Last week I considered doing another year of NaBloPoMo-whatsit but decided that what with the way the weeks and months – let alone days – are careening past me, daily blogging seems well nigh impossible.  So, there you have it.

Today I’m holed up in my room, where I crank the heat up and not feel wasteful because I’m only heating one room.  The thermostat and I have a complex and tumultuous relationship.  On one hand, the electricity bill and my sense of wasting resources and my firm belief in keeping warm through striped socks, sweaters, and endless cups of tea and coffee, my faith in making do with less.  On the other hand, my cold toes and my lack of desire to live through the winter like Miranda in Life as We Knew It, huddled in a single room in all the clothes I own, under the comforter.  As a compromise, I’m huddling myself in a single room, with a perfectly reasonable two layers and the heat turned on.  I emerge to make coffee and unearth back issues of The New Yorker (what?  I had to read an article for class and finding my print copy gave me a break from staring at the computer screen).  The rest of the apartment is bone-chillingly cold.  Well, in comparison.

I like the idea of hibernating in cold weather.   Acknowledging that actual seasons are passing by outside.  Appreciating the various joys of summer and winter in turn.  (Which is much easier to do when the sun is shining, no question.)  I think we’re pretty spoiled in our degree of comfort.  Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy those comforts as much as the next person, but sometimes we need a little kick.  Like winter coming.

Let’s do an October book-roundup.

  1. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
  2. The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer
  3. Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield
  4. Book of a Thousand Days, Shannon Hale
  5. A Certain Slant of Light, Laura Whitcomb (audio)
  6. Fat Kid Rules the World, KL Going (audio)
  7. Laika, Nick Abadzis
  8. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
  9. Day of the Scarab, Catherine Fisher
  10. The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, E.L. Konigsburg
  11. How It Happened in Peach Hill, Marthe Jocelyn
  12. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri (audio)
  • A total of 12 books
  • 3 audio
  • Only one adult title finished – The Namesake, which I recommend – the book itself and the audio version.
  • I finished up Catherine Fisher’s Oracle series which I recommend to fans of juv fantasy/mythology.
  • For fans of fairy tale retellings, Book of a Thousand Days is a first-rate contribution.
  • For fans of wholesome old-fashioned-ness, you can’t go wrong with Understood Betsy.  How did I miss this one as a kid?
  • The one that hit me hardest was Laika.  You can’t read this and still be prejudiced against graphic novels.  One of those books like Octavian Nothing  (I can’t believe it took me this long to think of the comparison) that isn’t easy – it covers complex issues and it decently gut-wrenching – contains tip-top writing and storytelling, and really really stays with you.  Although ON didn’t have me in tears like Laika.
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