Jan 31, 2018

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes

A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
by Bill Watterson

This thicker volume of comic strips contains all the material from previously published collections Yukon Ho! and Weirdos from Another Planet, the small print on the cover tells me. What it doesn't mention is that it also seems to have all the color strips from Lazy Sunday Book, which I just read. I know because I instantly recognized them all and my eyes started just automatically skipping over the sunday panels in here.

Nevertheless, it was an awesome read. I enjoyed every moment- the chuckles, the dipping into philosophy and introspective thoughts on social norms- seen from a six-year-old's viewpoint of course- the few touching moments. The struggles of parenting such a wild kid is more obvious to me, reading this as an adult. I really like the tiger's character. I noticed this collection had a few elements missing from the earlier, simpler strips- which seemed to be all about conflicts and curiosities Calvin would encounter at home, at school, on walks in the woods. Here we have a few run-ins with a bully at school. Calvin's torments of the neighborhood girl Susie now include showing off what he claims are gross elements in his packed lunch. His family goes camping in the rain- Calvin and his mom hate it, his dad remains optimistic and cheerful (until his glasses get broken). There's run-ins with a babysitter (how I'd hate to be in her shoes) and Calvin starts to spout political-sounding rhetoric (polls on his dad's popularity- as if he could vote him out of the role) and point out things like global warming and pollution. Makes it feel a bit more grown up, but still with a mischievous kid's take on everything.

Rating: 4/5            256 pages, 1990

Jan 30, 2018

Lazy Sunday Book

Calvin and Hobbes
by Bill Watterson

I had almost forgotten how much I like this cartoon. It was one of my favorites back in the days I used to read newspaper strips every week. I was almost afraid to try Calvin and Hobbes again after my disappointment with recent Phoebe and Her Unicorn- maybe this one would also have lost its charm for me. Happily, nope!

For those of you who don't know (my kids didn't- they kept asking me why I was chuckling over "that dinosaur book" as my six-year-old referred to it, seeing the back cover) Calvin is six and his constant companion is a stuffed tiger, who in his imagination is larger-than-life and very real. Calvin is constantly getting into all kinds of trouble for his high energy level, creative imagination, sarcastic and matter-of-fact arguments with adults, refusal to follow rules he thinks are nonsensical, resistance to things like baths, cleaning his room, doing homework, etc. I think my favorite aspect about the comic strips is not just Calvin's spunky, vibrant character but the way his daydreams are depicted- drawn in a more realistic, dramatic style you can always tell when you're inside his head. Of course, he's not at all a nice kid- he teases a neighborhood girl mercilessly, criticizes his parents, depicts his teacher as a hideous monster, always wants to pummel people or dunk them with water balloons, etc. But- he's just a kid. Glorious, riotous kid. How quickly any game with his tiger devolves into an all-out fight- hilarious. He makes me laugh.

The only disappointment I had, is that I probably won't keep this book. I noticed right away when I started reading the next Watterson collection on my nightstand, The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes, that all the sunday panels in this volume are reprinted in the next. So I don't know what's the point. (Except that wiki tells me the Spaceman Spiff storyline is unique to this book). Seems like if I acquire all the Treasuries, I won't need as many volumes on my shelf to have a full collection.

Rating: 4/5             128 pages, 1989

more opinions:
Bonnie's Books

Pacific Marine Fishes Book 4

fishes of taiwan and adjacent waters
by Warren Burgess and Herbert R. Axelrod

This book which ambitiously attempted to depict every marine fish species of a particular area, was once again more enjoyable in terms of looking at the pictures, than actually reading the text. Although it seemed not as dry as the last volume, and a bit more info bits on behavior of the fishes. I was a bit disappointed that several sections of photographs (or illustrations, when photos were lacking) in the book appeared to have no description- the parrotfishes, for example, were shown but not described in text. Perhaps they have details in one of the other volumes. I looked up some fifteen species, because although the details are very clear in the book's photos, the colors are usually duller than life. The christmas wrasse is particularly stunning, the lionfish and turkeyfishes are as always, fairly spectacular-looking, and the ribbon eel- blue or black- is mesmerizing if you find a video showing its swimming motion. Wow. Also lots of squirrelfishes, toadfishes, goatfishes, frogfishes, stonefishes, flounders or soles, chromis, clownfishes, gobies, rays, sharks and lots of open-water fishes -both predator and prey- are depicted. Such a wide variety of life in the seas.

