Footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea in marble winter

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Alas, I have been delinquent from this journal as usual by the twin causes of travel and sloth. A few weeks ago I traipsed about New York City with mousapelli, eating everything in sight, getting stuck in a human traffic jam, and inflicting much merry butchery upon the ears of the Karaoke Duet staff. (I maintain that KAT-TUN songs as rendered by your resident hoarse Disney Princess are hilarious.) The next day it was my honor to attend my dear a4yroldfaerie’s wedding in a shocking fuschia dress and sparkly black nail polish. Many the portions of mac’n’cheese that were consumed at the reception, and many the cranberry vodkas too; many the tales that flew about the table.

Thence to Boston to see more old friends and do a little holiday helping at the bookstore. Many lines of Tiny Homer were set and printed! More mac’n’cheese was consumed! Also dumplings. (Look, I promise I did some actual bookselling on this trip; I didn’t just sit around eating. Not entirely anyway. Ahem. Right. I, uh, also drank some chai.)

I do love bookselling during the holidays. Everything is happy chaos. It was totally not my idea to goad J. into playing four-part harmony carols over the loudspeaker… in Korean. Nuh-uh.

I managed not to burst into uncontrollable sobbing until my return plane was about half an hour out from landing. Which I guess is an improvement? Last time I only made it about as far as Jamaica Plain. XD

So I’ve been trying to think about how to sum up this year, philosophize about it, and really that isn’t working out so well. So instead, have a list of all the books I read for the first time this year, chronologically organized. (I’m, uh, leaving out most of the picturebooks and re-reads, because that would make this even more ridiculously long. I’ve included release dates for any that aren’t out yet and also those that came out in 2012 for nefarious purposes of my own. Yes, my present to myself was a giant stack of galleys purloined from the buying office.)


JANUARY 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2012)
2. The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

GRAPHIC NOVELS
1. Morning Glories, Vol. 2 by Nick Spencer & Joe Eisma

YA & MG
1. The Boy on Cinnamon Street by Phoebe Stone (2012)
2. Liar’s Moon by Elizabeth Bunce
3. The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter
4. Cinder by Marissa Meyer (2012)
5. The Traitor in the Tunnel (The Agency #3) by Y.S. Lee (2012)
6. Sister Mischief by Laura Goode
7. Irises by Francisco Stork (2012)
8. Flora’s Fury by Ysabeau Wilce (2012)
9. Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta (2012)


February 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. N.P. by Banana Yoshimoto
2. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
3. All Men of Genius by Lev A.C. Rosen
4. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

GRAPHIC NOVELS
1. American Vampire, Vol. 3 by Scott Snyder et al (2012)

YA & MG
1. Sport by Louise Fitzhugh
2. Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood (2012)
3. Winterling by Sarah Prineas (2012)


March 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. Ragnarok by A.S. Byatt
2. When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James
3. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

GRAPHIC NOVELS
1. Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks (2012)

YA & MG
1. The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills by Joanna Pearson
2. The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy (2012)
3. The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell (2012)
4. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
5. Goblin Secrets by William Alexander (2012)
6. The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell
7. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2012)


APRIL 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
2. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
3. This Duchess of Mine by Eloisa James
4. Duchess by Night by Eloisa James
5. Faking It by Jennifer Crusie
6. Blame It on Bath by Caroline Linden (2012)
7. A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah McLean (2012)

GRAPHIC NOVELS
1. Pandemonium by Chris Wooding (2012)

YA & MG
1. Pish Posh by Ellen Potter
2. The False Prince by Jennifer Nielson (2012)
3. The Humming Room by Ellen Potter (2012)
4. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (2012)
5. Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan (2012)
6. The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis


MAY 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. The Duke Is Mine by Eloisa James
2. The Iliad by Homer, tr. Stephen Mitchell
3. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

YA & MG
1. The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman (2012)
2. Scrivener’s Moon by Philip Reeve (2012)
3. The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge
4. Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones


JUNE 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

YA & MG
1. Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin (2012)
2. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
3. Black Heart by Holly Black (2012)
4. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
5. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (2012)
6. The Peculiar by Stefan Bachman (2012)
7. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
8. Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby (2012)


JULY 2012
FICTION & POETRY, NOT YA OR MG
1. The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
2. North by Seamus Heaney
3. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
4. Beauty Is a Verb: the New Poetry of Disability ed. by Sheila Black et al

GRAPHIC NOVELS
1. Morning Glories Vol. 3 by Nick Spencer & Joe Eisma (2012)

NONFICTION
1. Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop by Michael Bourdaghs (2012)

YA & MG
1. The Diviners by Libba Bray (2012)
2. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (2012)
3. Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl (2012)
4. Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz (2012)
5. Welcome to Bordertown ed. by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner


AUGUST 2012
FICTION & POETRY, NOT YA OR MG
1. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
2. A Roof of Tiger Lilies by Donald Hall

NONFICTION
1. Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths by Nancy Marie Brown (2012)
2. The Bad Girl’s Guide to the Open Road by Cameron Tuttle

YA & MG
1. The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (2012)
2. Dodger by Terry Pratchett (2012)
3. Guitar Notes by Mary Amato (2012)
4. Small Damages by Beth Kephart (2012)


SEPTEMBER 2012
FICTION & POETRY, NOT YA OR MG
1. King John by William Shakespeare
2. The Great Book of Amber (Chronicles of Amber #1-10) by Roger Zelazny
3. Blackout by Connie Willis

NONFICTION
1. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (2012)

YA & MG
1. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente (2012)


OCTOBER 2012
FICTION & POETRY, NOT YA OR MG
1. All Clear by Connie Willis
2. The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin
3. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
4. Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels
5. The Lost Land: Poems by Eavan Bolan

YA & MG
1. The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (2012)
2. The FitzOsbornes at War by Michelle Cooper (2012)
3. Heist Society by Allie Carter
4. The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley


NOVEMBER 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie
2. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
3. Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (2012) aka IVAN’S BOOK SQUEEEEE

GRAPHIC NOVELS
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise, Parts 1-3 by Gene Luen Yang (2012)
2. American Vampire, Vol. 4 by Scott Snyder et al (2012)

NONFICTION
1. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
2. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
3. Turn Right at Macchu Picchu by Mark Adams

YA & MG
1. Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones
2. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
3. Entwined by Heather Dixon
4. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
5. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (2012)
6. Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt


DECEMBER 2012
FICTION, NOT YA OR MG
1. Among Others by Jo Walton
2. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey

NONFICTION
1. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

YA & MG
1. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
2. Divergent by Veronica Roth (2012)
3. Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook (2012)
4. Sweet Treats and Secret Crushes by Lisa Greenwald
5. Grave Mercy by R.obin LaFevers (2012)
6. Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff (January 2013)
7. Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor (2012)

Currently reading: Antigonick by Sophocles and Anne Carson. "Footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea in marble winter." There are no page numbers but the quote is from a choral speech pretty early on.

So there you have it. Happy New Year, all.

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