Favorite Books of 2011

I so planned on finishing up all reviews this week and starting 2012 all fresh and free.  But then I got a flu bug and could not focus on review writing.  So anyway, my best of 2011:

While I read a lot of books this year, I didn't have nearly as many "OMG this book is awesome" moments as last year.  I think it's just the books I chose to read.  A lot that I read last year had been on my list for ages and ages and I was really excited to read them.  This year, I read all books I wanted to read (except for school, heh..), and really liked a lot of them, but there were fewer that I loved a whole super duper lot.  Here is my list of favorite books that I read in 2011:

Biographie de la faim (A Life of Hunger) by Amelie Nothomb

Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Beneath the Wheel by Herman Hesse

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood

13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

Flight by Sherman Alexie

A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto

The Pope's Daughter by Caroline P. Murphy



Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche

I read a total of 38 books and 3 single short stories (for school..).  I'm hoping to do much better next year because I have more free time now :)

End of Year Book Survey

I saw this survey over at Jamie's blog The Perpetual Page Turner and decided it looked like fun.  So I'm doing it.  But I have skipped a few questions that I'm too lazy to answer and have a bad memory when it comes to certain things.

1.  Best book you read in 2011?
Definitely 13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro.  I had super high expectations for it, and it surpassed all of them.

2. Most disappointing book/book you wished you loved more than you did?
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie.  The writing was great, but I found the story pretty boring.

3. Most surprising (in a good way) book?
MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche.  Finished it last night and I was suprised from the start how much I was enjoying it.  I thought it would be entertaining but silly.  Instead, it kinda changed the way I think.  Review will be coming soon.

4. Book you recommended to people the most?
A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware.  I think my whole family has now read it.  And they all adored it as much as me!

5. Best series you discovered?
Karen White's The House on Tradd Street, The Girl on Legare Street, etc.  I've only read the first one so far, but adored it.  My sister read the 2nd one and keeps nagging at me to read it.

6. Favorite new authors you discovered?
So many.  Ellen Airgood, who wrote a favorite of this year, South of Superior.  Minal Hajratwala who wrote Leaving India.  Karen White.  Elena Mauli Shapiro, Rachel Bertsche.  Samantha Sotto who wrote Before Ever After.  Amelie Nothomb, who wrote Biographie de la faim and Les combustibles.  I'd read anything by them because I heart their writing styles.

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?
Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala.  I love nonfiction, but this was different than anything else I've read this year.  I devoured it and still think about it all the time.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book?
13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro and Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb.  Oh, and Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz. And Flight by Sherman Alexie.

9. Book you most anticipated?
Definitely 13, rue Therese.  I remember hearing about it some time in 2010, and then I had to wait and wait and wait for it.  And then I bought it in 2011 but waited months to read it because I wanted time to sit and read it in one sitting. 

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2011?
What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman.  13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro, Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb.

11. Most memorable character?
Zits in Sherman Alexie's Flight.  Minny from The Help. 

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2011?
Once again, I'm going to have to go with 13, rue Therese.  It was so different but so gorgeous.  I also loved the writing in Flight, though I wouldn't call in beautiful.  It fit the teenage narrator perfectly.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you?
I think I'm going to have to say Rachel Bertsche's MWF Seeking BFF.  It has made me realize how much I miss hanging out with old friends and how I really need to make some new ones.  Also, Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air left me contemplating the relationship in the book and how both people just let it slowly die.  It made me change my own behavior in my relationship.

14. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2011 to read?
Hesse's Beneath the Wheel.  I loved it and can't believe it's been out my whole life and I never picked it up.

15. Favorite passage/quote from a book read in 2011?
This one from 13, rue Therese I loved:
79: Our shell shock and our thousand-yard stare-we are stunned into quiet by the images that cannot be erased and thus erase all else-our gaze so still and so quiet that it can be ignored, if you wish, you do not have to



listen to our silence.


Digging this trench so hard, the muscle fibers in our backs bursting with the hurt of this: our last ditch effort.


Our shell shock and our thousand-yard stare-


I gaze ever farther than that.


For miles and miles I stare, through everything and straight to you. As I fight, I keep my eyes always on you: I cannot bear the stricken look on your face should you be told that I have died-


Your face-


it is the only reason I am still alive.

