Sit and read for a bit

My book count for 2013 was down to 21, not quite on par with what I've been reading the past few years...but I'll have tons of time to read this year, right?  Does a newborn hanging around put a damper on that kind of thing?  I do most of my reading at night in that lovely quiet time between "ahhh, my face is clean and teeth are brushed and the animals are all snuggled up and quiet" and "I can no longer read the words without smacking myself in the face with my tablet because my eyes are so tired MUST go to sleep," and I'm guessing that "MUST go to sleep" part might hit me a little earlier than it has in the past.  Adventures to come!

At any rate, I'm already three books into 2014, none of which have been total crappers, so off to a good start.  But not time to chat about those yet, just some brief thoughts on 2013 books.  To start, epicness carryover from last year's Game of Thrones extravaganza in the form of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons - enter this world at your own risk, it's a ginormous commitment in terms of the sheer number of pages you need to make it through.  Moving on to others...

Loved, read immediately:

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

If you're into that whole "these books are actually intended for 'young adults' and skew fantasy world" kind of thing:

Divergent series by Veronica Roth (although the first book was my favorite and then I thought they got progressively more meh...so you really don't have to go down this path, but they're pretty quick reads)
I also reread the last two books of the Hunger Games trilogy again.  I had to.  The movie.

A little heavy/sad, but worth your time:

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - this one got to the pregnant lady in me, and I think I cried
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum - also good if you share my fascination with World War II era stories

Really interesting and confusing and also has some of that "history is cool!" thing going for it:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

There were also some girly fluffy books in there, per usual, but nothing that you can't live without. And that's it!  Some not especially memorable books sprinkled in this year, or perhaps I'm already forgetting everything.  I can blame pregnancy brain, right?

I'm also considering all of these baby books "books in progress at all times," so I feel like you should know about them because it makes me feel like I'm reading all the time.  Maybe that's where my reading has gone - instead of books for me, I'm on babycenter learning what vernix is (GROSS, but extremely functional) and what I should and shouldn't be worrying about.*

What to Expect When You're Expecting - the standard, right? I like the weekly updates as baby keeps growing.
The Baby Name Wizard - Craig said he needed a book to figure out baby names, and we both really like the way this one is organized.  Narrowing it down...
YOU: Having a Baby: The Owner's Manual to a Happy and Healthy Pregnancy - it has cool pictures and explains all the craziness going on in my body and with baby.  And reminds me to eat my veggies.
The Happiest Baby on the Block - just started this one, but my co-worker who just came back from maternity leave pressed this into my hands and, with a hint of desperation and exhaustion, insisted that I read this BEFORE the baby comes.  I'm taking it seriously.

* Who am I kidding...I worry about everything.

I miss *real* books, but I like instant gratification

Reeeeeeeading summary for 2012!  I have to say, I've really become a fan of the handy Nook app on my tablet, mostly because it enables my laziness - I want a book, I tap the screen, it's instantly mine.  Technology is wonderful.  And more expensive than hitting up the bargain shelves at Half-Price Books, yeeps.  But it does save me time and keep me a little more current in my reading selections...I'll take it.

Thirty-five books made it onto the list in 2012, which is quite a victory considering my last three books of the year were the first three books in the Song of Ice and Fire craziness.  It's just epic in every sense of the word.  These books are BEASTS that don't even fit into a category (well, an Erin category, anyway) - so just know that Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords are well worth your time, but only if you want to embark on this whooooole journey.  Word of warning, the series is still in the works, blerg - I hate not knowing how everything is going to go.  I'm also concerned with the gaps between book release dates for Mr. Martin, and The Winds of Winter can't get here soon enough.  Of course, now I'm obsessed with the show on HBO.  March 31 also can't get here soon enough.* 

* "Game of Thrones" premiere AND that much closer to 4/15.  Not as crazy busy as PwC, but still a little busier than I'd like.  Oh, taxes.

On to the rest!

LOVED, GO FORTH AND READ, NOW

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - I think this was my favorite standalone (not in a series/trilogy type thingy) book of the year - disturbing, gripping, couldn't put it down

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I actually really don't want to see the movie because I just know the book will be infinitely better

Already Gone by John Rector

WEIRD THINGS YOU MAY OR MAY NOT LIKE

The Twelve by Justin Cronin - if I talked you into The Passage last year, then you probably already know about this

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - if you can handle a touch of the fantastic, then go for this one

I DON'T REALLY REMEMBER WHAT EVEN HAPPENED IN THIS BOOK, BUT I THINK I LIKED IT, SO GO AHEAD AND READ THEM

Drinking Closer to Home by Jessica Anya Blau - I remember both laughing and going into sad mode, so there's something here

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

I DIDN'T LIKE THIS AS MUCH AS I THOUGHT I WOULD

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn - I really freakin' loved Gone Girl, so I thought another Gillian Flynn book would be a  slam dunk...and it was decent, but definitely didn't live up to to Gone Girl.  Which I couldn't put down.  So as I've already mentioned, go read that one instead.

