What I Am Reading - A Close to the 2011 Stack

What I Am Reading – A Close to the 2011 Stack

Well Fuck…

We are fast approaching my end goal of thirty books and I am quite frankly, not going to make it.  If I had to attribute my failure to something I would choose Martin and my efforts at World Project.  Both have swallowed the back half of my year completely.  With World Project in the mix it is hard to devote time to the finer things, like the vast osmosis of words into my brain.  All of my available reading time went to Martin and his ponderous tale.

Since I started keeping track in May, I have read sixteen books.  If I count what I read since the first of January, I might have peaked closer to the mid-twenties, but alas I did not.  Overall I read 7,338 pages of printed recreational reading.  If I split that across an average book size of 300 pages, I was much closer to my goal with 24.46 books.  Not too shabby I suppose.

Out of all the books I started, I only failed to complete one which is much better than previous years where the uncompleted count is higher, roughly four to five.  This means I am getting better at picking when I peruse and that people are getting better with their recommendations, fantastic.  I has a lot of fun reading through “The Song of Ice and Fire” with everyone and the ad-hoc book club meetings at the Joker where the tits.  Thanks everyone for that, your excitement and interest around the series is fueling World Project and allowed A Feast of Thrones.   In the future I hope we can do it again, although with all of our different reading habits and interests it may be hard.  Perhaps we should start a book club of sorts.  Something to mule over in 2012 I suppose.  It seems like a lot of effort.

At this point it is time to nominate my favorite books of the year that I read.  The criteria itself is completely subjective to what I enjoy with no data matrix or reasoning at all.  Starting with my least favorite and culminating in my number one pick of the year.  This is actually going to be kind of hard…

Without further ado, the stack ranking for 2011 (from least enjoyable to most):

“The Dead Path” – The first horror novel I have read in a while.  It wasn’t terrible, in fact only the books I don’t finish would I consider terrible.  The author has a terrible habit of going super granular on plant species in his descriptions.   I am no botanist so this means I have to either look it up or just not get the description reference at all which is what I ended up doing.  I just don’t need the description as a genus of species.  The story itself was entertaining but predictable and not all that scary at all.

“Songs of Love & Death” – It is low because it is a book of shorts.  Shorts are always entertaining but as a volume in itself there will be good and bad stories.  It is just the nature of the beast with a volume like this.   With shorts there is no consistency between subject matter except the universal theme that binds them to the tomb.  In this instance, almost all of the stories pertained to love, but not all had death.

“A Game of Thrones” – Why so low you say? Well because I had already read it and managed to have just watched the show before picking this up again.  I had had the refresher which left nothing to do but attempt to search for more.  It was rewarding as a labor of love but difficult when it took ten years to overcome some of the character loss that hits you in this first book.

“Soft Apocalypse” – This was the author’s first attempt at a novel, as he had done incredibly well on the short story front.  I am only putting this so far down on the list because of the manner in which the story is delivered.  It makes sense the way he did it but I wanted the full story, not peeks into significant events as the Apocalypse closes in.  It’s hard to fault a writer for that but I am.  At least he did what needed to be done at the near end of the story. 

“Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief” – Seems like it was riding on the heels of Harry Potter and to provide a replacement for those kids.  Predictable but fun to read.  I put it here because I like realism and rawness to my books, and this just doesn’t have it, but no fault of the author as he is not writing to my demographic.

“Hart’s Hope” – This probably deserves to be higher on the list but the story seemed to me to read one way half the book and another nearer to the end, as if it had two writers.  My assumption is that the author ended up writing one piece of the story and then returned to the story for completion some time later, perhaps in the interim writing other stories.  I will probably always remember Gallowglass and his twisted being.

“A Feast of Crows” – Too disjointed, too ad-hoc, and it added elements to the story that just did not need to be there or could have been combined into other areas of the story.  It almost felt like I was derailing from the previous three books, which is why I put it here.  Overall I don’t give this book enough credit or Martin for writing it.  If he had decided not to we might be much farther in the story but there would be a lot of missing pieces.

“The Road” – I was too skewed from seeing the movie and I knew all the “oh my goshes!”  The movie I felt also illustrated the emotion and suspense in a way that was more affective then the book whence it came.  Still a solid read and I am uber excited to read “Blood Meridian” next year.

“The ScrewTape Letters” – If the dialog\letters had shown us the reciprocation of the letters I might have put this near the top.  As it is, I felt the author shorted himself on the grand scheme.  The toast included at the end sums up what I wanted throughout the entirety of the book.

