IT'S FAVORITES TIME!!!

It is time to announce...


As I always disclaim with this list: you may be surprised by some of my choices...and some of my non-choices.  There are books on here that, in my initial review, I enjoyed but maybe wasn't completely gushing over.  And there are books not on the list that I mentioned as potential favorites when I wrote my reviews.  But at the end of the year, when I make this list, I go by what's really stuck with me--after months have passed, what are the books that are still leaving an impression?  Still giving me something to think about?

As in past years, this list is in no particular order, and with links to my original reviews:

1.  Day Four   by Sarah Lotz
If you haven't read Lotz's The Three yet, do that first, and then do yourself a favor and read this book.  The Three was on my 2014 favorites list, and the sequel did not disappoint!

2.  The Shore  by Sara Taylor
Potentially the most unique novel I read this year.  I can't wait to see what else Taylor has in store.

3.  The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
One of the only 5-star reviews I gave all year.  This story is heart-wrenching and beautifully told.

4.  Missoula by Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer is still one of my favorite nonfiction writers.  He handles this delicate subject with the same objectivity and fastidiousness that is the trademark of his other works.

5.  The Library at Mount Char   by Scott Hawkins

6.  Hausfrau   by Jill Alexander Essbaum

7.  Dead Wake by Erik Larson

8.  Station Eleven   by Emily St. John Mandel
You had me at "post-apocalyptic literary fiction."

9.  The Sixth Extinction  by Elizabeth Kolbert
This is one of those books for which I did not write an especially amazing review, but due to the fact that I continue to mull it over and over, and hit my friends with random factoids from it all the time, it has still earned a spot on the favorites list for this year.

10.  The Girl on the Train  by Paula Hawkins
Ughhhh, I feel so bandwagon-y and lemming-like putting this on here.  I mean, it's on every list EVER, right?  But I can't deny it was one of the top 10 books I read this year.  Fact.

That's a wrap!   What made YOUR best-read list for 2015?

Happy November, reader friends!  I hope you didn't forget that this month means NONFICTION NOVEMBER!  :)

Last year, I had a ton of fun participating in this event.  While I don't think I am going to get much nonfiction reading done this month (based on how my library hold list currently looks...my own fault!), I still want to jump in and post during NFN where I can, because it really reignited my love for nonfiction books when I took part last year.

This week's host is Kim over at Sophisticated Dorkiness, so please stop by!  Here's the prompt for the week:

Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Let's start with my favorite nonfiction book of 2015 (so far).  That's a tough call!  I'd have to say it's a tie between Missoula by Jon Krakauer, and Dead Wake by Erik Larson.  Both are truly exceptional in their own way.

As for the nonfiction book I've recommended the most (at least from my 2015 reads), other than the 2 faves above, I think it's been Grain of Truth by Stephen Yafa.  I have several friends with gluten allergies and/or sensitivities, and that book was a very enlightening read for me on the subject.  I've recommended it to both gluten-free and non-gluten-free eaters, because I think it sheds a lot of light on a topic that is often regarded as "just a trend" by the non-GF eaters.

A nonfiction topic I haven't read enough of yet...hmmm.  I've covered a lot of nonfiction areas, but one that I have a lot of interest in (even though I've yet to read much of it) is medical nonfiction.  Examples would be the Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Stiff by Mary Roach, or On Immunity by Eula Bass.  (All three have been on my TBR list for ages!)

What do I hope to get out of Nonfiction November this year?  Well, as I mentioned above, I probably won't be able to read a lot of ACTUAL nonfiction this month (and I'm quite sad about it!).  However, when I participated last year, just talking about nonfiction with other NF lovers made me so very excited to dive into some new titles, and my nonfiction TBR list went through the roof as I read through the other blogs that were involved.  So I suppose I hope to spread the nonfiction love, and get plenty of new nonfiction inspiration for myself.  :)

What's your favorite nonfiction read of 2015 been thus far?

