As you can tell from my lack of blog posts, I've been in a slump of d0-nothingness lately. I guess my sub hours at the library have been picking up a bit in the past month, but on my days off (which are still many) I have been a slug. I sometimes venture out of the apartment to spend money, a frivolous pastime which in recent months seems to be the only thing motivating me to get out of my apartment at all. But that's another blog post. And even when I spend all day in the dark staring at my computer, I still can't seem to get anything "productive" done. Hence this apologetic and (I hope) fruitful blog post.

You'll notice that it's taken me much longer than 30 days to complete my 30-Day Blog Challenge. I've decided not to continue it at all; some of the topics would be interesting to write about, but some are a bit too challenging and require too much introspection, while some don't seem worth the time (like "What You Wore Today"). Also, the challenge doesn't seem to go along with the theme of this blog, which is books and book reviews and libraries. So, I hope you enjoyed the brief interlude about nerdiness and Luke Skywalker, but now on with the show.

I've read a lot of books since my last review in October, so I'll try to quickly highlight a few, and later in the post I'll talk about a new bit of technology I've acquired (HINT: it's a Nook).

1. The Jack of Fables series by Bill Willingham.
I read through most of this series earlier this year. The series is a spin-off of the popular Fables graphic novels (and comic books) which I love and still read. It follows the adventures of Jack of Tales, who appeared in earlier volumes of Fables. Jack is a roguish, charismatic, selfish, egotistic, and let's face it, not-so-likable fellow who is always scheming for ways to make him filthy rich and get lots of sex. His adventures lead him to the Golden Boughs Retirement Village, run by the mysterious Mr. Revise and the sexy Page sisters, all "librarians." The Golden Boughs is actually a prison for lost and runaway Fables, and Jack and a few friends eventually escape and have many more adventures. Overall this series doesn't draw me in like the original Fables, nor do I like the art as much. Jack is an interesting protagonist and maybe even an anti-hero, but is certainly not anyone you cheer on or feel empathy for. In fact, the main reason I continued to read this series is that there's a Fables and Jack crossover book which wouldn't have made sense otherwise.

2. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins.
As the title mentions, amazing. Simply amazing. The title is pretty self-explanatory. The book discusses the sexism and challenges that women have had to face in the 20th and 21st centuries. I still can't believe that only 50 years ago we were practically living in the dark ages of gender equality, and that women weren't allowed to have meaningful jobs (or at least get paid the same for them) or wear pants in a courtroom. I knew all this, of course, but it was still eye-opening to read detailed personal accounts of these women. What shocked me the most was that during the Civil Rights movement, the African American men who were supposedly all about equality still treated women as second-class citizens. Talk about a double standard! This book is a must-read for pretty much every person on the planet. Not just women.

3. The Gates by John Connolly.
I enjoyed Connolly's other fantasy book (The Book of Lost Things) so much that I tore through this one. And I wasn't disappointed. This book perfectly blended fantasy and sci-fi in a very interesting way. The young protagonist Samuel and his dachshund discover that their neighbors are trying to bring forth Satan himself in their basement, and soon various hideous demons are inhabiting the neighbors' bodies. The Large Hadron Collider also plays a part in bringing Satan (or The Great Malevolence, as he's called here) to the world. It's up to Samuel, his dog, and a laughably pathetic and likable demon named Nurd to stop the Gates of Hell from being opened and demons being unleashed upon the earth. This book had too many laugh-out-loud moments to count. Like The Book of Lost Things, it blended humor and whimsy with some very dark moments. But this was much more lighthearted and comical than the former book.

4. Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater.
Think Twilight, but more intelligent and only for Team Jacob girls. Once upon a time there was a girl who was practically killed by wolves in her backyard. But she showed no resistance or fear, and as she gazed into the eyes of one of the wolves, she felt an instant connection to it. Later, as a teenager, Grace still watches "her" wolf in the woods and longs to be a member of his pack. But who would guess that her wolf was actually the shy boy Sam who worked in the bookstore every summer? As Grace learns the truth about werewolves and grows closer to Sam, their lives become inextricably linked. She discovers that werewolves are creatures more of science than of fantasy, and that they are human in the summer but become wolves when cold weather hits. And she learns the worst truth of all: that her time with Sam is limited, and not only to the summers. This is an amazing love story interspersed with poetry and interesting theories about werewolves. Linger is the second in the series, and while it was predictable and not quite as enjoyable as the first, I nonetheless devoured it. The third book, Forever, is set to come out this summer.

5. Across the Universe by Beth Revis.
Another great YA sci-fi book. Not far in the future, Amy has decided to be cryogenically frozen with her parents on a spaceship set to arrive on a new planet in 300 years. But when she wakes up, she discovers that she still has 50 years to go, she is still on the spaceship, and humanity as she knows it has changed quite a bit. The ship is run by "Eldest," a wise and benevolent leader to most, and his apprentice "Elder." Elder is Amy's age and is not quite ready for the responsibility of running a ship. As Amy tries to get used to life aboard the Godspeed, where people mate in the indoor fields like animals and artistic, creative people are branded insane, she also discovers a mystery: someone has been trying to kill the other frozen people in the cryo chamber! I not only love utopian/dystopian books, I love books like this that bring up moral and ethical debates and ambiguities. This is perhaps the best book I've read so far this year.

6. Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein.
A non-fiction book about the influence of Disney Princesses, social media, and marketing on today's girls. Does the emphasis of girliness and femininity and the color pink empower our daughters or does it make them vapid, feeling that their self-worth is intertwined with their looks? Are toys and the media sexualizing girls too early? This book discusses all that and more. The author presents a surprisingly balanced debate on all things girly, even touchy subjects such as child beauty pageants. All women will enjoy this book, but for mothers of young girls this is a must-read (not that I would know anything about that).

7. Matched by Allie Condie.
This book echoes many utopian/dystopian books from the past, namely The Giver, Uglies, and The Hunger Games. In fact, so many elements were so similar that I was almost annoyed by it. Almost. But otherwise the book was well-written and interesting. In The Society (yes, that's the name) everyone is "matched" on their 18th birthdays to the person they are most likely to be happy and productive with (and most importantly, produce the most perfect offspring with). It's basically an arranged marriage with someone from another town. So when Cassia is matched to her best friend and neighbor Xander (points for a Buffy name!) she is surprised but happy. Until she views the video that's supposed to introduce her to her new Match. For a split second, she sees the face of another boy: Ky, the aberration. Ky is a quiet boy who was adopted by his aunt and uncle. He is labeled an aberration because of crimes his parents committed outside The Society. This, and another surprising discovery concerning her grandfather and a scrap of poetry, lead her to questioning The Society and their ways. So in the end I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and so many of the ideas were original that I could ignore the ideas that weren't.

8. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.
A travelogue in which the author travels to some of the happiest (and one of the unhappiest) countries on earth. I enjoyed this more as a travelogue than as a guide to happiness, which is how it's meant to be enjoyed. Nonetheless I took away some philosophies about the nature of happiness as well. Some nuggets of happiness wisdom: Don't think too much. Accept death. Accept failure. Have a strong sense of community. Wealth doesn't equal happiness. Allow yourself to be happy here and now, instead of reserving happiness for some future date or event. Eric Weiner is a self-professed grouch, and I related to his self-deprecating sense of humor. I also enjoyed reading about countries I knew little about, such as Bhutan and Moldova.

Now I'm tired of writing and thinking, so I'm going to write a separate post about my new Nook another time. If anybody cares about the other books I've read this year, check out these links:

Books Read in 2011
Whitney's GoodReads profile