Lots of updates today; I added the featured pages list--I really need a clever title for that--and I culled the salvagable book reviews I had archived over at LJ. Some of them I will need to reread, almost all of them will need to be rewritten to the new format. Looks like I'll have plenty of work to keep me busy for a while.

I'm very excited about this new blog, though; it's something I've been mulling over for a while now, and I'm glad it's finally coming to fruition!

The Top Shelf

If you couldn't gather already, I read a lot. Just as wine connoisseurs enjoy the pleasure of the drink itself, I too enjoy the process of reading for its own sake.

But like sommeliers, I too have my favorites, the few books that I will take the time to read multiple times or that I will readily recommend to just about anyone. These are the reviews that get 5 out of 5 stars.

That's what this page is for; these are the cream of my literary crop, so to speak, the very best of the best. It's not about how old they are or how many weeks they spent on the New York Times' Bestseller List (does that even mean anything anymore?); these are my personal favorites, my treasures, the masterpieces I've stumbled upon.

Here is a list in progress:
Rasputin's Daughter - Spellbinding historical fiction
The Gum Thief - Witty and unlike anything you've ever read
The Rose and the Beast - Ingenious prosetry and imagination
Under the Table - Cooking + Memoirs = recipe for success
The Christian Mind - Intriguing, scathing look at modern Christianity
Til We Have Faces - A masterpiece from a cherished author
Christianity for Modern Pagans - Passionate, powerful, and profound
The Cross of Christ - Will forever change your view of the atonement; theologically sound and a literary triumph
The Time Traveler's Wife - Beyond beautiful; a perfectly realized romance
The Dogs of Babel - Haunting; lingers with you far after the last page
Snow Falling on Cedars - Another achingly beautiful work with excellent drama
First Love - Unparalleled in its creativity and execution
The Philosopher and the Druid - historically accurate storytelling

What's On My Shelf

Here's where I keep my collection of recommendations. Have one for me? Reply with a comment and I'll add it to them list!


Fiction
by far my favorite category

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
In The Company of a Courtesan - Sarah Dunant
The Blood of Flowers - Anita Amirrezvani
The Future of Love - Shirley Abbott
The Island - Victoria Hislap
Wild Nights! - Joyce Carol Oates
Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
New Moon - Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer
Breaking Dawn - Stephanie Meyer
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
World Without End - Ken Follett
The Tale of Murasaki - Liza Dalby
Time Lottery - Nancy Moser
Dark Intergers - Greg Egan
Molokai - Alan Brennert
Love's Apprentice: The Romantic Education of a Modern Woman - Shirley Abbott
The Pilgrim's Regress - C. S. Lewis
The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase
Sundays at Tiffanys - James Patterson
Peach Blossom Pavilion - Mingmei Yip
After Dark - Hauruki Murakami
Handle with Care - Jodi Picoult
Snow White, Rose Red - Patricia Wrede
Lilith - George Macdonald
The Light Princess & Other Fairy Tales - George Macdonald
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
The Prestige - Christopher Priest
Tithe - Holly Black
Lilah - Marek Halter
Mary - Marek Halter
And Only To Deceive -Tasha Alexander
A Poisoned Season - Tasha Alexander
The Piano Teacher - Janice Y. K. Lee
In the Courts of the Sun - Brian D'Amato
Honolulu - Alan Brennert
Firebirds Rising (anthology)
The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Lavinia - Ursula K. LeGuin
My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
The Dog of Marriage - Amy Hempel
The Dangerous Husband - Jane Shapiro
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Waiting - Ha Jin
Leonardo's Swans - Karen Essex
Babette's Feast - Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
Shanghai Girls - Lisa See
Rabbit Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington
The Magic Christian - Terry Southern
The White Queen - Phillipa Gregory
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
American Fuji - Sara Backer
Invasive Procedures - Orson Scott Card
Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Pastworld - Ian Beck
Steampunk - Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
The Witches of Eastwick - John Updike

Non-Fiction
because all play and no work makes Ashley dumb
Blink - Malcom Gladwell
Your Brain on Music - Daniel Levitin
Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer - C. S. Lewis
All Truth is God's Truth - Arthur Holmes
The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Heretics - G. K. Chesterton
The Sociopath Next Door - Martha Stout
Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Candide and The Maid of Orleans - Voltaire (B&N Classic Edition)
Love and Respect - Emerson Eggerichs
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - John Gray
A Year in Japan - Kate T. Williamson
Mind Wide Open - Steven Johnson
The Dawkins Delusion - Alastair McGrath
When Did Jesus Become Republican - Mark Ellington
American Jesus - Stephen Prothero
The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
The Philosophy of House - Henry Jacoby and William Irwin
The Philosophy of Jesus - Peter Kreeft
A Shorter Summa - Peter Kreeft
The Problem of Pain - C. S. Lewis
Miracles - C. S. Lewis
Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
Dumbest Generation - Mark Bauerlein
A Hope in the Unseen - Ron Suskind
Picking Cotton - Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
Long Way Round - Ewan MacGregor & Charley Boorman
Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost
The Sex Life of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost
Getting Stoned with Savages - J. Maarten Troost
The Man Who Made Vermeers - Jonathan Lopez
The Untold Story of the New Testament Church - Frank Viola
Living in a Foreign Language - Michael Tucker
Nightengales - Gillian Gill
How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth
St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit
In Two Minds - Os Guiness
The Philosopher and the Druid - Philip Freeman
Saving Face - Andy Robin
Under the Table: Saucy Tales from Culinary School - Katherine Darling
Blossoms in the Wind - Juliet Lac
My Life in France - Julia Child
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Jennifer Lee
A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken
Mini-Skirts Mothers & Muslims: Modelling Spiritual Values in Muslim Culture -Christine Mallouhi
How to Cook a Dragon - Linda Furiya
The Unlikely Disciple - Kevin Roose
The World Without Us - Alan Weisman

