Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

It should be no news to anyone here that I buy a lot of Apple products. This was an interesting read that highlighted the importance of Jobs’ very strong design sensibility, together with his extreme eccentricity. The book left me, though, without any real sense of how Jobs transformed himself from the person who got ousted from Apple to the one who was able to save it. Maybe that is unknowable.

This was one of Neal Stephenson’s more immediately accessible books in a while (I thoroughly enjoyed Anathem but the opening clock-winding scene rivalled Bilbo’s birthday party for story-opening side-excursions). It’s a good read, although I found I needed to use my suspension of disbelief for at least one plot point that turned around a very large coincidence.

The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht

The silver lining to my team getting ousted early from the hockey playoffs is that I need no longer endure that ad. Each season, there’s always one annoying commercial, that gets annoying because some marketing manager has over-purchased slots, so you see it every commercial break.

This year’s, however, was extra-cromulent, not due to an ear-wormy jingle, or overplaying, but simply for its content.

I like mint. I like chocolate. I like the two together. But I will NEVER be trying the mint-chip Klondike Bar, because its ad, which posits that some guy listening to his wife for 5 seconds is worth rewarding with scantily-clad cheerleaders and a frozen cookie thoroughly insulted both me and my husband, and really wives and husbands everywhere. We both sat there after it aired going, “Really? Really?! Ugh…”

The ad makes the man look stupid and pathetic. It turns the older woman into an irrelevant punchline, and objectifies the younger ones. Listening to someone you supposedly love for 5 seconds is supposed to be a sacrifice worthy of reward? Simply yuck, Unilever.

It seems like a marketing missed opportunity with such an iconic brand slogan. Sure, go for humour. But don’t belittle. I’m fed up with blatantly clichéd sexism in advertising. It’s everywhere, and I’m tired of some corporate advertising jerk inflicting it on me when I’m just trying to enjoy some hockey. Oh yeah, women like sports too. Fancy that.

It’s pretty neat. The fish-eye and wide-angle blur the edges of the photos a bit more than I’d like, but for $70 in optics, it works pretty well in a pinch.

The premise of this book struck me as interesting: a smart, historian witch and a vampire who uses science to study magical creatures. I struggled with the slow pacing, however. I didn’t realize before starting that this was a fantastical romance versus pure fantasy, so a little outside my reading wheelhouse, so to speak. Lovers of romance will find it appealing.

Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Award-winning dystopian YA, set in a post-peak oil world. Thought-provoking, but with plenty of action to engage young readers.

The Forge of God, by Greg Bear

Hard SF first contact novel. Things don’t go too well for the human race.

Anvil of Stars, by Greg Bear

Sequel to the above, where humans must navigate the murky waters of interstellar law and judgement.

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25, by Richard Paul Evans

YA of the kids with superpowers variety. If you’re having trouble finding something for your son or nephew to read, this might be it.

And there was much gnashing of teeth on Teh Interwebs . Based on that EULA, I for one abandoned all plans to go anywhere near iBooks Author for my current photo book project, and instead began investigating more content-producer-friendly outfits like Blurb.

The other day I noticed an update to iBooks Author, the only “fix” being a change to the license agreement. Below is the new wording. My first attempt to read the new EULA resulted in the app crashing, which I took as a bad sign, but Lo!:

B. Distribution of Works Generated Using the iBooks Author Software. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, works generated using iBooks Author may be distributed as follows:
(i) if the work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute it by any means;

(ii) if the work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service) and includes files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author, the work may only be distributed through Apple, and such distribution will be subject to a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary); provided, however, that this restriction will not apply to the content of the work when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author. You retain all your rights in the content of your works, and you may distribute such content by any means when it does not include files in the .ibooks format generated by iBooks Author.

A fitting end to a trilogy I just adore. These books make me purr like Sieh.

The Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages)

The more I read by Brandon Sanderson, the more impressed I get. This was a highly entertaining series—I read it over the holidays during a period where I needed to keep myself awake until 1:30 AM every night, and didn’t nod off once. These will go on my “study” list as a writer, especially for their effective use of foreshadowing across multiple novels.

In all I read 40 books this year, not counting the Hugo nominees for shorter works.

If I had to pick a year’s best, it would be a virtual tie between N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and Mira Grant’s Feed. Overall it was a very good year for the reading log.