bibliophile waxes erratic*

thanks to the significant amounts of airport time, flight time, and drive time i've had recently, several books have made their way from my 'to read' shelf, to my 'currently reading' shelf to my 'read' shelf. note: this is both figurative (this is what i've titled my goodreads.com shelves) and literal (this is also how i organize my physical books). i will comment on a few of the highlights for your enlightenment.

outliers - malcolm gladwell
i am no lover of non-fiction books. however, one author has consistently found his way through the wall of my fiction obsession, first with the tipping point, then blink. some of you may have read them (and if not, why not?), and outliers is his lastest venture.

what appeals to me about the author's topics is that they are interesting! (really, i don't ask for much!) blink, for instance, is a book that examines perceptions and biases. how quickly they form, how often we are unaware of our own and those formed about us... there is a great passage in blink about the relationship between height and power, which you can actually read an excerpt of here. trust me, it's interesting.

outliers deals with the topic of success--however not in the way, say, a stephen covey would address the subject. instead he deconstructs recognizable successes -- bill gates, the beatles, the canadian hockey league — and pinpoints the various contributing factors to those successes. by and large the success factors boil down to timing and opportunity, not talent or intelligence. one of the early discussions in the book - that of the canadian hockey team - literally dropped my jaw. it all seemed so simple and yet also had me thinking 'what the heck?!' i enjoyed it immensely as it allows me to blame all my failures on circumstances out of my control :)

hunger games - suzanne collins

this is another book outside my 'norm' - i guess that's the advantage of having a lot of time where i'm forced to sit around and wait...or voluntarily spend days worth of hours in a moving vehicle. i've come to trust trish's literary taste as being very similar to my own, and when i saw her recommend on goodreads, i decided to give it a shot.

i loved loved loved this book. the best description i can think to give it is, lord of the flies, in the future, with girls. but that doesn't even really come close to covering it. it pulled me in and never let me go. and with only a couple of complaints. it was a bit predictable in places, but overall i really liked the nuances of the story. the other complaint was more major...until it wasn't.

when the book ended, i was in shock. it was the worst book ending i'd read in a very long time, and i was seriously peeved. then i found out that there is a second book on it's way and i felt much better about my life. i still think it would have been nice if the author had wrapped it up a bit more cleanly, instead of leaving the gaping wound to fester until september 1st, but at least that wasn't it. i do have a great fear that this is on it's way to a trilogy and i will be equally as peeved after book 2, but i guess i'm going to risk it, because i want to see what happens next!

city of bones, ashes, (and probably glass) - cassandra clare

very much 'in' my norm, a youth fantasy vampire tale, sort of. i'd probably describe it as more closely resembling the golden compass than twilight, although there is a developing love story, which, at the moment admittedly, has gotten a little creepy (i've finished the second, about to start the third). actually, now that i think about it, more buffy the vampire slayer, although to be clear, not a lot of vampire action going on. it's a fun easy read with all the requisite monsters and demon hunting, in which i still feel attached to the characters. i'm excited that my computer is back from apple repair waiting for me at home so i can upload the last book:)

the crowning glory of calla lily ponder - rebecca wells

from the author of the divine secrets of the ya - ya sisterhood...which always makes me a little skeptical. there aren't many writers whose words can keep me entertained indefinitely, and the more prolific an author becomes, the more i know at some point they will break my heart.

this recommend came from an old high school friend, and since southern lit wrapped it's polite little tentacles around me my freshman year of college, i have a hard time turning a blind eye to a recommend falling in this genre. i'm glad i didn't read the reviews first, or i would have been talked out of it, feeling sure that this would be the heartbreak moment. but THAT would have been a terrible shame. this would have to rank at the top of my last 10 reads.

i LOVE the voice of the south. i don't necessarily love personally spending a week in july in new orleans, but i do love reading about it. and i understand. when wells describes the landscape of louisiana - geographically, climatologically, and demographically - i get it, and that draws me in to the story. the reviews, which i read after, were in large part terrible - in one case even citing the author's battle with lyme disease as the probable cause for this disaster of a book. and i honestly don't know what they are talking about. this was a read i just fell into. i don't know why, but i can't get this analogy of lazy rivers (found at various water parks across the country) out of my head.

it took me a little bit of time to settle in to the tube, get comfortable, and force myself to relax. but only a little bit. next thing i knew i was head back, arms out, butt in the water, completely unaware of anything happening outside my little circle of silence. and by the time the ride came to an end, i was wishing the ride guy (i'm sure that is the technically correct term, if not the politically correct one) would let me just stay on and go around again.

*i will be using this as my tagline in the near future. don't even think about stealing it;)