White Cat, by Holly Black
I think Holly is in the royalty of YA writers today. She is an incredibly skilled author, and her latest urban fantasy is a terrific mix of noir, grift, and fantasy. The first in a series. 14 and up.

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld
This book is just gorgeous. Frequent illustrations bring to life this WWI revisionist adventure. Great for fans of historical fiction, fantasy, steampunk, or just great storytelling. In paperback, its sequel Behemoth is in hardcover. 12 and up.

A Conspiracy of Kings, by Megan Whalen Turner
You know of my love for MWT so of course I devoured her fourth in the Thief series, although I waited until I was past the worst of the pregnancy nausea so I wouldn't associate this book with sickness. I'd recommend reading The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia first, but this is a great excuse to do so if you haven't already. The Thief won a Newbery Honor, but these intriguing novels feel more teen than middle grade to me and are easily enjoyed by adults as well.

Coffeehouse Angel, Suzanne Selfors
A sweet teen romantic comedy with a touch of the supernatural. This is great light reading for fans of Meg Cabot. 14 and up.

The following books are for adults but are probably suitable and interesting to most teens as well. If you notice a trend in my reading this year, you may get some insight into my WIP, Midnight in Austenland!

Agatha Christie
There's a reason she is the most widely published author in the world besides Shakespeare. I read ten of her books this year, each one unique and thrilling. She never cheats. All the clues necessary for solving the mystery are there before your eyes, though I never put it together before the detective does. My favorites:
And Then There Were None (she did it first, though many stories and movies have copied her plot)
Sleeping Murder
ABC Murders
A Murder is Announced

Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear
The first in a series of books featuring this 1920s English sleuth. The writing is fresh and leisurely, the mystery is not hasty, the setting is memorable.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley
This young girl protagonist is impossibly precocious, the writing unique. I found it well worth the read.

Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier
I'd never read this classic before and was thoroughly caught up in the storytelling. If you've skipped this one too, I think it's worth filling in gap in your literary canon. Tension, tension, tension! She does it so well. I felt watched while I read and loved a peek into this world. A very fine gothic romance.

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
Wow. Wow. This is the greatest horror novel ever written. I am not the person to judge as I rarely read horror, and this is more terror than horror probably, but I'm still claiming that title for it. It's beautifully written, exquisitely written, and at the same time completely terrified me and made sleeping difficult. I'm tempted to reread just to enjoy her language and crafting but I don't want to be that scared again.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Many Pride & Prejudice fans haven't read this one and so it would make a great gift. I think it's the funniest of Austen's books, despite being the least read. I reread this book all year, examining how she does what she does. Truly one of the greatest novelist of all times, if not the greatest.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I recc'd this last year, but it's worth another mention. I love it when I read bestsellers and heartily approve of their success.

I often feel shy about plugging one of my own, but I'm resisting for the illustrator's sake. CALAMITY JACK, people! It rocks! If you haven't read this sequel to rapunzel's revenge, then hang on to your cowboy hats and/or bowlers. Nathan Hale's art is extremely fine, an outstanding example of an illustrator as a skilled storyteller. After you read it once, trying going back to reread without looking at the text and see how much of the story, emotion, atmosphere, humor, etc. he conveys through visuals. Callooh Callay, Nathan Hale. When other illustrators see what he did and hear that he did it in a year, they bow to him in awe. 144 pages, full cover, every page illustrated. You don't have to have read rapunzel to read this one. If your bookstores or libraries don't have it, you can request they order it. It's not for me. Think of Nate and his poor starving children! For all ages.

The neverending babymoon

A little clarification. Two posts ago I was talking about reading for myself, not to critique the author but to understand my own story needs better. As commenters said, there are reasons to critique an author, if you're an editor, in a writing group, etc. This is important. And your English lit teachers are teaching you to break down story parts and understand the fascinating engine under the hood. I agree it's harder to just love Story as much with this task, but there are valuable reasons for having those skills and understanding literary theory. So while I believe passionately that an internal reader is a far better companion for pleasure reading than an internal critic, I don't believe that my way is the ONLY way to experience a book.

So I had decided the the first two weeks with my babies were my "babymoon". Two weeks to just enjoy the babies, hold the babies, smell the babies, and not pressure myself to clean the house or work or go anywhere.

The two weeks ended. I sighed sadly. It had been wonderful, but I have two other kids and books to write and a house to clean and errands to run. Then I looked down. At the two babies in my arms. Um…yeah, so at the end of two weeks, I still have two babies who need to be held. Pretty much all the time.

