The Books of 2012 and the Books to Come

by Kristina Wright

I'm writing this almost a week before it will be posted because I'm scheduled to blog at Oh Get A Grip! on December 26-- and I imagine I'll still be wiped out from the Christmas merriment (and deaf from a dozen different noise-making toys) to blog. And so, I'm afraid this is going to be a short piece from me. Because, at this very moment, I'm not reading anything.

I know. It boggles the mind.

I'll spare you the woeful lament of the writer/editor/mother who has no time to read. Honestly, when I'm engrossed in a new book, I just find the time. Usually, when I should be sleeping. But lately I've been reading books for review (or playing too many games of Words With Friends) and haven't picked up a book to read for pleasure in the past month or so. That will change-- probably by the time this post goes live. 'Tis the season, after all, and the people who love me know I love books.

Despite my lack of reading so far this holiday season, I have read more for pleasure this year than I have in the past several years. I now own both a Nook (the original, non-backlit version, which I love for that almost-real-book feel) and a Nexus 7 (on which I can read across platforms, a wonderful thing when I get giftcards for Kindle and Nook) and both have gotten their share of use. I also read "real" books, and have read both paperbacks and hardcovers this year. I'm an equal opportunity reader.

Two books on my Christmas wishlist that I'm likely to be reading this week are Stephen King's 11/22/63 and Bruce, the new biography of Bruce Springsteen by Peter Ames Carlin. I'm a huge fan of King and Springsteen, so both seem like good end-of-the-year reads. (Though I imagine I'll be reading 11/22/63 well into the new year...)

I am excited about all of the books I will read in 2013-- including the books I'm already anticipating (two of the young adult trilogies I'm reading will have their third book released in the coming year) and the books that aren't even on my radar yet. I love literary surprises, don't you? I look to my reading friends to recommend their favorite reads and my writing friends to write books that I know I'm going to love. But I still enjoy discovering new authors, as I did this year with Gillian Flynn and Melanie Gideon.

Whatever you're reading this holiday season, wherever you may live, I wish you joy and peace in the coming year. Please share the books you love, both the reader and the writer will thank you.

**Addendum 12/26: I did get the Bruce Springsteen biography for Christmas, but  a couple of days ago I downloaded Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild and I was hooked from the prologue. I've read several essays by Cheryl and excerpts of Wild and her honesty and storytelling ability blows me away. This seems like the perfect year to close out 2012.

Reading All Over the Place

by Kristina Wright

Recently I posted a question on Facebook, asking writers if they read for pleasure in the genres they write. Twenty or so writers replied, pretty much equally split between those who read what they also write and those who stick to genres other than what they write. For the past couple of years, I have stayed mostly in the latter camp-- reading very little erotic and erotic romance for pleasure. 

I always advise new writers to read, read, read what it is they want to write. But after more than a decade of writing erotica and three and a half years of editing erotica anthologies, I've found I just can't read the genre for fun anymore. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing-- I still read erotica for review and often find myself so captivated by the story that I forget it's actually work I'm doing. 

Currently, I'm reading Vina Jackson's Eighty Days Yellow for review. I have only just started it, but I'm intrigued by the musical backdrop and the hint of mystery surrounding the protagonist. While the cover says "If you like Fifty Shades of Grey..." I can't make that comparison, as I haven't read E.L. James's trilogy yet. Oh, but I will be. I've been asked to moderate a Fifty Shades of Grey book discussion at the public library in February. Let us pause for a moment and ponder the wonder of my public library (in southeast Virginia) holding a book discussion on Fifty Shades of Grey. As of today, they have yet to order a single one of my erotica anthologies. I'm not bitter--I'm very much looking forward to this discussion and discovering what it is about these books that has so captivated readers. I'm also curious to read the books for myself and form my own opinion. I'll keep you posted.

I have been reading a fair amount of YA (young adult) literature lately. I devoured the Hunger Games trilogy before the movie came out, then moved on to Veronica Roth's Divergent (and it's sequel, Insurgent) along with several other dystopian YA novels. Recently, I received a review copy of a fascinating book called Every Day by David Levithan. I didn't realize it was a YA title until I was close to finishing it-- I would recommend it to anyone, it's quite well-written. (And I'm hoping it has a sequel-- the ending left me with questions.)

