Summer Reading Challenge

Perhaps it's the fuzzy warm feeling from TBF this past weekend* or perhaps it's just where I'm at in life, but I decided I'm going to challenge myself this summer with my reading. By challenge, I mean that I would like to read at least 25 books over the next 13 weeks. I'm doing this in context of Summer Book Bingo. You can find the Bingo Board here if you want to play along.

Also, I plan to incorporate "Books that I Should Have Read Long Ago and Just Sort of Skipped Over". There is quite a few of those. My friend, Jim, set up a challenge for himself last year of "classics that he should have read but didn't". This is my inspiration for this phase of my challenge.

I will blog about the books and the progress of my challenge.

And now for book one of the challenge:

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed

I completed this book in less than 24 hours because I couldn't put it down. In fact, I stayed up late on Tuesday to plow through as much as I could. Written in the Stars is about Naila, a soon-to-be high school graduate who is forced by her parents into an unwanted marriage. I'm usually not a fan of realistic fiction, but this book was so interesting. Naila is a compelling character. The minor characters were interesting and well-developed. I highly recommend this book.

*I realized as I was writing this that I should do a recap of TBF. It was epic and wonderful!

I Thought It Was Funny, But No One Else Did!: The Musical

As I was showering this morning, I realized that I sing a lot during the day.

 Like really a lot.

Especially for someone whose career choice is librarian.

When my alarm went off at 5:21* this morning, "American Woman" by the Guess Who was playing. I like the song: yet, like many songs, I have adapted the lyrics to reflect my life. If you are a member of the American Library Association like I am, you receive a publication every two months titled American Libraries. Whenever I receive my paper copy of American Libraries, I view it as a cue from the ALA to break into song and sing, American Libraries to the tune of "American Woman". I'm pretty sure my husband and child wait with baited breath for the mailman to deliver American Libraries each month because I just explode into song for an hour or two.

I sing to my students. Many are used to my hit songs, "Did your study hall teacher give you a pass?", and "The bell rang. You need to go to homeroom."

I sing to my cats. Lucy has at least three songs that I have adapted from popular music about her**. I'm pretty sure it's given her a complex. Truman Capote has "Suzie Snowflake" adapted to "Trumie Snowflake". Alas, I only sing to her during the Christmas season.

I sing to my friends. Sorry, friends.

I sing to inanimate objects, like professional journals.

I sing to the basil plant growing in my home office.

All the world's a stage. I am the pop diva of my life.

*5:21 is so random. I know.

** You may remember "Lulu Jones", adapted from "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows, from another post.

Check this out!

2015 marks the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's timeless classic.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865, followed by Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There in 1871, and many events around the globe are planned to celebrate this year.

Leap Books will release a 13-author contributed anthology, each title unique, retelling what really happened after Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole on April 14th.

And I am really, really excited about this!

It will feature 13 authors: Laura Lascarso - Charlotte Bennardo - C. Lee McKenzie - Christine Norris - David Turnbull -Jacqueline Horsfall - Medeia Sharif - Tom Luke - Jessica Bayliss - Crystal Schubert - Holly Odell -

Jennifer Moore - Liam Hogan

I'm putting it on my TBR list! How about you?

 

Reading Tuesday?

I hadn't done a list of what I've been reading for awhile, so here we go!

1. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

I have to admit that I was hesitant about reading it. I heard snippets from the audio book when we were driving to the Genesee Country Village and Museum in the early fall and I really didn't follow what was going on. However, my son was really into the book. My husband read it and liked it. Both of them strong-armed encouraged me to read it. I did enjoy the book; I'm not going to lie. Am I going to read the rest in the series? Probably not. Mark says the next two books are better than the first. Zums says the first was the best book. I'm going to stop at the first one for now.

2. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch
I believe I posted about how my husband bought this book for me because he read the first chapter on Amazon and it reminded him of my stories. I loved this book because, really, Allie's perspective on stuff is a lot like mine. Something about her simple illustrations really enhance the stories.My only criticism about the book was that the chapters were disjointed: one didn't flow into the other. I prefer an arc in storytelling.

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Okay, I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I did pick it up again over break. In fact, on New Year's Eve, I had the house to myself for an hour and a half. At first, I was paralyzed by the possibilities! What do I do? Do I binge on Star Trek or Supernatural or The X-Files? Do I play Rush loudly and freak out? No, dear reader, I did none of those. I streamed a classical music station on Spotify, made a cup of tea and started War and Peace again. Why? Cuz I'm lame. Seriously, I needed a stretch of reading to get into the book.

I really enjoy reading War and Peace. I like the challenge of figuring out who's who. I am impressed by how Tolstoy crafts his characters.

I am about 50 pages into it. This will be my second attempt to read the book. My friend, Amie, told me that my first attempt got her to read it and she felt it was one of the best books she ever read. Based on that recommendation, I'm back at it!

4. MindSet by Carol Dweck. I have to read this for work. I started to read it over break, figuring that I would assign myself a chapter a week or something like that to get through the book. I was wrong: it's very interesting. Dweck's research is about people can be successful by adopting a growth mindset.