I settle back into the pillows, change two diapers, and smell my babies some more. I don't get to decide when the babymoon ends. And I don't really mind. Good thing those granite countertops camouflage the spills.

Things I've done while nursing a baby

• eaten a meal
• cooked a meal
• wiped an older child
• burped another baby
• answered email
• answered the door
• bathed
• read
• worked on a draft of a book
• written this post

Things I've done while nursing two babies

• comtemplated the universe

Hone your internal reader, not your internal literary critic

From Sara Zarr's blog: "Richard Rodriguez says that the reader re-creates the book when he reads it." I completely agree, and you long time readers of my blog know my opinions about How to Be a Reader. No story is static. A book has no meaning on its own. Meaning is created for each reader as they read. I've been thinking about this lately as I've been hearing people's responses to the last book in a certain trilogy.

I think that whether you are a reader, writer, or both (if you're a writer you'd better be both), reading books is far more useful when we shed the need to be a literary critic and focus instead on the internal. It's been interesting to hear over and over again what readers imagined the author failed to do. And I keep thinking, that's such a useless response. Unless you're getting a phd in literacy criticism and doing your thesis on that author, that's not helpful to you. Speculation about what the author was trying to do, or whether or not she was "tired" of writing, etc., is pointless. We don't know. Instead, it's so much more beneficial to focus on understanding our own internal reader, and therefore ourselves. Where did the story fail you? Where did it work for you? So, what does that say about you? What were you hoping for? What did you need from the story? If you're a writer, what does that tell you about what kind of a story you want to write? For me, this kind of responding is just about how I think about the book. Instead of thinking, "The author really dropped the ball on the ending," I try thinking, "What did I want out of the ending instead of what I got? Why did I want that?"

I've become more and more conscious of this way of reading over the past several years. It stems from hearing really weird responses to my own books and hearing readers speculate about ludicrous reasons I did this or that and assert false motivations for my story choices. Realizing how often readers do that about my works made me realize how often I thought that way about other people's books. Sometimes the speculation is right, most of the time it's not, but regardless, I realized I was throwing away my reading experience. I've now become a much more selfish reader, perhaps. When a story bugs me, I'm not thinking about the author but myself. Why am I bugged? What do I want? I think I come away from books now with a better understanding of myself as well as a better awareness of story that I can utilize in my own writing.

Reading as a writer changed me completely as a reader. I find I can still appreciate books I dislike because I am learning through them how to write stories I do like. I don't mean everything I've said here to be a blueprint for reading and the only proper way to read a book. THere are lots of ways to read a book. But I hope to call into question the sometimes assumed idea that we read books to label them as either good or bad. To me that's as silly as getting to know people just so we can categorize them as either good or bad. It's not for me to judge and label people. And if my only experience with books is a judgement call, a rating of stars, then I would soon tire of reading. For me, reading is an exploration, a partnership, me and the author via her words off on an adventure. For my personal reading experience, some authors are better companions than others, but it's always an adventure.

What's up with Daisy Danger Brown?

Since I talked about this book being my WIP some time ago, naturally people check in with me to see how it's going and when it'll be done. Well...

I spent the majority of 2009 and some time before that writing the first draft of this book/trilogy. I have 150,000 words. While I was writing it, I really liked it. Then I showed the first 2/3 to my editor and my husband. And their responses were tough to take. Granted I sent them a really rough draft. It was basically just spewed story, not even split into chapters. But the way I saw it in my mind was not what was on the page. I realized how much work it was going to take to fix this beast. A lot.

It was draining working so long on the first draft to one story and I decided I needed a hiatus before I could return to it with fresh eyes. As the stoyr of Midnight in Austenland was so appealing, I set aside DDB to work on that book. Sometime I'll return to Daisy and decide if it's one book or three. And I hope I can do justice by it, because I still like the story a whole lot. In theory anyway. It's strange to have written the first draft to a book over a year ago (the third book, that is) and still no one has ever seen it. It's still my secret.

Angel eyes

Last night I was going through the process of feeding both babies, burping both babies, calming both babies. I put Wren down then had a feeling I should pick her back up again. I put her on my chest and she lifted her head and looked at me. It was the first time either baby had really made eye contact for more than a few seconds, had looked like she was aware of me. It was such a sweet moment and made my entire day. Later when I was telling Dean about it I started to cry. I hadn't realized how much I needed that moment until it had been given.