1. Red at the Bone—Jacqueline Woodson
2. Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theories and Their Surprising Rise to Powers—Anna Merlan
3. Scream of the White Bear—David Clement-Davies
4. Fall Back Down When I Die—Joe Wilkins
5. Doomwyte—Brian Jacques
6. The Library Book—Susan Orlean
7. The Testaments—Margaret Atwood
8. Good Omens—Terry Pratcheet and Neil Gaiman
9. Round Ireland with a Fridge—Tony Hawks
10. Under the Banner of Heaven—Jon Krakauer
11. The Kiss Quotient—Helen Hoang
12. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck—Mark Manson
13. How to Change Your Mind—Michael Pollan
14. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—Michelle McNamara
15. The Bluest Eye—Toni Morrison
16. The Mysterious Affair at Styles—Agatha Christie
17. Mildred Pierce—James Cain
18. She Said—Jodi Kantor
19. White Fragility—Robin DiAngelo
20. The Courage to be Disliked—Ichiro Kishimi
21. The Plague—Albert Camus
22. I’m Still Alive—Kate Alice Marshall
23. Dubliners—James Joyce
24. Such a Fun Age—Kiley Reid
25. Atomic Habits—James Clear
26. All Systems Red—Martha Wells
27. Everything I Never Told You—Celeste Ng
28. Religion for Atheists—Alain de Botton
29. Decisive—Heath Chip
30. All My Puny Sorrows—Miriam Towes
31. The Fifth Season—NK Jemison
32. This is Your Brain on Music—Daniel Levitin
33. The Obelisk Gate-NK Jemison
34. Blowout—Rachel Maddow
35. The Stone Sky—NK Jemison
36. Born a Crime—Trevor Noah
37. Devil in the White City—Erik Larson
38. It Didn’t Start With You—Mark Wolynn
39. Shrill: Notes from a Load Woman
40. Unfollow—Megan Phelps-Roper
41. Dear Girls—Ali Wong
42. Priestdaddy—Patricia Lockwood
43. Wildlife Damage Management—Russel Reidinger
44. In the Garden of Beasts—Erik Larson
45. The Hidden Life of Trees—Peter Wohlleben
46. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—Ken Kesey
47. Blonde Roots—Bernardine Evaristo
48. I Have Something to Tell You—Chasten Buttigieg
49. How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?—NK Jemison
50. Rebecca—Daphne du Maurier
51. Leave the World Behind—Rumaan Alam
52. The Umbrella Academy, Volume I—Gerard Way
53. Shortest Way Home—Pete Buttigieg
54. Beloved—Tony Morrison
55. Gideon the Ninth—Tamsyn Muir
56. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—Stuart Turton
57. Memorial—Bryan Washington
58. Anxious People—Fredrik Bachman
59. On Immunity—Eula Biss
60. The Searcher—Tana French
61. Teaching a Stone to Talk—Dillard Annie
62. Your Money or Your Life—Vicki Robin
63. The Cousins—Karen MCManus
64. Rakkety Tam—Brian Jacques

 
Favorites

1. The Library Book. This is simply a biography of one library. That sounds dry but it’s a journey, I assure you!
2. Mildred Pierce. I love every adaptation of this story. I can finally confirm that the source material is great too!
3. The Fifth Season. Earth bending meets the apocalypse. This and its sequels are the best works of fantasy I’ve read in years.
4. Born a Crime. A personal account of growing up mixed-race in South Africa during apartheid.
5. Shrill: Notes from a Load Woman. Funny and thought-provoking.
6. Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westburo Baptist Church. Title says all.
7. Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, both by Erik Larson. Both true, both terrifying.
8. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Imagine Doctor Who getting stuck in an Agatha Christie novel!!
9. On Immunity. A suddenly prescient primer in inoculation. 

 
Disappointments

1. The Kiss Quotient. So…… I thought this was going to be about a woman struggling with mental illness and/or disability as she tries to form relationships, similar to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (which I enjoyed). And it’s exactly that…..but a romance novel. It wasn’t for me. 
2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. I tried to read more in the psychological field. This book capitalizes on the F word without much substance.
3. It Didn’t Start With You. Too often this felt like one of those reality shows where a "psychic" speaks to the dead and unearths covert family stories to impress the viewer. The author overwhelmingly relies on anecdotal evidence to back up his thesis of inherited trauma. Inherited trauma may be a real phenomenon and play a role in treating mental health afflictions. But the lack of peer reviewed publications set off my pseudoscience alarm-bells. The author excessively points to events in the lives of great-great grandparents to explain the insomnia, anxiety, and even suicidal behavior of his patients, where there likely are far more direct issues at play. Surely he's aware of them as a therapist. But their omission in the narrative implies that stress behaviors can be solely blamed on an ancestor with a tragic backstory--a foolhardy and dangerous assertion. Yes, mental health issues can be inherited (ODC, depression, etc). But events? If inherited family trauma is truly a part of gene expression, and is potent enough to manifest over multiple generations, show me the data, not just stories. 
4. The Hidden Life of Trees. "The Hidden Life of Trees" takes complex biological concepts and puts them in layman's terms. This would be great if the terms didn't range from misleading to false. The author repeatedly disobeys a cardinal rule of science: calling supportive data "proof" and making wayward conclusions. "Tree canopies don't overlap each other. This shows that trees are friends." "Trees send each other chemical signals. Therefore they have olfactory systems." No and no. Not since "It Didn't Start with You" (which relied on anecdotal evidence) has a book so actively pissed me off. Tree ecology and the networks they use to communicate is a fascinating science. The author's personifications and verdicts insult his references and the science itself. Pseudoscience is a plague on credible, hard earned data. There is a way to explain tree relationships without calling them "friends who can smell each other." No, I don't think misleading conclusions about trees are going to harm the average reader. Deceit wasn't the authorial intent. But those seeking to learn about root networks should start with a Google Scholar search before reading these failed oversimplifications.
5. Rebecca. This book is fabulous, and was an ending away from making the favorite list. Without giving too much away, I’m frustrated in the same vein as I am with Jane Eyre. 

 Asterisks denote rereads
 
Favorites: *His Dark Materials, The Chaperone, The House of Spirits, Where the Crawdads Sing, Story of Your Life and Others, Becoming, *The Goldfinch, Educated, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Amity and Prosperity

1. *The Golden Compass—Phillip Pullman
2. *The Subtle Knife—Phillip Pullman
3. The Marriage Plot—Jeffrey Eugenides
4. The Art of Fielding—Chad Harbach
5. The Chaperone—Laura Moriarty
6. *The Amber Spyglass—Phillip Pullman
7. Freshwater—Akwaeke Emezi
8. Lab Girl—Hope Jahren
9. A Field Guide to Getting Lost—Rebecca Solnit
10. Beautiful Country Burn Again—Ben Fountain
11. Furiously Happy—Jenny Lawson
12. The Very Worst Missionary—Jamie Wright
13. Simon vs the Homo Sapian Agenda
14. Milk and Honey—Rupi Kaur
15. Fear: Trump in the White House
16. We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled—Wendy Pearlman
17. Where’d You Go, Bernadette—Maria Semple
18. On the Come Up—Angie Thomas
19. The Bookshop of Yesterday—Amy Meyerson
20. Crazy Rich Asians—Kevin Kwan
21. If Beale Street Could Talk—James Baldwin
22. The House of Spirits---Isabel Allende
23. Calypso—David Sedaris
24. Where the Crawdads Sing—Delia Owens
25. The Tattooist of Auschwitz—Heather Morris
26. There, There—Tommy Orange
27. Circe—Madeline Miller
28. Educated—Tara Westover
29. An American Marriage—Tayari Jones
30. The Great Believers—Rebecca Makkai
31. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union—Michael Chabon
32. The Power—Naomi Alderman
33. China Rich Girlfriend—Kevin Kwan
34. Story of Your Life and Others—Ted Chiang
35. Moll Flanders—Daniel Defoe
36. Bad With Money—Gaby Dunn
37. The Vegetarian—Han King
38. Sadie—Courtney Summers
39. Song of Solomon—Toni Morrison
40. Turn of the Screw—Henry James
41. *Machinal—Sophie Treadwell
42. Mountains Beyond Mountains—Tracy Kidder
43. Motherhood—Sheila Heti
44. Becoming—Michelle Obama
45. Amity and Prosperity—Eliza Griswold
46. *The Goldfinch—Donna Tartt
47. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness—Austin Channing Brown
48. The Summer Book—Tove Jansson
49. The Handmaid’s Tale (Graphic Novel)—Margaret Atwood
50. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine—Gail Honeyman
51. High Rhulain—Brian Jacques
52. It—Stephen King
53. Sex and the City—Candice Bushnell
54. Howl’s Moving Castle—Diana Wynne Jones
55. Rich People Problems—Kevin Kwan
56. In God We Trust: All Other Pay Cash—Jean Shepard

Some Selected Reviews:
 
1) Beautiful Country Burn Again—Ben Fountain
I didn’t love it. Not because it was bad, but because I was there. This is a rehash of the dumpster fire. If you want to go forward in time, ten years from now (if humanity makes it), this book can serve as a reminder on what went down. But if you are looking to learn something new, I’d say skip it.
 
2) Furiously Happy—Jenny Lawson
With maybe the exception of Catcher in the Rye, I don’t like the stream-of-consciousness writing style. This is a preference thing. I can see where Lawson would be hilarious to other people. Her observations and interpretations of mental illness are funny. I just never laughed. But I would love recommendations for more humor authors.
 