Rating: 3/5             270 pages, 1974

Jan 29, 2018

An Arrangement of Skin

by Anna Journey

I had a few unfinished reads this past week. I think my mood was off. An Arrangement of Skin- borrowed from the library- is a collection of essays on various subjects. The one I liked - "Birds 101"- was about the author's enrollment in a weekend class on basic taxidermy: how she cleaned, stuffed and posed a starling. Curious the reasons other students in the class wanted to attempt taxidermy. Made me interested in reading another book on my list, also about taxidermy. Other stories, I just couldn't click with. There's one about her mother's penchant for telling macabre stories at the dinner table. Another about her experience getting some chicken pox scars treated. I thought I would like the story that included her musings on horseback riding, but I was starting to loose touch with the author's voice. I didn't make it to the story about a tattoo artist.

The other two I abandoned this week were also library loans. In the Hall of Small Mammals by Tomas Pierce looked interesting- but I only read the first two short stories. I wanted to like the one about a dwarf woolly mammoth brought to life for a tv show stunt. When it turns out they accidentally cloned two mammoths and weren't supposed to keep the second one alive, it was hidden in the narrator's mother's house. She doesn't want it there, is rather indifferent to its presence. So what could have been interesting- well, the mammoth was just in the background. Unfortunately, the writing style didn't quite work for me, and even though I usually enjoy this type of material, I was just bored. (304 pages, 2016)

Unicorn Crossing by Dana Simpson was another dud for me. At the library I suddenly thought, hey, is there another Poebe and Her Unicorn book out? There was, and I was happy, but when I started to read it, I slowly started loosing steam. The characters felt flat. The storylines didn't interest me. It just wasn't as funny as I recall the previous four books being. I found I didn't want to pick it up off the bedside table to finish. Maybe I'll try it again another time. (160 pages, 2017)

Abandoned           225 pages, 2017

Jan 24, 2018

Great Cats

Majestic Creatures of the Wild
edited by John Seidensticker and Susan Lumpkin

Since the last post on here I have picked up and discarded after a few dozen pages, three other books. Just not holding my interest. This one is a bit older, but still rich in material with good photographs. It is very factual, not many anecdotes, so the reading got a bit dry near the end, but still - I learned a lot. Explains the evolutionary history of cats; It was new to me that cheetahs are most closely related to pumas, and I was intrigued by the details on how saber-toothed cats' social structure and hunting methods were deduced by the wear and damage of their skeleton remains. There is a series of illustrated plates showing all six big cats, the medium-sized clouded leopard and snow leopard, and then some thirty smaller wild cats- including bobcats, lynxes, servals, ocelots and quite a few others I hadn't heard of before- oncilla, kodkod, Iriomote cat. Following chapters are dedicated individually to the lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, cheetah, snow leopard and pumas. Bobcats and lynxes are discussed in one same chapter, ocelots and servals together in the next. The rest of the wildcats are grouped in another chapter, mostly because little was known about them when this was published. Other parts of the book go into depth on wild feline communication, hunting methods and reproduction; conflicts with man and conservation efforts, and how big cats have featured in art and been revered in various cultures through history. All in all an impressive book. The contributing authors include thirty-eight biologists and scientists. I found this volume at The Book Thing, and it's one I'm holding on to.

Rating: 4/5         240 pages, 1991

Jan 16, 2018

Cowboy

by Sara Davidson

I read this book. Not my usual type. I'd tried it months ago and it's been sitting on my swap shelf and kept catching my eye from there so I thought to give it another try.

