April Reading Wrap Up

So we are all in agreement that April lasted like 3 minutes, right? I need us to all get on board with this so I have a good excuse why I hardly posted in April. I mean, other than the whole pandemic thing, because that is also a major reason why I didn't get anything done. Turns out, trying to work while quarantined with a small monster means there's no time to do anything. Except watch clips from Blue's Clue and Sesame Street because man, have I watched a lot of that because screen time limitations, what are those?

Let's look at my reading for April, shall we? I veered strongly towards comfort reads, because you know

Number of books read
4
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
The Martian by Andy Weir
Toddlers are A**holes: It's Not Your Fault by Bunmi Laditan
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Total pages read
1,456

Fiction
50%

POC authors
25%

Female authors
25%

US authors
50%

Book formats
audiobook: 50%
ebook: 25%
paperback: 50%

Where'd I get the book
Chain bookstores: 25%
Kindle/audible: 25%
Library: 50%

Rereads
75%

Decade published
2000s: 25%
2010s: 75%

Resolution books
25%
Toddlers Are A**holes is by a POC author from Canada. Also the only female author I read this week and the only non-reread. Those two facts don't make it a resolution, just something I thought I'd share.

Let's Talk About Audiobooks

As I believe has been clear by my reading stats from the last year+ (which you're fastidiously committing to memory, right?) I have swung heavily in favor of audiobooks, primarily due to the fact that my time sitting without distraction has decreased significantly (no longer commuting by train, small monster in house). If you didn't memorize past stats and are curious, in 2018 23% of the books I read were audiobooks. In 2019 it jumps to 78% and so far this year it's at 74%. So lots of listening. And I have found certain things to be true. Now of course, this is just me and your mileage may vary

1. Nonfiction is way easier to listen to than fiction

I have found it far easy to submerse myself in a fictional world if I'm sitting down and looking at words on a page than if I'm listening. Maybe it's because if I zone out a bit with an audiobook, I could miss crucial details of the story. Not to say I don't sometimes zone out while reading but it's easy enough to glance up a few lines (or skip back a couple pages). With an audiobook I have to try to skip the play back and many times I'm doing other things while listening to an audiobook, like driving or cooking or cleaning so skipping back takes that much extra effort and most of the time, I don't bother.

That doesn't mean I can't do fiction audiobooks. As a matter of fact in 2019 my audiobook reading was split almost 50/50 between fiction and nonfiction. But I do find nonfiction to be easier. Fiction has to work a bit harder.

2. Who is doing the reading matters almost as much as the book itself

I don't think when I first started listening to audiobooks that I entirely took into account the narrator. I knew it was important to an extent. If I'm listening to a book for the first time and have no point of comparison (i.e., I haven't read it before) then it's hard to say if my experience with the book was improved or impaired by the narrator. But the more listening I've done, the more I realize that the narrator can make or break a book. To be fair, I have more examples of them breaking a book. Mostly because if I love a book I've listened to, I'm going to give credit to the book itself and I don't have too many (or any as far as I can tell) examples of me having read a book I was lukewarm about and then spending the time to then listen to it to find out if the narrator could have saved the day. I do, however, have a couple examples of books that I've really loved and when I listened to them, I was very...eh about.

The Martian by Andy Weir, read by Will Wheaton.
This one was upsetting because I was VERY excited for this audiobook when I heard he was going to be narrating it. See I looooove this book. And I also looooove this movie. Already, two forms, big fan. And I like Wheaton's reading. He narrated a Joe Hill short story that I was a fan of so I thought this is perfect. And reader, it was not. Part of it may be the fact that when I read the book, I could sort of skim over the math or super sciency bits and there were lots of those. In an audiobook, no can do, at least not easily. But that's not on the narrator. But the way some of the characters were portrayed was not my favorite and I spent much of the time thinking "No, sorry, Mitch wouldn't say it like that." Even Tom a few times commented that he didn't like this audiobook. Alas, alas.

Dad is Fat and Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan, read by Jim Gaffigan
This one is confusing. Because Gaffigan is reading them and he's a standup comedian so it feels like if anyone should get the material right, he should. Also a lot of the stuff in these books are bits from his standup routines I've seen before. So I KNOW he can deliver it well. And yet in the books, many places fall flat. It won't stop me from listening to it cos overall I still think they're pretty funny but it's very strange

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach, read by Bernadette Quigley
In this case I haven't read the book before and I haven't seen this book performed elsewhere. But I have read a fair amount of Roach's stuff so feel confident saying that I would have enjoyed this book better had I read it instead of listening. There were odd pronunciations and some accents attempted that made me cringe a bit and took me out of the book.

3. Big cast recordings are lots of fun

Some fiction audiobooks that I've particularly liked have been cast recordings with a whole bunch of actors and I've enjoyed these immensely. World War Z is the obvious (for anyone who reads this or knows me) choice because I listen to that about once a year. It has a great, varied cast. Some chapters/characters/readers I like better than others but overall it's great. But it's not just an anomaly. The Graveyard Book and Locke & Key are both excellent and worth multiple listens. That's not to say that fiction only works when there's a cast (I will always love you, Jim Dale Harry Potter series), but something about hearing these different actors take on the various roles makes it that much easier to lose yourself in the story and hear it closer to the way I hear it if I'm just reading to myself.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to figure out what to listen to next.

