What I Read: November and December 2012

Books I Bought:
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Books I Read:
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (November)
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (November)
World War Z by Max Brooks (November)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling (December)

It's been a weird couple of months of reading for me. November started out strong with an amazing book by one of my favorite authors - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This book is about a normal guy who, through the simple gesture of helping someone the rest of the city overlooks, gets drawn into a crazy underground world that he never knew existed. It's like a grown-up Alice in Wonderland and I loved it.

After that, I wanted to reread one of my favorite books of all time, so The Princess Bride it was. If you've only seen the movie, you're missing out. (And if you've never seen it or read it, you're double missing out and you need to sort out your priorities!) The author of the book wrote the screenplay for the movie, so there are a lot of similarities, even exact lines of dialogue the same in both, but there are major differences of tone in the book and it's hilarious and beautiful.

With the previews for World War Z all over the internet lately, I wanted to reread the book before the movie came out, so that book was up next. I remember liking it way more the first time I read it, but I still enjoyed it on the second time through. I'm interested to see how the movie will pull this story off. It's told in flashback as a series of interviews conducted to see how the Zombie outbreak started and how the war was fought. If you're into these kinds of stories at all, it's definitely worth a read, though I think I like Robopocalypse better.

I read all three of these in early November, and then I hit a weird slump. I started reading 3 different books and just couldn't really get into them. They weren't awful, but I think it just wasn't the time for them. I'll be coming back to them another time for sure. But as I was getting into December and not finding any books I was really excited about to be reading, I thought maybe it was time to revisit a magical series to light the reading fires again, thus Harry Potter. (And this is why I bought Prisoner of Azkaban this month. I opened up my copy and realized it was falling apart because I've read it so much, so I figured it was time for a new one.)

There really shouldn't be much I need to say about good ol' Harry here. If you haven't read them, I'd really like to know what's been keeping you! I've read all the books multiple times, but this is my first reread of the whole series since knowing where everything ends up. It's been amazing to see things in the beginning books that have so much bearing on the end and wonder how planned out JK had the whole thing from the start. This is some great storytelling! If you happen to decide to do a reread anytime soon (or to read them for the first time), I highly suggest reading Muggle Hustle along with the books. This website archives the tweets of a guy who is currently reading through the series for his first time and tweeting his thoughts and reactions. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and full of profanity, so be prepared. It's absolutely my favorite twitter account of 2012, in case anyone was wondering.

Okay, time to get back to Hogwarts! Happy reading!