I've been reading everything I can get my hands on by George R.R. Martin. And I mean everything. That guy writes SF, fantasy, and horror, and all very well. Very character driven.

I'm about to finish the last finished book of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series and can't wait for the next.

I liked "The Alienist" very much, too, and will be adding the rest of your favorite books that I haven't already read to my library queue.

Scalzi's Old Man's War series has been one of my personal favorites this year. More good characters. It's a bonus that he's a MeFite.

"Can't wait" for the next Song of Fire and Ice book? Hahahahaha. You will wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

Did the end of Crimson Petal and the White not drive you completely insane though? It remains the only book I've ever thrown across a room in annoyed disgust. And it's still bringing that out in me, a good 8 years or so after reading it!

The Crimson Petal and the White also was a book I found compelling and repellent at the same time.
My FAVORITE book this past year was Anathem, without a doubt, but I also really enjoyed the Children's Hospital. I am going to have to look back over my list to see what I enjoyed this year. Oh yeah! Wolf Hall was fantastic and I have an entirely new opinion of Thomas Cromwell.
First book for 2010? A Flannery O'Conner anthology, which I got from my MIL for Christmas (she - my mother in law - rawks). I am glad that mechazens are readers. It is the quality/trait that I most readily identify myself with. And Taz and I have very similar taste in books. If I ever get to Athens (and she lets me in her house), I am gonna spend hours looking at her bookshelves. And petting her dog.

OMG LETS TALK ABOUT CRIMSON PETAL AND WHITE.

What did you thick of how sex was described in the most repellent terms possible? It's such an anti-bodice ripper, and gets really, really mean about the conventions.

The Whelk, I am totally feeling you. It was the unsexiest sex ever sexed. Although I am quite fond of the word 'cockstand' to mean a boner. Hehe, she said 'cockstand'.

I know, and it's really aggressive about making you feel bad for wanting a sexy sex story full of sex. It's so hilariously chiding.

Oh, yay! Talking about The Crimson Petal and the White!

First of all I'd like to say that this morning I had a very clear image of the story played out by Elmer Fudd as Rackham, Bugs Bunny (in drag, of course) as Sugar, and Tweety as Agnes.

Secondly, if I were casting the film with actual people of the acting persuasion, Uma Thurman would so be Sugar, and Emma Thompson would be Emmaline Fox, for sure. I'm thinking Alan Rickman for Henry Rackham, and I'm not sure about William or Agnes. Thoughts? Glen Close is probably way too easy/predictable as Mrs. Castaway, right? And I'm just thinking her because I saw 101 Dalmations (or some number of Dalmations + Glen Close) this morning?

Interesting that I'm so very taken with these characters. I can't seem to let them go. Yet...

The ending. Oh yes, it pissed me off. AAARGH!

The author has written a book of short stories called "The Apple" that does not resolve the ending, but does apparently include some stories featuring some of the characters in situations before and after the events of TCP&tW, including one that features Sophie after. I'm tempted, but I can't afford to buy much now, so I don't think I really want to spend the money for what will almost certainly just make me more frustrated.

I feel like the author couldn't bring himself to assign a dreadful ending, yet couldn't face the shame of being a modern author delivering a happy ending, so he ducked out of making any decision at all. Sarah Waters, also writing in neo-Dickinsion form, had to make the same sort of decision for Fingersmith, and was able to face up to it, bless her.

I knew for a fact the ending would not be happy, but it just kinda peters out doesn't it? I got the feeling he thought the swirling pages would be a grand finale, but it just goes thud. I think it's a relic from how the story started, as a burlesque Dickensian parody (originally Mrs. Castaway was also Henry's mother, so his and sugar's relationship was also incestuous.) before it evolved into the class-war drama.

Henry is just so *awkward*, about everything, all the time, and completely totally unaware of how strange he's being. Even his horrible friends know how to comfort a crying child, he just recoils from any interaction where he's Not The Boss. He's soooo loathsome and soooo convinced he's the put upon good guy.


ooo, Uma Thurman. perfect. I was thinking Wynonia Ryder from Dracula. Very boyish and slim. Agnes, you'd need someone with that Victorian Cameo look, if it was ten years ago I'd say Kate Winslet.

