LisaMorr's 11 in 11

I have been enjoying these category challenges - even though I never end up reading as many books in each category as I might plan to, I still end up broadening my horizons.

So, I will go for reading in 11 different categories in 2011. I am also going to lower my expectations for writing posts/reviews for the books I read - unfortunately that has caused me to stop posting when I felt like I didn't have time to write a review that met my requirements...

So, let's get started!

Here are my categories for 2011:

1. Franklin/Easton books - I have an entire bookshelf just for the Franklin and Easton Press books I have collected over the years.
2. Non-fiction
3. Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways
4. Coffeetable Books
5. Anthologies
6. Authors New to Me
7. Biographies
8. Off the Shelf (books that came into my home no later than 2008)
9. Science Fiction or Fantasy
10. Square Pegs (books that don't fit into any other category)
11. (Subject to change..!) Books or Authors Referenced in Books I Read this Year

Haven't decided on Category #11 yet - I think I will peruse some of the categories here for inspiration.

There will undoubtedly be lots of overlap here, but I'm not worried about it. We'll see what it looks like at the end of the year!

Category 1: Franklin/Easton
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (February)

Category 2: Non-Fiction
1. The EQ Difference: A Powerful Approach for Putting Emotional Intelligence to Work by Adele B. Lynn (January)
2. Other People's Rejection Letters: Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You'll Be Glad You Didn't Receive by Bill Shapiro (March)
3. Neighbor Law: Fences, Trees, Boundaries & Noise by Cora Jordan and Emily Doskow (June)

Category 3: Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways
1. The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas (January)
2. Nothing...Except My Genius by Oscar Wilde (February)
3. Bobby Darin: A Life by Michael Starr (April)
4. Crude Deception by Gordon Zuckerman
5. Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead by L. Ron Hubbard

Category 4: Coffeetable Books
1. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses - currently reading

Category 5: Anthologies
1. Travellers in Magic by Lisa Goldstein (February)
2. Beyond Armageddon edited by Walter Miller and Martin Greenberg (June)

Category 6: Authors New to Me
1. Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue (February)
2. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (March)
3. Fortunes of War by Gordon Zuckerman (July)

Category 7: Biographies
1. Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein (January)
2. James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham - currently reading

Category 8: Off the Shelf (Books that came into my home no later than 2008)
1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (February)

Category 9: Science Fiction or Fantasy
1. The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers (March)
2. The Book with No Name by Anonymous (April)
3. Against a Dark Background by Iain M. Banks (June)

Category 10: Square Pegs (books that don't fit anywhere else)
1. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood (January)
2. The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster (May)

Category 11: Books or Authors Referenced in Books I Read This Year
1. Understanding Relativity: A Simplified Approach to Einstein's Theories by Leo Sartori (Einstein's Theory of Relativity was referenced in The End of Mr. Y) - currently reading

Still thinking about Category 11 - have read a bunch of other threads for idea, still debating with myself though!

I've made some notes - maybe books on lists (like 1001), maybe Viragos/Persephones. I also like the multicultural idea. Also, since I tend to read quite a few every year anyway, I like the idea of Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian - saw that one in eljabo's thread.

The first book I completed this year was The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas, from Category 3: Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways, 502 pages.

I received this from my Virago Secret Santa - what a wonderful surprise. It grabbed me right off the bat - a beautiful red, orange, yellow cover with big concentric circles on a nice-sized book with pages edged in black!

Then, I opened the book to find quotes by Baudrillard, Heidegger and Samuel Butler. Hmmm, I'm thinking. And then the first sentence: You now have one choice.

So, this book was mind-blowing and has me thinking about reading both philosophy and physics, Heidegger and Einstein. A book has to be extra special for me to actually be hungry for those subjects.

It left me wanting more and it is still resonating with me, 2 weeks after I finished it.

What's it about - that's the hard part. It's about mind experiments, the CIA, rare books, time travel. There's mystery, adventure, sex and sadness. It's a great book.

