Reading list

For the past few years I’ve had a lot more recommendations for good books to read than actual time to read good books. People (by “people,” I mean of course “my dad”) have recommended books like The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, She, A Civil Action, and more titles that I can’t remember at the moment but definitely have floating around in my brain somewhere, because I was totally listening at the time.

Recently I finally found some time to sit and read books. So, naturally, I didn’t read any of the above books.

What I did read were the following: A Storm of Swords and Vampire Diaries, once each, and Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory and Goodnight Moon (way, way more than once each).

And now, for your convenience, I will review them all for you here.

A Storm of Swords (Fantasy)

This is book three of the Song of Ice and Fire series by George Martin. It’s a fantasy novel, but the focus is on political intrigue and war more than on the occasional warlock or dragon.

The best and worst thing about the series so far is that there’s no apparent direction to the story. On the one hand, it’s great: finally, there’s a popular fantasy series where you really don’t know what’s going to happen. As soon as you start thinking “oh, now I get it, this second guy is going to defeat those other guys and become king,” Second Guy is brutally murdered by some new character and the plot rolls onward. And it’s genuinely surprising.

The downside of that is that after a while, it starts to get suspiciously, tediously familiar. Wait a second – a story about a bunch of would-be royalty who spend their time plotting together, betraying each other, waging war, killing people in various horrific ways, and drinking? That’s starting to sound an awful lot like history.

Could A Song of Ice and Fire be trying to make me learn something?

Damn it, George Martin. You wasted more than 2,000 pages of my life on useful information.

Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory (Non-fiction)

This book is a disturbing expose of the lax health standards at our nation’s chocolate factories. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but the intrepid yellow-hatted journalist manages to get a monkey carrying lord-only-knows-what diseases right onto the production line. And the workers not only don’t evict the animal immediately, or at least insist it wear gloves while touching the chocolate, they offer it prizes.

A must-read for chocolate lovers, and for anyone who wants Dani not to pitch a temper tantrum.

Vampire Diaries Part 1 (Paranormal Romance. Yes, that’s its own category now. I know. I feel your pain.)

This may be a book about a random, boring teenage girl in a small town who falls for a mysterious handsome guy who pretends not to like her back but it turns out that’s only because he cares for her so much, and oh yeah, he’s also a vampire – but it’s not Twilight.

There are several differences between this book and Twilight. For example, in Twilight the hot vampire rescues the personality-lacking heroine first from a boy named Tyler who almost hits her with his car and then from would-be rapists, but in Vampire Diaries that’s condensed into him saving her from a boy named Tyler who wants to rape her.

Also, while Twilight centers on a love triangle between a girl with no thoughts, hopes or emotions that don’t relate directly to the hero, a hot, never-aging vampire boy with eyes that change color and the ability to read minds who eats only animal blood, and a werewolf who is madly in love with a baby in a right-lets-all-pretend-that’s-not-incredibly-creepy kind of way, Vampire Diaries centers on a love triangle between a girl with no thoughts, hopes or emotions that don’t relate directly to the hero, a hot, never-aging vampire boy with eyes that change color and the ability to read minds who eats only animal blood, and a second vampire who is the first vampire’s brother and who doubles as one of the villains of the story.

I admit that there were a few small similarities that made me a bit suspicious that Vampire Diaries might have been inspired by Twilight. But when I checked the inside cover of Vampire Diaries, I saw it was written in the early 90s, meaning the author has the distinction of being the first (out of her and Stephanie Meyer, anyway) to imagine vampires as creatures who - being blessed with superhuman strength, eternal life, eternal youth, and superpowers – would naturally choose to spend their time hanging out in high school picking up teenage girls.

Disturbingly, they’re probably both onto something.

Anyway, while Vampire Diaries isn’t exactly Twilight, there was one part that was exactly the same: my sense of shame upon completing the book. (like realizing that all your one-last-bites of ice cream have added up to half the container, not that I'd know what that's like.)

Goodnight Moon (How-To Guide)

At first, Goodnight Moon looks like nothing more than a whimsical children’s book. But if you’ve actually lived through the scenario it depicts, you realize it’s nothing less than a torture manual.

Disturbingly, this book is not only being sold openly in stores, but is being marketed directly to those most likely to put it into use.

I recommend reading this, but only so that you’ll know what you’re up against.