March Reading Wrap Up

March. What a month, huh? Normally, I'm a big fan of March cos it's got my birthday in it. Birthdays are slightly less fun when you can't leave the house. And also when you had tickets to see Ali Wong. But I know I am lucky. But also I am disappointed. Lots of emotions all the time. Tom and I are working from home (luckily, we can) and daycare is closed (of course) so there is a lot of juggling and multitasking and general stress. But sometimes there is reading. I mean, more often there is bad TV/movies (I am watching Geostorm as I write this, while simultaneously listening to the Geostorm episode of How Did This Get Made. Once you start multitasking, it's hard to stop), but sometimes, there is reading. Why don't we talk about that?

Number of books read
6
Go To Sleep, I Miss You by Lucy Knisley (which I read twice and thus counted twice in the other stats)
The Cases That Haunt Us: From Jack the Ripper to Jon Benet Ramsey, The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Sheds New Light on the Mysteries that Won't Go Away by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas
Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollan
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

Number of pages read
1,955

Fiction
14%

POC authors
0%

Female authors
29%

US authors
86%

Book formats
audiobook: 57%
hardback: 29%
paperback: 14%

Where'd I get the book
Chain Bookstore: 14%
Indie Bookstore: 29%
Kindle/Audible: 43%
Library: 14%

Rereads
43%

Decade published
1990s: 14%
2000s: 29%
2010s: 14%
2020s: 43%

Resolution books
29%
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson - published prior to 2000
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - non-US author (Wales)

I ALSO managed to write two posts, other than my wrap up post, in March so that's another goal met! Can I do it again in April? Who knows because seriously who knows anything that's happening anymore. But anyway wash your hands and stay home (if you can).

April Mini-Reviews

Lookit this! Another post in March. I mean, it's close to the end of March, but still! Another post! Which means I'm making my (very low stakes) goal. Phew. It was touch and go for a while. Honestly, even while I'm writing this, it's still touch and go cos who knows if I'll actually finish it.

As I was writing the last couple mini-review posts, I realized last year my reading was very...eh. Which is very likely why my first read in April was The Graveyard Book, which I won't go into here because I've already written about it. I will just say the more often I read it, the more I love it and I think I need to relisten to it again, even if it gives me ALL THE EMOTIONS. But hey, let's instead talk about books that I haven't already written about here.

Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting by Jennifer Traig
I only remember bits and pieces of this book. There's a LOT in the beginning about kids...not making it. Which is rough to get through, although it to be fair to it, it doesn't linger. I remember enjoying it; there's lots of interesting bits about the history of child rearing. BUT it didn't totally stick with me. To the point where I saw this book included on a list of parenting books and thought "That looks interesting, I should check it out!" only to see that I had already marked it as Read in Goodreads. Make of that what you will. But I think I may give it another read and see if it sticks with me more.
Gif rating:

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
A bookclub selection! An English murder mystery. Actually, it's two murder mysteries in one, since there's a story within the story that's also a murder mystery. It's hard to talk too much about it because, you know, mystery. Don't want to wander into spoilers territory. I liked the idea of it and I liked the story within the story best but the flow of the book was not my favorite. But it did make me want to read more murder mysteries.
Gif rating:

Strange Weather by Joe Hill
Short story collections can be very hit or miss. I tend to stay away from them, because I often find they contain more misses. Stephen King tends to be an exception and I figured why not give his son a chance. Good news, he did not disappoint. I mean, it helps that I already like Hill's stuff, so I felt confident giving this a try. The stories were really good. There's a story about a guy who can erase memories with a polaroid. A story about a guy who finds himself carried away on a cloud. Or cloud like thing. A story about a sudden deluge, not of rain but of nails and the horror that it brings. And finally a story about a good-guy with a gun...maybe. They were all very good, had moments that were truly tense and scary and had moments that were heartbreaking.
Gif rating:

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi
A sci-fi short story about a world where you can't murder anyone anymore. Most of the time if you try, that person comes back to life. Oh sure, people can still die, but not from murder. So there arises a group called Dispatchers, whose job it is to "kill" someone, someone who is on death's door, so they maybe have another chance at life. But there's a shady underground world to this (of course) and what happens when a fellow dispatcher is murdered? It was an Audible Original, so a quick story. I don't totally remember the resolution but the premise seemed interesting. I gave it a decent rating so I suppose I enjoyed it.
Gif rating:

Can I get another post in before the month ends??? Probably not but you never know!

March (2019) Mini-Reviews

Here's an attempt to catch up on posting and actually, you know, write on this blog. What a concept.

I'm taking advantage of some time to write as COVID-19 has got us social distancing. Which seems counterintuitive (not the social distancing, that makes sense) since you'd think if we're all trapped in the house I'd have less time to write cos the lil monster requires attention. Except now we're BOTH home so entertainment detail can be split.

