A Portable Magic

A Life In Books

Top Ten Tuesday: Five Characters Everyone Loves But I Just Don’t Get and Five Characters I LOVE But Others Seem To Dislike



Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic: characters you either love that everyone else hates or you hate that everyone else loves. I feel a little like this prompt is tilted towards reading that’s fandom-oriented (i.e. YA), which isn’t most of my reading. Since I can’t come up with ten either way, I’m going to split this as 5 Characters Everyone Loves But I Just Don’t Get and 5 Characters I LOVE But Others Seem To Dislike.

Not For Me

Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter): Honestly, she was the first character that came to my mind when I read the prompt. People ADORE Luna, and I just…don’t. I re-read the series a few years ago and my first impression was confirmed. She’s not an awful character or anything, she’s just not my cup of tea…I find her quirkiness irritating rather than endearing, which leaves me feeling all aloney on my owney.

Lizzie Bennett (Pride & Prejudice): Everyone falls all over themselves about what an amazing heroine she is, but she’s my least favorite of the Austen novel leads. I get that the whole thing with the book is her and Darcy learning to get over their pride (hers) and prejudice (his), but she’s kind of a jerk enough along the way that I’d have been just as happy to see her not get the happy ending (I think Darcy’s pretty yuck himself, though, so they totally deserve each other anyways).

Tris Pryor (Divergent): I tried and failed to get into the Divergent books (I thought the first was decent, but the second annoyed me so much I didn’t even pick up the third. I will at some point, probably, but I’m in no hurry at all. Tris completely failed to grab me…she just immediately felt like a poor man’s Katniss Everdeen, except with all the real interest sucked out of her. Pass.

Scarlett O’Hara (Gone With The Wind): The only reason anyone can stand her, I think, is Vivian Leigh’s incredible performance in the movie adaptation. In the book, I found her selfish and spiteful and petty and just a terrible mother. I enjoyed the book much less than the movie and the character of Scarlett was the main reason why.

Don Quixote (Don Quixote): The power of my hate for this book a year after I’ve read it is unabated. If the guy were just being weird by himself and not getting anyone else involved in his nutty take on the world, I have no beef. But like old dudes everywhere, he goes ahead and decides that his view of the world is the only correct one, dammit. Ugh. Ugh. Hated him, hated Sancho, hated the book. 

But I DO like…


Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby): She’s selfish and shallow, but I’ve always seen her as a sad and ultimately sympathetic character. To me, she’s trapped inside the world she’s chosen and swallowed up by it. She’s a pretty little bird, raised in a cage, that lives in a cage, and ultimately will die there without ever knowing true happiness. 

Cho Chang (Harry Potter): This is maybe cheating a little because I’m not a hardcore Cho fangirl, but I think she gets an unreasonable amount of pushback. Harry gets a crush on her, waits forever to make a move, and then gets all butthurt when she’s had the audacity to start going out with someone else who likes her. And after that guy dies, she tries to move on with her life and give going out with Harry a shot and figures out she’s not ready to date again yet. What’s to hate on here? I genuinely don’t get it. 

Frodo Baggins (The Lord of the Rings): He’s not anyone’s favorite character in The Lord of the Rings trilogy…not even mine. But I feel like he gets brushed off as whiny or boring, when he’s actually incredibly brave and dedicated. Guy has never left his hometown and then VOLUNTEERS to take the most powerful evil object that exists to the worst place in the world to destroy it, and stays true to his mission even though he’s given plenty of chances to ditch it. He only falters at the very end, when the Ring’s malevolent influence that has been working on him the entire time finally overcomes him. Frodo is a badass, yo. 

Humbert Humbert (Lolita): I know. He’s reprehensible. He’s a child rapist. If he were an actual human, my legs couldn’t carry me away from him fast enough. But as a character in a book, he’s fascinating: witty, erudite, and completely undone by his infatuation with Lolita. It’s a testament to the power of Nabokov’s talent that he can write this absolute monster of a man with such pathos that he’s not nearly as loathsome as he should be. 

Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair): I totally did hate Becky for the first portion of the novel as she schemed away without any apparent thought for the consequences for other people, up to and including her only real friend Amelia. But as the plot pushed forward, I found myself rooting for her. She’s totally a sociopath, but girl is a SURVIVOR. She does what she needs to do to. Now that I’m thinking about it, she’s a lot like Scarlett O’Hara, but for some reason I find her struggles to work her way up the ladder from the bottom more compelling than Scarlett’s quest to retain a top-level perch. 

Book 14: Thirst

“She sat on the step, her skirt hugging up and exposing the tight skin at the bend of her knee. The stairs were lipped with crosshatched edgings that looked like graphite. Something about it made him sad- that brutal edge so close to Laura’s knee. There was nothing in either one of their bodies as permanent as those emergency stairs”

Dates read: January 2-5, 2016

Rating: 6/10

Almost four years ago now, I moved from Michigan to Nevada. In Michigan, I lived right on the water, on an inland lake. Like, open the door and the water was no more than a stone’s throw away. I’ve been swimming in the summer and on ice skates in the winter for as long as I can remember. Moving to Nevada was a very real change from that. Nevada is the driest state in the country in a good year, and we haven’t been having good years lately. We’re in the middle of a serious drought, and it’s not hard to imagine a future in which there could be significant water restrictions.

But the action in Thirst is kicked off by something not so prosaic as a drought. Rather, the fresh water simply vanishes.  The grid goes down, as does the network, and emergency services are so overwhelmed that they can’t respond to the crash causing the enormous traffic snarl Eddie Chapman finds himself in. He doesn’t know about the water yet. Frustrated at the delay, close to home, and wanting to avoid worrying his anxious wife, Laura, he leaves his car behind and jogs back to his house. On the way there, he notices that the stream he crosses is dry, the trees around it singed and ashy. And thus Eddie, Laura, and their suburban neighbors find themselves in an awful bind: unable to communicate with anyone besides the people they’re in physical proximity to, no access to news or information, and no water during the steamy summer weather. How everyone deals with the circumstances they find themselves in is really what the book is about. How do you provide for yourself? Your neighbors? Strangers? The initial panic, the dwindling supply of liquids, the delirium as the dehydration kicks in…the pretense of civilization vanishes quickly. 

This novel read, to me, of a mix of two books I’ve read recently: Jose Saramago’s Blindness (which I loved), and Knut Hamsun’s Hunger (which I hated). Like Blindness, the story follows a group of people cut off from the outside world in a place where rules and the social ties that bind are disintegrating after a catastrophic event. Like Hunger, the inability to meet basic needs of physical survival cause the characters to become delusional and therefore unreliable narrators. Thirst is better than Hunger, but not nearly as good as Blindness. The plot took a while to start moving, and I felt like it ultimately wrapped up a little too quickly. Less exposition at the beginning, more denouement at the end would have made it stronger. But it’s engaging, and once I got into the thick of it I was intrigued and wanted to know what happened next. It’s pretty quick to get through, and I enjoyed it. I’d recommend it to a friend interested in post-apocalyptic style literature, but don’t think I’ll end up re-reading it myself.

Tell me, blog friends…what do you think is the worst doomsday scenario? Running out of water sounds like a pretty awful one to me.

**I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Note: Review cross-posted at Cannonball Read

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books To Read If You Are In The Mood For Learning

My original plan with this blog was to do just one post per week: my 500 books, in the order I’m reading them. But with the Book Blogger Love-A-Thon, I got a little inspired to do more. I’m not going to go bonkers here, but there’s a feature hosted by The Broke and The Bookish called Top Ten Tuesday that I read a lot on other people’s blogs that I follow, and I want to get in on the fun! The prompt this week was Ten Books To Read If You’re In The Mood For X. I kind of waffled back and forth about what exactly I wanted X to be, and then finally hit on my topic. That’s right, y’all: non-fiction. I feel like non-fiction doesn’t get a lot of love on the book blogosphere, so I’m highlighting ten of my favorite non-fiction books to read if you’re in the mood to learn about something new! 

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: This is the book that made me become a psychology major in college, and I’m exaggerating only slightly. It’s a collection of short case studies about people whose brains aren’t working the way they should. I read the title story in my Introduction to Psychology class and was fascinated, and when I picked up the whole book, I devoured the entire thing in short measure. How and why the brain goes wrong is just incredibly interesting, and Oliver Sacks (one of my favorite authors) always makes sure that it’s not just the biology and chemistry, but that these things happen to actual people and the impact it has on their lives.
 
