The Dog Stars

I am a very, very fidgety & restless person. I burn NikeFuel like you wouldn't believe - a fact that, sadly, hasn't helped me keep a trim figure (sometimes I am fidgeting while eating ice cream), but does make it very annoying to try and sit quietly on the couch with me for any length of time.

So it was a nice change when I read this book and found it had a calming effect on me.

"But, Jane, isn't this a book set in a world devastated by a super-flu where the only people left must defend themselves against bandits, blood disease, and crushing loneliness?"

Yes. Yes it is. But there is also a lot of nature! And an old dog. And hiking, and fly fishing. The sun dapples things and there are descriptions of creeks' burbling. The main character has ended up at an airport with a working plane and some not yet expired fuel, so there are passages where he's flying about the country and looking down on the quiet little patchwork landscape (it's hard to see flu-wrought devastation from 10,000 feet in the air). It's a book you sit down with and spend some quality, non-fidgety time with.

I don't mean to say this is a happy novel; it certainly isn't. But it's not bombastic, or frenetic. The overall tone & pace of the novel actually make the "action sequences" much more unsettling and powerful, and I appreciated not having to wade through a ton of noise as I got to know the protagonist. Also, have I mentioned there is a sweet old dog? Good boy.

4 precious, precious post-apocalypse cans of Coca-Cola out of 5.

As I Am

I had never heard of Patricia Neal before I picked up her autobiography after reading about it on The Hairpin, but now that I've read her life story I can say that, definitively, Patricia Neal was the Jennifer Lawrence of her time.

Any by that I mean that reading this book made me want to travel back to the 1930s, invent the internet, start Buzzfeed, and churn out posts like "The 25 Best Patricia Neal quotes of 1958", "The 16 Most Epic Faces Patricia Neal made on Oscar Night", "Examples of Patricia Neal being Funny and Cute," and, most importantly "Patricia Neal tells Ryan Seacrest She's 'Starving' on the Red Carpet" (Because he is really an immortal vampire and the world needs to KNOW).

Ahem.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that after reading her life story you will imagine that you and Patricia Neal could have been BFFS. You would have laughed over dinner about the time she booked her first play and bought a new bra with cut-out nipples to celebrate (?!), and then had to promptly strip down to her underwear for a costume fitting. You would have brought over a bottle of wine to help her drink away the pain of her forbidden love affair with Gary Cooper. You would have contemplated an intervention behind her back with her other good friends when she decided to marry Roald Dahl (who was actually a *huge* asshole - this book may ruin Charlie & the Chocolate Factory/The BFG/Matilda for you...but it's worth it).

In between the Hollywood gossip and ill-fated romances there are some crazy sad personal tragedies, some moving redemptions and victories, and enough unflinching honesty to make you almost feel intrusive for eating it all up with a spoon and asking for seconds.

P.Neal, I am now your #1 fan, and I mean it: when I googled you and found out you died 3 years ago, I was bummed. RIP.

5 surprisingly saucy 1950s brassieres out of 5!

Alien Contact

Look, I *don't* want to believe. At all. Aliens are terrifying. Unfortunately I've seen the videos (okay, yes, just this one video. And yes, if you are my friend - it's the one I've made you watch. Also if you are my co-worker. ALSO if you're that person I sat next to on the train once. Sorry).

So I thought I would read this book to get a little perspective on our little green friends and it really helped. Marvel at the obnoxious, but ultimately humanity advancing, aliens in George Alec Effinger's "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything"! Wonder at the dog-faced aliens and the many different paths intelligent societies can take in Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken"! Sit quietly with a cup of tea and ponder the meaning of a friendship between a bag lady and a disembodied alien claw robot in Pat Murphy's "Recycling Strategies for the Inner City"!

There were also some scary stories in here - "Law of Survival" by Nancy Kress, featuring a starving earth and a mysterious alien race looking to train stray dogs, being a notable one (it doesn't sound that scary, I guess...but why would aliens want well-behaved dogs? Think about it - only evil can come of this). But ultimately, my feelings about the aliens who are surely already living among us are now much more well-rounded. This was a growth experience for me. Also the last story in the book, "Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter, is completely heartbreaking and moved me in a way I did not expect ("Are you crying? Reading that ALIEN BOOK?" - my fiance).

Oh GOD WHY did I write so many words for this review???? What is the point. If you are a huge nerd, read this book if you haven't already, it's got some great stories. If you are not a huge nerd, who are we kidding? You are not going to pick up a book with an alien/man riff on the "Creation of Adam" lit by a weird green glow on the cover. But it's your loss! Also I have a video you should watch...

4 statues of Zefram Cochrane out of 5.

LoveStar

It's another take on that old chestnut: Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall helplessly in love. Circumstances wrench them apart, and he must fight to get her back.

