Make Me a Tree

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

FIVE FUCKING STARS, YOU GUYS.

I loved this book. And not in the usual way… not in the way that I love Harry Potter, where I would run to tell everyone to read it, or reprimand someone for not having read it. I love it more in the way of a quiet passion. Does that sound silly? Whatever, it’s the best description I can come up with.

This book is magical. and magical beyond that the subject matter deals with magic. The language! The characters! Actually, I’m surprised by how enraptured I was with the characters… honestly, they’re not particularly personable or amusing or relatable like most of my favorite literary characters. I DON’T EVEN KNOW.

What I do know is that I desperately desire that this book be made into a movie. I’m not positive a film could live up to my imagination by any stretch, but I would welcome the effort. This story, this world, could easily be as gorgeous as The Polar Express or Life of Pi or Inception or like, Fantasia… I don’t know. Just think of a movie you think is BEAUTIFUL. If The Night Circus was made into a movie, it would definitely be comparable to all other beautiful movies, provided it’s done well.

Supposedly, it will be made into a film, THANK GOD. But there’s still much to do and little information on its development.

The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan

It’s weird how sometimes the format of a piece of writing can make all of the difference.

This is a narrative, but it is told through a series of “definitions.” In alphabetical order, like a real dictionary. I’m amazed by how clever this concept is.

It reminds me of Adverbs by Daniel Handler. (Which I never finished more than three chapters/sections of! Really need to fix that!) The books have similar ideas, both in that they’re rather centered around love and relationships, and in both each section takes a single word and draws out the meaning through some sort of anecdote rather than a textbook definition.

The Lover’s Dictionary was a quick read, both because of the format – over 211 pages long, but many pages aren’t full of a text – and because it was engaging. It had an almost stream-of-consciousness feel to it, but in a pleasant way, since sometimes just reading someone’s continuous thoughts can get tedious as they ramble. This wasn’t like that, but I really felt the author’s feels, you know?

I would definitely read it again, and take more time with it. In fact, I could probably read this several times, and may need my own copy for that as this one is from the library. I wouldn’t mind my own copy also because I’d like to write in my own feels and ideas.

(Something, by the way, that I just don’t think is the same on an e-reader. From what I know, I bet there’s a function to add notes, and I know there’s one for highlighting, but I just doubt there would be the same feeling of authenticity. But my personal pros and cons on e-readers is another topic for another time.)

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

The second book in the Thursday Next series, and it has been soooo long since I read the first installment, The Eyre Affair. Maybe too long, because I felt a lot less enthralled than I expected to be. Still a really cool idea though – I mean, imagine if you could enter the world of a book. To speak with the characters, to see what they see. I would jump into Harry Potter or The Night Circus in a heartbeat.

This series is also set in some undefined time in the future, with vacuum tubes for travel and time travel too! Some cool ideas. I’m sure someone smarter than I am (and more of a jerk than I am) could pick apart a lot of Fforde’s ideas, but I think they’re fascinating.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the series or not. But I would certainly recommend The Eyre Affair to any book lover, particularly if you enjoy Jane Austen’s work of course.

Auroras: Fire in the Sky by Dan Bortolotti, photos (for the most part) by Yuichi Takasaka

I almost feel silly putting this on the list because it’s not a novel or a memoir or anything like that, but it is a legitimate book and I did read it, so…

I’ve always had a love for the northern lights, but it’s been striking me more and more lately. I’m trying to get Aaron to take me on a trip to see them next year, as 2013 is supposed to be a spectacular year for the aurora!

This was a nice break from all the fiction I usually soak up. Got me some science in there, but not so much that I got bogged down or couldn’t understand, and the photos! GORGEOUS.

I actually had another book on auroras checked out, Aurora by Candace Savage, but I didn’t like it as much. There were more drawings and art than actual photos, which can be cool, but I felt like it was too much. and while she wrote beautifully describing the lights, and went much more into cultural traditions and beliefs about the aurora throughout the years and peoples, and that was somewhat interesting, I don’t know, it just didn’t grab me the way the other one did, and it felt less credible for some odd reason.

I’m sad to say that I didn’t read as much as I planned to this month. I figured with the holidays and time off of work that I would have tons of time, but I neglected to account for family and friends time, and present shopping and wrapping, and, well, how much I like to sleep. Also, I got that silly smart phone at the beginning of the month, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t distracting me from reading.

I also had a goal on Goodreads of reading 50 books this year. With getting married and moving twice and finally acquiring a full-time job, yeah, that didn’t happen. But I’m going to set another goal for 2013, a higher one actually!, of 75 books, and I am determined to make it happen and share all of them with you!