So why not catch up on some more mini-reviews? See if I can't stay ahead of the game (I cannot). Heads up, as I look at the list of books I read in March of 2019 I gotta tell you...not a lot is coming to me. This may be brief.

How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby. I like the guy. I mean I think. I like High Fidelity anyway (both book and movie, thankyouverymuch). And he wrote an album with Ben Folds that includes a song about Levi Johnston (Sarah Palin's almost son-in-law?) that's catchy. I was at the Strand and saw a copy of How to Be Good and figured I'd give it a try. Basically this guy who is sort of a jackass has a spiritual awakening where he decides he has to turn his life around and be a good person. And while it's hard to fault someone for doing this, it is driving his wife and kids nuts. It's a strange book and I don't really remember much in the way of a resolution but that could just be my bad memory. I remember it being mostly just...eh. Not terrible but not great.
Gif rating:

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
I listened to this as an audiobook and I think that was a mistake. Because I generally lurve Fforde's stuff. But I have noted, to myself and even out loud to others, that I can't imagine how stuff like the Thursday Next series would work in any format other than a book. There's so much that plays with language and footnotes and typography that you need to see it. And yet I thought "Oh, here's a new book from him, I should definitely listen to this as an audiobook. Even though in general I find I have more trouble paying attention to fiction audiobooks than nonfiction ones, I'm sure it will be fine this time." Like most of Fforde's stuff, the plot is hard to describe. Basically it's a dystopian where in the winter everyone has to hibernate and there are these strange dreams killing people and there are weird creatures roaming about. And there is Charlie a winter consul, who is dealing with the bureaucracy that comes with this (because there is hilarity and satire within dystopias). I remember it being weird, as his stuff often is, but I had trouble getting my bearings in the story and I don't know if that was intentional (i.e., he's trying to make you doubt your own sanity) or if I just missed out on stuff cos I was listening instead of reading. I should probably give this a try but as a book-book and then come back with new thoughts.
Gif Rating:

Sakina's Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi
This was a short story, one of the Audible Originals that's free each month with a subscription. It's sort of a one man show about a man coming to America from India and working at a restaurant and the strangeness of the new life and what he loves about his new home and what he misses and what the family he works for is like. It was funny at times but overall I can't remember much of it. Apparently it was originally an actual one-man play so perhaps it works a bit better that way.
Gif rating:

A Mind of Her Own by Paula McLain
Another free Audible Original. This one a fictional account of the life of a young Marie Curie (nee Sklodowska). She's far from home, studying in Paris and meets a certain Pierre Curie. I thought it'd be interesting to hear a bit about this woman of whom I know only a bit here and there. Mostly the radioactive stuff. And there's a bit about her but I can't say I retained much. Even at the time of listening, judging by the rating I gave it, I wasn't too into it then. It focuses more on the love story with Pierre and less about her work. Which could be fine but wasn't my thing.
Gif rating:

So when I look at my mini-reviews for Feb 2019 and now these things were...not great, reading wise. Which explains why, following these reads, I listened to The Graveyard Book which is def one of my fav books (to listen to, to read-read) because I needed something that was going to be great. Spoilers, it WAS great, even if it gives me ALL OF THE EMOTIONS. But now is not a time to review that book. Now is the time to see what nonsense is going on while I keep myself hidden away.

February Reading Wrap Up

Damn, only one post in February. To wrap up what I read in January. That is...not a great start to a new blogging year. I could have sworn I wrote more. Or you know, something. But apparently I was just thinking of the posts in January (which were mostly wrap up posts and therefore only somewhat count) and had duped myself. Sigh. Anyway, let's talk about what February held.

I took advantage of the leap day to sneak in one additional book this month, so thank you Julius Caesar* for that. Otherwise, as always, the month went by heckin' fast. Lots of work, which is busy. Lots of stuff for the goblin, which is also busy. There was even a book club meeting this month AND a (mini-) road trip to visit friends (and gift them with many baby hand-me-downs, of which we no longer need and they will soon have a use for), which was busy but also much fun.

Now, how 'bout them stats?

Number of books read
5
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

Total pages read
1,844

Fiction
60%

POC authors
20%

Female authors
80%

US authors
60%

Book formats
audiobook: 80%
hardback: 20%

Where'd I get the book
Indie bookstore: 20%
Kindle/Audible: 40%
Library: 40%

Rereads
40%

Translation
20%

Bookclub pick
20%

Decade published
2000s: 40%
2010s: 60%

Resolution books
60%

Lethal White is by a UK author (Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling)
My Sister, The Serial Killer is by a POC, Nigerian author (Oyinkan Braithwaite)
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is by a Polish author (Olga Tokarczuk) and is a translation

OK so I'm gonna try to set a goal for myself. I gotta write 2 more posts in March. Can I do it? We shall see.

*And I only know that fact cos of the recent John Mulaney monologue on SNL. So thanks to Mulaney for that bit of trivia and also for creating The Sack Lunch Bunch. I realize that is unrelated to what this aside was originally about, but man, what a great special.