Verity's Book 2.0

2019 Book Count

How many books did I actually read in 2019? You and I are about to find out. All I know is that it was a lot more than I'd read in the previous two years. This was a combination of a couple things:

- Reading takes much less mental effort than writing, and I felt a lot less guilty spending two hours reading a whole book than three hours trying to squeeze out a paragraph when I didn't have the time for either.

- My editor recommended me to join a Facebook group of Christian fantasy and sci-fi authors. This place is super friendly, people are ALWAYS asking for recommendations and gushing about their latest read, and it's pretty much impossible for someone like me to not get involved.

- I got comfortable using my debit card for online spending (though I do hate saying bye to the money, I no longer feel like I'm going to make some mystical error in judgment and explode the universe or my bank account while making a transaction)

- Finally, nightwraith17 demanded to know my reading wishlist before I came to visit her, and borrowed from the library accordingly.

So, without further chit-chat (and in no particular order)...

1-7. Tales of Goldstone Wood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. These were recommended to me by Ellowyne, and I read the first five at Night's house. Eventually I purchased the latest two so I could read those as well, and someday I'll get around to buying the first five... XD

These are books of contradiction. The stories never go the way one expects at the outset, yet one is seldom disappointed. The unique style of prose is evocative yet very straightforward. Instances of the high and the beautiful are juxtaposed with charmingly down-to-earth elements. The faults in characters are so human and so glaring as to make us cringe, yet there is admirability in them of such heights as to make us marvel. These are stories of superlativity that somehow manages to seem very, very real. They are, quite simply, fairy tales.

8. The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling. A library pick by one of my siblings. London steampunk. Not a work of literary genius, but quick and memorable with great characters.

9. Divergent by Veronica Roth. This one impressed me with the author's ability to weave tension, but not much else.

10. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. I heard about this book EVERYWHERE before I finally picked it up from the library. Could barely put it down to go to work that day. All the good things people say about it are true. It didn't make me cry as much as I expected to, though, maybe because I had heard so much about the tragic ending that I was mentally fortified for it when it happened.

11. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I wanted to read this ever since Illeandir mentioned it to me, and got it from the library along with The Book Thief.

This book was actually not at all what I expected. I had envisioned something along the tone of Alas, Babylon (which I read in high school and highly enjoyed). This was more visceral, more blunt, with an appalling climax and conclusion. I liked the concept and found the story gripping, though the introspective style was peculiar: sometimes almost immature and other times so abstract I could barely tell what was going on. A four-star read for me.

12. A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones. I've been curious about Jones ever since, while reading an analysis of Tolkien's impact on literature, I saw the author reference her book Fire and Hemlock (as an example of fantasy not ripping off Tolkien).