I'm Older, Maybe A Little Wiser, And Have Joined BookMooch

My blog and I have turned another year older, but I think I've fared better in that year since I got to read all kinds of books and my blog came to a screeching halt in the summer when I moved. Note to self: never start a blog that depends on keeping track of the books you've bought and read each month when you have to box them all up for three weeks and wait five days to have internet connection.

While I really do want to keep tabs on what I get and what I read each month, perhaps a better approach is less formal. I'll blog what I want to blog (the BookMooch rant is coming) and when I want to blog. A running tally of monthly books will be kept in my sidebar. I may post monthly recaps, I may not. Am definitely going to work on my reviewing skills and try my hand at witty essays. If you're lucky, I might post them here, for the whole zero of you that read this blog.

As a swift recap, here are my top ten books read in 2008 (in no particular order):

1) Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
2) Hogfather and the City Watch Discworld novels - Terry Pratchett
3) The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle (& sequels) - Catherine Webb
4) I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley
5) The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
6) The Sweet Far Thing - Libba Bray
7) Holidays on Ice - David Sedaris
8) Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
9) The Cabinet of Wonders - Marie Rutkoski
10) The Gun Seller - Hugh Laurie

So half the list is teen, most is fiction, and the rest is satirical. Pretty average year's reading, all in all. I've probably really enjoyed more than those ten, but it was hard to even remember enough to fill the list. And don't say I cheated by putting in whole series because I only listed them as one entry. So there.

The worst book of 2008 was Breaking Dawn. Stephenie Meyer's bad-fanfic opus should be burnt. Literally the worst ending to an enjoyable series. We pretend it doesn't exist. Also on the bad list is The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta. Enjoyable, yes, well written, yes, but the two main characters lacked real motivation and were too static for a lot of sympathy. The second biggest disappointment was Carol Goodman's The Night Villa. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't as good as her older works. A tad too predictable, and it lacked a fully satisfactory ending. Sure, the bad guys got theirs, the herione feels older and wiser, but Goodman had set it up for a hero and romance and fell just short of giving it. Similarly was The Monsters of Templeton. Very different from what I expected, it was a little heavy-handed and lacking in development in some places. But I grudgingly liked it in the end. Enough not to BookMooch my copy? I don't know yet.

Hopefully 2009 is a good year for books. I'm looking forward to several books slated to be published in the spring, including a ghost story from Sarah Waters and a new Carlos Ruiz Zafon ode to books. And the fourth Horatio Lyle book, which I will be ordering from the UK. (Yes, my addiction is so bad that I'm importing books and mooching on top of my employee discount. It's like I get paid in books.)

Happy Birthday, This Is Your Brain On Reading. May you live long.