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.

A Day No Pigs Would Die

This book is my personal no-cry challenge, and I fail every single time. It's about young Rob Peck saving a cow, getting a pig, and BECOMING A MAN. His dad is Haven Peck: the illest Shaker farmer/butcher in all of 1920s Vermont. Dear old Dad is illiterate, but that doesn't stop him from dropping mad knowledge bombs all over the place like steaming cow patties:

• "That's what being a man's all about, boy. It's just doing what has to be done." Haven, I'm all OVER this ish - you need a cow milked, I will milk that cow for you - or preferably whatever the urban equivalent is (latte run?).
• "Dying is a dirty business. Like being born." You're talking about poop, right? On second thought, let the details remain a mystery. Gross coming in, gross going out - got it.
• "Never miss a chance...to keep your mouth shut." Um, okay, this is good advice but I tend to favor the Real Housewives philosophy over the Shaker one in my own personal interactions: "She who out-yells everyone wins - but save some insults for the confessional." To each their own, Have. 

I'm sure you're intrigued already, and I haven't even mentioned the adorable pig named Pinky and the fact that uptight moms are constantly trying to have this book banned (banned books are the best books, obviously). Even if you're not into reading about porcine-boy friendships (WEIRDO), any time you need to feel again just grab a saline-stained copy and ride this novella to Tear Town, population: YOU. Better than a really good episode of Oprah, I promise you.

5 cow goiters out of 5 disgusting cow goiters. 

After the Apocalypse

I have definitely crafted an apocalypse survival plan with a few people ("you get the guns, I'll get the cans - we make our way north and rendezvous at my parent's cottage in Nova Scotia where we can seal off the only road onto the island.") But if zombies *actually* happened I would probably be caught wearing impractical high heels, ignore the warnings, and get taken down within the first 10 minutes while standing in line for an iced coffee.

We all think we're much more heroic and resourceful than we really are, and it's easy to picture ourselves rising from the ashes, the demise of processed food finally helping us sculpt some wicked abs, which we display at all times while wielding a machete and scavenging for supplies like a warrior princess (No? Just my daydreams? Cool). Maureen F. McHugh's nine stories, all set in some sort of post-apocalypse or dystopian future (those pesky zombies, dirty bomb attacks, economic depression, drought), immerse you in stories that feel much more realistic and more raw than those found in most end of the world dramas. There's nothing glossy or cartoonish about a resentful mother dragging her whiny teenager through a starving America, or a Mad Cow-like illness infecting the chicken nugget supply and damning a generation to a slow, paralyzing dementia. It would all be really, really depressing if it wasn't such a breath of fresh air in what can admittedly be a somewhat stagnant genre.

4 death-dealing processed nuggets out of 5! That is probably the way we're all going to go out, actually.

Lightning

Oh, Dean. What cruel twist of fate engineered the fact that you would be constantly preceded by Stephen King on the library shelves, forever doomed to be following in his footsteps in alphabetization as in life? Still, my brothers and I devoured all your books as teenagers*, so maybe you're better thought of as a gentle "intro to" dark adult fiction instead of a poor man's version of weightier author.

Anyway, you're a millionaire and churn out about a dozen books a year and I can barely do one review a month, so pretty sure you're doing alright.

Lightning was one of the first Koontzy's I read, and his tale of a love-struck time-traveling Nazi defector scientist held me in its thrall. I was going to re-read it but I'd rather review it from the perspective of an awkward teen than a confident and savvy adult (I am trying to incorporate my daily affirmations into these reviews. I can feel them working!). So, as a 90s teen, I cannot recommend this book enough and I really look forward to the movie adaptation, coming out in July 1999, starring Val Kilmer.

90s teen rating: 5 The Saint-era Val Kilmers out of 5. Suspected current Jane rating: 2 beach-ready Val Kilmers out of 5.

 *and we also had a weird obsession with the evolution of your author pic - in earlier editions, you had a mustache worthy of the Brawny Man and a receding hairline; in later ones, you were clean shaven but suspiciously thick-coiffed. This led to an attempt to speculate on your wikipedia page about a frenzied late-night mustache-to-pate home hair transplant, which remained in your entry for one tantalizing day before being edited into oblivion.

Ready Player One

This is a book perfect for gaming nerds, and I really enjoyed it - despite being TOO nerdy for it. See, I never played the adventure, shoot 'em up, wizard & dragon games. My favorite computer game was Civilization. Yes - you could spend the game waging war and taking over the earth, which I suppose would be pretty badass. I say "suppose" because I always preferred to win using SCIENCE and become the first civilization to reach Alpha Centauri. I WAS SUCH A GODDAMNED NERD.

Anyway, I have friends now and I have kissed a boy, so it's fine. And my lack of experience with 80s arcade staples and dice-based adventures did not diminish my enjoyment of Ready Player One. It's set in a dystopian future where everyone spends most of their time plugged into a massive online role-playing game. When the eccentric, 80s-obssesed creator dies, he wills his vast fortune and control of the game to whoever can first solve a series of clues that will lead them to three challenges, three keys, and three gates.

My only complaint is a pretty literal deus ex machina that pops up near the end - but by that time you're already casting the inevitable movie version of the story* so I guess I'll allow it.

4 epic Rush guitar solos out of 5.

*Wade = Donald Glover , Art3mis = Lena Dunham, Sorrento = Willem Dafoe. Are you telling me you wouldn't watch that movie? Exactly.

The Art of Fielding

This book is so wonderful and lovely, you should all read it.

"But Jane I don't like baseball -"

Okay, first of all: how very un-American of you. This country was cobbled together in a baseball dugout from cherry pie filling and bald eagle sweat. Still, even freedom-haters like you will find yourself engrossed in this bittersweet story set in a small Midwestern college. It's "about" baseball in the same way Moby Dick is "about" whale watching - it's all about the characters, knucklehead! Also there are a ton of Moby Dick references (the protagonist is named Henry Skrimshander. Skrimshander! Epic character names 101, have a goddamned seat).

If you are a human, reading this book will involve nodding along, chuckling, and maybe wiping away a tear, all while your inner monologue is saying over and over again: "I know that feel, bro."

This was Harbach's first novel I CAN'T EVEN.

5 out of 5 navy & ecru striped school ties.