An Additional 25 Favorite Books

I promised a follow-up list to my Top 10 Favorite Books, and here it is! (Again, the first books in a series stand for the whole.) Without further ado, the 25 Favorite Books that didn't make it on the first list:

---Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women. (Duh. Seriously, duh. I identified with Jo, but also a little with Amy. I was named for her after all.)

---Alexander, Lloyd: Time Cat. (Such a sneaky, perfect way to teach history. That the writing of this novel led Alexander to The Chronicles of Prydain is just a bonus.)

---Barron, T.A.: The Lost Years of Merlin. (This series fed my need for Arthurian legend. A fresh exploration of some well-worn territory.)

---Brashares, Ann: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. (I grew up with Bridget, Lena, Tibby and Carmen, and they were the sum of my experiences. Brashares wasn’t afraid to tackle the complicated issues of being a “normal” suburban teenager.)

---Bray, Libba: A Great and Terrible Beauty. (Seeing a lot of boarding schools, magic, and bodices around YA, but this is one of the first. I love when genres I love get muddled up in each other for the better.)

---Cashore, Kristin: Graceling. (Cashore populates her fantasy world with complicated characters, using the setting to enrich the people and vice versa. Her prose is phenomenal, and even better, she’s evolving as a writer. Fire shows her growth, and I can’t wait for Bitterblue.)

---Coville, Bruce: Into the Land of the Unicorns. (Scary villains, likeable protagonists, clever supporting cast, an alternate realm where unicorns exist, portals they use to cross over into our world…Yes, please.)

---Dokey, Cameron: The Storyteller’s Daughter. (It opens with one of my favorite prologues ever, which you can check it out on Amazon with the “Search inside this book” feature. Pair it with Susan Fletcher’s Shadow Spinner for another perspective on Scheherazade.)

---George, Jean Craighead: Julie of the Wolves. (I think these books are why I like werewolves better. Wonderfully researched and presented.)

---Henry, Marguerite: King of the Wind. (Though I read and loved many of her horse books, I think this is my favorite. Also have fond memories of Black Gold, Born to Trot, and San Domingo.)

---Jacques, Brian: Redwall. (I can’t say enough about this series. His death was a sad day for me.)

---Lowry, Lois: The Giver. (The grandfather of dystopian YA and still one of the best. I’m seeing shades of it everywhere now, which says a lot about the staying power of its ideas.)

---Konigsburg, E.L.: A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. (I loved the Eleanor of Aquitane of I read here, and I kept searching out powerful women in history/historical fiction.)

---McCaffrey, Anne: Dragonflight. (The Dragonriders of Pern series was fundamental in forming my love of science fiction/fantasy. It also taught me how to keep a dynastic cast of characters with similar names straight. So useful.)

---McKinley, Robin: Beauty/Rose Daughter. (Two different retellings of “Beauty and the Beast” by the same author, though Beauty may have the edge.)

---Nix, Garth: Sabriel. (The Disreputable Dog and Moggat are some of my favorite “animal” characters ever. The system of necromancy and bell magic is an impressive feat of imagination.)

---Pierce, Meredith Ann: The Darkangel. (One of the best vampire trilogies out there. Not “sexy,” but scary, mythological, and so, so lush. She has a knack for character arcs, surprises, and resonance, especially for making certain characters feel ancient and powerful.)

---Pullman, Philip: The Golden Compass. (What can I say that hasn’t already been said? He has a magnificent mind. Lee Scoresby is one of my favorites.)

---Rawls, Wilson: Where the Red Fern Grows. (A boy and his dogs. Tears. Big, big tears. Heartbreak, sorrow. Did I mention crying?)

---Rinaldi, Ann: Wolf by the Ears. (As a native Virginian, I was caught by this story of Thomas Jefferson, his mistress, and their child. I remember this book contained one of the first “racy” scenes I’d ever read, a tense attempted rape. It was shocking, but so was the idea of slavery. A formative book for me about race, history, and humanity.)

---Staples, Suzanna Fisher: Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind. (I’ve had an affection for camels ever since. Something about this glimpse into the desert was spellbinding.)

---Taylor, Sydney: All-of-a-Kind Family. (I couldn’t tell you how much it meant to see a Jewish family represented in longer-form fiction. Of course, I read fantastic Jewish picture books like Hershel and the Hanukah Goblins, but this book was so important in making me feel secure in my identity. I have a huge affection for this immigrant story. It’s my Little House!)

---White, E.B.: Charlotte’s Web. (I think it can be best described in its own words: “Some Pig. Terrific. Radiant. Humble.”)

---Williams, Margery: The Velveteen Rabbit. (Can’t read it without tearing up. Who hasn’t had a stuffed animal they’ve made real?)

---Yep, Laurence: The Dragon of the Lost Sea. (This series was my crash course in Chinese mythological symbols, and it opened me up to books flavored with Eastern cultural influences. Shimmer and Thorn were an incredible team, flawed with pride but still loveable.)

(Ed. Oversight: I realized I forgot Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and Dune by Frank Herbert. I have a feeling I’ll be adding more to this list later.)

So, there you have it…35 of my favorites, available to peruse. I haven't even touched “adult” books yet, but that is for another time. (If you can't get enough of my lists, you can check out my 10 favorites of 2010, plus another 5. Still looking forward to seeing your lists.) Thanks for reading!

My Top 10 Favorite Books of All Time Ever

I’ve started to work on my CPC homework (found in the PACKET)…It is not easy! These assignments are certainly meant to challenge my abilities to the fullest. People call the program a “publishing boot camp,” and today, I read an article calling it the “West Point of publishing.” Then, of course, there’s this tweet. (Should I be worried that all of these metaphors revolve around war?)

Still, there is one assignment I found unbearably pleasant, even if it wasn’t any kind of easy. I had to list my top ten favorite books and give <25 word description of each book’s significance. Though I do have acute list anxiety, the task was so much fun. I reminisced and ranked and agonized over what books would make the cut, but I’m supremely satisfied with my choices. (The 25 books I couldn’t fit on this list will appear later in the week. Also, I used the first book in a series to stand in for the whole thing, even if I might have loved later books more.)

My Top 10 Favorite Books of All Time Ever (in alphabetical order by author’s last name):

---Alcott, Louisa May. Rose in Bloom. (For letting me watch the Eight Cousins grow up and for making morality go down easy. Mac Campbell, the bookworm, was my first literary love.)

---Cooper, Susan. The Dark Is Rising. (A series that fed my obsession with mythology and taught me about growing up. Children always have more power than they know.)

---Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth. (For teaching me to love whimsy mixed with wisdom and to understand “reread value.” This book never condescends, no matter the age of the reader.)

---Leaf, Munro. The Story of Ferdinand. (There are so many lessons inside such a slim book. The illustrations and Ferdinand’s sweetness have a permanent place in my heart.)

---L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. (A colorful cast, fantastic elements, and a heroine I could embrace shaped my taste for years to come. I voraciously consumed L’Engle’s body of work.)

---Levine, Gail Carson. Ella Enchanted. (Retellings aren’t easy to do right, but Ella is pitch-perfect. The details fit and transcend Cinderella, injecting the fairy tale’s heroine with new life.)

---McKinley, Robin. The Blue Sword. (Harimad is the predecessor to Katniss and Katsa. McKinley swept me away with this book, and it was the gateway to her other works.)

---Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (I grew up with Harry and will never forget the experience. Books are the most magical things of all.)

---Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). (On each reread, I love new things. In English or French, it reminds me to see an elephant inside a boa constrictor, not a hat.)

---Wrede, Patricia C. Dealing with Dragons. (Skewering the fairy tale genre was never more fun. Cimorene, Morwen, and Kazul are remarkable female characters—active, smart, and powerful.)

Let me know what you think of my list in the comments…I’d also love to read your Top 10 if you leave a link!

Award-Winning and Such

I blushing from head to little bookworm tail! My new friend Read the Book has bestowed the Stylish Blogger Award on me, and I’m tickled pink. Er, green. (Thanks, my dear.)

My best friend once told me that “there are two things you always accept: breath mints and compliments.” With that in mind, I won’t be bashful and will post the supernice things Ms. Read said:

“Simple Little Bookworm--Amy's blog is my most recently discovered treasure, and I love it! She writes about a wide variety of books and is highly entertaining while she does it.”

Aw, man…Now I’m going to have to live up to that! (I think I’m up for the challenge.) But wait! There’s more!

Part of the deal is that I have to share some interesting tidbits about myself. How many, you ask? I think I’ll take my cue from one of my favorite movies: “Three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.”

1. I guess the first should be that my comedy trifecta is Mel Brooks, Monty Python, and Woody Allen.

2. My three favorite things my mom cooks are beef bourguignon, barbeque brisket, and onion oven-roasted potatoes. At home, I am definitely a meat and potatoes gal. (Out, I’m more Thai/Indian/adventurous.)

3. I’m wrapping up with my three favorite birthday presents. For my surprise sixteenth birthday, my friends got me waterproof crayons because I think best in the shower. On my twenty-first, my parents thought I was responsible enough for a crème brûlée-sized blowtorch. The next birthday, number twenty-two, I bought my-interior-design-loving-self a present: my nightstand.

Disclaimer: That is not my actual nightstand, though mine is indeed identical to it. (The key distinction is that there are not enough books on it.) A “How to Build a Better Bedroom for Books” featuring my nightstand is in the works.

And there you have it! Three times three, which equals my lucky number. (I guess that fun fact makes ten.)

Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow. I’m off to pay it forward!

Contest Winner (Plus Forgotten Top 5)

And the winner of the first Simple Little Bookworm Giveaway Extravaganza is…Commenter #2! Congrats, Shannon. Perhaps second really is “best,” as they say on the playground. (E-mail me for the deets.)

While I’m here, I just wanted to point out a few more awesome books I left off my Recommended Reads for 2010. (Another reason why I hate Top 10 lists: MAJOR oversights.) To make up for it, here’s my:

Top 5 Books I Overlooked from 2010 (in no particular order)

1. Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves: I can't believe it took stumbling across her Twitter account to remember these books. I was up with a flashlight for both of them…Couldn’t get enough of the dystopian zombies. Though I preferred Mary/her story to Gabry/hers, I enjoyed the deepening and opening up of the Unconsecrated/Mudo mythology. Eagerly awaiting the final book in the trilogy.

2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: With the second installation coming out this March, how could I have forgotten? This 650+ monster of a book grabbed me from the first page and would not let go. Where should I start? The fully fleshed-out magic system, the complex world-building, the eloquent narrator, the huge cast of (non-cardboard) supporting characters, the mystery Big Bad, the muddy motivations, the non-stop interesting? I contemplated skipping work to finish it. (I didn’t and spent the rest of the day yearning to get back home.)

3. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld: A serious brain meltdown because I enjoyed this book SO MUCH when I read it. I even wrote about how much I was craving its sequel here. The living airships were fascinating, the young heroes hilarious. Steampunk, alternate historical reality, and biology are a match made in heaven. Suspense-filled brain food that goes down easy. Plus illustrations!

4. Philip Pullman’s Once Upon a Time in the North: I have a not-so-secret crush on Lee Scoresby and Hester. Seeing Lee as a young man and watching him meet Iorek was a real treat. The language in this book is just beautiful. It’s the opposite of a “page-turner,” and that’s a good thing. Pullman constructs stunning sentences and invites you to sit with them for a while.

5. Blankets by Craig Thompson: I’m no stranger to graphic novels, but this one was so appealing. It is a quiet tale with quiet triumph, quiet heartbreak, and quiet horror. It enfolds you like a blanket, weaving its themes so subtly that you scarcely notice the artful storytelling. You instead notice the art and the story. I read it all in one sitting and I cried.

...So, the Forgotten Top 5. I'll do better this year, I promise!

The List, 2011-Style

Remember that annual Top 10 anxiety? I totally wasn’t kidding. My manageable little list of 30 has doubled within the past few days. I went from babysitting one well-behaved list to barely surviving two evil twin lists. I bet when I turn my back, they’ll both giggle maniacally and run off to clog the toilet.

The Breakdown (which hopefully won't lead to me breaking down):

---I have a series of hold requests totaling around 25. A good chunk of these books are the “must-reads” of the adult world. I’m lucky that kids read faster than grown-ups, because if I had to wait like this for every book on my list, I’d probably already have children. (I’m at 357 for Freedom and 176 for Room: A Novel.)

---My 39-book “backlist” is an assortment of catch-up YA, some adult fiction, some writing how-tos, and a few select genre books. This will be added to in the coming year, as I have my eye on 10 or so titles coming down the publishing pipeline.

---I have 7 books out currently, 3 of which are going back today. These will be exchanged for 7 more. Then, I’m hopefully taking a breather and watching things tick down.

With these numbers, there’s no book resolution I can wrap my brain around at this time. It’s going to be a mad free-for-all, which is kind of how I like it. (Doable resolution: Write my reviews closer to when I actually finish the books. My current schedule should put me at “current” by the end of the week.) Wish me luck?

10 Books that Made an Impression in 2010

(Read about my feelings on year-end lists here.) Presented in no particular order:

1. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson was an engrossing, read-through-it-all-at-once experience. Wildly inventive language, a pressing subject matter, and a compelling narrator made for a recipe that left me both hungry and satisfied.

