Last Minute Shopping - My Favorite Books of 2009

I thought I'd  do a list of some of my favorite books in 2009 as a suggestion to anyone looking for Christmas presents or a New Years resolution to read more.  

2009 is the year I discovered the author or series in question, so just because it is on this list does not mean that it is a recent publication .

Genre One: Fantasy

Book One of a series which imagines the Napoleonic Wars with dragons.  Told from the perspectives of a former Naval Captain and the dragon that fate thrusts into his lap, the author creates likeable, believable characters, even her background characters who show up for less than a chapter per book.   There are enough plot twists in the five published novels that they don’t get predictable – the author is good a creating problems that as a reader I didn’t see coming and then don’t immediately see an obvious solution to. 

Genre Two: Chick Paranormal.  Chick Paranormal is distinguished by the use of a strong female protagonist with paranormal powers (whether in a fantasy or reality setting) and some degree of romantic subplot.

Cry Wolf is a spin-off series from Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series, which begins with Moon Called .  Charles, an ancient and powerful werewolf and the enforcer across all of America and Anna, a woman made werewolf against her will, have their wolf-selves declare themselves mated before they've known each other 24 hours.  Their human sides must deal with the emotional confusion this creastes, while thwarting enimies willing to exploit any weaknesses in their union between themselves or with their pack.  The loveable charecters that Briggs brings to life at your fingertips more than compensates for a slightly prosaic plot line (see also her Dragon Bones / Dragon Blood Hurog Duology for this kind of literary magic)

  In a world where magic and science move across reality in waves, Kate Daniels works as a mercenary in the remains of Atlanta, keeping to herself lest she endanger anyone else for she has taken an impossible mission upon herself, which is sure to end in pain and death for those and all she holds dear.  Unfortunately, she finds herself tangled up with the local were pack, where uneasy alliance soon turn to friendships and even possibly more.   Not perhaps a ground-breaking series, but a well written one; you might even read it again if you run out of unread books on a lazy weekend afternoon.

Another Spin-off series, this time from the Cassandra Palmer Series that begins with Touch the Dark    Dorina is dhampir, and her father is Dracula's brother.  Dracula, long since insane, but still very powerful, has broken out of his prison and needs to be stopped.  Dorina is talked into it by her father who leads her to believe that Dracula has a friend of hers.  Dorina is the straight man for a whole slew of fantastic characters who lead her around in circles while she tries to kick their asses until they give up useful information and several try to get into her pants.

Genre Three: Chick Paranormal Pornographic.  This subgenre of the chick paranormal genre maintains the tradition of the ass-kicking heroine with paranormal abilities, but brings a ton of X-rated sex scenes to the table (figure 15-25% of copy will be kinky sex scenes).

Riley Jenson is a werewolf who works in a government organization that protects people from those with supernatural powers.   Werewolves are oversexed paranormal creatures; during the full moon, a werewolf denied all other company will breed even with her worst enemy, or risk going mad.  This series allows you to enjoy the author's complete and graphic sexual imagination, a slight amount of emotional angst by the protagonist at her inability to find her true mate, and a great many bloody ass kickings handed out indiscriminately.   There's also a reasonable plot to give you a bit of a breather between all the sex.

Genre Four: Chick Mystery.  Also sometimes referred to as cozies, especially if the protagonist is into knitting, baking, or other womanly things.  The most cozy will feature recipes or craft designs mentioned in the book at the backof the book.

The least "cozy" of these mysteries, this book revolves around Izzy Duncan, who grew up in a family of private investigators and is pathologically unable to leave any mystery unturned.  Hilarious hijinks ensue as she attempts to follow her "suspects" around and figure out what is going on.  The first person narrative style is a nice change from the third person limited that mysteries usually foist on us.

Once  respectable accountant, Helen's divorce has left her on the lam in Florida, looking for places that will pay her off the books.  In her first two weeks at Juliana's, an exclusive woman's boutique, she discovers that her manager may be running drugs, hiring murders, and blackmailing most of the regular clientele.  When  her manager turns up dead, it i up to Helen to unravel the craziness that was her managers life and get to the bottom of her murder, before the local police decide that she's too intimately involved to be innocent.  A great strength of this book and the series is the way that life is breathed into even the smallest background characters, leaving you with a cast and crew of zany Floridians to enjoy again on a re-read.

Ivy Malone has noticed that women her age (she calls herself a LOL) are invisible to everyone around them.  She decides to use her new found superpower to investigate all the suspicious things that are going on in her small town.   Unfortunately for her, she stumbles on something a little bigger than vandalism, and the perpetrators are after her head.  Can she figure out what's going on in time?  Not recommended for non-Christians, as it is a bit Bible-heavy, which I enjoyed, but would not push on a friend lest she think that it was a backward attempt at conversion.