Title: Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: April 21, 2015
Source: borrowed from the good ol' public library

Summary from Goodreads: 

Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team  —  the Grizzlies  —  with a rabid fan base. 
 
The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical. 
 
A DOJ report released in December of 2014 estimates 110,000 women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are raped each year. Krakauer’s devastating narrative of what happened in Missoula makes clear why rape is so prevalent on American campuses, and why rape victims are so reluctant to report assault. 

In  Missoula , Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of several women in Missoula — the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them.
 
Some of them went to the police. Some declined to go to the police, or to press charges, but sought redress from the university, which has its own, noncriminal judicial process when a student is accused of rape. In two cases the police agreed to press charges and the district attorney agreed to prosecute. One case led to a conviction; one to an acquittal. Those women courageous enough to press charges or to speak publicly about their experiences were attacked in the media, on Grizzly football fan sites, and/or to their faces. The university expelled three of the accused rapists, but one was reinstated by state officials in a secret proceeding. One district attorney testified for an alleged rapist at his university hearing. She later left the prosecutor’s office and successfully defended the Grizzlies’ star quarterback in his rape trial. The horror of being raped, in each woman’s case, was magnified by the mechanics of the justice system and the reaction of the community.
 
Krakauer’s dispassionate, carefully documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or drunk, or send mixed signals, or feel guilty about casual sex, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime and deserving of compassion from society and fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken.

My Review:

If reading this book doesn't make you angry, you're reading it wrong.

I don't normally include such a long description before my reviews (and I even abridged this one from the full text on Goodreads' site), but I think it's important for readers to understand the full scope of what Krakauer has undertaken in this book.

The basic premise of Missoula, and the statistics it presents regarding the frequency of sexual assault (especially on college campuses), did not surprise me.  I took a class on Family Violence in my last year at UConn (with an outstanding professor who really gave the topic the weight it deserved), and while I obviously had heard of rape and sexual assault before that, the course was my eye-opening experience into the world of rape victims and their attackers.  At the same time that I was taking the course, I was also a Resident Assistant in my dorm, and I had two different residents come to me during that semester to report that they had been sexually assaulted.  It was enough to make my head spin.  Suddenly, the fact that we lived on campus with a path jokingly named "the Rape Trail" (real thing in Storrs, any alumni will tell you), a bar fondly nicknamed "Slutskies", a rumor mill rife with stories about the sexual exploits of various student-athletes/fraternities/etc...it didn't seem so humorous anymore.  Just because I was fortunate enough to not become a victim of these crimes didn't mean that it wasn't going on all around me--often under my nose, as sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes.

This experience was brought back to the forefront of my consciousness in Missoula.  Krakauer admits at the end of the book that he was largely ignorant of the problems surrounding sexual assault (the act itself, as well as the way it is handled by the justice system/media/etc), especially for college-age women, before discovering that a close family friend had been a victim of it not once, but twice.  This compelled him to begin researching the subject more thoroughly, and we all know what happens when Jon Krakauer researches something more thoroughly.

The mishandling of sexual assault cases in Missoula and on the University of Montana came into the spotlight in 2012, when several women came forward to report that they had been raped by UM football players.  As these cases were being investigated, it quickly became evident that there was a larger problem at hand in Missoula, one that extended well off campus.  Krakauer was able to interview many of the victims of these high-profile cases, as well as their families and friends, and even one of the assailants.

Krakauer highlights two legal cases in particular: those of Beau Donaldson and Jordan Johnson, both members of the UM football team.  One of them was found guilty, and the other was acquitted, of sexual assault against fellow UM students.  Krakauer's research breaks down the differences in how these cases were handled, bringing to light many of the biases and problems that the victims had to face in their attempts to find justice.

I had to read this book in bursts, because I was so often angered by what I read.  The actual acts of sexual assault were very difficult to read (definite trigger warning here), though I expected that going in.  What I didn't expect was the anger I would feel in regards to how each case was mishandled, as the police and prosecutors often overlooked important evidence, dismissed victims' statements and concerns, and provided incompetent counsel on legal issues.

