It's the end of 2010 already! It seems like I just wrote this kind of post for 2009! I finished up with a grand total of 111 books read (although I'm hoping to finish up one today). According to GoodReads, that's 37,273 pages. That sounded impressive until I saw that I read 11,000 more in 2009! What can I say? Blogging took up a [...]
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It has been forever since I've made time for this meme! I'm slowly getting my act more together the longer I'm at my new job, so I hope to get back in the groove and see what everyone is reading. Read: Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie--I am drawn to Holocaust stories, and I liked this one because it started with the Holocaust and followed Rita, the mother, as she dealt with the ramifications throughout her life and Leslie as she learned to deal with the fear and guilt she absorbed from her mom, and even gave a quick glance at the third generation's feelings of anxiety. Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family--and a Whole Town--About Hope and Happy Endings by Janet Elder--This was a touching little story about the kindness of strangers. Currently Reading: I, Coriander by Sally Gardner--A very good re-telling of Cinderella Beyonders: A World Without Heroes by Brandon Mull is my last review book! It's off to an interesting start, but I haven't gotten very far into it yet. Up Next: Since I've decided not to accept any more books for review, I am relishing the feeling of choosing whatever book I want based on my mood! I don't know what's up next, and it feels good! I will say that right now I'm thinking about some historical fiction. So that's it for me! What are you reading this week?
The Classics By Caroline Taggart, Author of The Classics: All You Need to Know, from Zeus's Throne to the Fall of Rome Do you know Latin? How about Greek? Odds are you know more than you think. The influence of these "classical" civilizations is incredibly widespread. The classics have left their mark on our language, architecture, history, and even our popular literature. We still talk about a "Midas touch," because of the mythical character who asked the god Dionysus to make everything he touched turn to gold. These days we tend to think of the Midas touch -- a seemingly effortless ability to make tons of money -- as a good thing. However, the original Midas had to crawl back to Dionysus and beg for mercy when he realized that the "everything" that was turning to gold included his food, drink and, in some versions of the story, his daughter. In the political world, the Athenians invented democracy over 2,500 years ago, when Cleisthenes introduced the idea of giving citizens -- well, male citizens, in those days -- the vote, regardless of wealth or class. From this time on, any man over the age of 30 was entitled to register with his local deme -- a smaller version of the modern American counties, and derived from the word demos meaning "the people" -- and have a say in every major public decision. If you turn to popular literature, you'll find some good examples in the Harry Potter series. Most of Harry's spells are based on Latin words, and the evil Draco Malfoy is named after an extremely harsh Athenian lawmaker. On top of all that, the ancient Greeks invented the Olympic Games and are to blame for almost every problem you have ever come up against in math class. The…
Today wraps up Banned Books Week. I have to admit that I was a little stumped for something to write. I feel like I've said everything I wanted to say with my opinion piece last week. I didn't want to post more reviews. Staring at my computer screen and the cursor blinking insistently back at me from an empty text box, I remembered that my 12-year-old cousin had contacted me about that post. She agreed with it wholeheartedly. (Thanks again, Em!) Anyway, I thought she might want to have her own say about the banning of books. So often the innocence of the children is used as an excuse for book banning, I thought one of those children pre-teens (Where does the time go?) might welcome the chance to speak for herself. And then I thought her mom might want to say something too. I asked them and they very graciously agreed to save my skin write a little something for us. So, please welcome Emily and Donna to my blog! I love what they had to say! 12-Year-Old Emily's Post: At school we've been going to the library to study banned books week and some of the books that had been challenged from our library, and there was at least 50 of them. At least half of them I had either heard of or read, and most of them were very good books. I don't get why people want to ban books, but I know it's just because they're afraid. Afraid to go out and explore the world and find out what's really there- including death. They're fooling themselves by saying “oh, the world is just rainbows and blue sky all the time. Why would I want to read a book where somebody dies? Why would anyone? In fact,…