3) We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled—Wendy Pearlman
Overwhelming. It’s a series of short personal stories from Syria prior to and during the rebellion. It’s excellent in that it takes you out of the statistics and the news surrounding Syria and puts you on the ground with its people.
 
4) The Very Worst Missionary—Jamie Wright
This is about a cynical Christian woman serving as Missionary in Costa Rica. I don’t read a lot of literature about religion, especially from the perspective of a devoutly religious person, so this was a fresh perspective. Furthermore it surprised me because, in spite of her faith, she calls out the crap in being Missionary. As non-religious person, I felt I wasn’t quite the target audience. She has long passages about her love for God that I just can’t identify with. But that’s personal bias and does not reflect the quality of the book. It was an interesting journey and I enjoyed it.
 
5) Simon vs the Homo Sapian Agenda—Becky Albertalli
There is a place for high-school based dramas. I’m glad they exist, especially if they address an issue. This one is about a closeted teen grappling with everything that comes with being a closeted teen. It’s clever. It’s fun. It has heart. But YA just isn’t my genre…. except for some fantasy YA here and there. 
 
6) Milk and Honey—Rupi Kaur
My goodness. This was the first poetry collection I’d read since high school and I don’t think I could have picked up anything heavier. I recommend it as an awareness piece, but with great digression. It has graphic descriptions about assault, so if that’s a trigger for you, please skip it. I can’t say poetry is my genre, but I’m glad I read it.
 
7) Fear: Trump in the White House
Keeping up with politics is becoming and act masochism. Like many of you I teeter between being shocked by the bullshit….and not being surprised at all. If you crave more examples of how corrupt, heartless, and downright stupid the president is….and I guess part of me does?.....this is your book. But holy crap it’s exhausting.
 
8) Where’d You Go, Bernadette—Maria Semple
This book should be read because of its narrative structure alone. Much of it is told through emails, written records, etc. It’s done well and it’s a good story.
 
9) On the Come Up—Angie Thomas
It’s hard to read this book without comparing it to The Hate U Give. It’s by the same author and addresses similar social issues. Both are great, but I liked On the Come Up just a teensy bit more. The Hate You Give uses tragedy to explore the Black Lives matter movement. On the Come Up uses an incident that was less violent but salient in explaining the everyday fears of impoverished black communities. Plus I like the lead protagonist. She makes mistakes, she’s impulsive. She’s rocketed into a problem she isn’t emotionally ready to tackle and is resistant to the advice of her elders. You know, a kid.
 
10) The Bookshop of Yesterdays—Amy Meyerson
Do you like the “we have to save the small business just in time” trope? Do you like predictable love triangles? Do like brooding and mysterious sexy guys? I don’t. It has a decent twist and a scavenger hunt. I like scavenger hunts. But next.
 
11) Crazy Rich Asians—Kevin Kwan.
A little formulaic. I walked into this knowing it was a romantic comedy, I just thought it would be a little more avant-garde. But it’s enjoyable. I plan to read the sequel.
 
12) The House of Spirits
This is Ken Follett meets…… well, I’m not sure who it meets. It’s like Ken Follett but with a quirky twist. It has a smaller scope of characters with a spiritual bent. And the alternations between third person and first person with the villain is unlike anything I’ve read before. 5 stars. Read it.
 
13) Calypso—David Sedaris can’t write a bad book. He can’t do it. As always with Sedaris, if you can get it on audio, do. His delivery makes the stories better, 10-fold.
 
14) Where the Crawdads Sing—Delia Owens
This book is getting a lot attention….. and………yeah! It’s a solid story, and about an amateur ecologist. *wave hands*
 
15) If Beale Street Could Talk—James Baldwin
I’m not sure about this one. The author wasn’t clear about his attitude on abusive relationships. And this one had an intimate scene that got rapey. But it wasn’t framed as assault throughout the rest of the book. It was a little cringy.
 
16) The Tattooist of Auschwitz—Heather Morris
World War II dramas, especially true personal account like this this one, are always worthy of our attention.
 
18) There, There—Tommy Orange
It’s not a bad book but it has a thing in it (“thing” because I don’t want to get spoilery) that’s just hard to read. It succeeds in addressing multiple social issues, it’s just really brutal.
 
17) Circe--Madeline Miller
I’m not a Greek mythology buff. My knowledge ends at Homer’s the Odyssey which I read in school like everybody else. I can’t comment on the book’s faithfulness to source material, but it was alright.
 
18) Educated—Tara Westover
Excellent. This book will make you frustrated, almost unbearably, but without giving too much away, you will be satisfied by the end. Personally I just love accounts of people, especially impressionable young people, getting out of bad situations. 

We have a nice list. We have a naughty list. As for everything in between, I still give them a hardy nod.
 