Shakespeare:
it's a lifetime goal to read everything on this list
The Tempest
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Measure for Measure
The Comedy of Errors
Much Ado About Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
All's Well That Ends Well*
Twelfth Night or What You Will
The Winter's Tale
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
The Two Noble Kinsmen
King John
Richard II
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII
Troilus and Cressida
Coriolanus
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Hamlet
King Lear
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Cymbeline

The 2009 Shelf

This is an annual post I will keep updated throughout the year. I'll try to link this list to actual book reviews when possible. Anyone want to offer me anything special for getting to 100 by Dec 31?

1. The Commoner- John Burnham Schwartz
2. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
3. Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
4. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? by Phillip K. Dick
6. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
7. The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
8. The Future of Love - Shirley Abbott
9. Time Lottery - Nancy Moser
10. The Moon Opera - Bi Feiyu
11. American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon - Stephen Prothero
12. The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd
13. Love's Apprentice: The Romantic Education of a Modern Woman - Shirley Abbot
14. The Everything Wedding Book - Shelly Hagen
15. The Artful Bride - April Paffrath & Laura McFadden
16. Beautiful Wedding Decorations & Gifts on a Small Budget - Diane Warner
17. How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget - Diane Warner
18. Dark Intergers - Greg Egan
19. Tender Morsels - Margo Lanagan
20. Sundays at Tiffanys by James Patterson
21. The Philosophy of Jesus by Peter Kreeft
22. A Fatal Waltz: A Novel of Suspense - Tasha Alexander
23. Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
24. Lilah by Marek Halter
25. La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture by Lily Prior
26. The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell
27. Guinevere's Truth and Other Tales by Jennifer Roberson
28. Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander
29. Travel Well by Christine Aroney-Sine
30. Molokai by Alan Brennert
31. The Sex Life of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost
32. Friend Raising by Betty Barnett
33. The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee
34. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
35. Intended for Pleasure by Dr. Ed Wheat & Gaye Wheat
36. St. Patrick of Ireland by Phillip Freeman
37. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
38. The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner
39. Waiting by Ha Jin
40. Mary of Nazareth by Marek Halter
41. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
42. Tithe by Holly Black
43. The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block
44. The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
45. Bound by Donna Jo Napoli
46. Nymph by Francesca Lia Block
47. Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex
48. Under the Table by Katherine Darling
49. Sex God by Rob Bell
50. Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
51. The Philosopher and the Druids by Philip Freeman
52. Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya
53. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee
54. Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip by The Waiter
55. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
56. Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost
57. Lost in Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
58. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanuaken
59. A Year in Japan by Kate Williamson
60. Othello by William Shakespeare
61. How to Cook a Dragon by Linda Furiya
62. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
63. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
64. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
65. A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine by John K. Nelson
66. Real World by Natsuo Kirino
67. From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics by Louis
Markos
68. Bar Flower by Lea Jacobson
69. How the World Makes Love by Franz Wisner
70. Japanese Legends
71. The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose
72. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
73. Clever Maids by Valerie Paradiz
74. Murder in the Cathedral - T. S. Eliot
75. Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif - Rick Riordan
76. Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

Someday, when I get a bigger blog with an actual dot-com, this will be it's own page.

Introduction!

Hello world!

Welcome to Shelf Life, a book review blog!

Shelf Life is a different kind of book blog. It’s a fun, informative blend of literary criticism, humor, library science, and movie reviews with an extra dash of reader’s interest stuff thrown in for good measure.

Most of the literary blogs I’ve seen are too divorced from the act of reading, the pathos of it, to really be of much use to me. Or the opposite error occurs, and it’s so full of book-club discussion questions and how-did-this-symbol-make-you-feel that I have no sense of whether the book was worth my time or not.

That’s why here at Shelf Life, I write my reviews based on four criteria: plot, structure, execution and style, and theme. At the end of each review, though, I’ll give you my overall opinion on it in the Read This If section, and even if I hate it, I’ll suggest other, similar books that I think you’d like if you enjoyed this one. It’s sort of like that thing on Amazon.com, only not driven by capitalism. Each review is tagged by title, author, and rating.

The books that I rate 5 of 5 are given the Top Shelf, and you can find them in a special page all their own. I may even try to write up some book-group type discussions about these since I love them so much.

But this blog is also about my personal reading life. If you’re ever curious as to what’s on my To-Read List, check out the What’s On My Shelf post. It’s an ongoing, constantly updated list of various books I’d like to read (I cross them out when I’ve read them). Whenever I wander Barnes and Noble, or whenever I’m given a suggestion for what to read next, this is where it lands. If you have some for me, I’d love to hear it! Also, the Yearly Shelf is where I keep track of what books I read each year in the order I read them. If they have a review attached, I’ll link it!

I have a great passion for books that started as a child and just never seemed to fade. Now it’s time to share this passion with the rest of the world.