While Krakauer's outrage at the rapes themselves is obvious, this book is most impressive in how it illustrates the problems of how the justice system handles sexual assault cases.  The issues begin from the moment a rape is reported--in how the police question victims and make them feel safe (or not).  The problems snowball from there, all the way to the courtroom (if the case even makes it there--it often does not), where victims are made to relive their experiences by vicious defense lawyers who will do anything to make the victims look untrustworthy and promiscuous.

While I expected Krakauer to take particular issue with Jordan Johnson's case (as he was acquitted of rape), I was compelled by the fact that his book does not attack the verdict itself, but rather the way in which it was reached.  Krakauer does not attempt to play judge-and-jury, suggesting that Johnson should be in jail.  What he does do is dismantle the appalling tactics used by the defense throughout the trial, as well as the many problems with how the prosecution moved forward with the victim's case.  The only people who know if Johnson is truly innocent are Johnson and his accuser, but either way, the victim's case was not given fair showing that it deserved.

If you're a fan of Jon Krakauer and/or solid investigative nonfiction, you must read Missoula.  Sexual assault--both the act itself, and the way it is approached in the justice system--is a problem that extends well beyond Missoula and the University of Montana.  Read this, get angry, and get informed.  This is likely one of Krakauer's most controversial books (I hear he's not so welcome in Missoula anymore), but also one of the most significant.

What was the last nonfiction book you read that opened your eyes to a particularly distressing or provocative topic?

Happy Monday, readers!  I hope all my American friends had a great July 4th weekend.  My husband got a long weekend out of it (July 3rd was when the holiday was observed for state employees), and we had a wonderful 3 days of barbecuing, parade-watching, and playing outside with the kiddos.  Also, apparently my neighbors are really into setting off their own fireworks (something I am not used to!), so we got our very own backyard show on Saturday night, which was both entertaining and terrifying.  'MERICA.

It has also been a great week for reading.  I finished Missoula by Jon Krakauer (review coming this week), which made my blood pressure spike every time I picked it up, but was a truly excellent read (as I fully expected it to be).

Now I'm reading:

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Jen from The Relentless Reader gave me this ARC ages ago, and I'm just now getting to it, because I am a delinquent reader.  I'm sorry that I waited so long though, because I'm 50 pages in and thoroughly enjoying myself.  John Green readers will love this one.

Upcoming reads:

Hard to say!  I don't have any required reading on my plate right now, and summer is the very best time for wandering the stacks at the library.  However, three possibilities right now are The Interrogator by Glenn L. Carle (the latest book I picked from my TBR jar), Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos (a recent release that is getting awesome reviews in the blogosphere...just can't resist), and/or The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (because there's just something about reading long books in the dog days of summer).

What are you reading this week?

It's been a long time since I jumped in with a Top Ten Tuesday topic (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish).  This week's focus is...


So many great books have been recommended to me lately!  I thought this would be a good excuse to share.

1. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Bloggers are abuzz about this one, y'all.  I've heard you should have your tissues handy.

2. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer

I've already talked about how excited I am for this book several times.  And here I am talking about it again!  Less than a month til release date!

3. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Because literally everyone has read it but me.

4. Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova

I loved Lisa Genova's work BEFORE Julianne Moore took it to the silver screen.  :)  New release comes out April 7th!

5. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

An insider's guide to mortuary science from a 20-something mortician.  I am morbidly fascinated.

6. Tales from Another Mother Runner by Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell

Because running.  And motherhood.  Change the title to Another Mother Runner Reader and it's my autobiography!

7. All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

This book was recommended to me when I put the call out to my bloggy friends for some ideas for my real-life book club.  It was not chosen by our group, but I'm still dying to read it.  It sounds very emotional and intricate...I am intrigued.

8. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

I heard a rumor that my friends over at The Socratic Salon are discussing this one soon.  That's enough for me to get on board!

9. Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson

Not a new release, but I just heard about it and we all know how much I simply adore food-related nonfiction.

10. My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh

This is another one that I heard requires tissues in the vicinity.  I just got it from the library, so I'll keep you posted!

What's new to YOUR reading pile these days?

I have seen this fun little questionnaire pop up on a lot of blogs lately, and while I haven't been tagged specifically, many bloggers have just said that they invite anyone reading it to play along.  I will take that as my invitation to participate!  :)

Fun reading, that is.

I recently read a pretty great blog post by Stormy over at Book.Blog.Bake (here!).  Stormy's in college, and she outlined what her reading life has been like since she started her college career.  Her post made me laugh a little because when I was in college...

...wait for it...

...I didn't HAVE a reading life.

I know!  THE HORROR.  I feel guilty even admitting it to myself.  But alas, it is true.  College is the one time in my literate life when I had a near-cessation of all pleasure reading.

From my conversations with others, I've found that I am not alone in this.  A lot of people lose their pleasure-reading mojo in those four (or five, or seven...) years on the way to a university degree.  On the flip side, other students go on total reading binges in college.  I actually read several very active book blogs run by current college students, and I have to admire them for it.

Reason #1 why I wasn't reading in college: I was busy dancing like an idiot in dorm rooms. Other faces blurred to protect the innocent.  You know who you are.

But why did my reading life shrink to nothingness in college?  Here are the main reasons I can pinpoint.

1. Too much OTHER reading to do.
Freshman year, I was a pathobiology major (nerd alert!) and spent all my time trying to figure out what a derivative was and not blowing things up in chem lab.  Sophomore year I switched to family studies, and for the rest of my collegiate life, I was left with the hell that all social science majors are familiar with: NEVER-ENDING TEXTBOOK READING.  No time for novels, that was for sure.

2. Too much socializing to do.
What can I say?  I lived on campus all four years, and there was always a party, concert, or midnight pizza run to attend to.  And even when I wasn't out and about, I was on AIM in my dorm room IM'ing everyone I knew and coming up with witty, pithy away messages.  Those were the days, AMIRIGHT?

AIM away messages: practice for future Facebook statuses

3. Too much work.
I worked 3 jobs simultaneously while I was in college, in addition to taking a full courseload.  I was fairly well booked all the live-long day.

4. Too tired.
With all the aforementioned stuff going on, I rarely went to bed before 2am and rarely woke up after 7am (on weekdays, anyway).  When I DID have downtime, the last thing I had energy for was a book.  Instead, marathons of West Wing (BARTLET FOR PRESIDENT!) and episodes of Late Night with Conan O'Brien were pretty much the only activities that could hold my attention for more than 30 seconds.

My senior year college dorm room.  NARY A BOOK IN SIGHT.  West Wing DVDs, 35mm film, and an overabundance of fluorescent colors are there to date me though.

THANKFULLY, during the last semester of my senior year, I reconnected with my love of literature.  I had a serious case of senioritis, and spent a lot of my free time getting back into the world of Reading For Pleasure.  What were some of the books that knocked me out of my funk?

Angels and Demons, and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

One of my friends let me borrow these, and I remember sitting at one of my jobs, DEVOURING them.  Nothing like a quick and dirty mystery to get you back in the groove.

Jemima J by Jane Green

I randomly picked this up at the bookstore and read it during my solo spring break vacation to Los Angeles (another story for another day).  This started my love affair with Jane Green, and was probably the beginning of my women's fiction addiction.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

My then-boyfriend-now-husband let me borrow this right before I graduated, and I was fascinated.  I quickly jumped into Krakauer's other available books afterwards.  And we all know about my adoration of JK.

So, collegiate readers, I salute you.  College is not an easy time to get lots of fun-reading done.  For those of you that do, keep on truckin'!  And for those that have lost their reading mojo, please have faith that your break is temporary, and the library will be waiting for you after graduation.