And then this one from Before Ever After:
Page 230: "I know there's no magical potion to preserve my life or Sheila's," Dex said, still holding on to Shelley's hand. "And I know that the time will come when her voice won't be as crystal clear in my head. But even when every detail has dulled, I know that I'll always have something that not even time can take away. Pain."



Shelley's hand stiffened against Dex's palm. "And that's a good thing?"


"Yes, because when I've forgotten everything else, I'll feel that ache...that tightness in my throat...that heaviness in my chest...and know that I loved a woman once and she loved me back. It's proof that I existed and so did she."

16. Book read in 2011 that you'd be most likely to reread in 2012?
Ha, probably all the Moliere plays I had to read for a French class.  Because I'm hopefully starting grad school in the Fall and will want to brush up on my 15th century French.

17. Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling and dying to talk to somebody about?
There were quite a few of those in A Cottage by the Sea, mainly because I pretty much fell in love with the main male character.

18. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2011?
There are quite a few!  But it would take forever to list them all, so I'll list 3 that I am constantly reading and taking book recommendations from:
Audra's blog Unabridged Chick
Brenda's blog Curling Up With a Good Book
And the blog Only Orangery

19. Best moment of book blogging in 2011?
Probably when I emailed 2 authors whose books I adored and really connected with, and they both replied right away saying that they were touched that I connected so much with their books.  See, authors need a lot of reassurance too ;)  And it's nice to know we're appreciated as readers!

20. Best bookish discovery?
Dog Ears Bookstore in South Buffalo.  Way awesome.

21. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals?
I finished one challenge and came like 1 book away from finishing 2 others.  I just got side tracked with other books I wanted to read.

22. Book you didn't get to in 2011 but will make your #1 priority in 2012?
The books I wanted to read for challenges but didn't end up reading, like another Georgette Heyer book I have sitting around my house somewhere.

23. Book you are most anticipating in 2012?
It was actually The Technologists by Matthew Pearl.  And then last week I got an ARC of it.  So ha.  I'm reading it now. 

24. One thing you hope to accomplish or do in your reading/blogging in 2012?
I really want to connect more with my readers and other bloggers.  I've been doing this more than I was last year, but I had a lot going on in 2011 and wasn't quite as active as I wanted to be in this department.  I hope to make some new blogging friends that I can talk books with :)  And get more involved in the whole book blogging community :)

Review: Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala

At first glance, Minal Hajratwala's Leaving India seems like your standard memoir about a family immigrating from India to the US.  It's anything but.  Hajratwala weaves a fascinating and true story of her family-extended and immediate-and how over a few centuries they slowly started leaving India for South Africa, Fiji, China, and many other places, and how her parents both ended up in the States.  More than just a family's history though, Leaving India plays out like a self-discovery book.  Through each of her family members' stories, Hajratwala is also looking for a piece of herself, and it makes for one awesome read.  There is so much I could write about this book, but to stop myself my writing a super long review (because I loved so much and there is just soooo much to discuss), I'll just focus on a few points that are still fresh in my head, since I it seems most of the pages I dog-eared have come undog-eared..

Hajratwala discusses arranged marriages quite a bit throughout the book.  After all, pretty much all of her relatives and ancestors had them.  What I loved (and can't find the book which sucks because it's a great quote..) was how she explains her peoples' feelings on arranged marriage.  Myself and most of my fellow westerners I'm sure don't really understand arranged marriages and feel pity for couples who we think are being "forced" together.  It's books like this that completely change my perspective and make me realize how ignorant I really am at times.  Hajratwala's take is so different.  She says it's just a give for most young Indians.  While American girls daydream about meetingthe man of their dreams and the courtship that will lead to marriage, Indian girls know their husband will be picked for them, and it isn't like the end of the world for them.

Of course, what was also interesting in Leaving India was how the most recent generations in Hajratwala's family have been slowly breaking away from tradition.  Her mother was able to go to college, her bother and some of her cousins not only did not have arranged marriages, but married into different cultures.  And then there's Hajratwala herself.  When reading the author's chapter on herself, it's easy to see that she stands apart from her family, an when she came out as a lesbian to her parents, she thought they might disown her.  It was heartbreaking to read, especially since, even though her parents have accepted her and still love her, most of her family still does not know about the "secret", which doesn't need to be hidden nowadays in a country like the US.  Her family is in some ways so focused on preserving their culture-which is wonderful, I wish my family still had some of our old traditions-but they are perhaps hurting each other by not becoming more open-minded. 