It's the time of year when things go bump in the night, so I find myself wanting to read mysteries, I devoured all three of Gillan Flynn's books, reading her last one (Gone Girl) first. She is so, so good. I've also been rereading Edgar Allen Poe's poetry and short stories-- it's an October tradition for me. 

At the moment, I'm reading my own work-- editing a book that was a very long and complicated project for me. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next for pleasure. But I'm always looking for recommendations! 

Indulging Myself

By Kathleen Bradean

Last week, I was so excited when power went down in the West Side for two and a half hours. No computers, no phones, no internet (not even wifi) and no lights in our office. So I grabbed my Kindle, perched on a window sill, and dove in to a story. Best day at work in years.

Once I started reading I couldn't stop. I tore through a few novels in a couple days even though 1) the power eventually came back on in the office, 2) I was writing a novel nights and weekends, and 3) the people who live with me get grumpy when they stand two feet away from me and talk and I don't hear a word they say. You'd think they'd know better by now.  At least the cats understand. Reading Kathleen = cat lap.

If you want to know about erotica I've read lately, go to Erotica Revealed and read my reviews. Honestly, I haven't read much erotica just for fun for a while. Now that Remittance Girl's novels are available again I probably will, but my current reading outside of review work falls under crime, science fiction, and the weird. 

A while ago I picked up Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 but didn't get around to it until now. 1Q84 is either magical realism or urban fantasy, and very imaginative. It's also a bit repetitive, and as long as he was writing an eight hundred page tome he could have written twenty more to wrap up a few of his loose ends, but those are minor complaints for a very long novel that kept me captivated. It's not like any other story I've read and that was a wonderful surprise. But I also love beyond reason Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, so I like surreal, odd, quirky, dense tales. You might not be so inclined.

Lisabet Sarai suggested Jonathan Lethem's As She Climbed Across the Table a while ago. I read it and liked it, so I picked up his Gun, With Occasional Music. Oh man. This was my kind of book. So weird. He throws you into a world that's at least one giant step away from this reality and keeps you off balance by never explaining anything. You can't even trust the things that seem normal. He challenges you to keep up as he charges ahead. That might be annoying. I haven't decided. I guess you could say it's a standard hard-boiled detective plot, but the science fiction aspect was so creative that I can't call it just a murder mystery.

I'm not a big fan of horror, mostly because I hate startling at noises in the middle of the night. That's the curse of an active imagination. But I picked up Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist because it has enjoyed such popular acclaim. I liked the reimagining of vampire mythos and the adolescent love story, but as a horror story, it failed me. Maybe the problem was the translation. Horror tends to use beautifully wrought language to evoke a spell but opulent wordsmithing was absent from this translation. I don't care so much about being horrified as it takes real people doing terrible things to truly scare me, but as I read a horror story, dread should take residence in my gut like the parental-myth swallowed seed that grows into a gnarled creeping vine. It didn't. The soulless subdivision could have been used to much greater effect to enforce a feeling of alienation. I sensed that theme running through the story but it never fully developed. It was as if he were afraid to write something that bleak. I saw from an emotional distance how the events built toward an awful conclusion but there wasn't enough tension. I wanted to like this novel more than I did. On the other hand, I slept perfectly well and the shadows in my bedroom behaved themselves through the night.

The Zahir by Paulo Coelho. Sometimes I wonder why I read his books as several chapters in I start to lose patience, yet I keep going. Does it always come down to a man chasing a woman and finally catching her? I suppose it does in his stories. I've only read three so that's hardly a definitive sample, but I sense a pattern. I'd rather read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work.

Of all the books I've read these past few weeks, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is by far the most amazing. Twists, turns, and oh so dark. Flynn is a master at her craft. The suspense never let up. I don't want to say anything about the plot because you deserve to go into it as unsuspecting as I did and exhale in relief as you turn the last page. Admittedly, at first I wasn't satisfied with the end, but on reflection, I realized it was perfect. Every word of this novel was perfect. 

Next up:  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.