Project 12 Books

Project Complete

Project 12 Books has been a total success, not only was I able to read 12 books, I actually read 34 during the last year. This tumblr account was a home to my book thoughts but towards the end of the year, I decided writing publicly with my best friend in the website Whatever Junkies. 

I will continue reading in 2011 but I will no longer count the number of books I will finish reading. By the end of 2011, I will measure the success of my book project by the number of people I can persuade to read. It’s a difficult task, but I will try my best. In 2010, I influenced my two brothers to read and it felt like a real accomplishment. 

In summary, these are the books I read in the past year:

Thoughts about books I read in 2010.

February

1. Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

2. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

March

3. Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel

4. The Last Summer (of You & Me) by Anne Brashares

April

5. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

7. Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

May

8. How to Walk in High Heels by Camilla Morton

9. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

10. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

11. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

12. Chronicle of Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

June

13. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

14. French Milk by Lucy Knisley

15. Letters for Emily by Camron Wright

16. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

17. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

July

18. Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean

19. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

20. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

21. The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa

August

22. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

23. The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks

September

24. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

25. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

October

26. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

27. How To Be Good by Nick Hornby

28. The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

November

29. Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew

30. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

31. Open by Andre Agassi

December

32. Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

33. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

34. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Thank you for visiting this book journal, if you’d like to keep in touch, you can find me here and here. 

For 2011 and the coming years: I PLEDGE TO READTHE PRINTED WORD.

December: Extra #21 - Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Where’s Fluffy?

——-

I love the movie, the book’s okay. Thoughts posted here-

Ah, Nick and Norah! You are one of my favorite fictional couples but after reading your book, I came into a conclusion that I wouldn’t have liked you if it weren’t for Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. I liked the movie better. There, I said it. I don’t dislike the book, maybe I just really liked the movie that much. I loved how, in the movie, Where’s Fluffy kept on changing play venues and the characters had to chase after them. It wasn’t like that in the book and that was disappointing for me.

This post is long overdue, I can’t really think of anything else to add. Rating: 2/3.

December: Book #12 - Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

W is for win.

——-

Again, I wrote about this book here.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. The only constant thought I had in my mind while reading this was OMG I wish I can have even a little of Chuck Klosterman’s talent! The essays were interesting, witty and clever. They kept me engaged even if at some point I didn’t relate with the things he wrote about*. After reading this book, I found that Chuck Klosterman’s essays are the kind that will drag your lazy butt to research and read more about what you’ve just read about. He made pop culture more addictive than it already is. Seriously.

I loved it. Rating: 3/3.

November: Extra #20 - Open by Andre Agassi

I never wanted it to end.

——-

Finally read this book after a year of waiting for it. Sorry Jess, I couldn’t wait until next year. Reading this, for me, was like reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, there is so much to write/talk about but nothing will really ever come out. There are no enough words to describe it. I almost marked every page. I found it difficult to move to the next book after reading this. I never wanted it to be over.

Here’s an except from the entry I made for Whatever Junkies:

Inspired by J.R. Moehringer’s memoir, The Tender Bar, Agassi decided to write his autobiography. In this book, he tells everything: the childhood he spent perfecting tennis, his relationship with his father, his best friends, his struggles as a professional tennis player, falling in and out of love, retiring and realizing the ultimate dream of helping other people. And of course, he writes a bit about Pete Sampras, too. This is a book of revelations, written with honesty and much humility.

You can read the rest here.

I still can’t believe it’s over. Rating: 4/3.

November: Extra #19 - Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Listen.

——-

Just wrote about this here. This is by far one of the most honest books I’ve read this year. It doesn’t matter that it’s a work of fiction, in reality, we all know that situations like Melinda’s happen around us, if not in our won lives. 

When I read the first few paragraphs of this book, I felt anxious. Sure, I knew that that story revolves around a sensitive subject matter, but it wasn’t what really got to me; it was the pain that comes with being completely alone:

We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Goths, Shredders. I am clanless…And I don’t have anyone to sit with.

I am Outcast.

This book left me with a heavy heart. It’s not all about the sexual abuse, it’s more about being rejected, not belonging, being hated for the wrong reasons, being extremely lonely, being an outcast, being afraid, having no voice, being deeply hurt but having no one to listen to you. There is no way one wouldn’t see him/herself in Melinda at one point in the book. If anyone who has read it didn’t, I say that person is very, very lucky.

Anyone who is afraid to speak up should read this book. It is totally empowering and reassuring: someone is always willing to listen. Rating: 3/3.