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik - Paris, it's amazing!!  So why couldn't I get into this book?  Yeah, just no.

GIRLISH, RECOMMENDED...MOSTLY

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

More Jill Mansell books - but they all kinda blended together (Staying at Daisy's, Perfect Timing, An Offer You Can't Refuse), so I don't remember which one I liked the best. Just give them all a British accent in your mind and you're good to go.

BETTER THAN EXPECTED

Nelson DeMille books - The Gate House, The Lion's Game, The Lion.  Momma Dale got me started on these, and I was expecting a lesser version of James Patterson - but I really enjoyed them!  Action-adventure-spy-movie + sarcastic/dry/witty humor in book form.

ANOTHER PLUS FOR THE E-READER BECAUSE NO ONE KNEW WHAT I WAS READING

Yes, I read the Fifty Shades thing.  Meh.  Not really for me.

REPEAT OF AWESOMENESSS

I re-read the Hunger Games trilogy in prep for the awesome movie.  I'll probably read them again before #2 comes out.  LOVE.  Will always be a recommended yes.

I love to read.

I heart the reading

Resolution win = book recs for you!  But first, the way I read books has changed a little bit because for my birthday, my husband went and got me one of those nifty tablet thingies...I'm assuming mostly because he saw how many books/magazines I hauled around the country during our extended Christmas 2010 travels, and I think he was very VERY concerned about what would happen on our Costa Rican honeymoon if my bag was overweight due to books.  Seriously.  So I'm now at least semi-on the e-reader bandwagon.

I will never, ever stop loving real books.  I love them.  But here are some good things about the e-reader...

1. I can get new things to read RIGHT NOW.  You know, provided the tablet is charged and I have an internet connection.  But generally...RIGHT NOW.
2. Portability, especially when traveling.  One tablet weighs way less than the hardcover set of Hunger Games, a back-up paperback, and four magazines.  Promise.
3. Look up feature.  If I come across a word I don't know, I'll just highlight it and look it up in the dictionary.  Vocabulary win.
4. I was having trouble thinking of pros, but Craig says: "duh, you can play games on it."  I said I have a computer for that.  Whatevs.
5. Craig also says: "no paper cuts."  I'm not sure the last time a book gave me a paper cut, but I'll give him this one.
6. Craig says: "a few raindrops hurt a book.  Tablet, just fine."  Actually what he really said was something about it being more impervious to water (impervious!), so I put it in Erin words.  I tried to counter this with "ok, but if you drop either one in the bathtub, they're both goners!" - he just sighed at me.

Not so great for the following things...

1. Borrowing/sharing/lending/loaning.  It's just much easier to swap paper books with your friends.
2. The aforementioned "needs to be charged" business - can be really inconvenient sometimes.  Craig has some nifty converter in his car that lets me plug it in, which saved me life during our Christmas driving.
3. Screen glare - not usually a huge issue since I can adjust the brightness, but it's not perfect when I'm outdoors.
4. Durability.  Paper books do perfectly fine when you drop them on the ground.  The tablet...well, there's now some boo-boos on it and a small scratch on the screen.
5. Speaking of the screen...it's ALWAYS dirty in SOME way.  I can't wipe the fingerprints off a thousand times a day.  And that bothers the OCD in me.
6. Minor, but you know how you have to shut off electronic devices for take-off and landing?  Yeah, you can keep reading a real book.

Doesn't cut straight pro or straight con, but worth mentioning:

1. The shopping experience has really changed.  I love nothing more than going to Half Price Books for an hour and perusing the shelves, checking out back covers and finding bargains and things I might otherwise never have found.  It's a little more organized to shop on the tablet...but just not the same experience.
2. The reader apps aren't quite the same, and I have to give NOOK a thumbs-up over the Kindle on this one...mostly for the nerdy feature than turning a page feels slightly more like actually turning a page.  Yup, that does it.

So now...I just read both kinds of books.  Paper and electronic.  And it works.

Oh, and in the interested of being an organized reader and keeping up with what my friends are reading and finding cool new books, I'm also now on goodreads, which is a fun website that lets you add books you've read and rate them and organize them on bookshelves and add a bookshelf of your "to-read" books and what you're currently reading and it's just cool.  Do it.  If you're a nerd like me.

