A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck

9 of 10: I love Richard Peck, and A Season of Gifts is a worthy addition to his series about Grandma Dowdel. So sweet and funny and perfect. Richard Peck is second only to Gary D. Schmidt in my "authors I think are absolutely brilliant and also very likely incredibly nice people" list.

The earlier Grandma Dowdel books A Long Way From Chicago and
A Year Down Yonder take place around the time of the Great Depression. This one takes place twenty years later, in 1958. The grandchildren featured in the earlier two books are, of course, long grown, and now the focus is on eleven-year-old Bob.

He's moved to town with his family so that his dad can be the minister for one of the churches. The family is struggling a little, knowing that this first solo ministry will make or break the father's career, and worrying about Phyllis, their teenage daughter who is going a bit wild, and the free-spirited younger daughter.

In the midst of all this chaos Bob gets a little lost in the shuffle, and since he's already feeling unhappy about this new town and the bullies there, Grandma Dowdel, their next door neighbor, who scares them all to some extent, becomes an absolute blessing for Bob. He needs someone to watch out for him and Grandma Dowdel, in her unique and hilarious way, is just that someone.

If you read the other books, you'll recognize immediately that this installment has many of the same characteristics - this book is laugh-out-loud funny, but also heartbreakingly sweet. I fell in love all over again.

AND, because I think you are all lovely and I have an extra advance copy, I'm going to give away a copy to some lucky reader, two weeks before it comes out!

Leave a comment before midnight tomorrow (Tuesday, September 1), and I'll choose a winner at random.

At Long Long Last

Finally! Here is the apartment in all its glory.

There are still a few things waiting to be sold, but, you know, sometimes you just have to move forward. Much as I am doing now. Pretend you don't notice the mini-TV and the two motorcycle helmets (the motorcycle? got sold four years ago. We are a bit slow).

I drew a not-really-to-scale floor plan of the apartment so you could see how it is laid out. I live to serve you.

Ready? Onward!

The giant bookcase in the entry way. This is what happens when a Comparative Lit major marries a History major who becomes a librarian and a book blogger. Look out for a book giveaway soon. . . .

The view from the front door. That television should be making its grand exit this morning. Cross your fingers.

The view from my desk chair to the entry way.

Onto the kitchen! Where I know that my blinds are not even. Welcome to my life.

Yeah, should have turned on the flash. Sorry.

Bart put up that towel rack. He is awesome.
My mom sent us that dish rack. She is also fantastic.

Little shelf set in the kitchen, which is pretty much the most brilliant thing in the world and why didn't we do this in our last kitchen?!

I love this sunlight. It is very lovely in the afternoon. Or, I'm guessing, for about ten minutes a day in the winter.

On to the living room:

We are selling the green chair so, eventually, it will be less crowded in there. I will miss that ottoman more than is healthy, though.

My closet. With mirrors on it.

The "office." Where I am sitting at this very moment.

Another picture of the living room. Hi boxes.

And now to the bedroom:

This bed was my anniversary present. Pretty much the greatest day of my life.

All rejoice!

Bart's wardrobe, plus the laundry bins and drying rack.

Wardrobe plus my closet in the background. Oh yes, I have two closets.

One other thing. This garbage can?

It was Bart's anniversary present. He asked for it specifically. Only took four years for us to becoming old boring married people.

And. . . .that's where we live. Come visit anytime. I hope you like air mattresses.

Radiant Darkness by Emily Whitman

7 of 10: Not my all-time favorite retelling, but Radiant Darkness is a pretty solid one nonetheless.

This book was the pick for Round 2 of Tell Me What to Read and was suggested by the lovely ladies at Bookworm Nation, a blog I had never heard of before last month but now absolutely adore. Just another fringe benefit of Tell Me What to Read.

This book is a retelling of the Greek myth about Persephone; I had heard the myth before, but I didn't brush up on it before I read the book, so it was fun to watch it unfold without knowing precisely how things were going to play out.

Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility and grain. Demeter apparently distrusts men and keeps Persephone under pretty tight watch, giving her little room to do anything on her own. This makes Persephone crazy, of course, as she's sure she is old enough to make her own decisions and take care of herself. Her mother, to no reader's surprise, does not agree.

And then, Hades appears in Persephone's gardens, declares his love for her, and asks her to become his queen in the Underworld, even though it means leaving behind her mother and friends and everything she knows.