Today I finished (!) The EQ Difference: A Powerful Plan for Putting Emotional Intelligence to Work by Adele B. Lynn, from Category 2: Non-fiction, 250 pages.

I've been reading this book for awhile...I think I first picked it up sometime in 2009. I found it slow going - I got through 3 or 4 chapters and just put it down. It was recommended by a, well, I'll call him a coach - someone who has been working with my group for awhile. The book just wasn't resonating with me. Then, it was April last year, that I recognized some things in myself that I wanted to improve, and it's one of those books where I think you just have to be ready for it. I picked it up again and started reading it from the beginning, and it made a whole lot more sense. It was a book I needed (and wanted) to study - to consider the concepts, see how I could apply them. I finally finished it for real today - and that included going through the whole last section of the book and making notes on the suggestions - which ones I had been putting in place and practicing, and which ones I still wanted to take action on.

So, in the end, it was an effective book for me - a good book. The first section is about the physical component - describing why we act the way we do and where it comes from. The second section describes a process, step-by-step, that someone can take to evaluate their emotional intelligence, identify one's triggers and work on training themselves to respond in more constructive ways. The main focus of the last section to me was to provide a number of practical suggestions; I've made a list of a number of them that I'm considering, along with the ones that I'm currently practicing.

I feel that the book has helped me to be a better person - and what better accolade can you give to this type of book?

If you're still struggling for a final category then I'd suggest leaving it as an open category and call it something like Books not in the other 10 categories. That way you can still include books that you want to read which don't fall in with your other plans.

15 -- I've seen several reviews of The End of Mr. Y, but yours was the first one that actually made me want to read it! Adding to the TBR list now!

>17 AHS-Wolfy: - Although it must not be so obvious, I do have one of those, called Square Pegs.

Maybe I'll choose the 11th category based on the first book I read that's not in these 10 categories...another thought I just had was books that are referred to in the books I read this year. There were a bunch referenced in both books read so far...OK, that's it!

>18 christina_reads: - Christina, that's great! Funny to me, because I was struggling to say what it was about. I do think it's a treasure though, and I think it bodes well that's it's the first book I read this year.

I've read Emotional Intelligence and it really struck me how important that aspect is to someone's happiness and success. Have you read the Goleman book and how would you compare them?

>21 RidgewayGirl: - I have it, started it some years before reading Lynn's book but also didn't finish it back then; Lynn's book was recommended to me over Goleman's, and maybe I'm ready to re-tackle it now. Lynn did reference Goleman in her book, especially the 'flow' concept.

The End of Mr. Y does sounds good... Love the title and I am trying to figure out why this one never crossed my radar screen before now.

Hi Lisa

I just spotted your thread and am so, so pleased you enjoyed Mr Y! Looking at your library, I thought you'd appreciate it- but you never really know do you? It was one of my favourite books last year but I agree, a difficult book to review. I didn't even try!

Looking forward to following your reading this year.

Dee

Hi Dee,

Glad you saw my thoughts on Mr. Y! I hadn't gotten back around to you on it, but as you can see, I loved it! What a unique book. I would say you did very well in picking it out for me! Thanks again!

I've just started checking out the threads here - I'll find yours shortly...!

-Lisa

Yesterday I finished Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein, from Category 7: Biographies, 208 pages.

It's been described as the best short biography of Jefferson ever written - I definitely don't have the information to be able to asses that, but I did enjoy this book.

This is part of my US Presidents Challenge, and while at first I was just picking presidents at random to read, I decided to start reading the biographies in order, and I have been getting a lot more out it that way. Even from the contradictions!

For example, in McCullogh's John Adams, Benjamin Franklin is not described very positively. In this book, Bernstein describes Franklin as urbane and Adams as prickly and suspicious.