Asterisks denote rereads
 

1. Silent Spring—Rachel Carson
2. Legion and the Emperor’s Soul—Brandon Sanderson
3. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives—John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
4. *Mrs. Dalloway—Virginia Woolf
5. The Circle—Dave Eggers
6. The Internet of Us—Michael P. Lynch
7. We Have Always Lived in the Castle—Shirley Jackson
8. Dragonflight—Anne McCaffrey
9. The Hours—Michael Cunningham
10. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex—Mary Roach
11. The Fishermen—Chigozie Obioma
12. The Wind in the Willows—Kenneth Grahame
13. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Next—Stieg Larsson
14. Ready Player One—Ernest Cline
15. A Head Full of Ghosts—Paul Tremblay
16. Remains of the Day—Kazuo Ishiguro
17. Come As You Are—Emily Nagoski
18. Big Questions—Anders Nilson
19. A Gentleman in Moscow—Amor Towles
20. Middlesex—Jeffrey Eugenides
21. The Well of Ascension—Brandon Sanderson
22. The Disaster Artist—Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell
23. Phaeton—Marc Hobbs
24. I Am Malala—Malala Yousafzai
25. Speak No Evil—Uzodinma Iweala
26. A Sand County Almanac—Aldo Leopold
27. Into the Wild—Jon Krakauer
28. Edge of Eternity—Ken Follett
29. *The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke—Suze Orman
30. How Democracies Die—Steven Levitsky
31. East of Eden—John Steinbeck
32. Jude the Obscure—Thomas Hardy
33. *Maus—Art Spiegelman
34. Theft By Finding—David Sedaris
35. The Hero of Ages—Brandon Sanderson
36. Archy’s Life of Mehitabel—Don Marquis
37. Eating Animals—Jonathan Safran Foar
38. A Tale of Two Cities—Charles Dickens
39. Never Cry Wolf—Farley Mowat
40. *Holidays on Ice—David Sedaris
41. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
42. The Polygamist’s Daughter—Anna LeBaron
43. The Looming Tower—Lawrence Wright
44. Track of the Cat—Nevada Barr
45. And Then There Were None—Agatha Christie
46. The Bees—Laline Paull
47. The Color Purple—Alice Walker
48. Storm Front—Jim Butcher
49. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing—Hank Green
50. The Catcher in the Rye—J.D. Salinger
51. Fool Moon—Jim Butcher
52. Six of Crows—Leigh Bardugo
53. The Haunting of Hill House—Shirley Jackson
54. Grave Peril—Jim Butcher
55. The Two Towers—J.R.R. Tolkein
56. If You Come Softly—Jacqueline Woodson
57. Summer Knight—Jim Butcher
58. The Godhead Game—David Clement-Davies

 
 
Best of the Best of the Best:
 
Middlesex
I enjoyed this one on audio and it’s especially good. I’d put it up there with My Antonia narrated by Patrick Lawlor for favorite listening. It’s a wonderful story spanning three generations culminating in one young man who was born female. I look forward to listening again one day.
 
We Have Always Lived in the Castle—Shirley Jackson
I love it. I love it. I love. If Tim Burton tried to write a Lemony Snicket book, this would be the result.
 
 
Pretty Great:
 
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke—Suze Orman
Almost everyone I know in my generation is struggling with student loans, car payments, saving for retirement, and kissing goodbye any hope of ever being a home-owner (myself included). This is not a book of miracles, but gives advice in plain language on how to overcome debt and make investments. I highly recommend it to anyone who falls into one or several of the above categories.
 
How Democracies Die
Overwhelming. Everyone should read this book, but I fear its readership will play choir to the authors' preacher. We have so much work to do as a nation, and yet the examples of our peers are so very bleak. 
 
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex—Mary Roach
This book is for everyone. Who doesn’t want to read about historical and modern experiments in sexual behavior? It borders on cringy too bizarre, all of it engrossing.
 
Archy’s Life of Mehitabel
I doubt you’ve heard of this one, but for being about a cricket and a cat, it’s oddly profound (and hilarious).
 
The Catcher in the Rye
I’m not sure why I enjoyed this one so much. Stream-of-consciousness stories usually don’t appeal to me. Maybe I just love a good anti-hero.
 
Other mentions include the Mistborn Trilogy, Silent Spring, Maus, The Disaster Artist, The Color Purple, and everything by David Sedaris.
 
 
Skip
Dragonflight—Anne McCaffrey
Maybe it’s petty jealousy, but I have yet to fall in love with a dragon book. The late McCaffrey has oodles of fans. She doesn’t need me. But domestic abuse and bland protagonists aside, I thought it was boring. I’m sorry.
 
Wind in the Willows—Kenneth Graham
Again, maybe it’s petty jealousy at far more lucrative animal-authors. But it went on. And on. And on. And on…. in under 300 pages. If you want personified English wildlife, read Redwall.
 