It's a pseudo memoir/fiction piece by an screenwriter for the tv show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Talks about difficulties with her ex, her spoiled kids, and her co-workers on the set. I did find parts about how the show was produced interesting. Kind of on a whim she goes to a cowboy poetry event in Elko, Nevada and meets a cowboy who makes things with braided rawhide- belts, horse bridles. They start dating. Long-distance. She pays to fly him from Arizona to visit her in Los Angeles. All the time. They are very different- in economic and social standing, background and everything else- but have a great time in bed so... what she thought would be temporary and fun turned into something long-term. He teaches her kids to behave, she gets him a job on the film set and helps him rent an apartment. The kids resent him, the co-workers look down on him, and she gets frustrated at always paying his bills. But he's so great at taking care of her emotional needs that it all works out. But it felt like there was a big part missing from the story. I couldn't put my finger on what. And through the whole thing it bugged me that she referred to her relationship as an affair. But she was divorced. I don't get it. Call it a "fling" but it's not an affair if you're not currently already in a relationship with someone, right?

Um. I could have done with less details from the bedroom and more about the troubles with her teen children (she says those parts were all made up, btw), or about her boyfriend's work with cattle and horses. That was more interesting to me, but usually sidelined for the steamy stuff. Oh well. It was a light read. One I probably won't repeat.

Rating: 2/5              270 pages, 1999

Jan 12, 2018

Relish

My Life in the Kitchen
by Lucy Knisley

I picked this book up on a whim at the library, knowing I'd seen it mentioned on a few blogs. The first few pages are kind of an info dump on how involved her family is with fine food- her mother was a caterer and a chef, her father a proclaimed gourmand- and I thought how dull is this going to be? But then it starts to tell a personal story, and ended up being rather delightful.

It's basically a memoir centered around food. Knisley tells what it was like growing up with parents who were devout foodies, and how startled she was to discover junk food much later than other kids. How on family trips she and a friend explored a Mexican town pretty much unsupervised and delighted in the street food, and later how disconcerting it was to encounter a totally foreign cuisine in Japan. How family meals shaped her family, and continued to connect them even after her parents split up. Days spent helping her mother in farmer's markets, working behind a cheese counter, getting to tour behind-the-scenes in the restaurant of a fancy kitchen. Describing different cities she lived in via their restaurants and growth in foodie movements. All around ode to our deep connections with what we eat- secret pleasures, handed-down skills, visceral memories. Her struggles to master certain dishes, her efforts to impress or comfort friends with food she made. She shares recipes in a picture format, and gives tips to use in the kitchen. It's not only about how certain culinary traditions lived through her family, but also a story of growing-up, with plenty of funny moments.

Fair warning: in the section where the kids are roaming unsupervised in Mexico, the author indulged in fast food and her friend bought porn magazines. Covers are shown in the pictures. They're not detailed, and not very large, but it's very obvious what they are. (Oddly enough, the parents seemed to know about this and ignored the boy's growing collection of magazines until in the airport on the way home they obliquely shamed him into dumped them in the trash). So be advised, not a book for younger readers in spite of the cartoony nature of the artwork.

Must try a few of the recipes!

Rating: 3/5           173  pages, 2013

more opinions:
Beth Fish Reads
Reading Rants
Estella's Revenge

Jan 11, 2018

The Sculptor

by Scott McCloud

One of the heftiest graphic novels I've ever read, but the story moves quickly. It's about a struggling young artist in New York City- a sculptor named David who is seriously down on his luck. Desperate to make his name, he trades his life in - making a deal with Death (personified as his dead great-uncle Harry) in which he can create anything effortlessly with his hands, but within a limited time frame. At first it is thrilling, then frustrating. Suddenly David realizes he doesn't know what to say with his art, and if he does, can it make any difference if no one sees it? The ins and outs of the art scene of New York sound like a massive headache- as I've always imagined. David finally discovers a clever way to subvert the system, and plunges all his energies into creating pieces that will definitely be remembered. But then he falls in love with a theater girl. And finds out that his girlfriend struggles with mental illness. And is suddenly terrified of dying. This book has some heavy subject matter in it- but I didn't always get it.The characters often seemed really full of themselves, too angsty- well, at least the main character was. The girlfriend was nice, but rather shallow- there just wasn't enough of her in the story. Aside from her obvious role as a recipient of David's affections. I don't really share the main character's views about art. And I don't know if I like the way this story ended, at all. Nevertheless, it was a gripping read.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5                      496 pages, 2015

more opinions:
Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books
Reading Rants
Ex Libris

