À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for April.

Bought:

  • City of Glass, by Cassandra Clare
  • Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson
  • The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart
  • The Dart League King, by Keith Lee Morris
  • Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris
  • Living Dead in Dallas, by Charlaine Harris
  • Club Dead, by Charlaine Harris
  • Dead as a Doornail, by Charlaine Harris

Read:
  • Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
  • City of Glass, by Cassandra Clare
  • Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris
  • Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson
  • Tell No One, by Harlan Coben
  • The Three Evanglists, by Fred Vargas
  • Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris
  • Living Dead in Dallas, by Charlaine Harris
  • Club Dead, by Charlaine Harris
  • Eureka Street, by Robert McLiam Wilson
  • The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart

À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for March.

Bought:

  • Bone Crossed, by Patricia Briggs
  • Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
  • Maps & Legends, Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, by Michael Chabon
  • A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg
  • City of Refuge, by Tom Piazza
  • The Lady Elizabeth, by Alison Weir
  • The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
  • Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
  • The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi

Read:
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson (re-read)
  • Antarctica, by Claire Keegan (stories)
  • Bone Crossed, by Patricia Briggs
  • The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larssen
  • A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, by Molly Wizenberg
  • Flesh and Bone, by Jefferson Bass
  • Domestic Violence, by Eavan Boland (poetry)
  • The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
  • City of Refuge, by Tom Piazza
  • Circle of the Dead, by Ingrid Black
  • The Feminists Go Swimming, by Michael Collins
  • The Pianist, by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Concerts I Can’t Go To

Waah ;(

April 6 Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
April 14 Katie Herzig
April 16 Cold War Kids
April 21 Great Lake Swimmers (they are sooo good in concert)
June 28 Avett Brothers (also great live)

These are the first shows I’ve been interested in months but they all take place during the week. Hello Chicago concert promoters, how about you book some bands I like on Friday and Saturday nights? Is that really too much to ask?

Wrapping It Up: Favorite Books 2008

My Favorite Ten Books of 2008 Were:

(in chronological order of my reading, with links to my Snip reviews)

And if you’d like to hear more ruminations on things I read last year, you can check out the full year-end wrap-up post over here.

A Surely Incomplete List of Chicago Photobooths

Old B&Ws (often broken):

  • Schuba’s (Southport & Belmont)
  • Empty Bottle (Western just south of Division)
  • Reckless Records (the Wicker Park one, on Milwaukee just south of North)
  • Double Door (round the Milwaukee/Damen corner from Reckless)

Old Color (and in the case of * =POLAROID!):

  • Sheffields (just north of Belmont on, wait for it, Sheffield)
  • Waveland Bowling Alley* (Western & Addison)

New B&W:

  • The Bottom Lounge (waaaay west on Lake)

New B&W/Sepia/Color:

  • Lucky Strike (Bowling Alley)(at the River East cinema)

Snip To-Dos [Updated: Halfway there!] DONE!

1) Eleven books read in December (from here to here) (whoops, forgot this one)
2) leftover December movie? (may skip) (here)
3) leftover December gig? (may skip)
4) December Albums bought (thankfully very few) here
5) December best of (here)
6) Year-end gigs/tunes (here)
7) Year-end flicks (here)
8) Year-end books (here)
9) Two movies in January (so far)
10) NineTen12 books in January (so far)
Looks like I’ve been doing a lot of reading and NOTHING else and since I’m actually busy trying to get some last minute stuff done this week over in the “real life”, it may be February before I even get started on this list. Just another thing to beat myself up over, you know I can’t have too many of those! Indeed, February it is.

À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for January.

Bought:

  • City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
  • HeartSick, by Chelsea Cain
  • Tethered, by Amy MacKinnon
  • The One Marvelous Thing, by Rikki DuCornet
  • City of Ashes, by Cassandra Clare
  • Working for the Devil, by Lilith Saintcrow
  • Magic to the Bone, by Devon Monk
  • The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Read:
  • City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
  • Shakespeare Wrote for Money, by Nick Hornby
  • HeartSick, by Chelsea Cain
  • A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens (re-read)
  • Mainspring, by Jay Lake
  • Magic to the Bone, by Devon Monk
  • City of Ashes, by Cassandra Clare
  • Tethered, by Amy MacKinnon
  • The Partly Cloudy Patriot, by Sarah Vowell
  • Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang

It was a good month for readin’. When I’m stressed out? I read.