The Nine: As a law-and-politics person, I’m inclined to be interested in those sorts of books for pleasure reading, so there are going to be a few on this list. This one is about the Supreme Court and how it operates: a behind-the-scenes look at the then-sitting justices and how they go about getting the business of the Court done. With the death of Justice Scalia and a confirmation fight almost certainly upcoming, this is a timely read about what actually goes on with those nine judges that make up the highest court in the land. 

The Hot Zone: I first read this book in high school…and then again and again and again. It seems like something that should be a mystery thriller: an Ebola virus outbreak on the east coast of the United States. But it’s real! It happened! This is a must-read and will drive home even further how very scary that recent outbreak was and how bad it could have gotten. 

Under the Banner of Heaven: I picked this up at the airport flying back and forth between Alabama and Michigan during law school on a whim and I was totally sucked in to this story about Warren Jeffs and fundamentalist Mormonism. Nevada has a lot of Mormons, and the ones I know (mostly through work) are some of the nicest, hardest working people I know. But religious fundamentalism isn’t exclusive to any one faith, and this book sheds light on the evil that can be perpetuated in the name of God and heaven.

Devil in the Grove: Speaking of evil, I think a lot of people don’t appreciate how bad things really were in the Jim Crow-era South. We know, but we don’t know. This book brings it to horrifying life by telling the story of one of Thurgood Marshall’s pre-SCOTUS cases, in which four young black men go on trial for raping a young white woman in Florida and the depths of depravity they are subjected to are just beyond imagination. I tend to be a little defensive of the South after my time in Alabama for law school, because there are so many amazing people down there that get tarred with ugly stereotypes just because of where they grew up. But, in the interests of honesty and fairness, there are a lot of people who are racist and zero embarrassed about it and pretending it ain’t so isn’t helping anyone. 

In Cold Blood: This is one of my all-time favorite books, which I recommend across the board to everyone. It tends to be considered the first non-fiction novel, so its structure appeals to people who are usually all fiction all the time, while also appealing to people who actually enjoy reading non-fiction. It’s a true crime story about the brutal murder of a four family members in rural Kansas. The whodunit isn’t the point, you find that out pretty quickly. But the why and the what happens next…that’s the good stuff.

The Anointed One: This one is REALLY specific to my interests, but I think it’s a fascinating story regardless of where you live. Veteran Nevada political journalist Jon Ralston tells the story of the gubernatorial election of 1998 and how it was effectively decided by the powers that be long before the first voter cast the first ballot, recounting how each step drew Kenny Guinn’s inevitable election even closer. Nevada is a small state in terms of politics, so many of the players are still active and still at it.

A People’s History of the United States: Social justice is a HUGE area of discussion right now, what with Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and the Black Lives Matter movement. It seems like there are a lot of people who want to shout loudly about the American Dream and how incredible it is while happily ignoring the reality that the pretty much our entire history consists of things being really pretty awful for anyone who isn’t an upper-class WASP. This is what they didn’t teach you in history class. Because it seems inevitable that it will come up, no, I don’t hate America. I think America’s a good country and I like living here and don’t want to leave. Being critical of our own history, especially how it deviates from the preferred narrative about boundless opportunity for everyone ever, is something I don’t think constitutes anti-Americanism. I think it’s necessary for us to keep getting better and better.

Game Change: For the story of an election that more people might be familiar with, this book covers the presidential race in 2008. Spoiler alert: Obama wins. But unlike the smoothly orchestrated machinations of the election depicted in The Anointed One, this one got messy. This book lifts the curtain on the slugfest to the Democratic nomination and the hurried scramble to find a solid vice presidential contender on the Republican side that gave us Sarah Palin. What we see on the news is just the tiniest fragment of what goes into a presidential campaign, and this is a fascinating look at something much closer to the whole story.


