Reading Roundup Wrapup: March 2012

Pick of the month: Through One Administration by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I really wanted to go for Wives and Daughters, but that book didn't have the emotional impact I expected-- possibly because circumstances meant that it took me at least six weeks to get through the whole thing, in fits and starts.  But Through One Administration actually reminds me of Wives and Daughters in a lot of ways, with its positive depiction of science and its examination of what kinds of "performance" a woman has to put on in society, its forthright male character, and its close psychological realism.  On the other hand, Through One Administration is much, much sadder.  I also should give a shoutout to Burnett's The Shuttle, which was quite incredible, and only failed to be my favorite book of the month because the version I read was abridged.  Who'd have thought I'd be loving Burnett this much?

All books read:
1. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
3. Lucifer: Morningstar by Mike Carey
4. Lucifer: Evensong by Mike Carey
5. Through One Administration by Frances Hodgson Burnett
6. Black Jack, Volume 1 by Osamu Tezuka
7. Professor Bernice Summerfield #6: The Big Hunt by Lance Parkin
8. Superman by George Lowther
9. Miracleman: The Golden Age by Neil Gaiman
10. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
11. A Lady of Quality: Being a most curious, hitherto unknown history, as related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff but not presented to the World of Fashion through the pages of The Tatler, and now for the first time written down by Frances Hodgson Burnett
12. Taft 2012 by Jason Heller
13. The Absolute Authority by Warren Ellis
14. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O'Malley
15. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
16. Alias: Ultimate Collection, Book 1 by Brian Michael Bendis
17. Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
18. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by Bryan Lee O'Malley
19. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
20. Little Lord Fauntleroy: A Drama in Three Acts, Founded on the Story of the Same Name by Frances Hodgson Burnett
21. Wildthyme in Purple edited by Stuart Douglas and Cody Quijano-Schell
22. We3: The Deluxe Edition by Grant Morrison
23. Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-first Century by Matt Hills
24. The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I was flabbergasted to learn that twenty-four books makes this by best reading month EVER.  (Well, since I started keeping track in September 2003.) I'm not even sure how that happened.  I mean, eleven of them are comics, but if you subtracted all of those, you'd still have thirteen, which would beat my total for February.  Let's say I'm pleased.

All books acquired:
1. Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno
2. The Head of the House of Coombe by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3. T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett
4. A Lady of Quality: Being a most curious, hitherto unknown history, as related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff but not presented to the World of Fashion through the pages of The Tatler, and now for the first time written down by Frances Hodgson Burnett
5. Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
6. Robin by Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
8. Constellation Games: A Space Opera Soap Opera by Leonard Richardson
9. Kraken: An Anatomy by China Miéville
10. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
11. Victorian Cities by Asa Briggs
12. The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction edited by George Mann
13. Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace: Manga, Volume One by Kia Asamiya
14. Letters to a Teacher by Sam Pickering
15. Wildthyme in Purple edited by Stuart Douglas and Cody Quijano-Schell
16. Star Wars: Invasion 1: Refugees by Tom Taylor
17. Star Wars: The Next Generation: Ghosts by Zander Cannon
18. Star Trek: Movie Classics Omnibus by Marv Wolfman, Andy Schmidt, Mike W. Barr, and Peter David

Only in this month could I pick up 18 books and still inch out of "book debt"!  I have my excuses, of course.  #1, 8, 9, and 14 were complimentary copies or gifts.  #2-7 were for school (we finalized the second half of the reading list for my Burnett/Gaskell course late).  #10-13 I got on a trip to a warehouse-sized used bookstore in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I could not pass them up.  #16-18 were all remaindered for $2 at the Ocean State Job Lot.

And then, of course, #15 was my complimentary copy of a book I have a story in!

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 409

I added a bunch of library books to the list this month, which caused rather an upheaval.  First time crossing the 400 boundary...