“A Clash of Kings” – The first book brought us a world in turmoil, this continues the story.  It’s here because it is the sequel to a marvelous first book and still fails to move the story in leaps in bounds.  Were the first book hooked you this one reals you in.  It is fantastic, well structured, and well written (as they all are).  The ending is just as much as a cliff hanger as the first which is infuriating and so rewarding as a reader.  After all you did just consume 728 pages of rich tapestry. 

 “A Dance With Dragons” – The first half of this book has the same faults as “A Feast With Crows” but ends much like “A Clash of Kings.”  I am excited for the next book, so so excited if I am correct the cadence of his releases.

“The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry” – Quality read that was interesting and informative.  It was good to throw some fiction into the mix and I do want to read some of his other works.  Maybe next year, maybe not.  The author delivers the story in an easily consumable way which was great.

“Jasmyn” – While it was not as good as her other work, “The Ninth Circle,” which just so happened to be my favorite of book of last year, the book still kept the same style which I really enjoy reading.  The blend of fantasy into modern is superb and that upstart Jim Butcher could really take a note from Alex.  I wish her all the luck in her screen play writing for “The Ninth Circle” and am hoping for really good things.  I will continue to watch this author and read her more mature orientated books.

“The Giver” – Had not read this since middle school and I am so glad someone told me to re-read it.  Not because I had forgotten the book but because it is good enough and short enough to probably read once a year.  The message the author conveys is solid and continues to echo in my daily life.

“Galapagos” – This ended up being a blast and I was happy that another book club shared it with me.  Looking back on this book I really realize the importance of the message and appreciate the candid manner of its delivery.  Kurt, you slay the style with the best of them.

Drum roll please…the winner of Ryan’s 2011 stack goes to…

“A Storm of Swords” – This book is the culmination of the first two books in the series and does not fail to disappoint from start to stop.  With overt fifteen hundred pages of buildup, Martin needed to reduce scope and consolidate plot lines.  This is by far my favorite book out of the series and just so happened to be my favorite book of 2011. Hopefully the next iteration in this series (The Winds of Winter) has the same effect that this book provided.  A stepping stone in a current of intrigue, lies, violence, power, incest, morality, and everything else that this book brings to the table.   It’s treacherous and only the most daring should undertake this brilliant tomb.

That’s the list. 

Keep reading because:

 “A sharp mind needs books like a sword needs a wet stone.” – Tyrion Lannister. George R.R. Martin 

How Life Comes Today - The Caffeinated Oasis

How Life Comes Today – A series of some of my more obsessive traits and observations.

The Caffeinated Oasis

Maybe I have an 8AM meeting, maybe I am lucky enough that it is a weekend and we are rounding on noon.  Perhaps I have skipped past my alarm, snoring loudly like a logger with an old toothed saw.  Either way I wake eventually, in some contorted position that was comfy while my subconscious played, the light hits me in the face as I am birthed into the day.  It is more pleasant than the alarm but each day it’s always the same. 

No matter where I live I always, if able, try to position my bed so that I am greeted by Sol.  I know some people prefer their beds to always face north or what not, but for me it’s towards whatever window let’s in the sun.  Be it behind my bed, cascading across the tapestry of twisted blankets, or smashing through the blinds to lift my heavy lids.  I am glad I am not the only one with the affinity for the Sun.  It has appeared as a central figure in nearly every strain of humanity during our early development.  The ancient Greeks believed that the sun was a Titan named Helios.  Ancient Egyptians believed it was the sacred seat of Ra, the king of the gods.  In Hinduism, the sun is considered a visible form of a god so that we can bask in their glory and be reminded every day.  Even the Roman’s had a celebration for ‘The Birth of the Undefeated Sun’ which was held on the 25^th of every December.  No wonder I like to wake to its licking tendrils.   

Waking up is always a tedious affair.  My mattress is ancient.  The mattress itself has been owned by me for at least 12 years and it was a few years old when I got it.  It divots in the center so when I sleep I naturally puddle in the middle.  You would think this is horrible but when I sleep by myself I do not have to worry about rolling off the bed and when I have another sharing, we naturally roll together.  Despite these wonderful things, my positioning is always wrong.  Maybe my dog decided he wanted half the bed, or maybe the sheets got rolled up around my appendages or I decided to kick out a pillow instead of using it and now I am rewarded with a cruel wrinkle in my back or neck.  One day it was so bad that I actually felt and looked off balance.  So that is the scene, a 170lbs dog using one of my blanket twisted appendages as a pillow, in the center of my bed with the sun blasting me in the face.