Deluxe: Have you ever coveted a Louis Vuitton bag? Or sighed longingly after a designer gown? Once upon a time, luxury goods were, well, luxurious, crafted with the highest quality materials and attention to detail. But the rise of corporate monolithic ownership of luxury brands presaged the decline of the artisans who established them in the first place and cost-cutting has made what was once deluxe a shadow of what it used to be. I’m a devoted reader of my lady mags, and this really made me think about the business behind the pretty pictures. 

Book 13: The Creation of Anne Boleyn


“Why is Anne Boleyn so fascinating? Maybe we don’t have to go any further than the obvious: The story of her rise and fall is an elementally satisfying- and scriptwise, not very different from- a Lifetime movie: a long-suffering, postmenopausal wife; an unfaithful husband and a clandestine affair with a younger, sexier woman; a moment of glory for the mistress; then lust turned to loathing, plotting, and murder as the cycle comes full circle.”

Dates read: December 29, 2015- January 2, 2016

Rating: 9/10

Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. It’s how you remember what became of the six wives of Henry XIII. That there’s even a way to help you remember the love life of a monarch whose reign is 500 years in the past speaks to the enduring cultural relevancy of Henry and his wives. And if you were to ask someone off the street to name you just one of them, I’d put my money on it that they’d name Anne Boleyn. Witch, feminist before her time, seductress, all of the above and more….a lot of people have a lot of opinions about Anne, who she was, and what she did. But who was the “real” Anne Boleyn, and why do we still care?

Susan Bordo is a popular culture/gender studies academic, and brings a welcome level of inquiry, research, and critical thought to her examination of the legends that surround Anne Boleyn. Nearly all of Anne’s personal correspondence and even official portraiture were destroyed by Henry in the aftermath of her death, so we have to rely almost entirely on secondhand accounts (many of them hostile, like Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys) to know much of anything about her at all. This has created a narrative with substantial gaps, which can only be filled by conjecture.

The book begins with a walkthrough of what we do and can know with relative certainty about Anne (what she probably looked like, her upbringing in the French court, her move to England and courtship with Henry, her proto-Protestant religious beliefs, her short reign, and the circumstances of her death). It then examines the myths that have sprung up around her, and how they’ve varied over time. Bordo’s research pops up interesting facts, like that the “Anne as headstrong teenager” strain of Anne’s mythology only pops up after World War 2, when the concept of teenager-hood was just becoming a thing and audiences were primed by wartime media to be ready for plucky heroines.

Bordo is displeased with the popular historical fiction surrounding Anne, and she rakes it over the coals pretty hard. Phillipa Gregory gets an especially high dose of her ire, to an extent which I actually feel is unfair. Gregory has never pretended to be writing scholarly, academic history, and while there are definitely people who probably look at her books and think they’re reading something that’s been heavily researched for historical accuracy, I have to imagine that most of us understand that she’s using outlines of the actual people who were her characters and taking pretty heavy dramatic license with the rest. It’s not Gregory’s “fault”, per se, that her book became enormously popular and is probably most people’s go-to reference for Anne Boleyn. Some of her statements imply that she does hold herself out as somewhat of an authority in the era, but at the end of the day, there’s a reason her books are filed in the fiction section. Then again, I own and enjoy many of Gregory’s books, so maybe I’m just defensive.

At the end of the day, if you have an interest in Anne Boleyn that was sparked by the dreaded The Other Boleyn Girl, or Natalie Dormer’s incredible portrayal on The Tudors, or Wolf Hall, or anything at all, really, you’ll enjoy this book. It’s accessible, well-researched, and put together in a way that makes for a really enjoyable reading experience!

Tell me, blog friends…do you have a favorite historical figure to read about?

Note: Review cross-posted at Cannonball Read

My Reading Life: Amazon Kindle

I’ll be the first to admit that I always prefer reading a hard copy of a book. The feeling of the pages under your fingers, the quality of the reading experience, watching your bookmark move through the pages as you go through the book…it’s just a better experience all the way around. So why am I about to shill the Amazon Kindle? I’ll tell you why.