I cannot conceive of the fear and small-mindedness that lets people decide that they know what's best for everyone else. Yes, it's fear. Fear that a reading class is a thinking class and thinking of course leads to questions. Fear of the world; fear of the unknown; fear of answers that might not fit your worldview and, heaven forbid, cause you to rethink some of your beliefs--I believe all of this is what contributes to a person's decision to challenge a book. That's fine, book challengers. You read what you want and avoid what you don't want to read. You'll be missing out on some amazing books. They might not be emotionally easy books to read, but they're important for that very reason. It's easy to be complacent. But the world would be better if we could all get outside our narrow little confines and walk in someone else's shoes for a while. Reading books of any kind helps us do that. As readers, we all know the transportive power of books. As I write this, I am reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I've gotten to a very tough part. But this white Southern girl is realizing what it was like to be a black woman growing up in the Jim Crow South, and it's ugly. I think of myself as being open-minded and empathetic, but I will be a better person for reading this book and experiencing what Maya Angelou was brave enough to share. Read what you want. Monitor what your kids read. You're the parent. You should absolutely be involved in what they read. I do realize that not every book is appropriate for every age. But I would respectfully remind parents that some books are great openers for difficult conversations…
Today I'm welcoming Robin Spano, author of Dead Politician Society: A Clare Vengel Undercover Novel to the blog! If you've spent much time here, you know how much I love great characters. I enjoyed reading Robin's post about Clare Vengel's creation! Synopsis from Robin's site: After the mayor falls down dead in the middle of a speech, a clandestine student society claims credit for his demise. Clare Vengel is given her first undercover assignment: to pose as a student and penetrate the society. A streetwise amateur mechanic, Clare finds university a foreign land, and she has trouble creating an in with the suspects. She quickly alienates a popular professor and loses the respect of police superiors. When another politician is killed, Clare kicks herself into high gear. She forges friendships with students and makes inroads into the secret society. As the body count rises, Clare realizes that the murderer she has to unmask is someone she has come to consider a friend. She only hopes that the friend doesn't unmask her first. On to Robin's post! Clare Vengel: Who She Is, and What She’s Like to Write About I enjoy Clare’s company. I like watching her mind as it mulls over clues, I like feeling her perspective change when life makes her see something a different way, and I get a kick out of her sometimes self-destructive temper. I don’t like her in a self-congratulatory way—she came from the back of my brain, but I don’t feel like I made her. I just like her. I know her. A reader could say a thousand bad things about my writing or my book, and if they told me Clare was likeable, I’d think it was a great review. Writing, for me, has 2 parts: Observation: Most of the story, including the…
Friday—Future Treasures We’ve been visiting each other and getting to know each other better…now is your chance to share what you enjoyed about BBAW and also what your blogging goals are for the next year! I have not had time to look at very many Book Blogger Appreciation Week posts this week, but I do hope to catch up over the weekend. After being on the road two weekends in a row, I think we'll be taking it easy this weekend! The BBAW posts I have read have been excellent. I've loved finding so many new blogs, finding out new things about those who are already familiar to me, and I'm really looking forward to checking out everyone's book recommendations for a couple of the topics! As for the coming year? I'm not a planner. Not at all. So I can't really say much about my plans. I would like to make more of an effort to write different kinds of posts. I've gotten comfortable with reviews, so I can knock those out pretty quickly. Other kinds of posts take me much longer to write, and I don't feel like I write them as well, so I avoid them. I know that with practice I can make opinion/discussion posts better/easier, as well as my posts about author signings (I have a huge backlog of those to write about). I have a few ideas for challenges I would like to host, so I'll be thinking about those and probably getting them ready for next year. I'll also be poking around and thinking about themes that might appeal to me. Right now I like my idea of the Hispanic Heritage Challenge, which is basically a theme for me for the month, so if it still feels like a good fit for me…
