Year’s End

As I said in my post at the end of June about my reading at the halfway mark, I set a goal for myself to be more fluid in my reading selections, meaning that I trying not to get wrapped up in reading a particular number of books nor do I try to list out books I want to read at a particular time. If a book is not working for me, I don’t force myself to finish it like I did in the past. At year’s end, I think the system really worked for me. While I ‘only’ read 132 books (as compared to 217 in 2009) and abandoned an additional 24 books, I feel like I accomplished at lot. On the other hand, I feel like I read a bunch of bad books and would like to read ‘better’ books next year.

Monthly Breakdown

Month	Books Read	Pages Read
January	12	3,858
February	4	1,471
March	7	2,009
April	11	5,411
May	18	5,875
June	12	3,847
July	16	4,231
August	10	3,343
September	12	4,131
October	6	2,404
November	9	4,099
December	15	5,728
Total	132	46,407

I read the most books in May due in part to the long plane rides home and the fact that I was (finally) home for the summer. I also read quite a few shorter books than in say April when I read one book that was 1,086 pages long. February had the lowest number of books read, but I don’t exactly remember why that was. My numbers definitely fluctuate based on when I home and when I at school. Overall, I averaged 11 books and 3,867 pages a month.

Breakdown by Genre

Type	Books	Percent
Fiction	82	62
Nonfiction	50	38

I could have sworn that I read more nonfiction than 50 books (or 38 percent). Either way, I hope I continue reading more and more nonfiction. Knowing the book lists for two my classes already, I know I’ll have read twenty nonfiction books by May 2011.

Breakdown by Acquisition Type

Acquisition Type	Books	Percent
ARC	1	1%
Borrowed	2	1%
Class Handout	1	1%
Free	3	2%
Gift	3	2%
Library	47	36%
PaperBackSwap	38	29%
Purchased	37	28%

I still get a large chunk of my books from the public library (36 percent), but PaperBackSwap (29 percent) and purchasing books (28 percent) still make up a large chunk of how I acquire books. With my new iPad, however, I am sure that my percentage of free books (such as those from Project Gutenberg) will jump from it’s current level at 2 percent.

Books by Author’s Sex

Author	Books	Percent
Female	83	55.33
Male	67	44.67

I’m still reading more books by women than men, but I’m not really concerned with trying to make sure the numbers are even. I just read the books that sound interesting regardless of if the author is male or female. (In case you’re wondering why there are more authors than books read, I count all authors when reading a book by more than one author.)

Reading the World

I have ‘visited’ 55 countries or 24.4% of the world. Most of these countries were visited through nonfiction books, particularly the five countries on the continent of Africa, the seven countries in Latin American, and eight countries of South East Asia I visited. I only visited one country in South America (Chile) so I would like to read more about countries in South America as well as Africa in the coming year. I probably should stop by Australia and the Pacific at some point since I did not visit a single country in that geographical location this year.

Reading the United States

I ‘visited’ 22 states (or 44 percent) of the country I live in. I covered almost the entire American West (skipping only Oregon, Idaho, and New Mexico), but need to work on reading more about the Great Plains/Midwest region as well as the southern Atlantic seaboard (where I did not visit a single state).

Overall

I am quite pleased with my reading this year, overall. I’m still deciding whether or not I’d liked to have some ‘goals’ in the new year outside of completing the four challenges I am currently signed up for (One, Two, Theme!; TBR Challenge; Victorian Literature; What’s in a Name?). Either way, I know I’ll be reading quite a bit about the Holocaust and agriculture in America in the coming months.

Type	Books	Percent
Fiction	82	62
Nonfiction	50	38

Library Loot: December

Like my last library loot from this month, all twelve books I checked out this time are off of my TBR list. After being unable to locate a copy of C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia in a complete collection, I decided to just check out the first four books (in the order that Lewis preferred it) and start reading them individually.

I have two books — Bottled and Sold and The Violin of Auschwitz — that are “14 Day Books” meaning I have fourteen days to read them and return them. As such, they are not renewable because these particular books are new to the library. While I’m hoping to finish reading the five books I have left over from my last loot, I will probably start with these two books first.

The vlog below runs a little under seven and a half minutes and is, once again, broken down in terms of fiction and nonfiction.