Book notes from my 2011 reading list.  Here you go.

AWESOME, read these immediately if you haven't already:

The Passage (this one is a beast and kinda crazy/scary/weird, but I really got into it and blasted through it MUCH more quickly than I thought I would) by Justin Cronin
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

GOOD, put it on your list:

The Unnamed and Then We Came To The End, both by Joshua Ferris
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson

DAMN, THESE WERE LONG, but mostly I'm glad I made it through them in the end:

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

FOODISH, and definitely good for my other foodie people out there:

The Sweet Life in Paris by David Leibovitz
Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

NICE AND FLUFFY for the gals.  Or the guys.  No judgment:

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
Jill Mansell books:  Take a Chance on Me, Rumor Has It, Miranda's Big Mistake (probably never would have read these without their $1.99 price tags and prominent placement on NOOK list, so possibly score one more for the e-reader)

WAH-WAH:

Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult.  Normally I really enjoy her books, but this one...nope.  One of her earlier books that you can definitely skip.

Go forth and read!!

I'm not on the e-reader bandwagon...yet

I LOVE books.  Actual books.  Not fake pages on a screen that you "flip."  I just can't get into that.  Although I probably will someday.  Sigh.  How long can I resist the iPad when everyone I know is singing its praises?  Craig's had the NOOK (or is it nook?  Or Nook?  I can't tell...) for about a year and is pretty much sold on it, especially when he saw how many books and magazines I hauled around over the holidays to provide myself entertainment.  I think he was a little shocked.  Hmmmm....

I resolve to read at least 30 books in 2011.  And I'm hard at work on this one since that whole "lose 25 pounds" thing is going to test my resolve more than I had hoped.  Sigh again.  So I'll encourage everyone else to get out there and read, too, if for no other reason than it provides an escape from the life of spreadsheets or call center questions or screaming children or whatever it is that's testing you these days.  To that end, here are my suggestions from a selection of the 32 books I read last year.  I kept a list.  That's why I knew how many I'd read.  What, you're shocked?  This is me we're talking about.  Of course there was a list.

I loved these, please read them as soon as humanly possible:

1. Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
2. My Life in France by Julia Child
3. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
4. Travel Writing by Peter Ferry
5. Naked by David Sedaris
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

These were pretty good, too, go ahead and add them to your list:

1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
2. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
3. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
4. London is the Best City in America by Lori Gottlieb
5. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
6. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Rereads for me, prompted by vacation and movie-viewing, that you should go ahead and read for the first time if you haven't already read them, or just skip Harry Potter if you have strong feelings about not reading young adult wizard fiction:

1. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Girly books that didn't make toooooo much of an impression on me when I couldn't bring myself to read the books I felt like I should read to enhance my knowledge and bucket of cultural reference but that are probably quiet sufficient for a lazy afternoon on a beach somewhere:

1. The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner
2. Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand
3. The Other Woman by Jane Green
4. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES read this crap book:

1. In the Kitchen by Monica Ali

Sometimes twelve-ish days away from work aren't enough...

...and I'm wishing I had another week of vacation just waiting for me, but it looks like it's time to start 2011 with a bang!  If "bang" includes back-to-back hour-long meetings in the morning.  Shablammy.  But I do have a lot of things to look forward to this year that don't include morning meetings.  There's a whole bushel of life events coming up (you know, minor events like moving halfway across the country AGAIN and starting a new-ish yet kinda old-ish job and GETTING MARRIED and suddenly being WAY outnumbered by males in my household and all kinds of other silly things), and along with those life events, I'm going to go ahead and throw a few resolutions into the mix just to keep things interesting:

• Lose 25 pounds in the next ten months by actually kicking the healthy living plan into gear.  This isn't for vanity's sake, it's to be healthy.  And to actually fit into jeans that fit a year and a half ago.
• Hit 100 blog posts in 2011.  I did it in 2009, but not 2010.  And while I won't exactly have interesting DC things to blog about, I love writing and photography and find that this is great outlet for both.
• Read at least 30 books for pleasure.  I really enjoy reading, and with the insanity of life going on, I don't want to feel like I don't have time for one of my favorite escape mechanisms.
• Start volunteering on at least a monthly basis.  I signed up to be a leader for Habitat for Humanity about two and a half years ago and politely excused myself from actually doing anything since I was moving.  Oh, like the same organization doesn't exist here.  No excuses this time around.
• Maintain sanity during wedding planning and remember what's actually important about that day - you know, the whole getting married and committing to each other part.  Although I think good food is pretty important, too.  And I'm sure Craig would agree.

There you have it, kids.  Keep me honest throughout the year.