Alexander Hamilton is a character I'll have to read more about - I was amazed by a description of a dinner hosted by Jefferson for Adams and Hamilton; Adams insisted that the British constitution, purged of its corruption, would be the most perfect form of government. Another Federalist like Adams, Hamilton replied that its corruption is what made it work. No wonder Jefferson was so afraid of Hamilton's plans for the country!

Another interesting point in the book (although it's prefaced, 'Legend had it') is that upon welcoming visitors to Monticello, Jefferson would point to the two opposing busts of Hamilton and himself in his foyer and state, "Opposed in death as in life."

Finally, I read this in Adams' bio too, but it still amazes me that Adams and Jefferson died on the same day, July 4th, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Just finished Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, from Category 10, Square Pegs, 199 pages.

I decided to read this book because when I was browsing for a Virago Secret Santa gift, I saw that this was a Virago, that my giftee had some other Atwoods in her collection but not this one, this was on the 1001 list, and I like Atwood, so I got one for myself too.

On the surface (pun intended?), it's about a woman who journeys back to her hometown and the house she grew up in situated on a hard-to-get-to island somewhere in Quebec because her father has disappeared. She goes with the guy she's living with and another couple, the female of which is her best friend, her best woman friend, whom she's known for 2 months...

As much as this woman is her best friend, and she's with the guy she's living with, she doesn't seem connected to them at all. And as we follow her along her journey, we learn more and more about why she is so disconnected, and not just to them but to the world at large.

There's a lot going on in this relatively short novel - the mystery of her father's disappearance, her relationship to the people she's on the trip with, her marriage, growing up on this island with her brother; over and over she is depicted as a stranger.

Some of the themes touched on include feminism, marriage and love. Also, I was surprised at the anti-Americanism depicted in the book. I haven't read that much Canadian fiction, and this is the first time I've noticed that theme, and I'm quite curious if that is common or not in Canadian fiction. In the end, everyone's an American, and that's not good!

I liked the book and read it quickly, wanting to know what was going to happen. It's not my favorite Atwood book though - I liked The Blind Assasin and The Handmaid's Tale a lot more. It was a bit dissatisfying - I wanted there to be a bit more closure on what happened to her father, and to be honest, I'm not 100% sure what happened with her husband and her child - it was a bit disjointed.

I have this on my TBR shelf along with several other Atwoods and I think I'll be reading one of the other Atwoods first! I still haven't read The Handmaids Tale though I think I've been meaning to for about twenty years!

I have an idea that Surfacing is one of Atwood's earlier books. It sounds like she's polished her act up a bit since!

January re-cap:

4 books read, 4 categories - so that's successful in terms of reading broadly!

Category 2: Non-fiction
The EQ Difference A Powerful Approach for Putting Emotional Intelligence to Work by Adele B. Lynn
4 stars
Category 3: Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
4.5 stars
Category 7: Biographies
Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein
3.5 stars
Category 10: Square Pegs
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
2.5 stars

Average = 3.6, not bad.

Fun book choices and great review of Surfacing. Starring this thread. :)

I have a copy buried in mount TBR as well. I read The Handmaid's Tale for the challenge this year and loved it. I have not read The Blind Assassin yet, but I do have a copy. If you haven't read much Canadian fiction I would recommend the Cross Canada Challenge group as a way to find out about more great Canadian books! :)

Thanks Bcteagirl and glad you like!

I really liked The Blind Assassin, at least as much as The Handmaid's Tale, so hopefully you'll like it too.

It's funny that I haven't really identified fiction as Canadian or not, although I always knew Margaret Atwood was Canadian. I looked in my library statistics and the Nationality pie graph shows Canada as the third most in my library, so I must have quite a few more, I just haven't recognized them as such. I'll check out the Cross Canada Challenge group - thanks for the tip!

Book five of the year, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (finally got the touchstone to work by selecting the second Things Fall Apart choice...) was finished last Wednesday.