Fiction:

• Blindness (José Saramago) — Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I thought I might read the book before seeing the movie. From the back cover: “In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he “were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea.” A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor’s office. Within a day the man’s wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum–guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape.”
• A Hand Full of Stars (Rafik Schami) — [Left Over From Last Trip] A young adult book about a teenager who wants to be a journalist in a suppressed society describes to his diary his daily life in his hometown of Damascus, Syria.
• The Horse and His Boy (C. S. Lewis) — Third book in the series. From the back cover: “Shasta is a young boy living in Calormene with a cruel man who claims to be his father. One night he overhears his “father” offering to sell him as a slave, so Shasta makes a break and sets out for the North. He meets Bree, a talking horse who becomes his companion. On their way they encounter Aravis, a high-born girl escaping an arranged marriage, and her talking horse. Despite their differences the children and horses learn to work together to reach the freedom they long for. In the meantime, they uncover a Calormene plot to conquer Narnia.”
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) — Second book in the series.Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy take their first steps into the world behind the magic wardrobe.
• The Magician’s Nephew (C. S. Lewis) — First book in the series. From the back cover: “When Digory and Polly are tricked by Digory’s peculiar Uncle Andrew into becoming part of an experiment, they set off on the adventure of a lifetime. What happens to the children when they touch Uncle Andrew’s magic rings is far beyond anything even the old magician could have imagined. Hurtled into the Wood between the Worlds, the children soon find that they can enter many worlds through the mysterious pools there. In one world they encounter the evil Queen Jadis, who wreaks havoc in the streets of London when she is accidentally brought back with them. When they finally manage to pull her out of London, unintentionally taking along Uncle Andrew and a coachman with his horse, they find themselves in what will come to be known as the land of Narnia.”
• Prince Caspian (C. S. Lewis) — Fourth book in the series. How good Prince Caspian and his army of Talking beasts conquered the Telmarines.
• The Spies of Warsaw (Alan Furst) — [Left Over From Last Trip] From the flap of the jacket: “War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attache, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw.”
• The Violin of Auschwitz (Maria Àngels Anglada) — From the back cover: “In the winter of 1991, at a concert in Krakow, an older woman with a marvelously pitched violin meets a fellow musician who is instantly captivated by her instrument. When he asks her how she obtained it, she reveals the remarkable story behind its origin…”
• Wench (Dolen Perkins-Valdez) — From the back cover: “In 1850s Tennessee, 13-year-old slave named Lizzie is taken on by the plantation owner as a sexual mistress, a practice common to the time. Lizzie’s master even takes her along with him to a spa resort in “free” Ohio when the Southern summer heat becomes too much to bear. There, Lizzie meets two other young black women caught in a similar form of bondage, and the three begin considering a break for freedom–an act that would mean abandoning everything in their life they know as home.”

Nonfiction:

• 1491 (Charles C. Mann) — [Left Over From Last Trip] Selected because I read the introduction to this book in a class I took last semester and it presents a completely different picture of the New World before Columbus than I was taught in elementary through high school.
• Bottled and Sold (Peter H. Gleick) — Subtitled “The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water”, I picked up this book because natural resources (in this case, water) is one of my themes for the One, Two, Theme! Challenge I am participating in for 2011.
• Ghettostadt (Gordon J. Horwitz) — [Left Over From Last Trip] From the book jacket: “Under the Third Reich, Nazi Germany undertook an unprecedented effort to refashion the city of Lodz. Home to prewar Poland’s second most populous Jewish community, this was to become a German city of enchantment—a modern, clean, and orderly showcase of urban planning and the arts. Central to the undertaking, however, was a crime of unparalleled dimension: the ghettoization, exploitation, and ultimate annihilation of the city’s entire Jewish population.”
• Her Little Majesty (Carolly Erickson) — [Left Over From Last Trip] I picked up this biography about the life of Queen Victoria because she is one of my themes for the One, Two, Theme! Challenge I am participating in for 2011.
• Left to Tell (Immaculée Ilibagiza and Steve Erwin) — Subtitled “Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust”, I selected this book because I’m looking for a personal account of genocides around the world I know nothing about. I thought I would start with Rwanda.
• One Country (Ali Abunimah) — I heard Abunimah speak at my university back in November. I thought I would hear him discuss his “bold proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, but he never even touched on it. I’d like to read about it.
• Plain and Simple (Sue Bender) — Subtitled “A Woman’s Journey to the Amish”, I selected this book because I have a bit of an obsession with the Amish.
• The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein) — I read the introduction to this book in one of my classes last semester and was really intrigued by what I read.

Library Loot:

A weekly (or monthly, in my case) event, Library Loot encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from their local library. Whether you vlog about or write about, the format doesn’t matter as along as you share what followed you home this week (or, again in my case, each month). The event is hosted by Claire and Marg.

Overthrow

Subtitled “America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq”, Kinzer’s book looks at regime change perpetrated or supported by the United States – whether that is financially, militarily, or covertly – in a variety of countries around the world. Specifically, the book spends a couple of pages on:

• Hawaii
• Cuba
• Puetro Rico
• Philippines
• Nicaragua
• Honduras
• Iran
• Guatemala
• South Vietnam
• Chile
• Grenada
• Panama
• Afghanistan
• Iraq

In the majority of these countries, these actions occurred, at the time, because of a perceived communist threat. However, Kinzer’s analysis shows that nationalization was confused with communism and that the United States stepped in to protect American companies (Standard Fruit, ITT, etc) and American access to natural resources (oil, wood, waterways).