Arise Ryan, arise.  I kick my dog from me and assess the situation.  The situation is different every day as I am not a consistent person.  What will it be today and did I wake up before my alarm? Did I wake with an hour to spare before work or will I be running out the door as fast as possible?  Do I even have to work today?  Was there something important I was supposed to do?  These are the things that are racing through my head as I try to part the fog of dawn. 

I shower in the morning, it’s essential if I am going to be productive.   I will spare you the details on that endeavor.  I used to have a bad habit of falling asleep in the shower, but that was back when we used to game into the late hours of the night and I was running on fumes for work the next day.  That ended after I came crashing through the curtain a few times.  Pain is always a good way to fix bad habits.

After the shower it is time for me to get dressed and figure out what I need to do to be productive.  An essential part of that productiveness is coffee.  I prefer to call it the ambrosia of the gods.  Whether I brew it at home or spend my $2.35 on a cup to go, it does not matter as long as I put it in my body.  Coffee, which was thought to have been discovered around the 15^th century is a dark brewed beverage with an acidic flavor, is brewed from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant.  Unroasted coffee beans are one of the largest traded commodities in the world and Brazil holds that title with 2,249,010 tons a year.  Why you say?  Caffeine.

“A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup that is passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful. It is composed of water and the fruit from a bush called bunnu.”

—Léonard Rauwolf, Reise in die Morgenländer

It is said that the Oromo people would customarily plant a coffee tree on the graves of powerful sorcerers because they believed that the first coffee bush sprang up from the tears that the god of heaven shed over the corpse of a dead sorcerer.  That is powerful stuff, who wouldn’t want to inject the tears of powerful sorcerers?  I know I do and crave it.  I love it.  Even when I have too much and I get all jittery, I still wish I had more.

I first started drinking coffee regularly when I was sixteen, but have been a constant in a coffee shop since I was four when my parents would meet with friends in an assortment of shops and waste away the day after some athletic stimulation.  Back then there where coffee shops everywhere and I don’t mean the Starbuck monopoly that we see today.  Sadly, the rise of Starbucks has really mainstreamed what a coffee shop was.  The ideals of a shop used to be to present a very quiet interment space where people could escape.  The shop often had local art for sale and bookshelves of books you could “borrow” and board games.  My particular favorite was a small coffee shop in Redmond where the Matador now resides, and before that Big Time Pizza.  Although I do not remember its name anymore I do remember that it spanned the entirety of the old brick building.  Inside you were greeted with the baristas, cash register, coffee machine, and the treat case.  This is still something you see in all Starbucks across the land and has been very successful.  In the main area of this particular shop there were a standard assortment of chairs and tables where students and groups of people could be seen enduring the noise and working on whatever.  It wasn’t infrequent to see tutors with pupils in this area.  From there you could go up a steep staircase to an enclosed loft that had a large table on one end and bean bags at the other.  At the time, this was my favorite place.  I could go up and play with my Legos, draw or anything else my young mind could conceive of doing.  I would often be left alone up there while the adults played down below and there was rarely anyone up there.  If you opted to not go up the steep steps and turned right you could traverse through an archway into a room that was bursting with book shelves and windows.  The shelves where full of books of varying genres and the room was complete with comfortable couches that many patrons would use to sleep or discuss politics, poetry, philosophy, or anything else.  This is often where my parents were with their rather robust group of friends.  The place closed down before I could ever call myself a patron and even longer before I could navigate around an automobile, but this one establishment has always been a pinnacle of what a coffee shop was supposed to be and was until the success of Starbucks.

 Starbucks changed the game for everyone and some might even say in a bad way.  I don’t know if I agree or disagree but I know I will never see a shop like the above in a community that has a Starbucks and Issaquah has three within three miles of each other.  Up the hill in Sammamish we have four.  There are seven institutions within ten miles of each other and an assortment of drive through dispensaries, which are convenient if not completely ridiculous.  In either of the above communities you would be hard pressed to find a dedicated coffee shop at all like the one I mentioned.  This of course does not mean that I won’t go to a Starbucks, in fact I go nearly every day.

I still frequent coffee shops; I am a patron known by name and order at most of the shops in my area.  I still love to park down in a chair with a book or my laptop and waste away the day.  It’s my vacation in a world when I get next to no time off. 

Over the years coffee has become as important to me as waking to Sol.  Sol and coffee have become an integral part of my day, my life, and my routine.  Much like the Wonderful Ritual, not a day goes by without its acidic brown happiness goes down my throat.  I will take it as a shot, mixed with sugary syrups, or have it in my favorite way straight with half and half.  It does not really matter, I have my preferred methods, but it’s the drink and more importantly the caffeine I want.