Now go down that Jager shot your roommate just poured for you, and don't give it a second thought.

Graduation day.  That face says, "Thanks for the memories, now where's my library card?"

Any parent will tell you that life pre-kids is very different than life post-kids.  "Different" doesn't mean better or worse--just different!  You have to give some parts of your carefree lifestyle up, but you get an awesome bundle of awesome in their place.  WIN.

One of the things that the husband and I gave up after Small Fry's arrival was our frequent travel.  We traveled a LOT in the 6 years of our relationship before the little dude was born.  We still travel now, but child-related travel (wholesome family fun in the Outer Banks) is way different than pre-child travel (let's go to Vegas and see how quickly I can double-fist margaritas).

Not really kidding about those margaritas.

Anyway, now that we travel less in person, I find myself wanting to travel more in the literary sense.  I love reading books that either take me back to the beautiful places we've been, or transport me to new destinations that I haven't yet had the chance to explore.  I guess that's part of why I'm so into Giraffe Day's Around The World in 12 Books challenge this year.

With that in mind, here are a few books that have helped me travel to both once-visited and new-to-me destinations:

Italy


Italian cities are some of my favorites to visit in novels.  I've been to Florence, Rome, and Naples, and these particular books cover those cities very well.  The authors get VERY detailed about places, people, and atmosphere, and it really transports you right along with the characters.  Plus, how fun to go to Italy and try to retrace Langdon's steps?

The Netherlands


I already talked your ear off about Park's novel and how beautifully he portrays Amsterdam, but Dorrestein is a Dutch author who sets most of her books in that country as well.  A Heart of Stone is not a lighthearted read by any measure, but I enjoyed that it was set in the Netherlands and told from a native's perspective.

Coastal North Carolina


I read a lot of Sparks novels before we visited the OBX last summer, and once we got there, I realized why he likes to use the beaches of North Carolina in his books.  They're beautiful, peaceful, and relaxed...very conducive to romance.  I am not the biggest Sparks fan in general, but I do love his settings.

Nantucket, Massachusetts


I've never been to Nantucket, but Hilderbrand's romances are usually set there, and they make me desperate for a beach vacation.

The UK/Ireland


I have never been to the UK or Ireland, but I am DYING TO GO.  (I know I have some UK readers, who wants to put up this ginger for a week or two?)  There are so many good books that highlight the flavor of these countries--this list is but a few.  You can also read pretty much any Sophie Kinsella or Jane Green novel to get a London fix.

Hawaii


This book highlights some of the more devastating parts of Hawaii's past, but the islands themselves are painted so gorgeously by Brennert.  I want to go to there.

Sweden


Nothing could ever make me more interested in Stockholm as a vacation destination than The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series.  I was researching flights by the end of the trilogy.  Larsson wins for making it sound awesome to eat open-faced sandwiches in the cold.

Africa


None of these books illustrate Africa in the most positive of lights, but as a lover of travel, they leave me feeling intrigued about what a trip to the continent might be like.

Mount Everest


Krakauer does not make climbing Everest sound fun.  At all.  (See: parts of book where 8 people die trying to climb it.)  But I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me wonder what it would be like to scale the darn thing.  Maybe just to base camp?

Russia


I know this is a tad crazy, because neither of these books make Russia seem like the most inviting place in the world.  Plus, Russia is actually not a very safe place for American travel these days, but books set in that country make me insanely interested in checking it out.  Maybe one day.

Around the Globe!


Can't argue with a novel that basically takes you around the globe!  And two of these are nonfiction books, making the travel experiences even more vivid for the reader.  (Bonus: Bourdain's book will make you want to Eat All The Things.)

There are also a few favorite destinations that I haven't read books for yet.  Have you read any books set in these locations?  I'm dying to find some!:

Bermuda
Spain (specifically Barcelona)
Montreal
Turkey
Greece (either Athens or the islands, Mykonos and such)

Do you like to "travel" when you read?  What are some of your favorite literary settings?