2. Markus Zuzak’s The Book Thief haunted me. I kept returning to the words, lingering over images of Max and “Poppa” Hans and Rosa and Rudy and Liesel long after I put the book down. How can you get a more fascinating narrator than Death?  Bonus points for one of the most resonant ending lines I have ever read.

3. Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book moved me to tweet a recap in response to @HarperChildrens’ challenge: “Boy grows up among the dead, finds them lively. He stumbles into scrapes, brushes up against beauty, and learns how to leave.” It has charming characters crafted by a charming British wit who writes in charming prose. It won the Newbury. (I want to say “read it,” but this is a no pressure list.)

4. The Attolia series (The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings) by Megan Whalen Turner. I blazed through these four books in a staggeringly short timeframe. She constantly surprises. Political intrigue is not utilized nearly enough in YA literature. I love complicated, grown-up relationships. (Another Newbury!)

5. Kristin Cashore’s Graceling and Fire. Graceling was a great debut novel. Smart, surprising, and well-written. Good world-building is hard, and she pulls it off easily. What was I saying about political intrigue and complicated, grown-up relationships? Oh, yes. Fire has them both in spades. Yahoo for intriguing heroines and a cast of supporting characters who are just as complex! Eagerly awaiting Bitterblue.

6. Philip Roth’s Indignation. I took an all-Roth, all-the-time class and was lucky enough to have the wife of Saul Bellow as my professor. (She is a profound thinker and writer in her own right.) Really, a few books could go here (Portnoy’s Complaint, The Professor of Desire, The Dying Animal), but this book was the one that stuck.

7. The Hunger Games trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins: My first time raiding the Walden library was to grab these two books. They knocked me off my feet. While they’ve been compared to Battle Royale (yes, I see it), they actually made me care about the characters involved. There were stakes and layers and really twisted surprises. While I didn’t wholly love the last book (reviewed here), they were fantastic reads.

8. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney E. Martin. Subtitled “The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body,” this book hummed with compassion. It takes on eating disorders and what causes them from the trenches, through the observations of a young woman. Science and anecdotes blend fiercely. A gripping nonfiction read for any girl or woman or man who wants to understand what it's like.

9. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead: I was overwhelmed by this slim little book. My review (written in the New Year) is here.

10. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater: Review is here. Team Werewolf.

OK, I showed you mine. Show me yours?

Top 10 Reasons Why December Stresses Me Out

I have a tiny panic attack each time I see a headline like “The Top 10 Books of 2010.” You see, my eyes process those words correctly, but my brain interprets them as “READ THESE BOOKS NOW, YOU UNCULTURED HEATHEN.” So, “The Most Awesome Movies of the Year” becomes “THE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCES OF A LIFETIME YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON, SLACKER.”

It gets really bad around December when everyone and their mother’s blog puts out a year-end list. Though I can usually find some consensus, there’s enough difference in opinion to populate several more lists. (Some people like to disagree on purpose, like those perverse human beings who write “The Top 10 Best Things Not Found On Anyone Else’s Top 10 List.”) There are also the overachievers for whom “Top 10” isn’t enough. So we get Top 20, Top 50, Top 100…Top 500. (Pitchfork, you’re on notice.)

Of course, I still read them all every year. It’s the same impulse that compels me to check out the return carts in the library: “Did I read that? Yeah, I did! I have great taste. I'm aweso...Oh, that looks good! Wow, there’s a lot of Stieg Larsson there. I should really get around to those.” Ultimately, I love keeping up with what other people are reading and watching and listening to, even if my already-stuffed “to-see” and “to-read” lists start to bloat uncontrollably come December.

Now that I’m a blogger, I know I should jump on the bandwagon. (Who am I to deny other people their voyeuristic thrills?) Still, I have my reservations. I’ll just get those out of the way.

Top 3 Reasons I’m Not Qualified to Write a “Top 10 Books of 2010” List:

1. I barely read for pleasure during the first half of the year. I was busy with school books and requirements and exams and my internship and a 170 page thesis. (My friends fit in there somewhere.)
2. I didn’t read for pleasure all summer. You can blame job applications and a 5 season backlog of How I Met Your Mother for that. (I regret nothing.)
3. I only started reading for pleasure again in September. I tore through a ton of books, but I was primarily playing catch-up with my personal list. (Some of the books I read were published in this year, most were not.) 

Now that's cleared up, here is my (absolutely no pressure) 10 Books that Made an Impression in 2010.