I’ve had a Kindle for over five years now. The same one even…a Kindle Touch 3G. It was a Christmas gift from my dad in 2010. Yes, I plan on upgrading one of these days, probably soon-ish even (the Kindle Paperwhite, linked above, is what I’ve got my eye on personally). And while I’ll admit it took me a while to start using it regularly, it’s now a key piece of my reading life. I’ve got over 200 books waiting to be read on there! Here’s are the two big reasons it’s become indispensable for me:

  • Convenience: I’ll say it again, I’ve got over 200 books on the Kindle. 200! I’m sure anyone reading this knows how much space 200 books takes up. If not, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of space. It’s multiple bookshelves. As an apartment-dwelling person, I lack the space to deal with another 200 books on top of the ones that are already spilling out all over the place. And when you travel? Even better! Instead of trying to jam three books into a suitcase for a vacation, I can just slide my Kindle into my purse. Boom. Done. Plus, there’s Kindle apps for your phone, for your laptop, for your tablet, so your Kindle books are wherever you are!
  • Cost: The upfront investment is steep, I grant you. The least expensive Kindle is $79, and depending on options (some have ads that display when you’re not reading, which are less expensive, and some have 3G wireless as well as WiFi, which is more expensive), they can go up to over $200. But once you make that initial investment, there are monthly sales of Kindle books for $3.99 or less, as well as Kindle Daily Deals offering a few books each day in the same price range. With the exception of some Christmas shopping for myself with an Amazon gift card, I haven’t paid more than $3.99 for a book on the Kindle in years. Assuming $4/pop, that’s 25 books for $100. For new hard copies, that’s more like 5-6 books for $100. Also, like I mentioned with the Kindle I currently own, they last for a long time. I haven’t been kind to mine (it’s spent a lot of time in the bathroom while the shower is running over the years), and while I have to imagine it’s approaching the end of its usable life, it’s not done yet!   
Tell me, blog friends…do you use an e-reader? 

2016 Book Blogger Love-A-Thon: The Questionnaire

As a pretty new member of the book blog world, I’ve been looking for ways to make connections with the other book bloggers out there, whose work I read and enjoy and admire. So when I found out about the 2016 Book Blogger Love-A-Thon, I knew I really wanted to be a part of it. And the first thing to do is a questionnaire to help you get to know me a little better. If you’ve ever been curious about the lady behind 500 Books, here are some answers!

  1. What’s your name: Gabby
  2. Where in the world are you blogging from: Reno, Nevada
  3. How did you get into blogging in the first place: When setting some goals for my 30s, I decided I wanted to read 500 books. But half the fun is being able to talk about them, and so to give myself a space to do that and to keep myself on track with my reading goals, I started the blog!
  4. How did you come up with your blog name: Like I said above, I set my goal at 500 books. Since my pace has been about 50 books per year the last few years, multiply that by ten years and you have…500 Books!
  5. What genre do you read and review the most on your blog: So far, it looks like literary fiction and non-fiction are big winners. But I think my reading as of late is a little non-fiction heavier than my normal reading pattern. I’d say we’re most likely to end up with adult fiction as my most-read genre.
  6. What other types of posts do you do on your blog, apart from reviews: I’ve done some lists (of favorites and not-favorites), and I’ve got posts planned about My Reading Life (local bookstores, how I get my books, etc) and a Dreamcasting series I really want to do (I love watching movies).
  7. Best blogging experience so far: Seeing people that I wouldn’t have expected to have any interest in my reading liking and commenting on my posts on facebook…it’s silly, but it’s really neat to have another way to connect with people I might not have seen or heard from in a while.
  8. Favorite thing about the blogging community: I really enjoy getting to see how and what other people read and picking up recommendations of books I might not have considered without prompting.
  9. Name the 5 books you’re most excited for this 2016: The Queen of the Night is already out, but I haven’t read it yet and it released in 2016, so it counts. I’m also looking forward to The Girls, The Gilded Years, Sweetbitter, and Private Citizens.
  10. Name the 5 books you want to read this 2016 that you didn’t get to in previous years: So many! My TBR pile is a problem. But I’m looking forward especially (and am on schedule to read): American Gods, Yes Please, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Devil In The White City, and The Group.
  11. What’s an underrated book or series that you think everyone should read? Middlesex gets all the love, but The Virgin Suicides is my favorite book of all time. My autographed copy is my most prized possession (besides my engagement ring)
  12. Which book boy or girl would be your book BFF? Vianne Rocher from Chocolat makes good chocolate, which would make her a compelling choice even without the rest of how great she is.
  13. Which book boy or girl would be your book boyfriend/girlfriend? I fell a little bit in love with Tristran from Stardust when I read it, even more when adorable Charlie Cox played him in the movie adaptation.
  14. Who would you recruit for your apocalypse squad (5 characters max): Katniss Everdeen because she’d save my life with her skillz, Daenerys Targaryen because dragons, Harry Potter because magic, Aragorn because general badassery, Sabriel because she’d be able to come find me in Death if I ever died.
  15. Apart from reading, what are your other hobbies or interests: I really like watching movies, hanging out with my fiance and dog, and pole dancing!
  16. Apart from book shopping, what else do you like shopping for? Dresses! I have spent an ungodly sum of money at Modcloth on pretty dresses and it’s all well-spent.
  17. At a party, the DJ suddenly changes the song – and it’s your song. What song would be playing? This seems like it calls for a party song, so I’m going to go with “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye. Otherwise, the Ryan Adams cover of “Wonderwall” hits me right in the feels.
  18. Pick out either a book you want turned into a film/TV show, or a film/TV show you want turned into a book. I’d love to read The Jinx in the hands of a talented true crime author. That show haunted me.
  19. What would your dream library look like? I grew up in the Disney classic era, so the library that Belle gets from the Beast is pretty much the end all be all.
  20. Author you want to meet and sit down to tea with? Going for the cheesy, obvious choice, but JK Rowling. I just love her and feel like she would be a wonderful person to chat with for an hour or so. Most of which would be taken up with me thanking her for writing Harry Potter.