Hollowed Out

Poems on self-life and spiritual blackmail, vol. 4
by Angie Outis

This slim volume of very personal poetry reveals the big question I had from volume 2- what was in the letter from her husband's employer? Yeah, it's frightening. Makes your stomach drop. No wonder she decided to leave her husband. These pages detail her fear and desperation under the thumb of a controlling spouse. Trying to speak out to her therapist, her parents, her friends- little help from any side. Various plans she made, the long struggle for a final break. It's hard. Hard to read it and must have been even harder to live it. I had my own troubles with an ex, but they weren't like this. If there's a fifth or sixth volume upcoming, I do hope it shows light on the other side- getting through the dark times to find something better.

I received a copy of this book from the author.

Rating: 3/5                  30 pages, 2017

Jan 10, 2018

Drawing Animals

by Victor G. Ambrus

Ambrus is one of my favorite illustrators. I really admire his linear style especially the tiny hatching done to show the direction of hair or form. This book of his is just one to drool over (or practice by copying the drawings), it's not a step-by-step instruction book. Instead it's a showcase of Ambrus' drawings of animals. Most of them done on location at zoos or wildlife parks, some are of pets, horses from a friend's stable or cattle in the fields. Little notes on the pages describe a bit about his working conditions, his preferred drawing media (graphite and charcoal- he's not afraid to smudge!), and something about the techniques he uses to capture likeness of living animals that are moving around. Basically his advice is: start with large basic shapes, work in the details later. There are also brief paragraphs telling some facts about the wild animals, which I read with interest. He enjoys sketching at the zoo, which is also a favorite activity of mine (one I wish I could indulge in more often). So I could really relate to his comments about dealing with crowds and curious children. It's a book I return to again and again to admire someone else's skill and hope to emulate.

This alternate cover shows a few more of the drawings:
a few more samples:

Rating: 4/5             120 pages, 1990

Jan 9, 2018

The Horse in the West

A Comprehensive Picture History
by Bradley Smith

An older, large book full of photographs, that I picked up from a library sale. It's not quite what I expected. There are horse stories, but they're very brief, told in a reporting kind of style. It's a history of several horse breeds and how integral they were to the development of the Western area of the United States. The Arabian, Thoroughbred, Appaloosa and Quarter Horse. Mustangs are mentioned here and there. Quite a bit of early American history, how horses were brought overseas and introduced to the Native Americans, their importance in Native cultures and later in the book, the singular Appaloosa breed among the Nez Percé tribe. It's a lot about where certain breeds originated, great sires, the stud books, and what makes good conformation. I learned some about racing, rules regulating betting that made the sport legal again (it was banned as immoral during the early 1900's). I thought the section on Quarter Horses would have a lot about cutting horses, their skill working cattle and showing in rodeos. But really that part of the book seemed focused on how Quarter Horse racing differed from Thoroughbred racing. The pictures are fine, but nothing spectacular. I skimmed through a lot of the specifics on breeding lineages, admired the photos and am ready to put this book on my swap shelf. It would have been nice to see the artwork of appaloosa horses mentioned in the final chapter, but the descriptions were accurate enough I could find some examples online.

Rating: 2/5            253 pages, 1969

Jan 8, 2018

Trashed

An Ode to the Crap Job of All Crap Jobs
by Derf Backderf

Slice-of-life story based on the short time the author spent working as a garbage collector. It shows how three twenty-something friends sweat day in and day out at a thankless job. They make digs at each other, groan about the disgusting nature of the work, speculate about local citizens due to what they throw on the curb (some of it shocking), and pitch their ears to gossip around the public service offices. And of course pick items out of the garbage to keep for themselves. Interspersed with the narrative are panels of facts on trash- how much we produce, how it is processed, where it all ends up. I'd like to hope these statistics aren't true- that we recycle more than it says, that conditions have improved in containing leachate contamination- but probably they haven't. Regardless, I enjoyed this book a bit more than the last one, and some of it was certainly eye-opening. It made made me chuckle quite a bit. But the humor is crude in lots of places, as you might expect. Reminded me quite a bit of that tv program, Dirty Jobs.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5            256 pages, 2015

