Weezie’s Reading Roundup: February 2011

I know, I know – I’m not exactly on the ball with the ol’ Month End Roundup, am I? But, you know how it is: Vacation leads to Lazy → Lazy has to go back to Work → Work results in Mental Blockage. Or something to that effect.

February certainly got out of here in a hurry. So, too, did my plans to read a variety of different books this month. Instead, I fell prey to a book sale that dovetailed into my penchant for sexy vampire TV shows. Yes. I am about 14 at heart. But I did jump on another book bandwagon that I’m happy to say, bears no shame.

So, without further ado:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson
(Penguin Canada)

Now I get it. I get why, almost every day on my transit commute to work, I see someone reading one of the books from this riveting trilogy. I get why there’s a legal battle over the publishing of Larsson’s unfinished manuscript. I get why the movie adaptations all hit the market so quickly (and why – sadly – Hollywood has felt the need to produce Americanized versions of said films.) This crime thriller is a page-turner of epic proportions. We’re talking serial murder, financial fraud, corporate cover-ups, journalistic integrity (wait, what?) and a generational cover-up within a billionaire industrialist-helmed Swedish family. Oh, and a main character who kicks SO much fictional ass that I want to friend her on Facebook (were she real; which I know she’s not, but still…) So, if you’re even slower than I am when it comes to latching onto literary pop culture, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of this gem. You won’t be sorry you did so.

Dead Until Dark • Living Dead in Dallas • Club Dead • Dead to the World
By Charlaine Harris
(Penguin Group US)

Sigh. I’m not proud. But Kobo had this marked down from $64 to $39. You throw in a daily promo of 20% off PLUS a balance remaining from a Christmas giftcard (not to mention an extreme appreciation for the HBO adaptation: True Blood) and, really, I had no choice.

Courtesy amazon.ca: “Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life – and one of her coworkers checks out…”

There are, in fact, 8 books in this set and I’ve gone through the first four. Can I be honest? I’m not really a fan. There. I said it. If it weren’t for the TV show (which, I’ve stated previously, I watch religiously), it’s a safe assumption that this series would barely have registered on my radar. It was interesting to see how the various story arcs differ when compared to the small screen adaptations. If I may be so bold: True Blood has better writers. The show is sexier, raunchier, funnier, more suspenseful and has better dialogue. In fairness, yes, they were handed the source material with which to work. But the source material, in this case, serves as little more than character sketches and roughed out story ideas. The biggest issue I have with these novels is that they’re all written in a first-person narrative. Now, that in and of itself shouldn’t be a problem, but the thing of it is, this style can be tricky as it can very easily come off as poorly-written Mary Sue Fan Fiction. And, to me, this series fell prey. I mean – our protagonist’s main flaw is that she reads minds. She also happens to be leggy, blonde, gorgeous and terribly popular with all of the leading men in this series. Life is hard. That said – it’s likely that I will, at some point, read the remaining four novels (you can breeze through them in an evening or two) just to see how much further the storylines will veer from what we see on TV each Sunday. But I’ll totally be picturing Alexander Saarsgard when I do.

Embracing my bookworm-iness

As year-end round ups are popping up all over the place, I thought it would be fun to do one of my own. And, since I spend a LOT of time with my face stuck in books, I figured my 2010 reading list might translate into a fun end-of-year list. If nothing else it would provide an interesting, if not scary, glimpse into my psyche. Did I mention I’ll read almost anything? (Almost: heaving bosoms or sparkly vampires on a book cover will get it tossed into the Oh, Hell No! pile pretty quickly; not to discount bosoms or vampires… simply the heaving & sparkly varieties, respectively.)

But I realized one small flaw in my plan to expound brilliantly upon all of the books I’d read in 2010: I didn’t keep track of any of them. So I started going through my book cases in an attempt to remember what I’d read this year (wait – did I read the The Book of Negroes this year or last year?) and was accomplishing nothing more than giving myself a pounding headache. Part of the problem is sheer volume. Having said that, I should clarify that not every title is of the mind-expanding or literary classic variety. Heh. I did say I’d read almost anything, remember.

So I’ve decided to start a fun wee project for 2011: Weezie’s Book Nook. I’ll keep track and will check in from time to time with my thoughts on a few current reads. I bet you’re all a-twitter in anticipation, aren’t you? Yep. Thought so.

And to make things easier, my fantabulously wonderful husband gifted me with a Kobo (PS: loving that it came pre-loaded with 100 classics!) this year for Christmas. Hooray!

I still kick it old school (there’s a certain visceral, tactile rush that comes from low-tech… and always will) with books and will never give them up. In fact I spent some quality hardcover time with one Miss Jen Lancaster (My Fair Lazy, to be precise) over the holidays. But seriously: being able to carrying around hundreds of books in your purse? RULES.

Anyone else have any fun projects for 2011?