In the original myth, Hades kidnaps Persephone, holding her captive until Demeter works with Zeus to convince Hades to give her up for at least part of each year (when Persephone returns to the world, that's when spring and summer come again).

In this version, Persephone goes with him willingly, which I thought made the story a lot more fun and added a lot of depth to her difficulty in deciding what to do and how to choose between her loving husband and her demanding, but devoted mother.

The one thing that kind of held the story back for me was that there was never really any reason that Persephone loved Hades. The author told you she did, and thus you were just supposed to go along with it. I wish that had been better addressed.

Other than that, though, it's a fun story, and I'm unlikely to forget this Greek myth any time soon.

Small Things

You all know how much I love Texas.

But Texas and I got off to kind of a bad start when I went, the first or second week I lived there, to get my new driver's license.

Bart and I had only been married about 8 months at that point, so I'd gotten a new driver's license the week after we were married. My new Utah license was glorious. The picture was good, my hair looked terrific, and I had no problem whipping it out when requested. It was a glorious replacement for my first driver's license in Nevada where I had braces, looked about 8, and had my head turned to the side (you were required by law to do that if you were under 21, but anyone outside the state thought I was just too dumb to look straight at the camera).

Texas not only demanded my perfect license, but then handed me over a new Texas license that was, in short, heinous. As if the horrible cream-yellow background color wasn't bad enough, the picture was unflattering in every possible way. My hair looked terrible. My face looked round. You could almost see the photographer in the shine on my face. It was horrendous.

Two years ago, I went in to the doctor's office and when they pulled out my file, I saw a copy of my Utah license that they'd made when I came in the week I'd moved to Texas. I wept again at the loss.

Last Friday, Bart and I went to the DMV and I got a new drivers license (I know, I know, I'm not the only one who thinks this is an absurd amount of drivers licenses in just a few years). When the woman at the desk flipped the screen around so I could see my picture, I almost hugged her. It was a good picture. One I won't shudder at every single time I'm asked for ID (which, granted, is not that often).

Massachusetts, you're already winning me over.

Of course, if you hadn't charged me ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a new lovely license picture, you'd be winning me over a little faster.

No Pictures

Apparently when I said "pictures coming tomorrow," I really meant "pictures coming possibly Monday or maybe in November."

The apartment is clean enough now. My clothing is no longer in a giant pile in the bedroom and I have cooked actual meals in the kitchen now. We have done things like sit on the couch and read. I even have a library card now (you can check out an unlimited amount of items. As in. . . there is no limit. Coming from my 15 item library in Texas, I almost kissed the librarian).

But there's this - our house is still kind of jammed with things that are posted to Craigs List but have not been sold or picked up yet. Which means we have random stuff piled up in the corners. And I am too vain to show you pictures of my almost lovely home when it still has motorcycle helmets perched on top of the bookcase and a tiny TV sitting in the kitchen chair.

In more boring moving news, the other night we went to the grocery store. I had been nervous about finding a grocery store I liked here as I loved H-E-B more than was probably healthy. I loved the layout of my local one, the cheap store brands, the availability of every item I ever looked for. What could possibly compare?

Then, we went to the store located closest to our apartments, the heavens parted, and the angels sang. It was clean. It had a nice parking lot. The food was inexpensive. The store brands were reasonably priced. Ice cream was as cheap as dirt. All was well in my world.

Is it ridiculous that a good grocery store has so much impact on my happiness in a location? No need to answer that question if you think it's insane.

Boston

I am alive and well. Except, you know, tired from all the moving. Also, the two trips to IKEA.

The apartment is slowly approaching some semblance of order and we finally went to the grocery store tonight (in our house, we get the Internet hooked up before we go grocery shopping. We have our priorities, people).

Pictures possibly coming tomorrow if we can get it looking decent.

I Hate To Wake You Up

If you read Ralphie's blog, you might not know she makes the best caramel popcorn I've ever tasted, or that her girls rush to the door when we come over or that we have gone to her house for the past few weeks, pulled all the cushions off the couch and watched So You Think You Can Dance on the floor of their office. You might not know that, but if you read Ralphie's blog, you do know she's an incredible photographer.

This weekend is Bart and my fourth wedding anniversary. It's also the weekend we move away from Texas. In light of those two momentous occasions, we asked Ralphie to take some pictures of us, something to remember us, her, and Texas by.

I'm not sure exactly what I had in mind when I asked her, but her photographs turned out even better than I could have hoped.

