On Friday I posted about the books I've read in 2012 and mentioned I have only two reading goals for this upcoming year. Both are a result of some soul searching and a longing to nurture my reading life. Curious now? Here they are:
The Lucy Maude Montgomery Journals Read Along:
I first read these journals a decade ago and firmly believe they will be books I re-visit throughout my life. Already a number of you have told me via blog comments, email, or even Christmas card that you plan on reading along. Watch for details in the weeks ahead.
Forgo Goodreads and a public "Currently Reading" list for the year:
I love the opportunity to talk about books.
Goodreads has been a wonderful place to both get recommendations and comment on friends' selections, but this, along with my easily accessible currently reading page, has left me exhausted, friends. I know few of you are so interested in my reading that you check in regularly to see what's going on, but just the thought that I've made this very special aspect of my life so public has drained me considerably. I've talked a bit about this
here and
here.
Part of being an author in the age of social media means maintaining a public persona. I'm finding that while I enjoy this, right now, I'd like to reclaim my reading as something private, something for me only. I will be beholden to no one this upcoming year and am already relishing what this will mean for me as a reader.
I'm an introvert, remember? I crave privacy and am trying to intentionally build it in where I can.
This doesn't mean I won't blog about reading! I can't imagine never talking about books. There will be
On My Nightstand posts, posts that highlight books in various ways, currently reading discussions on my
May B. Facebook page. What you won't get is a blow-by-blow of everything I'm reading. That I'll keep in a
journal I started and have faithfully kept since 2005. I'll continue to read your recommendations over at Goodreads. And I know I'll click over just to see the pretty covers in my own collection. But there will be no new postings there.
What are your reading goals for 2013?
Here's a look at everything I've read this year!
Clear Off Your Shelves Challenge
Debut Author Challenge
Re-Reads
** Read Alouds
- The Story of Beautiful Girl - Rachel Simon
- Agatha Christie: An Autobiography - Agatha Christie (NF)
- Scarlet - A. C. Gaughen (YA)
- One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are - Ann Voskamp (NF)
- Swindle - Gordon Korman (MG)**
- Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu (MG)
- Wonderstruck - Brian Selznick (MG)**
- The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie - Wendy McClure (NF)
- A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke - James Horn (NF)
- Wonder - R. J. Palacio (MG)
- Circle of Secrets - Kimberley Griffiths Little (MG)
- A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar - Suzanne Joinson
- Chained - Lynne Kelly (MG)
- Starters - Lissa Price (YA)
- The Fault in Our Stars - John Green (YA)
- Toilet Paper Tigers - Gordon Korman (MG)**
- Zoobreak - Gordon Korman (MG)**
- Love in Mid-Air - Kim Wright Wiley
- The Bee-Loud Glade - Steve Himmer
- The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate (MG)
- Wildflowers in Winter - Katie Ganshert
- Touch Blue - Cynthia Lord (MG)
- Under the Never Sky - Veronica Rossi (YA)
- A Voice for Kanzas - Debra MacArthur (MG)
- The Gathering Storm - Robin Bridges (YA)
- A Summer to Die - Lois Lowry (YA)
- Where the Broken Heart Still Beats - Carolyn Meyer (YA)
- The No-Brainer Wardrobe - Hayley Morgan (NF)
- All Over But the Shoutin' - Rick Bragg (NF)
- New Found Land - Alan Wolf (YA)
- If I Lie - Corrine Jackson (YA)
- Sister - Rosamund Lupton
- Emily's Dress and Other Missing Things (YA)
- Hound Dog True - Linda Urban (MG)
- Second Sight: An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults - Cheryl B. Klein (NF)
- Glory Be - Augusta Scattergood (MG)
- A Breath of Eyre - Eve Marie Mont (YA)
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
- Sanctuary - Agatha Christie
- The Thank You Room - Serenity Bohon (NF)
- Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
- The Wild Wood - Julie Anne Nelson (YA)
- Selkirk's Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe - Diana Souhami (NF)
- Crossed - Ally Condie (YA)