Genre Five: Christian Inspirational

I am not generally a fan of Debbie Macomber's fiction books, but I thought that she had some great perspectives here.  She offered a good mix of personal anecdotes, stories, and advice for those of us who are trying to figure out how to give back to the world the way God created us to.  If you are feeling overwhelmed by all that you would like to give, or if you are feeling that the giving well is running dry within you, I would recommend this book.

Genre Six: Cookbooks 

Intended for those of use who like to eat, rather than to cook, this book is full of inexpensive, healthier versions of your favorite take-out dishes.  It features Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Indian, and Deli foods, and several recipes have become my favorite.   I especially recommend the chili with mushrooms and the nachos made with baked tortillas.  I'm making myself hungry just thinking about this ...


The Gold Standard of basic cooking.  Your mother used Joy the way you will use this.  If don't have it, you want it.  And if you have a friend who is trying to learn how to cook, this is the perfect gift. 

 If you’re looking for that last minute present for a bookworm, I hope my list helps.  Keep in mind that Sunday  is the last day to get guaranteed Christmas delivery using Amazonstandard shipping rates, which run $3 a shipment and $0.99 a book.  Chose 4 books in the 4 for 3 paperback promotion, though and you’re still coming out on discounts and tax (or lack thereof)

For a big splurge present for yourself or anyone else, I recommend that you break down and get:

Amazon is offering it with free two day shipping, thus guaranteeing its arrival before Christmas.  I love my Kindle, and I'd have been delighted to get it as a present.  Even though I paid the old price for it, I've just about made up the cost in the lowered prices of almost all books (especially hardback bestsellers) and the free content (free e-books!) that Amazon hands out on occasion.  Plus I don't have to find storage space for the hundred book titles I have kicking around in it, which in a 900 square foot house is significant.

The perils of eating out

SS4BC has declared her 2010 challenge to be 345 days without eating out. It's a fantastic goal, and I'd make it my own, except that it would be cheating - I've aready pretty much stopped eating out myself.

Weight Watchers sells a book with the point values of various foods at various restaurants, or you can get the information on the internet if you subscribe to their web services.

It blew my mind how much of the stuff I ate at restaurants was twice the points as cooking it myself, with half the taste.  I already knew that they were twice the price, but that hadn't stopped me:)

To keep myself from the restaurants, I've had to learn to make what I crave.  For instance, I adore Chinese.  So I keep a pound of frozen chicken and two pounds of broccoli in my freezer at all times.  That way I can easily satisfy my stir-fry cravings any time I want them, and I'm not desperate to buy a pile of greasy food.  If I must go to a Chinese restaurant, I fill up on hot and sour soup.  It's one of my favorite things, it's 2 points a cup, and its cheap.  Even if you order two bowls of it, you're not shelling out like you are for the all you can eat buffet (in points and dollars).

My mom loves pizza.  She makes her own whole-wheat crust pizzas with roasted red pepper, Canadian bacon, and olives four at a time, then freezes the three she doesn't eat that evening.  Once you've eaten that for a while, I assure you that you don't want what Dominoes puts out even if it's available.

My favorite book for figuring out how to cook what I used to purchase is Weight Watchers Take-Out Tonight! : 150+ Restaurant Favorites to Make at Home--All 8 POINTS or Less.   It might be a diet cookbook, but the foods don't come out tasting diet.  And this is a cookbook aimed at those who don't particularly want to cook, we just want to eat.  Even if you aren't doing Weight Watchers and could care less about the point values of food, this book is worth a read.  It covers Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Italian, Greek, Japanese and Deli foods.  I mostly make things from the Chinese and Mexican sections, because they are my favorites, and almost every recipe I have tried from the book was delicious (and even the couple of misses were still OK).

Once you get the trick of it, you won't be giving up as much time cooking as you think you might.  By the time you drive to the restaurant, order, wait for your food, eat, and pay - well, it's not quick.  Even ordering in pizza takes some time; get a pre-made crust, tomato sauce, some light cheese, and the toppings of your choice and go to town - save yourself calories and money.

Giving More of What I Have, and Less of What I Don't

I didn't end up selling enough to cover my shortfall, let alone send any more coats to Afghan children.  I've decided not to send anything else.  I read One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity from the library this week, and it really helped me to take a look at my giving patterns and realize that I don't need to spend more money than I have giving to other people - if God needs money somewhere, and chooses me to be the instrument of giving it, it will happen if I relax and let Him do it.  What I need to focus on is the non-monetary giving to the people around me that I have often let fall by the wayside - listening to, affirming, and helping the people that I see every day or every week. 
Debbie Macomber also strongly suggests a gratitude and prayer journal.  Inspired by her example, I resolved to begin one immediately!  Of course, that was last week, and I am still making excuses as to why I haven't started.  No more procrastination though - I am off to get started right now.

His Majesty's Dragon - Free for a limited time

One of the neat things about owning a Kindle is that Amazon gives you free books. Of course, they hope to entice you to buy more. I am OK with that - if I like a book enough to pay money for it (rather than borrow it at the library) it makes my day.