You can see them here on Ralphie's blog.

(Also, I might feel bad about saying, "Go look at these pictures of how lovely we are" except that I'm currently sitting in my pajamas, with my hair a post-gym sweaty mess, no makeup, and glasses on. I'll take what loveliness I can right now).

Money, Money, Money

If you've been reading for a while, you know that, after books, one of my all-time favorite topics is money.

The other day, I was reading a book that said married couples should absolutely have separate bank accounts.

I have a friend who does that - one of them pays the mortgage, one pays for the vacation house they own. She gives him a bill for groceries. They switch off years paying for their daughter's extra-curricular activities.

We, on the other hand, have never really even talked about having separate bank accounts. It didn't even occur to either of us, I think. I did, for a brief while when we moved to Texas, have a checking account that I deposited all my checks into, but other than that it's pretty much always been a single account that we pay all our bills and do all our spending from, together.

I think it's hard to be completely even with money because the chances that you'll ever make exactly the same amount of money seem VERY slim to me. In our case, I will never make as much as Bart will just by virtue of our different career fields, which have vastly different pay scales.

And, of course, I've been the sole breadwinner in our family for the better part of two years now, so that would have made things tricky (although the idea of writing Bart a bill for his half of the expenses for the last two years is not without its appeal).

I think it's maybe easier for us than some other couples since we are both pretty frugal and have pretty aligned priorities money-wise. I definitely think it would be difficult if one of us was a major spender and one of us was a complete tightwad.

On the other hand, I can see how much easier it would be to each have your own checking account with your allotted money deposited there after the household bills were paid. It would definitely make me feel that I had more flexibility to spend however I wanted.

It seems like some people absolutely feel that if you don't share your money, you might as well hire a divorce lawyer straight after the honeymoon, while other people think you're an absolute idiot to not be in complete control of your own finances.

I guess I can see both sides. For now, sharing works pretty well for us. But in the future, it might work better to have more separate accounts. I do draw the line at writing invoices for Bart; I hate paperwork.

Service Readership

So this weekend is the drive from Austin to Boston. Three days. Two thousand miles. Are you jealous yet?

Bart will be driving the whole way, since I am not old enough to drive a moving van (and I'm obviously very very sad about that . . . ).

We've got four or five books on CD to listen to on Bart's laptop (Maximum Ride (Book 1 and 2),The Hunger Games, and Enna Burning, so far), which should be a nice past time.

BUT! I am one of those people who has a hard time just sitting still listening to something. I need something to do with my hands while we drive and listen, with state after state flying by.

Any good suggestions?

Private

This week, Kayla set her baby blog to private and then, last night, my sister-in-law, at the urging of her husband, made her family blog private as well.

(Also, I told Kayla a few minutes ago that I was writing a post about private blogs and she said, "Condemning us?" and I assured her I was not. Much as I'm now assuring you).

I certainly understand the private blog concept. I don't in any way think my desire to read your blog conveniently through Google Reader outweighs your desire to keep your kid safe.

On the other hand, I have a lot of friends with public blogs that have an enormous amount of information about their children on their blogs - full names, birth dates, naked or half-naked pictures, the neighborhood they live in, and the schools they attend.

It's clearly something some people worry a lot about and some people worry . . .not at all about.

Bart and I have talked at length about what we may or may not do when we have children of our own.

I have no intentions of starting a separate baby blog, for I know myself and I know I would not keep it going. The multiple blog thing simply does not work for me. Also, I am worried I would write a ton about my first! precious! darling! perfect! child and then about two posts for each subsequent child. Which would make me feel guilty.

I also think private blogs can give you a bit of a false sense of security - blogs can be hacked, people can share their passwords around, or someone else can get on their computer where all the passwords are saved. If your blog was once public but goes private, every post that was written while the blog was public is still stored in Google Reader and can be emailed around.

I like that, with a public blog, I am always always aware that absolutely anyone in the world can see it. I know that a prospective employer, my in-laws, my parents and grandparents, every person I go to church with, my children's friends can all see exactly what I've written.

One problem, of course, with a public blog is that as much as you try and keep yourself somewhat anonymous, people can comment with information you are trying to keep private (like your last name or your kids names or the specific suburb you live in). My sister-in-law mentioned to me last night that, despite only using her kids initials, family members almost always refer to them by their names in the comments (including my lovely husband). One of my Internet friends, Angela, has this text above her comment form:

I love comments. I also love feeling safe from creepy internet stalkers. So, "real life" pals - please refrain from using a) our last name and b) our child's first name. Initials work nicely. Thanks!