more opinions:
Finding Wonderland

Moose

by Max de Radigués

I recently discovered my library has an adult graphic novel section. Picked this one up browsing. Don't be fooled by the seemingly visual simplicity- this story is disturbing and not for young readers. It's about a lonely kid Joe, who is relentlessly bullied in school. It's awful the lengths the other boy goes to in order to make his life miserable. It's sad that some adults try to reach out to Joe, but he can't tell them what is going on- afraid of how the bully will retaliate. Who easily twists circumstances to make things look like Joe's fault. Joe suffers mostly in silence, but finds a bit of solace in nature. He cuts through the woods on a walk to school and is thrilled to observe a moose on a few occasions. I did think it rather funny that in detention, Joe was ordered to copy articles out of National Geographic (instead of doing homework) and came across photos of partially-nude tribal women. He happily found an article on moose and so learned something he appreciated while doing the work that was supposed to be punishment. Joe is also a fan of Lord of the Rings, which endears him to me somewhat. So it looks like the bully situation is not going to get any better for Joe until a fateful day when the bully ambushes him in the woods. I'll leave the reader to find out what happens if they want to approach this book. It's not pretty. Joe is suddenly presented with the possibility of enacting revenge. And the bully shows his true colors- he certainly seems to deserve whatever he got. Nasty kid.

The artwork really did nothing for me, though. But I'm sure its simplicity was to make you focus on the events, bare and bleak as they are.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5               160 pages, 2015

Jan 7, 2018

Elegy Beach

by Steven R. Boyett

Written twenty-five years after Ariel, this second book of The Change takes place in the following generation. Fred (son of Pete from the first book) is skilled at casting spells and wants to learn more. Cocky and self-sure adolescents, Fred and his best friend Yan push the boundaries of known ability. Yan gets heady with the potential power he can wield, the two friends argue about their responsibilities and Yan is forced to flee the community. Later when creatures come hunting a unicorn horn- key to the most powerful magic that could undo the laws of the Universe- Fred knows what Yan is planning to do- and that he must put a stop to his grandiose plan. So with a few companions he goes off on a mission to confront his best friend. This story arc was so much like the first book. Quest through a decayed landscape full of ruins of civilization, to find and stop the bad guy. Some of the original characters have a large role in it as well. Enough of it was unique- and I especially liked the explanations about the laws of magic, and how Yan and Fred were able to discover new ways to manipulate it, comparing along the way to how computer systems work. It's interesting to me how many stories inside stories were told here. Characters relate stories to each other- for pages- their histories, what happened to others. (Fred does quite a bit of eavesdropping, ha). In one part telling stories of the past is even part of a large ritual. It was nice to get some details from the first book filled in.

One interesting aspect is the very subtle suggestion that Fred and Yan were lovers. It's something I might not have noticed if James hadn't pointed it out. It's just not a big part of the story. I wonder if the author was trying to make a point that in the future after the Change, such relationships were seen as normal, so nobody would even think to mention it? At one point the main character is exploring an old building and remarks how odd he finds it that people in the past used to segregate men and women for changing rooms and toilet areas. He seemed to think it was amusingly quaint. Or was the character keeping it secret- certainly his father didn't know exactly how close he and Yan had been. It's never really made clear.

On the whole I didn't find this one quite as funny as Ariel. A lot of it is built on action- but the narrative seemed to slow down the closer it got the end with the big showdown. At some point I was just anxious for it to get there and making myself read through all the obstacles the characters had to overcome. And unfortunately I didn't feel as connected to the characters themselves. The unicorn in particular wasn't as strong an individual as I remember. I wish there'd been more about Avy. And the centaurs in here? They sound freakishly menacing but I was unable to picture them clearly. Looked about just in case someone else might have made an illustration based on the author's description, but nope.

Sounds like there's another installment coming- I found comments online suggesting the author has a third Book of the Change in store- Avalon Burning. I'd read it.