Book 12: Hood



“After the US-Dakota War of 1862, a US military commission tried 392 Dakota men and boys in seven weeks and sentenced 303 to death, although President Lincoln reduced the number to 39. In Mankato, Minnesota, the army arrayed the prisoners in rows on a custom-built scaffold, with identical white muslin hoods muffling their faces. The victims, who’d had no lawyers and were prohibited from speaking in their own defense during the trials (which were in English, anyway), sang through their hoods. They were hanged all at once, before 4,000 witnesses. It was the largest mass execution in US history.”

Dates read: December 26-29, 2015

Rating: 5/10

When Trayvon Martin was shot, there was a movement to blame what he was wearing (a hooded sweatshirt) for his death. A young black man should apparently know better than to wear a hoodie out and about in public. Never mind that Trayvon was a 17 year-old kid who was threatening only to the Skittles he was carrying with him, never mind that Trayvon was a human being who should have been able to wear whatever the damn hell he pleased while going about his own business. A hooded sweatshirt, obscuring his face, made him scary. Made him responsible, somehow, for his own cold-blooded murder.

Obviously that’s ridiculous (if you disagree, you should feel free to take your pageviews elsewhere…this blog and blogger are probably not going to be for you). But the hood has been a potent symbol for centuries, and this book examines the cultural history of hoods. Who wears them, and why? What do they mean? Author Alison Kinney traverses a wide history and a variety of contexts to explain the role of the hood; from state-sanctioned execution and terrorism like the Inquisition, the Klan, and Abu Ghraib, to protesters, fairy tales, and all the way down to college students to show how the hood is used by both the powerful and on the powerless to signify the roles they play. The first two sections, which focus on the death penalty and terrorism, are the strongest ones to me, the most cohesive. The rest of the book is more loosely organized and lacks the kind of narrative focus and drive that makes the first two sections compelling.

It’s interesting to focus in on one object this way, to think about how its meanings have changed through time. And this book is one of series (other entries include the remote control, drones, etc), but honestly this is the only one that sparked my curiosity enough to pick up. Kinney has clearly done her research…she illustrates how not only has the use of the hood changed over the course of history, but how there have been latter-day distortions of past use of the hood (which she refers to as “shaggy medievalism”) to serve the purposes of those who use it in their own time. It’s a quick and engaging read, especially if you’re inclined to enjoy thinking about privilege and abuse of power.

Tell me, blog friends, what object would you enjoy reading a cultural history of?

**I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review**

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