You need someone with a bigger nose to be Ms. Fox. She's supposed to be kind of ...distinctive looking.

High jackman for William, only cause he's hairy and William's hair disgusts him so.

I think it's Henry who's so disgusted by his hairiness, Whelk. William is concerned with his receding hairline and expanding girth. Right?

I'm pretty sure things don't end dreadfully for Sugar. She's smart, and she has some money - enough to make some sort of start. Why she turned into such a simp at the end of the book I don't know - but she gets her mojo back. Perhaps she begins some sort of cottage industry in the cosmetics/perfume line somewhere outside of London. She knows everything about the business... and also, she needs to teach Sophie - because unless William has a son, Sophie remains his heir(ess) - and Sugar has thoughtfully kept both the photo portrait of Sophie and the telescope from her Grandfather as proofs of her identity.

Sophie will probably end up running Rackham Perfumeries eventually, and Sugar needs to teach her everything about that while making a living to support them both.

I think I mixed them up! Sorry, it's been a while.

I hadn't even thought of the heir factor. That's a big fortune for one little girl.

I just love how William ends up going back on every one of his facile convictions by the end of the book. And then getting beat up. He's only good at being the victim, compared to Sugar, who refuses to be - until that strange ending, of course.

also, you ever notice how in these kinds of books they always have characters inadvertently starting modern advertising culture? I don't know if it's a tic or an homage.

Roberto Bolano totally hijacked my year (and I didn't even attempt 2666). My resolution for 2010 is to not pick up any of his books to protect my brain and time from his clutches.

Wolfdog, as long as I don't wait for the same reason as waiting for the next Wheel of Time book, it's ok. ;)

It seems I need to add The Crimson Petal and the White to my reading list.

I'm reading The Terror right now and I think it's awesome. It's the first non-sci fi book by Simmons that I've read - and the first novel of his I've read in several years. The last books of his I read were the two Endymion novels, which I was (and still am) rather disappointed in. And then came Ilium and...what was the name of that other book again? When I saw The Terror in a bookstore, I wasn't sure at first whether I should pick it up, but a quick look at a few Amazon reviews (thank god for mobile browsers!) was enough to convince me and now I just can't put it down. I've been reading it only about a hundred pages a day, though, and always at daytime, to avoid getting nightmares (I learned my lesson the first night).

I just finished Stephen King's Under the Dome, and it was AWESOME. It was totally a B-movie in book form, but his characters were excellent. (And there are something like two dozen major characters, yet all of them were very distinct and well-defined.)

I haven't decided what I'm going to read next. Maybe a couple more installments of the Cerebus saga. (I'm well into the part of the series where its creator had gone kind of insane.)

I could have sworn the Crimson Petal movie has been "in production" for ages and that Kirsten Dunst was signed to play Sugar. I don't recall being particularly incensed about the ending--it seemed like the same kind of tortured ridonkulous ending Dickens always used.

(The Lovely Bones, on the other hand--I'm still mad at the last 1/4 of that book. What utter, utter crap.)

I track my books on one of the facebook apps, and I thought that it dated the day that you put a book in your collection, but if it does, I can't figure it out.

I seem to remember that the first book I read in 2009 was The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick, which means that I read 49 books this year. Not bad given that for half the year I didn't have my hour-each-way commute enabling lots of reading time.

The final book I read in the year was Nixonland: The rise of a president and the fracturing of America (by Rick Perlstein), which was fascinating. That was a couple of months ago, and I've just been way too busy since then, which makes me antsy.

The books that I liked the best were probably Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph J. Ellis, and the Engineer Trilogy by K.J. Parker.

I read the Engineer Trilogy this year, too, gaspode! I was blown away by the first Engineer book, loved the unusual voice and feeling, the sharpness... but by the third installment, I'd lost my patience with the engineer and the whole sorry lot of 'em. The cynicism was refreshing until it became fatally stale.

To me, it would have made a super awesome stand-alone novel (which probably would have been a classic), but has been padded out to force a trilogy, and thus averages only as a B, which is a pity.

Oh, I feel that, taz. I lost patience with the engineer in the first book. Somehow I still liked the series though. Huh. I liked the world, and the writing. Never read anything by her before.