Rating: 3/5         424 pages, 2009

more opinions:
James Reads Books

Jan 3, 2018

Modeling My Life

by Janet Scudder

Janet Scudder was one of the first acclaimed female American sculptors. But her start was not easy and I believe she wrote this book in part to show how much hard work being an artist can take! She started out with drawing classes in school but when first had a beginning course in sculpture, realized it was her thing. At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 she saw the work of Frederick W. MacMonnies and determined this was the master who would teach her. She simply travelled to France (with hardly a penny to her name), eventually found his studio and wouldn't take no for an answer. Her descriptions of early work in studios in France are just delightful, especially the discovery of self and development of her own style. Initially she did a lot of decorative wood carving (because it paid bills), then bas-relief seals and portrait medallions. Finally got comissions doing statues and funerary urns, but decided she didn't want to spend the rest of her life "doing work for the dead" so instead began making wonderful figures of happy chubby dancing children, to decorate fountains and gardens. And ultimately that's what she became known for.

So the book is a lot about her road through life: early studies and struggles living in poor neighborhoods and dismal studios, seeking work all the time. In fact some descriptions of Paris and New York (when it felt unwelcoming to her) remind me a lot of Down and Out in Paris and London. On the other hand, her pluck and unremitting determination are also very reminiscent of Betty MacDonald's voice in Anybody Can Do Anything... She tells about her first exposition, her first inclusion in a museum, her first big comission, her first home purchase- in France- she lived in France just as often as in New York and seemed to feel more at home there. Later parts of the book are more about her observations of New York social circles, her work as a suffragette and later volunteering in the war effort, and her ideas on color theory- how it affects people's moods and could be used in public spaces for cheering effect. Some parts are just plain funny, others more serious, but always her strong personality is core. I didn't absorb quite as much information about sculpture as I'd expected, but a lot about her personal ideology as an artist. Good reading indeed.

This book is on my e-reader. And here I have a complaint. The copy itself is horrid. It's another one I acquired free as a digital file because it is old enough to be in the public domain... but it's obviously the file was created by some automated means. There were jumbled letters and nonsensical words on nearly every page- most of the time I could decipher what the word was supposed to be, but not always. Frequently one end of quotation marks was depicted as cc. Chapter titles that must have originally been at the top of every page instead interrupted paragraphs a third of the way down each screen on my e-reader. Photos were all grainy, dark and indistinct- better they had been left out entirely.

It says a whole lot for how much I enjoyed and treasured the words of this artist, that I got through the entire thing regardless of all these distractions and flaws. Definitely one I'm going to try and find a hardcopy of, then I can erase the file.

Rating: 4/5           297 pages, 1925

Jan 2, 2018

happy new year

I was travelling over the holidays. It wasn't intended to be a bookish trip (aside from the fact that I finally got through some books on my e-reader). We had quite a few flights and I didn't want to haul books around, plus I didn't anticipate finding many English books in the Spanish- and Dutch-speaking countries we visited (or at least, slim chance that among the small English selection there'd be anything I actually wanted). But in spite of that I brought two home:
The first is a YA (or J Fic?) graphic novel El Zoo Petrificado by Joris Chamblain (The Petrified Zoo). Turns out the original isn't Spanish but French, so this is already a translation. I looked it up when I got home and there doesn't seem to be an English version yet. We were in a small newstand/gift shop in a main bus station on Gran Canaria, killing some time and making a purchase to get change for the bus. Picked out a few items for the kids as souvenirs, and this book kept catching my eye. I thumbed through it in the shop- it appears to be about some kids who together with an old man start painting animals on the walls of a derelict zoo- and then I don't know what happens. I was really intrigued by the artwork and apparent subject matter, and I thought I just might be able to understand enough of it to enjoy it rather than struggle at translating every other word, since it's written for youth. We'll see! If I do manage to read it, this will be the first foreign-language book featured on my blog.
The second book has quite another story. On our last day abroad we stayed in a nice but very futuristic-feeling airport hotel, Citizen M. It had lots of large, open areas set up like living room spaces, to relax or eat in. With tons of floor-to ceiling shelves full of fake plants, classy bric-a-brac and books. It looked like someone just bought a ton of unwanted, cheap books secondhand to fill these shelves and make it look homey. But book nerd that I am, I actually scanned the titles while eating, and found this one by Peter Dickinson that caught my interest because it has similar subject matter to another book I'm reading right now (Elegy Beach by Peter S. Beagle); in both stories the alteration of the world is called The Change. I like the illustrations, too (but the cover image is pretty awful).