I found this book in a box in the basement - lots of my paperbacks are still in boxes in the basement, lol. It fits in several categories, but I'll file it under Category 8: Off the Shelf (209 pages).

I had the strangest feeling that I had read this book before, but still as I read it there was so much to the descriptions of the country and how the people lived that I don't believe I could've read it and not remembered the feelings it evoked in me. And then I realized that I must have read the plot description of this book in Wikipedia. I hate doing that!!! I think that was before I realized how much Wikipedia tells you about a book - I really don't want to know any of that before I read a book....Lesson learned!

This is a story about Okonkwo, a strong, tough and difficult man who has made his own fortune in his country, pulling himself up by his own 'bootstraps'. It is a story about what happens during colonization and when the missionaries invariably arrive.

This was a good book - but I can't say that I 'enjoyed' it; it was hard to sympathize with the protagonist, but you do anyway in the end. I really liked the descriptions of community life and definitely got a feel for what life was like for Okonkwo, his family and his neighbors.

I definitely recommend it.

That is odd about the touchstone. It looks like LT pulls it up but doesn't do anything when you save the post...

@32 Got it lined up for this year! Have heard great things about it.

GingerbreadMan - I think you will like it!

Finished book #6 Tuesday night, Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue, first of my Authors New to Me category, 347 pages.

I really enjoyed this book. Ostensibly it is about a mother whose daughter ran away with her boyfriend in high school. Her husband has passed away, and now she lives alone with the ache of loss. One night Norah appears at her doorstep. And with shared complicity, mother and 'granddaughter' forge a story to explain this sudden arrival.

Norah is a lovely child, and special in many ways. She becomes best friends with Sean, someone else who is marred by the loss of his father.

The angels of destruction themselves have multiple meanings in the book. I thought the book was lyrical, beautiful and bittersweet. I will definitely read more by the author.

#7 was Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is from Category 1: Franklin/Easton books, 782 pages. This is an omnibus edition that includes A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This was one of those books that I was wondering if I had read as a kid, but when I got into I found that I definitely had not. It's one that I kept by my bedside, reading a chapter - which was usually one case - at a time.

I did enjoy reading this collection of mysteries. The first mystery, A Study in Scarlet, was quite long and involved, and included a mini-story that took place in Utah and involved Mormons. I was really surprised by that, and as I started to read the section in Utah, I was pretty confused wondering what is this story doing here and how is it connected - even wondering if maybe my copy of this book was mis-printed! But then it started to make sense. I will say that Doyle treated the Mormons with a great deal of suspicion.

The second mystery, The Sign of the Four, was also long, involving 12 chapters. This was a pretty good mystery also, involving a back story of events in India.

The rest of this volume included 24 short mysteries. I liked some more than others, but I would say that they were all good. One thing about all of these stories is that you don't see everything that Sherlock sees, so you can't often solve the whole puzzle, but you can make some good guesses sometimes.

Out of the short stories, my favorites were The Red-Headed League, The Five Orange Pips, The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, The Stockbroker's Clerk, The Musgrave Ritual and The Final Problem (introducing us to the infamous Professor Moriarty).

I enjoyed learning both about Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes - their particular idiosyncracies and such.

I definitely recommend this!

#8 was Nothing...Except My Genius, a book of quotes from Oscar Wilde, from category #3, Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways, 100 pages.

This book was a Christmas present from my good friend across the pond; her theme this year was Penguin Classics. What I thought was so timely about this is that I had just seen a Ricky Gervais special on HBO and I was laughing out loud as he gave his take on the title quote.

The most disappointing thing for me is that the title quote is not anywhere in the book! How funny!

This is a nice little book of quotations by Oscar Wilde, many that come directly from his works. As a book of quotations, you can't really read it cover to cover in one sitting; it's something you need to pick up and read a few pages of and then set down again.