I have never once used my last name on this blog, but tons and tons of people who know me from my real life, link to me as "Janssen ______" which means that when you Google my full name? This blog shoots straight to the top. There is no hiding from myself.

For now, I plan to keep up this blog and mention my kids on occasion when I, you know, actually have them. But I don't intend it to be a journal of their lives or a record of our family. This is my blog about my own interests and reading. I won't use their names and I certainly won't have pictures of them naked (even if I was so inclined, Bart would never ever allow it. He is deeply against naked baby pictures of any kind).

And who knows how differently I'll feel when I actually have kids of my own.

(P.S. I'm paranoid now that suddenly all the blogs of friends I read will start going private after this post. Wouldn't that serve me right?)

Banker by Dick Francis

9 of 10: Banker is a great read - likable characters, interesting setting, and a fast-moving plot. I could not put this book down after the first 50 pages.

About 15 years ago, when we were visiting my grandparents, my grandma told me how much she loved Dick Francis' books, especially To the Hilt. I started reading it, but someone was murdered straight off and it was just too scary for me.

Then, in the last year or so, my mom has become a huge fan of his books, and when I was visiting most recently, she lent me Banker, telling me it was her favorite of all his books (and seeing as she's read every single one of his books, she should know).


And she was right - this book is terrific.

If you know nothing else about Dick Francis, this is what you should know. He used to be a steeplechaser and horse jockey for the Queen, and all his books revolve, in some way, around racing horses.

This one is about Tim, who works for a bank his grandfather started decades earlier. He'd originally had no interest in going into the business, but after his dad ruined himself financially, his uncle requires him to go to work at the bank for at least six months. And, surprise, surprise, he is really good at it and enjoys it.

Much of his job is deciding what businesses get loans and one of the big ones that comes up is the purchase of a star racing horse, Sandcastle, for a stud farm (for the sum of five million pounds). He does a lot of the research and is very impressed, and most of the board of directors agrees that it is a good investment.

For a year or two, things go well, but then something comes up that suggests that there is a major flaw with Sandcastle, one that will cost both the owner and the bank dearly.

Tim, who has developed a great deal of respect for the man who bought the horse, is anxious to figure out if there is a way to save both the man's business and the bank's money, but the more he looks into the matter, the more dangerous and sinister it becomes, with several people turning up dead.

It's a fast paced story, with some mystery and intrigue, which I loved. It's well-worth a read.

I may not read every Dick Francis book, like my mom, but I'll certainly be reading more than just this one.

Life with Picasso by Francoise Gilot

7 of 10: Life with Picasso would be better for someone really interested in art, but even for a total art idiot like me, it was fairly interesting.

I won't pretend I wasn't totally terrified when Ashley picked this book. I am. . . not really any art person. Illustration in children's books is as far as I go.

But then, when I finally got a copy of it and started reading it, I found myself thinking, "This is exactly why I started up 'Tell Me What To Read.'" I would never ever have picked up this book on my own, but I'm glad to have read it.

It's written by Francoise Gilot, a woman about 30 years younger than Picasso, who lived and had two children with him over the space of ten years. She's an artist too, so she has a lot to say about his art and the work he was doing.

It's really an interesting look at his life as an older man, his personality, and the huge fame he reached during his lifetime.

Sadly, this book convinced me that Picasso was an unbelievable jerk. I started marking sections to quote here about all the mean, selfish things he did, but if I were to include them all, this post would be 100,000 words long. You'll have to take my word for it.

This book also made me break my not-really-a-rule rule and read the last section before I got there. I was just getting bored with all the discussion about weird sculptures he was doing and was ready for more about the actual people. Afterward, I went back and finished up the middle sections.

It's a little long and detailed, I think, to be something I'd recommend to everyone - there are easier ways to learn about Picasso's life and works, but if you were a major art enthusiast, it'd probably be worth your time.

No Apologies

This song/video IS my high school life. Except the part at the end where he decides he likes her. So, maybe not exactly like my high school life.



And yes, I love Taylor Swift.

Also, I owe Rockstar Kayla big time for sending me on this video when I was having a majorly bad day.

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

9 of 10: The Outsiders was everything I could have hoped it would be after years of hearing about it. Fast paced, great characters, sad, but hopeful.