- The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains - Nicholas Carr (NF)
- The Ruins of Us - Keija Parssinen
- Where Things Come Back - John Corey Whaley (YA)
- Grave Mercy - Robin LaFevers (YA)
- Small Medium at Large - Joanne Levy (MG)
- The Mapmaker and the Ghost - Sarvenaz Tash (MG)**
- Chime - Franny Billingsley (YA)
- The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game (MG)**
- Horton Halfpott: or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset - Tom Angleberger (MG)
- Cryer's Cross - Lisa McMann (YA)
- A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness (YA)
- Remarkable - Lizzie K. Foley (MG)
- Paper Covers Rock - Jenny Hubbard (YA)
- Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein (YA)
- Small Damages - Beth Kephart (YA)
- Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World - Temple Grandin, Sy Montgomery (MG/NF)
- Summer of the Gypsy Moths - Sara Pennypacker (MG)
- One for the Murphys - Lynda Mullaly Hunt (MG)
- The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg (NF)
- Liar and Spy - Rebecca Stead (MG)
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain (NF)
- The Head in Edward Nugent's Hand: Roanoke's Forgotten Indians - Michael Leroy Oberg (NF)
- Fracture - Megan Miranda (YA)
- Inside Out and Back Again - Thanhha Lai (MG)
- Writing the Breakout Novel - Donald Maas (NF)
- Ender in Exile - Orson Scott Card
- The Unnameables - Ellen Booraem (MG)
- Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
- How to Save a Life - Sara Zarr (YA)
- Auracle - Gina Rosati (YA)
- The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction - Sinclair Ferguson (NF)
- All is Well - Kristin Embry Litchman (MG)
- The False Prince - Jennifer Nielsen (MG)
- One Thousand White Women - Jim Fergus
- The Absolute Value of Mike - Kathryn Erskine (MG)
- The Brides of Rollrock Island - Margo Lanagan (YA)
- The Girl of Fire and Thorns - Rae Carson (YA)
- The Great Unexpected - Sharon Creech (MG)
Stats for the year:
adult titles: 13.8%
I made a point to read more adult titles than I did last year, and I plan to continue to do this. These last few years I've let this aspect of my reading lag, and I've felt the ramifications of feeling undernourished as a reader. Never again!
non-fiction: 19.5%
- faith: 2.4%
- research : 2.4%
- craft : 2.4%
- pleasure read: 12%
Though not the genre with the highest percentage, this is truly the year of non-fiction for me. I'm not usually one who reads non-fiction for pleasure, yet look at all those books I read just because they piqued my interest! I'd love to keep this balance in my reading for the rest of my life.
middle grade : 34%
My fist love and my primary area of study, this is no surprise to me.
young adult: 31%
Almost every young adult title I've read has either been a debut or recent release. Interesting.
debuts: 18%
If you're looking closely at my list, you'll see the numbers and percentages don't jive. That's because two books that didn't qualify for the 2012 Debut Challenge were still debuts.
picture books: ??
Foolishly, I've never kept a steady record of the picture books I've read. The last two years have been gap years for me, as my boys have started to move beyond this phase in their personal reading, and together we read middle grade. I've spent the last few months brushing up on titles I've missed and have enjoyed immensely what I've read.
Goals for next year:
Only two. I'll discuss these during my next post.
What have you read this year? What patterns have you seen emerge?
One of the things I think has made Gillian Flynn's GONE GIRL so successful is voice.
Voice is always one of those tricky things. Scholastic editor
Cheryl Klein defines it "by using the formula VOICE = PERSON + TENSE + PROSODY + (Diction + Syntax + Tone + Imagination + Details). Defining the imagination of Voice, Cheryl says, '[t]he imagination of a voice sets the range of subjects, images, diction, kinds of and examples of figurative language, and references that the voice can include.'”
Agent and author
Donald Maass says voice is "the thing...every novelist already has... . It may be comic, deadpan, dry, pulpy, shrill, objective, distant, intimate, arty or a thousand other things. It comes through in the story that an author chooses to tell and the way in which they choose to tell it."