Did I like it, well, yes as far as a book of quotes goes. I went through and tabbed a number of my favorites. It's funny that as I look at it now, most of the tabs are in the first half of the book - and as the book is generally organized in the order of when the author said the quote or when the work was published, I guess you can say that I wasn't really enjoying Oscar's later works and thoughts as much.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"The supreme object of live is to live. Few people live. It is true life only to realize one's own perfection, to make one's every dream a reality."

"...nothing is worth doing except what the world says is impossible."

"...English people are far more interested in American barbarism than they are in American civilization."

"In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience...it may be truly said that no American child is ever blind to the deficiencies of its parents, no matter how much it may love them."

"There is no such thing as a stupid American. Many Americans are horrid, vulgar, intrusive and impertinent, just as many English people are also; but stupidity is not one of the national vices. Indeed, in America there is no opening for a fool. They expect brains from a boot-black, and get them."

"America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself."

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."

"Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching."

"High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

"The aim of love is to love: no more, and no less."

A good outcome of this book has been an increased desire to read more of Wilde's works; besides The Picture of Dorian Gray, I haven't read anything else, and I'm definitely more interested now. So, a good book.

#9 was Travellers in Magic, by Lisa Goldstein, from category #5, Anthologies, 272 pages.

This is a lovely book of short stories; most I was categorize as fantasy, with maybe one that I would categorize as science fiction.

'Alfred' - An old man appears on a park bench - who is he, really?

'Cassandra's Photographs' - What would you do if you thought your future wasn't a matter of choice, and if you thought your fate was shown to you, would you wait for it?

'Ever After' - So, what really happens to fairy tale princesses, do they really live happily ever after?

'Tourists' - I've always been intrigued by Tarot cards.

'Midnight News' - Think about all the possibilities if a random person was selected to decide the fate of the world based solely on their own experiences.

'Preliminary Notes on the Jang' - What if you discovered a completely new tribe in the middle of Los Angeles?

'A Traveller at Passover' - What happens when a daughter is invited back home after a long time away.

'Infinite Riches' - What if El Dorado really existed?

'Death is Different' - This story is connected to Tourists - a neat, if irrational, place to visit!

'Breadcrumbs and Stones' - A mixing of the horrors of the Holocaust with Hansel and Gretel.

'The Woman in the Painting' - When a woman - no, a being - becomes whatever we want it to be.

'Daily Voices' - I'll always think of this story as 'Push the Button' - what if life was organized for you in 30 second increments?

'A Game of Cards' - Set in the same land as Tourists and Death is Different, be careful when you play with cards.

'Split Light' - If one man had answered one question differently, what would the world be like today?

The author writes an afterword for each story - I really enjoyed them. Somewhere in about the middle of the book, she describes the theme of the book as the ways in which magic makes itself felt in the mundane world - she's right on with that.

I really enjoyed most of the stories; probably only one, or at most two, that weren't up to the same standard, in my opinion, as all the rest. I would have liked for it to be longer! I'll definitely seek out more of Goldstein's works.

@38 -- For further adventures with Oscar Wilde, I recommend his plays The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband. They're both fun, funny, and full of wonderful quotes!

February re-cap:

5 books read, 5 categories - another successful month, in terms of reading broadly! I've read from 8 of my 11 categories so far this year, and of the books I'm reading right now, I've got books in each of the 3 remaining categories started!

Category 1: Franklin/Easton Books
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
4 stars
Category 3: Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways
Nothing...Except My Genius by Oscar Wilde
3 stars
Category 5: Anthologies
Travellers in Magic by Lisa Goldstein
4.5 stars
Category 6: Authors New to Me
Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue
4.5 stars
Category 8: Off the Shelf
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
3.5 stars

Average = 3.9, not bad, a little better than January.

>40 christina_reads: - Thanks Christina - I will take you up on those, and they'll fit into my Category 11, Books or Authors Referenced in Books I Read This Year.

#10: The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear: A Novel by Walter Moers, from category 9: Science Fiction or Fantasy, 703 pages.