So, you've probably never heard of this little-known book, but hey, it was pretty good. Wait, no. I'm probably the last person on the face of the earth to have written it.

This book is the grandparent of YA literature and it's been popular for 30 years. For good reason.

Also, you know how sometimes you hear about a book for years and years, and you have sort of this idea in your head about the main plot? For some reason I totally thought it was about a bunch of boys living in cars. It is, well, not. I now know this.

Ponyboy (yes, his real name) is the youngest of three brothers. His parents were killed in an accident recently and his oldest brother, with a scholarship to college to play football, has stayed home to work two jobs and support the other two boys. The other brother, Sodapop (yes, also real name), has dropped out of high school and works as well. Ponyboy, who is a good student, is still in high school, but figures he'll end up working as well after he graduates.

After all, the boys live on the wrong side of town, with little money, and they are considered "greasers." The other greasers they hang around with carry knives or guns, fight, are in and out of jail, drink, smoke, and basically have no futures. And their biggest enemies are the Socs, the kids from the right side of town who seem to have it all: money, nice cars, the right clothing, and a future.

There is a plot, one that moves pretty quickly, but the real point of the story is the characters and the exploration of human nature. I continue to be amazed at S.E. Hinton's ability to see so clearly what people are like and narrate it in such a moving way. I just can hardly believe she wrote this book at fifteen (published when she was sixteen). Her writing just appeals to me in a way that continues to surprise me.

I wish I hadn't put off this book for so long; it really does deserve the hype. It's sad, yes, with people in terribly difficult circumstances, finding themselves at the mercy of prejudice and bad luck, but also looking out for each other, finding good in hard times, and working to make life better. This book is, for me, in its own strange way an embodiment of the American dream.

Basically, if you haven't read it, you should. Not only because it's famous and popular, but because it is just a good book. One that will make you grateful for what you have and motivated to work to get what you want. In an unbelievably uncliche kind of way.

Piled Up 'til They Reach the Sky

I may have mentioned once or twice (a week, for a year) that we're moving.

Which of course has required us to box up every single item we own. That is a fun thing to do. I would highly recommend it as a nice Saturday morning activity should you sometimes feel that life is just too happy and you need something to make you crazy.

We're moving from about a 1000 square foot house into an apartment that, my best guess, is around 650-700 square feet (please, I have no idea. Spatial relations are clearly not my strong point).

This means that we have to get rid of a few things. And, oh, this brings me great joy. We sold about 50 books at the Half-Price bookstore. We're selling Bart's desk and chair, the Love Sac, several bookcases, our bar stools (which we bought for our apartment long ago and have sat unused for the last three years since our house did not actually have a bar), and a few other random things, like a laptop case that came free with Bart's computer.

I just don't like owning a lot of things (shoes excluded). I am very quick to get rid of things I don't like or need or have room to store. I like stream-lined. I like uncluttered. I like open empty space. I am just not that sentimental. If something is broken, torn, no longer useful, or otherwise just junking up my life, I am more than happy to be rid of it. If we paid for something, but it no longer serves any function to me, I don't care that we're just donating it to Goodwill. The money we spent on it is not a good reason to keep something I do not want.

I get asked on occasion if I buy a ton of books and the answer is no. I do not. I can't think of the last book I bought for myself (I buy a reasonable amount of books as gifts, but never for myself). I love using the library because, not only is it free, but when I'm done with it, I can return it. I don't have to find shelf space for it. I don't have to pack it and unpack it every time I move. I don't have to dust it or worry about it for the next sixty years. Thank heavens for the library. And that's pretty much how I feel about most things.

I'm reading a delightful little book my mom lent me called Things I Want My Daughters To Know. One of the chapters is called "Travel Heavy" and she talks about how she always overpacks and how you should too. And, well, I just can't get behind that. Ack! Stuff! Stuff that you will invariably have to drag around, from the car to the airport to the hotel and then back again.

When my mom and I were in Boston recently, I incorrectly remembered what T station (and if we're being honest, what line) we were supposed to get off at and we ended up walking, suitcases, purses, and backpacks in tow, over two miles to our hotel. Talk about a time you're glad you didn't "travel heavy." (Also, talk about a time where you apologize a hundred times to your mother for being too dumb to have double-checked the location).

I am so excited to be living somewhere smaller, with less stuff. And maybe that makes me weird, but it also makes me happy. If I had a life motto, it would probably be, "Live Light."