Here are some quotes I highlighted while reading GONE GIRL. You'll notice they're not big statements on the plot (except for the last one, which sums up the entire story in all its twisted wonder), but tiny observations -- metaphors used to paint a picture of characters, of setting, small things that were fresh and interesting and right. In other words, great examples of voice.
characterization and metaphor:
"They have no hard edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish -- expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing." (p 27)
setting and metaphor:
"It was the best time of day, the July sky cloudless, the slowly setting sun a spotlight on the east, turning everything golden and lush, a Flemish painting." (p 31)
characterization:
"His shirt wasn't wrinkled, but he wore it like it was; he looked like he should stink of cigarettes and sour coffee, even though he didn't. He smelled like Dial soap." (p 33)
characterization and metaphor:
"He spoke in a soft, soothing voice, a voice wearing a cardigan." (p 199)
and the quote that sums up the entire crazy ride:
"Our kind of love can go into remission, but it's always waiting to return. Like the world's sweetest cancer." (p 392)
Have you read GONE GIRL? What were your impressions? Any other authors or books that get voice just right?
Here are five self-published books I've recently purchased:
Mindset for Moms: From Mundane to Marvelous Thinking in Just 30 Days - Jamie C. Martin
Confession: This one's written by a dear friend. I blogged about her first book,
Steady Days, and am happy to talk up her newest title! Jamie blogs at
Steady Mom and
Simple Homeschool.
The No Brainer Wardrobe - Hayley Morgan
I found this via a Facebook comment from a friend (good marketing, Hayley!). Hayley blogs at
Tiny Twig Goes Out on a Limb.
One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler - Tsh Oxenreider
This is Tsh's second book. Her first, the wildly successful
Organized Simplicity, was published traditionally. Tsh blogs at
Simple Mom.
Cinders - Michelle Argyle Davidson
When I found out Michelle's originally self-published book would soon only be available as a part of her fairy tale collection, Bonded (published by Rhemalda), I snatched up a copy while I could. Michelle's other books include
Monarch and forthcoming
The Breakaway.
How are you doing, readers?
I've read one of my three titles, THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN. It was a lovely, quick read told in the voice of a gorilla. Yes, you heard that correctly. Author Katherine Applegate was inspired to write IVAN after learning about a gorilla who for three decades lived in a tiny cage at a mall. Now the real Ivan lives at the Atlanta Zoo (Katherine has created a website for those interested in finding out more about this remarkable fellow).
I'd heard great things about this book before beginning. It was included on the Winter 2012 Kids' Indie Next List as well as Amazon's Best Books of the Month for Kids (January 2012). IVAN is making waves as a contender for the 2013 Newbery Medal.
But is it a verse novel?
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This comment has been removed by the author.
Weird. I commented and it duplicated the comment, so I deleted one and now they're both gone! Anyhoo, Happy New Year!
It seems to be a Blogger quirk in with this template. I could see it in my inbox, though!
I understand what you mean about Goodreads... I have the same difficulty balancing my need to be interior. I actually started my Goodreads account when I started falling behind in my reading journal--it was easier to type while nursing a baby than to write in a little notebook! But since I don't want to make all my reflections public, keeping track of those reactions has suffered. I'm not sure how I'll resolve this, but I'm glad you've reminded me to think about it.
I HAVE found several books I loved through your goodreads reviews, though, so do keep recommending ones you liked here, please!
I hope you have a beautiful and very blessed new year, Caroline!
I'm glad others can relate to the Goodreads dilemma. It's wonderful to keep a record of what I'm reading and so good to get recommendations from others/see what they've picked up. It's the public nature of it all that has gotten to me. And truthfully, who goes and looks at my list of books? Probably very few people (though some do look at my currently reading list, according to my blog stats). I really think my decision to share some but not all of what I'm doing will help me to feel my reading is my own again.
I will continue to check in there. Promise. Happy New Year to you, too, friend.
I think that's interesting, Caroline, and I totally understand! At times I feel overwhelmed by social media, even though it keeps me current and connected. Good luck with your reading goals, and enjoy some private time!