I understand that, if you have an iPhone, you can download an free app that allows you to read Amazon Kindle content on your phone. Details here (directs you to Amazon.com).

If the price below shows as zero, you can still get this book free.


Anything free is worth what you paid for it. I liked it so much that I also bought the next 4 novels in the series and made them my vacation reading.

The series is set in the Napoleonic wars. Except that, in Ms. Novik's world, dragons inhabit regions all over the world. All regional dragons possess different characteristics; some are acid breathers, some are fast, some are more intelligent than others. And the nations of the world use them to wage war.

A British Navy captain captures a Chinese dragon egg. No one on board knows anything about dragons, except that they have to be tamed at birth, and there is no time to get the egg back to England. Because it is Chinese, it is infinitely precious, because the Chinese breed the best dragons in the world. Due to misadventure, the Navy captain tames the dragon, and thus is thrust into the word of the Dragon corps, a licentious, freewheeling lot, despised by the Navy, that even accepts women into their ranks. Of course, they see the Navy as a bunch of supercilious prigs, and most of them treat him accordingly.

This book contains enough classic fantasy elements to make it a rollicking good read, without so many cliches that you can anticipate the entire ending ten pages in. By the fifth book in the series, Ms. Novik has taken her characters to a different place than I guessed at the end of book one, or even at the end of book two.

It's not deathless prose. But if you like fantasy, and you need a summer read, I would suggest it. If you don't like ebooks, it also comes in paper here.

Credit Cards are not the Devil

I read a lot of PF blogs, and a lot of PF bloggers love Dave Ramsey. They love him so much that I think some of them would like to bear his children (whether or not that would be biologically possible). So I finally broke down and read The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, admittedly mostly to see what all the hype was about.

I don't want to knock the guy too hard, as his system obviously works for a whole lot of people, and you haven't noticed me writing any bestselling PF books lately. He has some good advice: figure out what you make, spend less than you make, know your debt, pay down your debt, make sacrifices now to save yourself the pain of compound interest on your debt, etc. However, his methodology, the snowflake, seems counter-intuitive to me. I think that my brain just doesn't work the same way his does - to me, 1K of debt is the same whether I owe it to one creditor or 10. So paying down smaller amounts, rather than higher-interest amounts, just doesn't make sense. As far as pop-culture PF books go, I strongly prefer Suze Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, as I felt that it had better debt reduction and savings strategies for the way my brain works.

My real issue, though, is his insistence that those who follow his plan cut up all credit cards. Don't get me wrong - I have gotten in trouble with credit cards before myself. However, the problem was not the cards, the problem was that I spent more than I made. Once I solved the problem, credit cards became a very useful tool for me.

I make over 1K a year by using credit cards. I currently have 4 - an AMEX, 2 Mastercards, and a Discover. None of them has any annual fees. I use whichever card will give me the most cash back wherever I happen to be buying stuff. I try to get Mr. Goat to do the same, but he doesn't have the same love of cash back that I do, so he does so only when he remembers. I pay all four balances off each month.

Additionally, I don't have the problems inherent in carrying cash. I don't worry about being mugged with this week's grocery budget in my purse. I don't drop cash accidentally. I can tell panhandlers straight out that "I never carry cash," thus removing the temptation to give them money. (I refuse to give panhandlers money as a matter of principle, but my principles are easily tested by a hard luck story.) My wallet doesn't present any temptation to my housekeeper.

Finally, as part of my budgeting process, I track all my purchases. Credit cards make that way easier - if I somehow lose a receipt, I know that it will show up online in a couple of days. If I ever get really organized and start tracking using Quickbooks, I'll be able to download my tracking automatically.

The credit card companies pay me for all this convenience. All I have to do is pay my balances on time, in full, every month. Since I am checking them every couple of days to crosscheck the accuracy of my tracking, it is easy to schedule a payment as soon as the bill comes due. The power of the Internet has allowed me to do this even while living in China.

More importantly, if you close all of your credit card accounts, it will wreck your credit score. Mr. Ramsey seems to think that you don't need a good credit score if you aren't looking to borrow, but the truth is that everyone from insurers to employers judge you by your credit score nowadays. It may not be fair, but it's the way it is.

I am not saying that credit cards are for everyone. If you don't enjoy item-by-item tracking, and prefer the jar method, cash is probably an easier and more efficient day-to-day option for you. Some people truly cannot restrain their spending with a credit card in their name; I agree that they should forgo the use of them. A universal ban, however, seems unreasonable to me.

Canceling all your credit cards is a lot like joining AA - you are making a radical behavior change that will put you outside the norm for our society, with all the consequences that that entails to your credit score. If you are an alcoholic, you may need AA. If you quit drinking as part of a plan to lose a little weight, AA is overkill. Mr. Ramsey is treating all his readers as though they have a credit card addiction; I don't think that we all do.

All addictions entail denial; do you think I am making a good point, or trying to use a good cover story?