The Circle-- Dave Eggers
Science fiction demands some degree of suspension of disbelief. But this takes place in the real world in the not-too-distant future, and yet our dumbass protagonist doesn’t question the total relinquishing of privacy. She just dances through the book happy to have a 24 hour twitter feed. The message is a good one, but the execution didn’t hit the mark.
 
A Tale of Two Cities—Charles Dickens
I don’t like Charlies Dickens. There. I said it.
 
Ready Player One
Putting this on the skip list might be a little harsh. It’s not the worst thing ever. Some of it’s clever. But it gives into bad-teen-romance bull-crap you can smell from a mile away. 1) Girl says she is hideous and you can never look at her---you know it’s going to end up being some barely visible birthmark. Spoiler: it is. 2) Girl tells guy to leave her alone. A life-threatening situation compels him to send her another message. Unnecessarily tacks on “P.S. I saw a picture of you in RL and you’re super hot.” Bite me.
 
 
 
What did you read? What did you love! Let me know!!
 
Happy New Year,
Kelly

​“Where is the audiobook?” is the second-most asked question I get from readers, right after, “who the heck are you?” I love audiobooks. They make up about thirty percent of my yearly reading list (I count them as reading… fight me). Thus, it made good sense for me to pitch Nyra snout-first into the MP3 world. A friend loaned me a Blue Yeti Microphone, I learned the basics of Audacity, and got to work.
 
You’ve never heard so much swearing.
 
Nyra doesn’t lend itself to out-loud reading, at least not for me and my self-ascribed dyslexia. They are my words, and yet I couldn’t read them. Every other sentence was a stumble. A single chapter took days to record, edit, and refine, and even so, the final product was subpar. I needed a professional, one who could machete through the mayhem. My fellow indies recommended the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) where I could find a reader for a split royalty. Harkening back to my first FAQ, my expectations were low. The Roy Dotrices (A Song of Ice and Fire) and Patrick Lawlors (My Antonia) of the universe had contracts with far more prestigious authors. At best, this would be a passion project between two amateurs doing their best with what they had.
 
In a few days of auditioning, I found my Patrick Lawlor, or rather, he found me. Andrew Pond (yes, his name looks very good on a water-themed cover) crafted a soundbite that felt like a piece of theater. He did the accents, he did the voices, he had urgency, and he had patience. Whether his storytelling abilities came from his career as an actor/playwrite or an innate ear for narration, Mr. Pond did, what I'd deemed, the impossible.
 
Collaborating with him was joyous and at a breakneck pace. He turned out top-notch chapters one after another, finishing MONTHS before the deadline. He incorporated my edits but brought his own flavor to the production, and by flavor, I mean entire recipes. There are over twenty speaking parts in Volume I. Mr. Pond came up with voices for ALL of them. Let me repeat that: ALL OF THEM, even characters with a couple of lines.  Much like the D'ysquiths in ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’, he bounced seamlessly between many people (er, dragons). It’s transfixing to the point it makes me a little jealous. As I said, theater. If I’m ever in Chicago, I’ll be bee-lining to his theater company to catch a show.
 
I won't go so far as to say my book is great, but I can assure you the audiobook is. Very great. D’ysquith great. All of that credit goes to Mr. Pond’s passion and perseverance.
 
The release is tentative, but I expect it will be available in the next few weeks. You’ll find it on iTunes, Amazon, and Audible (for which your first download is free... and we still get paid). I can’t wait to share it with you.

Please visit Andrew Pond at his website and twitter. 
 