I've been listening to my thoughts as I go through the day and try to assess them as a "fixed" or "growth" mindset.

5. The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
I need to keep reading to recommend books to students. Kagawa is coming to the Teen Book Festival in May. Her books are popular in the library. I'm about a quarter of the way through this book.

So, yeah, I'm basically reading three books at once right now. I'm cool with that, though, as all three are different and I'm trying to keep a book on hand at all times, so I don't get into mindlessly scrolling through various social media feeds on my phone.

Best of 2014

As I lay in bed this morning and contemplated coffee, I also thought about how I would be remiss in my duty as a blogger if I didn't do a year in review.

Back when we had cable, RNews had some sort of poet do a year-in-review poem * every year. I thought the poems were pretty wretched, as the rhyme was forced and the commentary about politics a little too cheeky for my taste. I know there are many people out there who disagree with my assertion regarding these poems.

So, I'm coming up with my own poem about 2014:

It's the end of two-oh-one-four
The year kinda sucked
Some things happened;
 some good, some rough
2015 will be better (I hope).

Don't worry, dear reader. I'm not quitting my day job to be a full-time poet.

As a librarian and an avid reader, I would be remiss if I didn't do a best-of book list for the last day of the year. There are two books that I really feel were my "Best Reads of 2014":

1. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole. Yes, I know this didn't come out in 2014. However, it was one of the two best books I read this year. I loved the characterization and the humor. I still giggle to myself when I think of Ignatius J. Reilly's plan for the labor protest at the pants factory. So good.

2. Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King. THIS book. WOW. This book changed my life.** It is in my top five favorite books of all times.

Dear reader, I would love to know what are your Best Books You Read in 2014. Leave a comment.

Happy New Year!

*Link follows to this year's poem. You're welcome.

** I'm not going into how right now, but just know it made a huge impact on me.

Why My Cats Could Be Characters in a Tolstoy Novel

A few years ago, one of my students decided that for the new year, she was going to read one chapter of Tolstoy's War and Peace every day. "There are 365 chapters of War and Peace and there are 365 days in a year," she told me. This sounded manageable, so I immediately decided that this would be my New Years' Resolution, too.

Like all of my resolutions, this was short-lived. I think I got maybe a quarter of the way into the book before I gave up, not because I didn't like it, but just because I got ennui. Anyway, while I was reading War and Peace, I thought to myself that my cats could be characters in the novel because, like Tolstoy's characters, each of my cats has many names.

Lucy Belle

Our cat, Lucy, has had many names in the four years she's lived with us. When she was dropped off to our house, she was Lucy Belle. She then became "Lucy Belle Bongo" for a short time, "Lucy Smells", when she did something bad in her litter box and "Lucifer" when she was naughty. Somehow, her name has morphed to be "Lulu Jones,"* which sounds like a character from a 70s action flick. 

On occasion, I call this particular cat "Cheese Girl" because she has a meow that sounds like the squeak from a fresh cheese.

An old picture of Truman Capote. She looks so resigned.

Truman Capote, our other cat, usually goes by "Trumie" because it takes a lot of effort to call "Truman Capote" when you need to see the cat. 

When I was reading War and Peace, I made up a story about how the cat was actually a countess during the Bolshevik Revolution and had to flee Russia with her diamonds sewn in the the hem of her dress to start a new life in another country. ** So, I decided her name would be "Madame Trumaniski". This became "Comrade Trumaniski" for some reason; then "Minski" because...well, just because. "Minski" became "Minced Meat" because they sound similar and then "Minced Meat" became "Meat" because it is shorter. 

So, I call this particular animal "Meat Girl" and tell her that she "is made of meat."

The sad fact about the Meat Girl is that she is sixteen, going on seventeen years old.*** My husband and I think that she might have feline dementia because she walked into the bathroom one day and meowed angrily at the toilet for a few minutes. Mark researched feline dementia online. One of the symptoms of feline dementia is the cat will sleep a lot. We can't tell if she really is demented because she always has slept, like, 20 hours a day. She could just be old and tired. Anyway, she comes when I call out either "Meat Girl" or "Truman", so she has some awareness.

I still have a good five days left of Christmas break. I think I may start to rewrite War and Peace and feature my cats as the main characters.

*My son and I sing "Lulu Jones" to the Counting Crows "Mr. Jones".

** Yes, I know War and Peace takes place during the Napoleonic Wars. It's just a story I made up for no particular reason, okay?

*** My kid read this post and said that I needed to make sure my readers knew this was a reference to The Sound of Music.

Eh, Call it a Comeback

My husband bought me the Hyperbole and a Half book for Christmas.* Before this morning when I woke up before everyone else to drink coffee and read my book, all I knew about Hyperbole and a Half was this post.

After reading a quarter of the book this morning and crying from laughter, I felt inspired to resurrect my blog. I feel that the author and I have a lot in common, such as awkward childhoods, stupid pets and a different point of view on situations.

So, thank you, Allie Brosh. And thank you, husband, for getting me an awesome read.

*Mark said the stories he read in the preview on Amazon reminded him of my stories. Coincidentally, my best friend, Amy, also received the book as a Christmas gift from her husband.