Of course, these are all just my own observations.  This book can be interpreted in so many ways and enjoyed by people of all cultures and with different interests.  You don't have to have Indian heritage to connect with Hajratwala's family.  If anything, this book will make you more understanding and accepting of a culture you may know very little about. 

A favorite excerpt:
Page 81: To the west, the cool Atlantic swells up toward London, New York, and South Africa's most picturesque city, Cape Town.  To the east, the Indian Ocean is several degrees warmer; it gives the coast of Africa from Durban to Mombasa a tropical climate profitable for sugar and tourism, almost homelike for the more than a million Indians who have lived there for generations.  This confluence of oceans is a rare coincidence of political and natural geography, where the act of naming does not create an arbitrary border, but gives voice to a natural one.

And yet it is the most fluuid, the most porous of borders.  East and west meet a great force, a terrible frothing and crashing of waves.  The whitecaps swirl, and as much as one tries to follow a dark wave, it curls under a paler one from the other side; as far as I can track a blue wave, it does not, of course, hold.  Like the several great civilizations that have clashed and coexisted in southern Africa over the last two centuries, the waters cannot be segregated.

And who can tell which wave is resisting, which collaborating?  The sea reveals no moral; what moves the whole is a greater tide.  Perhaps the currents of history are what they are, and we only choose-or think we choose-which side to view them from, and where to take a stand.



Title: Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents
Author: Minal Hajratwala
Date of Publication: 2009
Number of Pages: 352
Genre: Nonfiction
Source: Personal Copy

Shopping Indie: Dog Ears Bookstore

I introduced the Shopping Indie feature on my blog a few months ago, and then promptly got really busy and forgot about it.  I am happy to report that now it has officially begun :)

Yesterday, I was out Christmas shopping and the mall was crazy.  I needed coffee.  Badly.  I knew Starbucks would be rediculous because it's right by the mall, so I decided to head to Caz Coffee Cafe in South Buffalo.  Attached to Caz (the entrance is actually inside the cafe) is Dog Ears Bookstore.  I am bad and didn't think to take a photo of the outside, so I'm using the photo from their website:

So not only does the cafe have a bookstore inside of it,  but it also has really good coffee too.  I got a large latte, because I needed one.  And they were out of large cups, so they gave me my latte in a gigantic bowl.  It was the size of 2 large lattes, and I was a very happy girl.  Anyway, the atmosphere was great because there was live music.  And Kaz doesn't just have coffee, they have smoothies, hot cocoa, and even breakfast food, sandwiches, and wraps.  Highly recommend. 

The bookstore is right through the main "dining" room and is super cozy and I felt like I was in a house.  It's a small bookstore, but I had no problems finding books I wanted to read.  Have you ever noticed how when you're at big box bookstores, you get overwhelmed by the selection and can't seem to find anything??  Happens to me all the time.  Here, I found at least 20 books that have been on my list for ages.  The man working the counter was super nice and as soon as I walked in asked what kind of books I was looking for, and then he directed me over to where the fiction section is located. 

Almost forgot to mention: the bookstore actually supports the Enlightenment Literary Arts Center, which is right above the bookstore and teaches people how to read and how important reading is.  The profits made at the bookstore go to the Literary Arts Center.  So yay for a good cause!   

The bookstore was so homey that I could have spent hours in there, and there are comfy chairs to sit in if you want.  I walked away with two books:

And look at the adorable bags they put the books in:

All in all, a great experience, and I can honestly say that I'll be spending a lot of time in the future here.  And hey, if the whole cafe and bookstore in one isn't enough for you, just think about this.  Caz and Dog Ears are in South Buffalo, Buffalo's big Irish neighborhood, which is filled with Irish pubs with great beer, great people, and awesome food :)  If you're ever in town, you definitely need to check it out!

The deets: http://dogearsbookstore.org/
                http://www.cazcoffee.com/