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

8 of 10: This Sarah Dessen-esqe book was the perfect August weekend read. The Summer I Turned Pretty has nice writing, good story, and some unexpected plot twists.

I had heard little whispers about this book, but none that really made me request the book until I read a review of it at Bookends, the blog for BookList written by two middle school librarians. And their review had me requesting the book immediately. As they said, it really is the perfect beach book.

Before I go any further, let's all be clear on one point. I love Sarah Dessen. You know this. And this book reminded me quite a lot of her books, so it's no suprise that I enjoyed every second of this page.

Belly (I know, horrible name. . .move on) has been going to the beach for the summer every year for her entire life with her mom and her older brother. They always stay with her mom's closest friend, Susannah, and her two sons, Conrad and Jeremiah. It's the highlight of her life, of course, goofing around with the boys, playing cards, eating hamburgers, swimming, and just generally having a perfect summer, year after year.

Of course, she's had a crush on Conrad forever - he's handsome and smart and reserved, but she's closer friends with Jeremiah, the younger brother who is funny and more accepting of her presence among the boys.

The story does a few chapters in the present - the summer Belly is turning sixteen - and then will do a chapter about an earlier summer, filling in the gaps about her relationships with the various friends and family, the events of previous summers, and other details that really flesh the story and characters out.

Everything about this book felt so real to me. The way Belly has felt left out of most events because she's the youngest AND the only girl. The sudden change this summer as other boys at the beach start to notice her that summer and how she starts to recognize (and revel) in that power. When she finally gets up the nerve to tell someone how she feels and then suddenly she can't stop letting it pour out (I have so been there).

I also liked it that, unlike Sarah Dessen's books, I had no idea who she might end up with. Would it be one of the brothers? One of the guys at the beach? Someone entirely different? No one at all? I honestly was not sure up until the last page. And I liked that.

It particularly thrilled me to discover that there is another book about these characters coming ou in the spring. I will be right there waiting for it. Hopefully I'll have a beach vacation to take it on. Or, I'll read it as I freeze to death under a blanket in Boston. Frankly, I won't even care.

What I'm Going to Read: Round 2

To my great surprise, once again this month, the randomly selected winner picked a book I'd already read. The winner (I feel so silly using that word because you aren't winning anything. I feel like I should send you a check or something, but I have no money, so that's clearly not a great option) is Kath from Bookworm Nation. Her suggestion was The Loser's Guide to Life and Love by A. E. Cannon, which is a very fun twist on A Midsummer Night's Dream. I loved it when I read it last summer.

Her new suggestion was Radiant Darkness, which I will read in August. It looks like just my kind of book!

The other suggestions, and wow, there were some good ones this month:

• The Great Starvation Experiment: Ancel Keys and the Men Who Starved for Science by Todd Tucker (Poodle)
• Amy's Eyes by Richard Kennedy (Janelle)
• My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young (Lexilooo) (She also suggested Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, but I only counted one entry for her, which you rule-sticklers will be glad to hear).
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (Zillah)
• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (Megan)
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Heidikins)
• These is my Words by Nancy E. Turner (Diana Banana)
• Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty (Elizabeth)
• Marley & Me by Josh Grogan (Ellen)
• Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt (Carly Jane)
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (RA)
• Oddballs by William Sleator (Noelle)
• A Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn (Packrat)
• Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza (Jodi)
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Linda)
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Sherry)
• Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos (Emily)
• Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (Picture Taker)
• Unwind by Neal Shusterman (Kate)
• Daughter of the Forest byJuliet Marillier (Angie)
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery (Kristen)
• The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (Mary)
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (Melanie)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Shelly)
• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (Jody)
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (Kimberly)
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Katherine)
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Yankee Girl)
• The Alchemyst by Michael Scott (Alison)
• Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas (Tootie)
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver (Jenny)
• The Magician's Assistant by Ann Pratchett (Kelly J)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (Life is Dreaming)
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Jenn)
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Suey)
• Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock (Lisa)
• Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (Small Dog)
• Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind (Liz)
  

Last time, I'd read 7 of the 32 suggestions.

This time I've read 5 of the 41 suggestions:

• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (Megan)
• Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt (Carly Jane)
• Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (Picture Taker)
• Unwind by Neal Shusterman (Kate)

Also, before you think I can't count, five includes those four, plus Bookworm Nation's original suggestion.