Except in this case the "circumstances" involve a genetics program that matches everyone on earth with their true love (1 in 5 people gets matched with someone from China), created by a corporate genius scientist who also invented a funeral system called LoveDeath that sends your body into space and has you re-enter the atmosphere at a pre-approved time & location so your loved ones can watch you burn up like a shooting star - oh also people can communicate wirelessly because he discovered that's what birds do (?) and they are genetically engineering real-live Mickey Mouses (Mice?) to take the place of cats & dogs, and also giant wolves with zippers in their stomachs! Oh, man.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's not really that old chestnut. It is a new, genetically engineered weirdo chestnut with, like, spikes and stuff, and it's one of the most original things I have read in awhile. Iceland, what are you guys smoking over there? And can I get some?

4 pretty shooting stars that are actually dead, frozen corpses out of 5

The Age of Miracles

Sometimes I like to read the 1-star Amazon reviews given to the books I love.

"This book is too much like The Road."

Oh, okay, is this book too much like another GREAT BOOK? How *annoying* for you.

"It's depressing."

Um, yeah, the rotation of the earth has slowed and it's wreaking havoc on the earth and the main character is coming-of-age with a dysfunctional family during this tumultuous time. Sorry it wasn't enough like an ABC Family Movie starring Melissa Joan Hart, GOD GO BACK TO YOUR READER'S DIGEST.

"Sorely lacking in miracles."

Oh man - this person is going to be super angry when they read Life of Pi ("sorely lacking in mathematical constants"), Catcher in the Rye ("sorely lacking in hearty grains"), Trainspotting ("sorely lacking in looking at trains"), or any other book where the title is not a literal representation of the body of the book. I mean, is there even Twilight in Twilight? I don't know, and please - don't tell me. All I'm saying is, this person needs to check themselves.

I guess I am feeling a bit protective, because what is not to love about an actual original apocalyptic/disaster situation merged with a bittersweet coming of age tale? This book reminded me a lot of Meg Rosoff's great YA novel, How I Live Now. Growing up is such a terrifying ordeal in itself, so maybe seeing disasters and world-changing events through the eyes of tweens & teens somehow makes for a more interesting story: It's just one more shitty thing happening to them.

5 very confused migrating birds out of 5.

Them

Like your top five favorite movies or books, everyone has their top conspiracy theory Wikipedia entries.

Mine are:

The Vril (because don't you think it's a little bit suspicious that we NEVER hear ANYTHING about subterranean societies of matriarchal socialist utopian superior beings? I mean, what are you trying to hide mainstream media????)

and

The Philadelphia Experiment (because INVISIBLE!)

Still, they might not make it into your dinner party conversations as much as your desert island reading list because most conspiracy theories are actually pretty grim. For every wacky cloaked battleship or subterranean super being there's ten evil governments killing their own citizens to incite a world war.

Jon Ronson treads the delicate line between absurd and upsetting perfectly in this non-fiction account of "adventures with extremists," just like he did with his fantastic account of psychopaths and the people who exist around them like bugs to be squashed. He tracks down the Bilderberg Group*, hangs out with gun-happy militiamen, and pamphlets London with a rotund Islamic radical. He even experiences the "new" KKK ("now with 50% fewer calories!") and gets to try on their fancy robes, which, for a Jewish guy, was probably quite the harrowing experience.

Bottom line, I love Jon Ronson and everything he writes. Break out your tinfoil hat and start looking over your shoulder - this book is great.

5 shape-shifting, blood-drinking, half lizard Queen Mums (RIP) out of 5!

*Bilderberg Group, really? Come on - if you're ruling the world secretly can't you have a better name like, the Covert Underground Nocturnal Team of Powerful Occult Wiccan Evil Rogues? Think about it...

An Analysis of the Books I Read in 2012 aka Nerd Alert V

Books read: 58

• Average # of books read/month: 4.7
• Non-fiction: 14 (24%)
• Fiction: 42 (72%)
• YA Fiction: 2 (3%)
• Books by male authors: 36 (62%)
• Books by female authors: 22 (38%)
• Disliked: 5 (9%)
• Ambivalent about/sort of liked: 19 (32%)
• Actively enjoyed: 34 (59%)

By Genre:

• Sci-Fi/Fantasy: 13
• Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalypse: 4
• Horror: 11
• Graphic novels: 5
• Spiritual: 0
• Mystery/Thriller: 4
• Poetry: 1
• Historical Fiction: 4
• Short story collections/Anthologies: 4
• Contemporary fiction: 3
• Politics: 2
• Science/Medical: 0
• History: 4
• True Crime: 3
• Religion: 1
• Psychology: 1
• Biography/Autobiography: 8
• Classics: 0
• Romance/Shitty Erotica: 1

Compared to 2011:

• I read 3 more books! Baby steps. Got to bring it back up to the 60-70 range this year. Oh, and unlike *some people* I don't count each individual slice of a graphic novel as a separate book...just sayin', dude. J'accuse! 
• I joined a book club at work, so I think that put some books I wouldn't have otherwise read onto my bedside table. I've really enjoyed it, even if not all of the choices have been favorites - the discussion is actually often better when it's about a book's flaws. Deep thought! Put that in a fortune cookie!
• I read almost the same percentage of non-fiction/fiction and male/female authors. Do I have some unconscious literary sweet spot guiding my selections? Just checked 2010 - it's also within a few percentage points! Dear. GOD. Someone craft an elaborate conspiracy theory about this and have a report on my desk in the morning.
• I really got into the apocalypse/post-apocalypse genre this year, and a few of the sci-fi books I read were very dystopian. One of the first books on the docket for 2013 is The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker - what can I say, I love a good world ruining. 
• I read more graphic novels. The Walking Dead is WAY grosser in comic form than on AMC, amazingly enough. If anyone has any graphic novels I should read, send suggestions my way - I think I'll try and do my homework and read some of the classics in the medium. 

Notes & Superlatives:

• Repeated authors: Gillian Flynn, Scott Snyder, Erik Larson, Charlaine Harris (I know, but sometimes you mainline True Blood episodes for a week straight and you need a way to wean yourself off of the Skarsgard - the books help), and for the 4th straight year in a row, Stephen King. Can't quit him, don't want to.
• Authors I discovered this year and will be checking out further: Maureen F. McHugh, Gillian Flynn, Chad Harbach, Christopher Buehlman, Jon Ronson, Donald Ray Pollock, Laini Taylor, and Colson Whitehead. A good year for library browsing and Library Journal review-heeding (yes, I have a subscription to Library Journal. Nope, I don't know how I got to be so cool. Just lucky, I guess).
• Favorite book of 2012 (Fiction): The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Nothing else came close to it. This book will be considered a classic in 50 years, I feel like I was at the start of something great by reading it only a year after it came out. You guys, this book is my friiiiennnnd. I have friend feelings about this book. Read it, love the characters, grow your own friend feelings. 
• Favorite book of 2012 (Non-Fiction): A lot more competition in the non-fiction category. I got really into true crime, and People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry was a superb example of that, coupled with a fascinating deep dive into Japanese culture. Another stand out was Columbine by Dave Cullen, a stark and meticulously researched look at what actually happened in Colorado in 1999 - an especially sad & thought provoking read given current news. But I think I have to make it a two-way tie between The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and Game Change by John Helleman. One is a story full of psychosis, delusions of grandeur, and horrifying demented personalities - and the Erik Larson book is about a notorious serial killer and the Chicago World's Fair. See what I did there? 
• Least Favorite book of 2012: 50 Shades of Grey by a landslide of horrible writing & cringe-worthy dialog. It gets two awards this year, see below. I also thought Summer of Night by Dan Simmons and the Wasp Factory by Iain Banks were disappointing, speaking as someone who didn't read them when they first came out (both were well received critically, I believe) - maybe they just haven't aged well and I need to stay away from 80s/early 90s horror. 
• Funniest book of 2012:  Mindy Kaling's memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? takes it. I didn't actually read a ton of laugh-a-minute books this year, but even so I think Mindy's charming effervescence would have won me over. This is a great book to give a chubby teen girl - is there any higher praise?
• Saddest book of 2012: A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck. Always and forever. This would also have been a candidate for favorite fiction if it hadn't been a reread. Prescription for testing to make sure you're still a breathing, feeling human being: read this book once a year, if you don't cry & go hug your dad you are dead and/or a robot. 
• Scariest book of 2012: I read a ton of horror this year, so it's really chilling that this superlative goes to Jon Ronson's non-fiction work, The Psychopath Test. A riveting read and a reminder of how scary actual people can be. Runner-up: 50 Shades of Grey, for obvious reasons.
• Least erotic book of 2012 (and potentially ever): 50 Shades of Grey. I can't. I've seen advertisements on amateur porn sites that are more finely crafted and believable (um, I mean, a friend of mine saw them and told me about them...yeah). Sexual without being sexy. Graphic without being intimate. Saccharine without being romantic. My original review summed it up perfectly when I stole some timeless dialog from Billy Madison: "E.L. James, I award you no points - and may God have mercy on your soul." 

I laughed, cried, shuddered - a pretty good year. I am again reminded of how little I understand people who say they don't read. What lulls your brain to sleep at night? What do you do on the train? How do you get new ideas? What do you do when the power goes out? And don't tell me you don't have time: I manage to read AND watch all the must see TV out there (Breaking Bad OMFG!!!?!) - the key is having no social life! I know that in 2013, you too can live the dream! Take a look, it's in a book. Bitch.