Maple trees and lots of sap,
Kelly

Asterisks denote rereads
 

1. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls—David Sedaris
2. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk—David Sedaris
3. The Beatrice Letters—Lemony Snicket
4. Prodigal Summer—Barbara Kingsolver
5. The Animal Game: Searching for Wildness at the American Zoo—Daniel E. Bender
6. The Last Policeman—Ben H. Winters
7. Countdown City—Ben H. Winters
8. World of Trouble—Ben H. Winters
9. To Say Nothing of the Dog—Connie Willis
10. Station Eleven—Emily St. John Mandel
11. The Phantom Tollbooth—Norton Juster
12. *Island of the Blue Dolphins—Scott O’Dell
13. The Hate U Give—Angie Thomas
14. The Silver Eyes—Scott Cawthon
15. Fun Home—Alison Bechdel
16. A Man Called Ove—Fredrik Bachman
17. A Feast for Crows—George R.R. Martin
18. The Handmaid’s Tale—Margaret Attwood
19. Fellowship of the Ring—JRR Tolkien
20. Angela’s Ashes—Frank McCourt
21. Into Thin Air—Jon Krakauer
22. *Lord of the Flies—William Golding
23.  Columbine—Dave Cullen
24. Fahrenheit 451
25. The Bridges of Maddison County—Robert James Walter
26. A Walk to Remember—Nicolas Sparks
27. My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry—Fredrik Backman
28. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl—Carrie Brownstein
29. Crocodile in the Sandbank—Elizabeth Peters
30. Watchman—Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
31. A Dance with Dragons—George R. R. Martin
32. The Invisible Man—H.G. Wells
33. Crime and Punishment—Fyodor Dostoevsky
34. A Column of Fire—Ken Follett
35. Turtles All the Way Down—John Green
36. Red Mars—Kim Stanley Robinson
37. Big Little Lies—Liane Moriarty
38. Little Fires Everywhere—Celeste Ng
39. The Magician’s Nephew—C.S. Lewis
40. The Virgin Suicides—Jeffrey Eugenides
41. The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins
42. Mistborn—Brandon Sanderson
43. The Vagina Monologues—Eve Ensler
44. All Over But the Shoutin’—Rick Bragg
45. Modern Romance—Aziz Ansari
46. Everyday Sexism—Laura Bates
47. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History—Elizabeth Kolbert
48. Dead Until Dark—Charlaine Harris
49. Are You My Mother?—Alison Bechdel
50. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me—Sherman Alexi
51. The Anvil of Dust and Stars—Damon Alan
52. Wuthering Heights—Charlotte Bronte

 
 
Best Reads:
To Say Nothing of the Dog was my absolute favorite. It’s a witty time travel story where a single cat disrupts the space-time continuum. Suspense and hilarity ensue. Other favorites included:
--The Last Policeman (an officer trying to do his job six months before an asteroid will destroy humanity)
--Station Eleven (Alternating flashes before and after a pandemic)
--The Hate U Give (Addressing the Black Lives Matter movement through a young woman)
--A Man Called Ove (The first five minutes of Up, but funny too!)
--Fun Home (Graphic novel chronicling the life and suicide of the author’s father)
--The Handmaid’s Tale (American women lose all reproductive rights)
--Turtles All the Way Down (A teenager’s struggle with OCD)
--Big Little Lies (Kindergarten-mom wars turn into murder)
--Little Fires Everyway (A struggling artist reveals a hidden past)
--Mistborn (Basically metal-bending from Avatar The Last Airbender with a LOT more detail)  
--You Don’t Have to Say You Lovely (The absolutely true story of a Spokane Native American)
 
Skip
The following may have value to you. They didn’t do it for me:
--The Silver Eyes (Poorly written cash-in on the Five Nights at Freddy’s game series)
--The Bridges of Madison County (I couldn’t care less about the breeding pair in this story)
--Fahrenheit 451 (Why do they so vehemently destroy books just because they’re obsolete? It’s like having a special CIA just to find and burn VCRs)
--Dead Until Dark (Are there any vampire books out there that DON’T glorify sexual/domestic abuse? I’m swiftly losing faith in the whole mythology)
--Wuthering Heights (Some extremely unpleasant people fall in love. The End)
 
Recommendations for 2018 welcome!!! 

​~Kelly

Let me be clear: the title of this blog implies I am a good storyteller. This isn’t necessarily true (I have a chronic fear of overstating my abilities). The following story is not about how I became a great novelist but how I became a better novelist, the word 'better' being contingent on how much you may or may not like old-school animal fiction and long-winded nostalgia.
 
During an ill-timed bout of colitis (note: they’re all ill-timed), I punched out the final sentence of The Waters of Nyra on September 5th, 2011. This was it: the magnum opus. The next Redwall, the next Watership Down—you know, the best seller debut authors think they've write on the first try. I sought out test audiences online—my last chance to bask in anonymity before I skyrocketed into a gig with Penguin.

This needs to be halved, said the first reviewer. As the first comment, I attributed it to be poor taste. Then came the second. Tell less. Show more. Okay, another person who doesn't appreciate talking animals. Then came a third reviewer, another, and another, each saying a version of the same thing, each a little punch to my formerly-recalcitrant ego. This isn't to say they clobbered Nyra. For each smart tap against the verbose prose, I got a compliment on the story or character development. Maybe my peers were being polite, but it was a saving grace. I was down, but they didn't kick. On the proverbial pavement, I took notes but remained in denial. I wouldn't swallow the bitter pills. Instead they lathered in my mouth, making me begrudge the taste rather than reap much benefit. Thus my rewrites were few. I believed the audience for Nyra was out there and I'd find it in due course. I searched. A lot. In my first attempts to find representation I was rejected in the ballpark of 200 emails. Still, I kept trying, waiting for the market to change, waiting for a publishing house or agency to realize my genius. It didn't come.

Grad school did. 

