4. The Great Garlic Book (NF 1)

146 pages.

Holy crap this took way too long to read and I picked it to be easy, which just goes to show my 10th grade english teacher was right about cheating often being more work than honesty. In any case, I don't think this book was ever meant to be read cover to cover. It's really just a glorified coffee table book. The enthusiastic writing style is often tedious to read and grammatically difficult to follow at times. That being said the recipies in the back look yummy and I now know more about garlic than I ever thought there was to know in the first place.

Thanks to Zach for the edifying Christmas present...I sense garlic cookies in your future.

3. Coraline

by Neil Gaiman 176 pages

This is indeed a children's book. Ages 9-12 it says, however, it is by the master Gaiman so it must be read! Read it, I tell you! It took me all of 2 hours to read and it's a delightful use of time.

Coraline is a young girl at the end of her summer holidays who discovers a mysterious hallway through a bricked up doorway. It's a wonderful book.

2. The Well of Lost Plots

by Jasper Fforde (375 pgs)

Third in the Thursday Next series. Fforde has shown serious growth and maturity since his first book. The Well of Lost plots is a continuation of the main story and addresses some of the more serious loose ends from the first two novels. I'm not sure that the Well of Lost Plots turned out the way Fforde originally envisioned it though. In the previous book, Lost in a Good Book, the Well was hinted to be almost sinister in nature. In the Well of Lost Souls....it's somewhat more benign.

In any case, it was a good read.

1. Cloud Atlas

By David Mitchell

This was a book club pick and a booker prize finalist. The most interesting aspect of the novel is the structure. There is a series of 5 or 6 stories that are 'nested,' meaning that the book begins and ends with the same story and that each story except the middle (or last depending on the way one looks at it) is split down the middle. To illustrate the order:

1st story beginning
2nd story beginning
3rd story beginning
4th story beginning
5th story
4th story ending
3rd story ending
2nd story ending
1st story ending

The first story is set in the past and the stories move forward chronologically until the 5th or 6th (can't remember just how many there were) which is in the far future. Each of the stories is linked although not always in expected ways. I wonder if to some degree Mitchell was trying to illustrate the cyclical nature of time?

I highly recommend this book.

Statement of Purpose

I have a friend who, on a bet from her spouse, is trying to read 500 books by next year. I'd love it if I could make that but school and all...so I'm going to aim for 200 (school books count) no less than 15% of which have to be non-fiction (or 30 out of 200, 75 out of 500). Books I re-read count but they can't have been read within the last year. Manga and graphic novels also count by series completion or multiples of 10. All books must have a blog entry.

So I'm taking suggestions on books and, most importantly, a reward on the off chance I actually make the 200 goal.