March Reading (so late, I know)

23. A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

24. Emma, Vol. 8 (These have sort of lost momentum for me. I had to get Volume 6 through ILL, and the waiting sort of got me out of the story. Also at this point the author is following Emma's supporting characters, and I just don't care about them nearly as much, but I like a certain amount of comic book reading in  my life, so...)

25. Emma, Vol. 9

26. Fried Butter: A Food Memoir by Abe Opincar (There is a sensuality to the style of writers who relate strongly to food that I really get into, this was a great example of that. See also Reckless Appetites: a Culinary Romance by Jacqueline Deval & Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber.)

27. So, Now You Know... : A Compendium of Completely Useless Information by Harry Bright & Harlan Briscoe (Exactly what it sounds like, a nice, humorous, light read.)

28. Paris in Mind, edited by Jennifer Lee (Been reading this off & on for over a year. Reading about Paris is good for a particular kind of melancholy, but causes another when overdosed.)

29. Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan (Another wonderful collaboration between this two favorite YA authors. Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist also not to be missed, but avoid the film at all costs. *shudder*)

30. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia &Margaret Stohl (Did this as an audiobook. Having a the guy's point of view in a romance with a paranormal was interesting. I'm pretty much burned out on the YA paranormal romances, probably wouldn't have finished this if it hadn't been an audiobook.)

31. This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson (I've been working on this off and on for a couple months. Great cure for a crisis of faith cause by bureaucracy.)

32. Other People's Rejection Letters, edited by Bill Shapiro (At first I was amused by this book, but by the end it just was horribly depressing.)

33. Fables 14: Witches (I almost didn't get this. The previous volume relied varily on a character I hate, and was just plain tedious, but Fable seems to be back on track and it's nice to seem some of the characters who have been at war for so long finally com into some small happinesses. I am however still considering this series on probation.)

34. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier (Interesting merge of vampire mythos & the Twelve Dancing Princes, with a strong dose of Transylvanian historical novel, good cure for the common YA paranormal romance.)

35. Love is a Four-Legged Word by Kandy Shepard (Not proud of this. This novel took -10 off my street cred as a reader, but if you want to read something that takes no effort whatsoever...)

36. And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman (I love this lady, this is a personal journal with illustrations with meditations on the historical figures in early U.S. history & whatever else crosses her mind.)

37. We Could Almost Eat Outside: An Appreciation of Life's Small Pleasures by Phillippe Delerm (A pleasant collection of musing a small, nice daily things.)

38. Our Paris; Sketches from Memory by Edmund White & Hubert Sorin (This is like hanging out with your gay best friend bragging about his wonderful life in Paris, don't be jealous, be happy for him. Sweet for his delight in their daily life & a guilty pleasure of being the one dished-to in gossip rather than the one dished-on. For a more literary-minded version of Edmund White's Paris check out The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris.

39. Frenzy by Francesca Lia Block (I boycotted this for a while because it is sad to see an author I admire as much as I do Francesca Lia Block give in to the YA paranormal romance genre, not once, but twice. This does however bring interesting material to the table, female werewolf protagonist, also racial prejudices, and small-town small-mindedness. While this is by no means Block's best work, or even in her top five, if you aren't familiar with her you won't miss the difference.)

40. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (This was fun & mischievous read. YA. Kind of made me want to go pull large-scale overly-intellectual pranks.)

41. Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, edited by Robert Swartwood (I love this. I wanted to hand it to everyone! It's so wonderfully compact and so interesting and satisfy, I only with their were more books like this. See also the Six Word Memoir books. Excellent!)

42. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (Audiobooked. This got be through a lot of commuting. And I can think of teens I would recommend it to. Intriguing world theory, a country that used to have extremely advanced technology gave it up by royal decree, and now lives in a Georgian high-court world of politics & protocal, the ever hanging threat & mystery of a massive inescapable prison that's physical location is a mystery. The characters didn't hold me through the book and I knew it was going to be a cliff-hanger ending long before it arrived which made the end seem needlessly drawn out... but might give the sequel a shot, we'll see...)