Autumn of 2012 buried me in a new and far more promising career goal (although we can quibble about job security as a wildlife biologist in another blog). I had papers, projects, and a master's thesis to scribble out before I fell off my parents' health insurance. However, I didn't stop writing recreationally. Exhausted by my previous life of minimum wage and the ever-present dragon that went with it, I turned to a new idea: paranormal young adult fiction. It defied my self-ascribed dignity. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a fine genre. Reading is reading. Stories are stories. But at the time, my only exposure to paranormal YA was the glorified domestic abuse of Twilight. It left me disgruntled, yet I read it over and over. My interest in Stephenie Meyers’ sparkly vampires lingered entirely for the sake of satire. So, as a literary experiment, I would copy it with its most hackneyed tropes,  including an underdeveloped romance, obvious villains, and magical abilities existing purely to move an already-feeble plot. Furthermore, I would defy Nyra and write as simplistically as possible. No flowery language. No lush descriptions. Dumb it down. Appeal to the popular market and clipped attention spans. That was surely the key to cracking through the wall of success.
 
I tapped the manuscript out at 55,000 words, writing in the evenings and weekends when I had a low homework load. The finished product was rife with clichés, told through a protagonist as bland as Bella Swan: Grade-A satire. But after the first (and only) read through, I slammed on the breaks. It was a parody, but unfunny. It was simply a bad rip-off. It had no snark, no Douglass Adams or Terry Pratchett-style wit. I halfheartedly wrote a few representatives but quickly gave up. I didn’t’ care if this was marketable (and it likely wasn't). I didn’t want my name on it. I threw myself back into school, a bit older but far, far wiser.
 
I might have puttered along forever had it not been for Nikki. Nikki was an old friend from high school. We hadn’t been in touch, existing to one another as occasional posts on news-feeds. But sometime in 2013, Nikki caught my eye again: she’d self-published a book. I’d never known an author before, not with which I’d had sleepovers and discussed guppy breeding techniques. Nikki had written an adult scifi novel and, unlike me, had successfully captured the wit and wonder of Monsieurs Adams and Pratchett. It might have been my first instinct to revisit the paranormal novel and “funny it up.” But for whatever reason, I didn’t. Instead, I went back to the dragon, dusted her off, and read her with clearer eyes.
 
At long, long last, I saw her properly: a decent story told with several thousand words too many. I chopped. I cut. I pasted. I pared. Volume I (the first half) lost about 10,000 in mostly adjectives. Friends jumped in with their own scissors. In 2014 I went live, and though Nyra still has shortcomings, my few readers were kind and anxious for the sequel.
 
So what changed between the pre and post Nikki eras? Several things, I suppose. For nearly eight years I’d been writing one novel or another (sans my penultimate semester of graduate school, which I dedicated to my research). The paranormal crap-manuscript made up one of those years, at the critical juncture between Nyra’s completion and her intensive editing process. Much as I despise the crap novel, dismissing it entirely was based on hot-tempered prejudice for its antecedents. Yet in creating it, I'd tightened my prose in a way I'd once thought excessive. In retrospect, though, I was slimming down to a new writing style, one much more amenable. Yes, it’s still a bad story. No, you can’t see it. But perhaps the very bland Josephine Jakes (the protagonist) gave voice to a dragon struggling to speak.
 
Author Maurine Johnson once said you have to suck a LOT before you make anything worthwhile. New York Times bestselling authors are no exception. I am not a New York Times best selling author. I don’t expect to be one anymore. Even after editing, The Waters of Nyra is unrepresented, which is either my fault or that of the outside force known as ‘the market.’ Likely both. I haven’t bridged past the “suck point” yet (nearly 400 rejections for Nyra are telling). I may have given up on her. I have given up on full-time authoring. I have not given up on writing.
 
I was once in a writer’s group where a veteran member pushed new members down, kicked them, kicked them again, then spat their ‘better’ writing down in their faces. Do not be this person. Pushing is okay. Pushes helped me. They still do. I was lucky to avoid kicks (well, most of them). Everyone is learning. Those who claim otherwise are missing the point of the art. But spare them your kicks too. We want them to keep writing. We want them to learn how to learn. They may just need more pushes.

Cheers,
Kelly
 
Image credit: “Dragon Writer” by 25kartinok
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-Writer-276492375
 
Excerpt from Satan’s Secretary (aka The Crap Manuscript):
 
I became employed at the Sector, some hundred miles into the Earth’s mantle.  Or so I assumed.  No one ever told me, but I pictured the Sector deep beneath the mortal surface; a grotto for the grimly employed.  After all, Grim itself hired me, to read, to analyze, but mostly to click.  Click for Heaven, click for Hell, and give not input otherwise.