The angriest Santa Claus in the world and I hope you enjoyed your holidays and wish you and yours the best in 2011!

Early AM life lessons

1.  Do not, under any circumstances, start reading The Hunger Games anywhere near a time where a reasonable person should go to bed.  Good thing I ordered the trilogy from Amazon and have two more books to get me through holiday vacation time.  Yes, it's approximately 3:58 AM EST.  Oops.

2.  Holiday vacation time doesn't really start until 2:30 PM EST tomorrow.  Double oops on the whole "starting The Hunger Games at 11:30 EST" business.  Work tomorrow is most definitely not going to be awesome.

3.  When it's really, really cold outside, make sure you wear some kind of shoe that actually requires use of socks.  Your feet will be much warmer and toastier this way.  Basically, don't wear ballet flats in DC in late December.

4.  Consider shipping all gifts directly to their final destination when you live a looooooooooooong way from home.  Packing can get a little iffy when you're trying to figure out where to fit certain things in a giant suitcase.  Triple oops.

5.  If you're getting engaged but don't know it, try to magically summon the willpower to not look exhausted by 9:00 PM so that pictures from that night actually make you look human.

6.  If you're traveling to three different cities over the course of ten days during the Christmas holidays, consider starting the packing adventure before 7:30 PM the day before you're supposed to leave.  Also, don't get caught up in The Hunger Games.

7.  Kitty cats are very sweet when they snuggle up next to you for hours while you read young adult fiction.

I might need a few more shelves

I'm the kind of gal who leaves extra room in my suitcase to bring back books.  On trips to Dallas.  You see, Half Price Books holds a special place in my heart, especially the one on Northwest Highway that is freakin' ginormous and holds every type of book imaginable.  I brought back nine books the last time I went.  Nine.  For a mere twenty-five-ish dollars!  That, to me, is joy.

Bookstores are a magical, wonderful place.  I could spend hours wandering the aisles, picking up bound copies that intrigue me with their cover art or clever titles or an author's name (I usually stop and see what Bryan books are there - you know, just to know who I'll be sharing a shelf with when I slip a fake copy of my "book" next to them pen the great American novel and/or compile a witty collection of short stories).  I love the smell of books.  You might think it's musty or gross, but it smells like history and adventure to me.

I remember how crazy-happy I was when my dad took my sister and I to the Amarillo Public Library one summer day to meet John Erickson and have him sign one of my Hank the Cowdog books (which I hope is hiding in one of the storage containers in my closet at home in A-town - cherished childhood memories all boxed up for future waves of nostalgia).  And I love buying books when I travel places - I have a Dumas from Shakespeare and Company in Paris and a Kafka from Prague and a wine-from-vine-to-table-journey book from City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.  The only reason I didn't pick up a cookbook on the recently-returned-from journey to Charleston and Savannah (postings to come!) was because the sheer amount of butter and deep frying scared me...I mean, I would actually do those things and then promptly fall over from clogged arteries at the ripe old age of 28.  Back to the books...I loved going to the National Book Festival last year, and I've gotten in the habit of throwing whatever paperback I'm reading in my bag on weekends so I can just stop, sit, and read for a while if it's so hot outside that all I can think about is ducking into air conditioning for a brief reprieve I feel like it.

Here in D.C., there's nothing quite along the lines of the awesomeness that is Half Price Books.  However, in pretty much the most non-descript storefront you'll find...

...there hides a small treasure trove of used books.  Books for America is a touch on the small side when compared with the behemoth I'm accustomed to, but a lot bigger when it comes to philanthropic endeavors - it's a non-profit enterprise that donates books to area schools and uses proceeds from its used book sales to fund literacy programs.  So now, as the proud owner of the following...

...I played a small role in helping someone else get a book or two.  Worth it for a 1978 edition of the Joy of Cooking (which I'm sure has many fabulous ideas for themed dinner parties), one of the few David Sedaris books I didn't already own, my first foray into Michael Chabon, and a Jodi Picoult that I'm sure I'll blast through in three days or so.

While it's not nearly as massive as Half Price, I know I can find something every time I come in here.  Thank you, Yelp, for pointing me in the direction of this great store.  I was also going to stop by Second Story, which is just a few blocks away, but I was already loaded down with this stack of paper AND sweating profusely due to the oppressive D.C. heat that I didn't think would set in for another few weeks.  Sometimes I miss shuttling myself from place to place in the air-conditioned comfort of my vehicle instead of hoofing it around.

I have books piled on my nightstand and filling multiple bookcases and stacked on top of my printer.  I love them.

Rows and rows of books just really make me a happy person.