First, let me say what this book was not:

1. A novel, which is part of the title.
It's really more a collection of 13 1/2 stories about Captain Bluebear, that are not really connected in any way, about his adventures on the planet Zamonia.

2. Equal parts J. K. Rowling, Douglas Adams and Shel Silverstein, as blurbed by The Washington Post on the front cover.
So far from the truth. I really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Hitchhiker's Guide, but never read Silverstein, so can't comment on him. In any case, it's nothing like Harry Potter or the Hitchhiker's Guide.

3. A mesmerizing read.
I rarely do this, but I skipped over pages and pages of boring descriptions of the citizens of Atlantis and an ad nauseum play-by-play of the 99 rounds of a lying contest.

After that, I don't know what else to say. This seems like a pretty snarky review, but when I look over what I've written I've told a little bit about the plot (what there was of it), I've discounted the blurb and by saying it wasn't a very mesmerizing read, it ends up that I don't have much energy to say much else about it.

#11: Other People's Rejection Letters: Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You'll Be Glad You Didn't Receive by Bill Shapiro, from category 2: Non-fiction, 192 pages.

This is one of those books that you don't sit and read from cover to cover, although I probably could have. It's really an enjoyable read.

The title describes exactly what it is; the rejections are photographic representations and range from children's scribbles (I hat you. From Phoebe), to rejections of work submitted for publication, to Jimi Hendrix's dishonorable discharge, to a letter requesting clemency, and on the next page, the ultimate rejection - the notice that the execution was carried out.

There is some really interesting stuff here, and I highly recommend it. What I also really liked was the postscript with some info on what happened after some of the rejections.

And I'll always remember the Introduction, where the author shares a rejection note he received in summer camp many years ago - Billy, I like Jason.

@43 I didn't like it either, irritating and dull! A bit like colourful and over the top wallpaper.

2011 Summary

Another year where I couldn't keep up with this thread, but I still did a variety of reading, and although I guess I will probably peter out again in 2012, I'll still start up a 12 in 12 thread...I guess!!! I read 35 books, and looking at how I've kept track over the last , it was by second best (28, 47, 25, 35).

Here were my categories and what I ended up reading in each one:
1. Franklin/Easton books - I have an entire bookshelf just for the Franklin and Easton Press books I have collected over the years.
Only one The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
2. Non-fiction
Four in total:
The EQ Difference. Other People's Rejection Letters, Neighbor Law and F in Exams
3. Gifts/ERs/Member Giveaways
Six! I received a boatload of ERs this year, 4 that are listed here and one in anthologies The End of Mr. Y, Nothing...Except My Genius, Bobby Darin: A Life, Crude Deception, Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead, After Lyletown
4. Coffeetable Books - none, zip, zero! I traveled so much this year, and these aren't the kind of books that you can take with you.
5. Anthologies
Three - Travellers in Magic, Beyond Armageddon, Why New Yorkers Smoke
6. Authors New to Me
Five - Angels of Destruction, The Player of Games, Fortunes of War, The Small Hand, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
7. Biographies
Two - Thomas Jefferson, James Madison: A Biography
8. Off the Shelf (books that came into my home no later than 2008)
Three (the Franklin/Easton books could be counted here, but I decided to not to list books in more than one category) Things Fall Apart, The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, Inherit the Darkness
9. Science Fiction or Fantasy
Six in this category - The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, The Book With No Name, Against a Dark Background, Eye of the Moon, The Devil's Graveyard, The Gate to Women's Country
10. Square Pegs (books that don't fit into any other category)
I put four in this category - Surfacing, The Book of Illusions, The Templar Salvation, Popco
11. Books or Authors Referenced in Books I Read this Year
Just one, referred to in Popco - Woman on the Edge of Time

Hmmm, late to start a thread for 2012, but it's still January after all.

Even though you didn't finish your challenge it looks like you got in some interesting reading. Looking forward to see you over on the 12 in 12!