Asterisks denote rereads
 

1. *The Fault in Our Stars—John Green
2. *O Pioneers!—Willa Cather
3. My Mortal Enemy—Willa Cather
4. The Color of Magic—Terry Pratchett
5. The Kill Seekers—Marc Hobbs
6. Library of Souls—Ransom Riggs
7. The Professor’s House—Willa Cather
8. Parable of the Sower—Octavia Butler
9. Go Set a Watchman—Harper Lee
10.  Me Talk Pretty One Day—David Sedaris
11. *Where the Red Fern Grows—Wilson Rawls
12. *My Antonia—Willa Cather
13. *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—JK Rowling
14. Breathing Underwater—Alex Flinn
15. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling
16. The Road—Cormac McCarthy
17. The Picture of Dorian Gray—Oscar Wilde
18. *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—JK Rowling
19. 1984—George Orwell
20. *The Bad Beginning—Lemony Snicket
21. A Storm of Swords—George R.R. Martin
22. *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—JK Rowling
23. *The Reptile Room—Lemony Snicket
24. *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—JK Rowling
25. *The Wide Window—Lemony Snicket
26. *The Miserable Mill—Lemony Snicket
27. *The Austere Academy—Lemony Snicket
28. *The Ersatz Elevator—Lemony Snicket
29.  *The Vile Village—Lemony Snicket
30. *The Hostile Hospital—Lemony Snicket
31.  *The Carnivorous Carnival—Lemony Snicket
32. *The Slippery Slope—Lemony Snicket
33. Angela’s Wife—Jonni Pettit
34. *The Grim Grotto—Lemony Snicket
35. Holidays On Ice—David Sedaris
36. *The Penultimate Peril—Lemony Snicket
37. The Grapes of Wrath—John Steinbeck
38. *The End—Lemony Snicket
39. *Animal Farm—George Orwell
40. When You Are Engulfed In Flames—David Sedaris

 
 
Great Reads
O Pioneers, My Antonia, Harry Potter, and Where the Red Fern Grows remain favorites. Among books you won’t find in stores (yet) I recommend The Kill Seekers by Marc Hobbs (science fiction) and Angela’s Wife by Jonni Petit (the true story of a transgender woman and her family). Go Set a Watchman had extremely mixed reviews, but I thought it beautiful portrayed the fragility of our expectations. Lastly, everyone should read The Picture of Dorian Grey, which is both imaginative and frightening, as well as 1984 by George Orwell. While you’re at it, reread Animal Farm, which is still relevant decades later.
 
Good Reads
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris had me in absolute tears from laughing (When You Are Engulfed in Flames was great too). I reread the Snicket books in preparation for the Netflix adaption. Although the author leaves some major questions unanswered, I’ll always love the dark humor. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is enjoyable, as was Storm of Swords and The Grapes of Wrath. Finally, The Fault in Our Stars remains John Green’s best with its atypical approach to teen romance.
 
I don’t have any specific reading goals for 2017 other than my minimum thirty and adding more classics to my repertoire. Also, I hope 2017 will be the year I FINALLY start and finish Lord of the Rings. But, given the nature of the world today, I’m hoping to fall in love with some dystopia: new if it’s good, but preferably books that were before their time (i.e. I’ve had several recommendations for The Handmaid’s Tale). If you have something in mind, in this genre or anything else, I’m interested. Please let me know in the comments!
 
~Kelly

If I inquired about your cultural heroes, smart money is you’d rattle off a list so long I’d regret asking in the first place. Don’t worry. I’d be guilty of the same charge. Then suppose I asked you to pare it down to five, or gave you a category, like scientist or filmmaker? Even then you’d have many. But who would win the most kudos for their craft?
 
Today, the category is author, and the person is Richard Adams. I put him at the top not because of his recent passing or because he gets top billing as my favorite author. In fact, the latter isn’t necessarily true. Still, for me and most animal fiction authors, Adams was the totem pole base for creatives who wrote for adults, children, or no one in particular. He was not the first to personify animals, not by centuries. But he was the first to do so by preserving the integrity of animal nature. He did not seek allegory in the way George Orwell told Animal Farm (although this was brilliant in its own respect). Watership Down was perhaps equally political, but with the aim of surrounding us in a fresh universe, reading more like an epic than a fable. Adams would batter through rejection and incredulous publishers to lay a new foundation in literature, with other bricks following suit, including Shardik and The Plague Dogs.
 
Some years back I wrote to Adams. He was elderly, retired, and off the grid for fan mail. After tracking down a few publishers I managed to find an in-the-care-of address. I’ll never know if it made it his way (despite promises from a very kind editor that my letter was in good hands). But as is the impulse of admirers, we want our heroes to know we love them. Love, of course, is a loose word. I knew Mr. Adams no further than his rabbits and a Wikipedia page. Yet in the sense that our creations are a piece of us—ones that we so tenderly share with the world—I do believe I loved Mr. Adams very much indeed.
 
Frith’s Speed.
 
~Kelly
 
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”