Design Flaws

Well, I have failed again at this, but at least I haven't read 15 books since I signed in a month ago. The last book I read for my Project is still the book I talked about in the last post (The Design Flaws of the Human Condition by Paul Schmidtberger). My opinion of the book after finishing it is pretty much the same as it was when I was in the midst of its chapters. Eh.

  Two people meet each other at an anger management meeting, one who suspects her boyfriend is cheating and the other who caught his lover in bed with another man. Sounds promising... No. They become great friends, and the pretty much stalk each others boys to find out what the story is. Even the big ending where they kind of 'get back' at their significant others wasn't all that exciting. Bah! I feel like he wasted such a great title on a boring story. Boo to you Mr. Schimdtberger!

On a side note I have also read the following books this month, not related to Project Mulberry:

Slam by Nick Hornby (terrible)

Alvin Ho, Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look (precious) 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (fantastic)

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (graphic, violent, disturbing, still good)

Finally, I am currently reading: Paper Towns by John Green (so far it's good). 

Worst ever.

So, as I figured, I am the worst blogger in the world. I'm going to try to start this again and actually stick to it. At the very least, I've been keeping on top of my 'project.' I'm just gonna give you  (my one reader) the list of books I've read so far for PM. I'll give you a heads up as to whether it was good enough to get your butt to the library to check it out! 

1. Storyville by Lois Battle 

I loved this book so much! I read it on a rainy vacation, and was so involved in the story and characters that I told my boyfriend every detail about the book... even if he didn't want to hear it =) 

2. What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg 

I don't remember anything about this one, so I'm guessing it was eh. 

3. The Archivist by Martha Cooley

Couldn't even finish it, so I moved onto :

Heart, You Bully, You Punk by Leah Hager Cohen

The title is the best part of this book!

4. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

Interesting story, nothing to write home about. I have known people that have loved this one though, so don't take my word for it =)

5. The House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez

Very... interesting.

6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer 

This was the first book of his I read, based on this book I'll definitely be picking up another one! I'd steer clear of the horrible 'flip book' at the end... Keep tissues handy, this book WILL give you 'heavy boots.'

7. The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman

Couldn't finish it, so I read:

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

I liked this one. It was probably my favorite Hornby novel, which doesn't say too much I guess because I hated the other ones...

8. The Cheese-Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd

Very enjoyable, and even if you don't like it, the cover art is super awesome. 

9. The Pleasure of My Company: A Novel by Steve Martin

Who knew Steve Martin could write?! I hated, and was never able to finish, Shopgirl. This book was really great, I highly recommend it. 

10. Asylum by Patrick McGrath

Funny story: I picked this one thinking it was Patricia McGrath, not Patrick. Most of the time, I tend to steer towards female authors more than male authors. I thought this would be an interesting story if it was written by a woman. A few chapters in I started to get the feeling it wasn't a female author,  after hard and tedious detective work (looking at the cover) I discovered I was right... Better start paying more attention when I pick up a book! I guess in the end it didn't matter, I still really liked it! 

11. Unlubricated by Arthur Nersesian 

This was my first Nersesian book, which I enjoyed so much, I read another of his novels right after I finished it! The second of his I read was The Swing Voter of Staten Island (also, my book club choice for the month) which was a completely different kind of story (still very New York City centric but in a creepy apocalyptic way). They were both good, and I'll definitely be reading more of his many books when I have the time.

12. What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

Couldn't get into it, moved on to:

The Year of Endless Sorrows by Adam Rapp

I loved this one, and just finished it so it's still fresh on my mind! It reminded me of the writing style of David Sedaris, which was great because I love him. It was dry, sarcastic and funny. Read it!

13. Design Flaws of the Human Condition by Paul Schmidtberger

I'm in the process of reading this one now, its pretty good. I picked it based on the fact that I loved the cover and the title.. Which is fun to do sometimes, I didn't even know what the book was about till I cracked it open. 

So, that's all I got up to so far. I definitely feel like I forgot a book or two, if I remember what they are, I'll be sure to pass the info along. Until then, please don't hold your breath for the next blog, I will do my absolute best to try doing this on a regular basis, with more information on the books as I go. Happy reading!

What am I doing?

I finally joined the ranks of the bloggers, after quite a few years of thinking blogs are ridiculous. Why did I start this? Well, I like to ramble, especially about books, so what better thing to do than write a blog about books? Nothing that's what! So, here I am. 

I started a project for myself at my job, yup you guessed it, "Project Mulberry." Pretty much the loose basis of my idea is that I read one book for every four foot section in my library. I started easy, with adult fiction and I plan on going through everything. I'm sure this will get difficult when I get to the non-fiction section since I have a fear of non-fiction materials (except for memoirs because most read as easily as novels do). Regardless, my goal is to read as many books as possible in my library, and hopefully to write about each book I decide to read. 

My initial problems with my project is that once you read a book, you go off on tangents of books you'd like to read, so I've gone way off track multiple times so far. On top of this obvious problem, there is the minor difficulty of finding a book within a specific section that you're interested in reading. It sounds easy, but once you start to do it, you realize what a book snob you really are. Or that, at the very least, you are stuck in a specific mind set of books you will pick up and/or look right over while browsing. So in my future blogs I'm going to let you in on all the difficulties I went threw picking the book that I actually read for the section, as well as the books I read between sections. So, having rambled through my first complete blog, I hope you come back to read my future posts. Thanks for stopping by ;)