“For more than a century, Americans have believed they deserve access to markets and resources in other countries. When they are denied that access, they take what they want by force, deposing governments that stand in their way. Great powers have done this since time immemorial. What distinguishes Americans from citizens of past empires is their eagerness to persuade themselves that they are acting out of humanitarian motives.” (pg. 316)

Kinzer’s also spends some time discussing what happens after American action. Except in the case of Hawaii (and maybe Puerto Rico), American actions have not lead to long-term success and have often backfired in the region (the Iranian Revolution, for example).

“Most American-sponsored ‘regime change’ operations have, in the end, weakened rather than strengthened American security. They have produced generations of militants who are deeply and sometimes violently anti-American. . . .” (pg. 317)

Although I’ve read Kinzer’s book on overthrow in Iran and obviously know about overthrow in Iraq and Afghanistan, I was shocked to found out how little I know about American foreign policy in other regions of the world, especially Latin American. None of this was covered in my history class, and I certainly learned a lot.

This book wasn’t nearly as gripping as the other book by Kinzer that I’ve read; I think in part because there wasn’t a single example and the players a part of it to follow closely. Instead, the book jumps from country to country in sets of four and then attempts to tie action in these four countries together in a single conclusion of sorts. It took me a while to read this book, but I do feel like it was a worthwhile read because I learned way more than I expect to.

Book Mentioned:

• Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York, NY: Times Books, 2006. Print. 400 pgs. ISBN: 0805078614. Source: Library.

Purchase Overthrow from Amazon by clicking on the linked title to your left and I’ll receive a small portion of the price you pay. All proceeds are used to purchase more books.

This Land Is Their Land

I was expecting a lot more from Ehrenreich’s book than what was given because while I didn’t love Nickel and Dimed, there was at least a premise to that book. Published in 2008 and subtitled “Reports from a Divided Nation”, I expect that the book would be a damming expose on the widening gap between rich and poor in America and on the disappearance of the middle class.

Instead, it’s a collection of blog posts, articles, and musings that barely fit together; the book has no solid thesis and there is barely a linkage between each essay that moves the narrative forward. But without any formal citations, this book reads as a collection of editorials consisting of Ehrenreich’s opinions and her rants against other columnists, against CEOs, against the state of America today.

In addition, the short “chapters” are selected from between 2001 and 2007 and reactions to current events at the time. I recognized them all, but her anger seems out of date because these “chapters” are so heavily dependent on things people may not recognize or remember in a couple of years.

I believe her intent was to make readers aware of how absurd the pay CEOs receive is and how absurd the cost of health care is, and these are huge problems facing the American public today. But it morphs into a rant against gender inequality and religion that eventually ends with a quiz of sorts on which country to move to because America is hopeless. And now I’m not sure why I kept reading until the end.

Books Mentioned:

• Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2002. Originally published 2001. Print. 221 pgs. ISBN: 9780805063899. Source: Library.
• Ehrenheich, Barbara. This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2008. Print. 235 pgs. ISBN: 9780805088403. Source: Library.

Purchase This Land Is Their Land from Amazon by clicking on the linked title to your left and I’ll receive a small portion of the price you pay. All proceeds are used to purchase more books.

The World Without Us

I decided to read this book because it is the expanded version of Weisman’s article of the same name, which looks at what would happen to New York City should humans suddenly disappear from the Earth. I was under the impression that the novel would be similar. However, this is not the case, and instead the novel focuses heavily on environmental issues of our consumer-based economy rather than by a post-apocalyptic tale of what would happen in life after people.

Weisman’s book covers exactly what was covered in a class I took last semester, Earth Transformed by Human Action. Honestly, it could have been the textbook for my class as it discusses plastics in the ocean, fertilizer usage, fracking, and many more environmental issues that affect the Earth today.

There is a lot of recounting of what others have to say about the subject (more of a journalistic style of writing, I would say) as well as quite a bit of raw data and long names of chemical compounds that made reading certain sections a bit of a bore. For me, it was a bit repetitive because I did spend a whole semester on the subject, but I still found the subject matter to be of some interest because I did spend a whole semester on the subject.

The what-if scenarios were the most interesting, especially when he discussed what will remain behind if humans were to leave. For example, what monument will be one of the last standing reminders of human civilization? Hint: It’s not the pyramids in Egypt. (The scenarios have been expanded on in the History Channel’s series, “Life After People”.) I also liked how he backed up his claims by using information about areas already removed from human interaction such as the Demilitarized Zone in Korea.

All of this made of an interesting read, and made the book worth reading for me. However, the ending was a bit odd and very preachy so I did finish the book on a bit of a low note.

Others’ Thoughts:

• Between the Covers
• In the Shadow of Mt. TBR
• things mean a lot

Book Mentioned:

• Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us. New York, NY: Thomas Dune Books, 2007. Print. 275 pgs. ISBN: 9780312347291. Source: Library.

Purchase The World Without Us from Amazon by clicking on the linked title to your left and I’ll receive a small portion of the price you pay. All proceeds are used to purchase more books.