Wednesday—Unexpected Treasure We invite you to share with us a book or genre you tried due to the influence of another blogger. What made you cave in to try something new and what was the experience like? I'm mostly an equal opportunity reader. If it looks good, I'll read it. I can be stubborn about what I will and won't try though. (Non-fiction rarely makes it through my filter) To answer this question, I have to go back to my GoodReads-only days. Becky, who is now blogging at Escapism Through Books, has excellent taste in books and writes reviews that will make you either want to run out and buy those she loves or give away your unread copy of those she dislikes. So when she gave five stars to The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelmann, and then started talking about it in our Wild Things group, I added it to my to-read list. Admittedly, this wasn't a huge stretch for me. I'd read the grapic novel edition of Coraline by Neil Gaiman, but I hadn't been that impressed. I would likely have left the genre alone after that if not for Becky's review. See, I have some sort of fascination with Holocaust stories, and the idea of a son writing down his father's Holocaust experiences in graphic novel form, with the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats, just fascinated me. I was blown away. I can get goosebumps thinking about that slim little graphic novel. The concentration camp experiences are in there, the aftermath, the living with it, the children living with it--all ramifications that I hadn't really thought about before. Amazing. Because Becky got me to try Maus, I am now more willing to try other graphic novels. My best experiences seem to be with memoirs.…
In case you haven't seen it around yet, Today's Adventure is hosting Once Upon a Week this week. This is our chance to talk about fairy tales and those re-tellings we tend to love so much. Thanks to Vanessa for hosting this and to Juju at Tales of Whimsy for creating the beautiful button! I haven't managed to get any reviews written yet, but I did have fun digging around and getting this post ready. What do you think about songs that are based on fairy tales? I'm not talking about songs from Disney movies or musicals. I'm talking about "regular" songs you might hear on the radio that explicitly refer to fairy tales. The first one I think of on this topic is "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. The fairy tales come in on the second verse. And then there's "Fairytale" by Sara Bareilles. LOVE this one! And that was kind of where I drew a blank. I searched around a little more though and found several more. I'll just link to where you can listen to save this page's load time. :-) "Fairytale" by Saturday Night at the Apollo (I'm a little confused as to the name of the group, so if I've goofed, let me know, please. Thanks!) "Shalott" by Emilie Autumn "The Ballad of Humpty Dumpty and Cinderella" by Aztec Two-Step "Cinderella Undercover" by Oingo Boingo I shamelessly plundered this thread on the NaNoWriMo website for the above suggestions. "Hey, Cinderella" by Suzy Bogguss "Little Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs "The Bonny Swans" by Loreena McKennitt "Sleeping Beauty" by A Perfect Circle "The Red Shoes" by Kate Bush I found these in this thread on SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Of course there are tons of these kinds of songs among Celtic groups,…
Locus Focus is hosted every Saturday at Shredded Cheddar. Write a post about your favorite setting and go share your link! Can you imagine Peter Pan without Neverland? Lemuel Gulliver without Lilliput and Brobdingnag? The Pied Piper without Hamelin? A good setting is more than just a backdrop! Join us every Saturday as we write about our favourite settings and the books that make them come alive! I've been busy and haven't made time to do this recently, although I love the idea. It gives me an excuse to go digging for pictures of settings that I like. I read Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters recently and loved it! Thanks to Allison at The Allure of Books for the recommendation! Crocodile on the Sandbank takes place in Egypt in the 1880s. Miss Amelia Peabody has embarked on a tour up the Nile to visit all the ancient places that she and her father loved to study together. She is bitten by the archaeology bug when she first visits Giza and sees the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. This is her first impression: "I had seen engravings of the Great Pyramid and read extensively about it; I thought I was prepared for the sight. But I was not. It was so much grander than I had imagined! The massive bulk bursts suddenly on one's sight as one mounts the steep slope leading up to the rocky platform. It fills the sky. And the color! No black-and-white engraving can possibly prepare one for the color of Egyptian limestone, mellow gold in the sunlight against a heavenly-blue vault." Photo of Khafre's Pyramid and the Great Sphinx taken by Hamish2k and shared on Wikimedia Commons Miss Amelia is determined not to be one of those travelers who publishes repetitive memoirs about the…