I read the first few chapters while my husband watched the news, and then approached a staff member on the way back to our room. I asked if the books were decorative only, or if I could read this one? He shrugged: Oh, sure, you may keep it for yourself. He probably thought it was funny or odd I wanted this old, juvenile apocalyptic fiction. But I was tickled pink.

Here's another foreign book I've newly acquired. This one is a gift I received in the mail, from the Netherlands. One of my vector artworks is being used by a village association in Westenschouwen to represent their legend of a mermaid. My drawing was included in their book of the village history, and they sent me a copy of it! I've asked my husband to read and translate it to me a bit at a time- so far we've gotten through the introduction (he is fluent in Dutch, whereas I know about four words). I have written more about it over here, on my art blog.
Not to be outdone, my husband also picked up a new book while we were at a museum in Galdar. There was a countertop next to the lockers with a row of books and a notice about Book Crossing! None were in English, but my husband happily picked out a German crime/thriller, and left in its place a Dutch paperback he'd finished reading earlier on the plane.

On a different note, I was disappointed to find I can't do book splurges from Loudoun County surplus anymore. There was a little storefront just outside of town where unwanted stuff from government offices was sold off. Including tons of books weeded out of school libraries. I used to go there once every other year or so, and I could fill up three or four boxes of books for what amounted to thirty dollars- it ended up being less than twenty cents a book. I hadn't been in a long time (since I got so much from The Book Thing recently, and a large regional library sale earlier in the year). I was looking forward to taking my older daughter this vacation week. But it's now closed. They now only conduct online auctions, and unfortunately I don't want to buy huge lots of books unseen. I'm not in the business anymore of selling off used ones on Amzn (tried that already, didn't work out for me). Well, I guess it's better to not overdo it on the used books anyhow. There are two tall piles in my bedroom already since I ran out of shelf space, and I need to work at getting the floor cleared again!

Jan 1, 2018

2017 Stats

Total books read- 112

Fiction- 46
Non-fiction- 50

fiction breakdown
YA- 20
Historical- 5
Fantasy- 14
J Fic- 12
Picture books- 2
Animals- 14
Classics- 1
Poetry- 3

non-fiction breakdown
Art- 7
Gardening- 3
J Non-fic- 1
Memoirs- 9
Nature- 12
Animals- 34
Other- 3

other formats
Short stories- 4
Graphic novels- 27
e-books- 6

sources
Owned- 82
Library- 40
Review copies- 3
Borrowed from a friend- 1

re-reads- 1
abandoned books- 11

It looks like I read more books this year than usual, but it doesn't feel that way. The difference, I think, is that I read two entire series of graphic novels, so that added up. My numbers are (as usual) somewhat off- the fiction/non counts don't add up to the total (but the owned/borrowed count nearly does)- I tried once again to keep a tally sheet and slacked off partway through the year. But you get a rough idea. Looks like I read a lot more of my own books this year, although I went to the library regularly. Far more than two pictures books, but I only note the few I mentioned here on the blog. 

Where did I go in the pages? Aregentina, Italy, Germany, the Cameroons, Russia, the Soviet Union, Poland, the Amazon River, several South Sea Islands, Japan, the Arctic, France, Tahiti and Kenya. And lots of pretend places, too.

Favorites: to my surprise, I only gave a top five-star rating to one book this past year: Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest by Julie Zickefoose. Among the great books, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver was one of my favorite fiction reads. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan deserves note- a painful, sometimes disturbing story of healing, one I won't easily forget. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben- wow, I learned so much about plant life, specifically in forests. Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton is dated, but a very good story about kids, stuffed with appreciation of nature. Aquaria Fish by Frank Lee Tappan has got to be one of the oldest books I read this year- written in the very beginning of the fishkeeping hobby- that was pretty interesting. The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham is a classic I'm glad I finally got around to. And I enjoyed two graphic novels so much- both about an adopted child, but otherwise very different- that I read each series in its entirety: Yotsuba! beginning with this and Bunny Drop here (I had issues with the latter). One Trick Pony was another very fun graphic novel.

How was your reading year?