Books I’ve finished recently:

• Memoir: Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language, by Deborah Fallows – I picked up this book over six months ago and read the first chapter before giving up, mainly because there were so many other books that I wanted to read more. However, I needed another memoir so decided to give this book another try. My second try was much more successful. I started it yesterday and finished it today (it is fairly short). I think the last time I was intimidated by all the pinyin Fallows kept throwing around. This time, I didn’t find it as intimidating and it also offered some insights into how the language is constructed that I hadn’t heard before but make sense.
• Graphic novel: Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross – The first graphic novel I’ve read in years. The story was interesting but short . . . Yeah, it’s only volume 1 but I think I might have the same problem with graphic novels as short stories. I’m mildly interested while reading the graphic novel but lose interest as soon as I finish.
• Graphic Novel: Saga, Volume 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples – This graphic novel did a better job of catching me. It still feels awfully short but I’ve requested the the 2nd volume. Library Journal Review does a good job of summing up the graphic novel, “Imagining that Juliet came from Star Wars and Romeo from Grimm’s Fairy Tales might get close to nailing the genre mashup delight of this interplanetary romance.”
• Memoir: The Journal of Best Practices, by David Finch – A really good book. I think it’s the best relationship book I’ve read in a long time. The whole book is the author over analyzing how he can change himself to make his marriage better. It’s a fascinating read and I see small bits of both Jaeger and myself in his reaction to various things.

Books I gave up on:

• Biography: Jobs, by Walter Isaacson – What I read was mildly amusing but it was really big and I wasn’t committed enough.
• Christian Fiction: Veiled Rose, by Anne Elisabeth Stengl – This was an ebook which I had checked out for 7 days. My loan period ran out before I could finish and I wasn’t sufficiently interested to go back and check it out again.

Currently Reading:

• Short Stories: More Malice Domestic, short stories by various authors – I’m listening to this a an audio book and think I might make it all the way through. I really liked the first story, the others I’ve listened to so far are ok.

Current Goal Counts: