I have just emerged from a slow reading period and next I hope to rip through a bunch of books. I finished the last Game of Thrones book, which was slow going for me because of the overlapping time frame with book four.  had also read a spoiler that bugged me and I dreaded that part.  Utimately, I did get into it, and it took over my life as per usual.  I read about 3/4 and then started skipping ahead because I wanted to know what happened with each character.  All my skipping ahead via skimming chapters led me to the believe someone died who didn’t and then I was surprised when someone else died.  (Not a spoiler, people die all the time.)  Alas, I thought I would be relieved to know what happened but I was left wanting more.   At least book 6 is supposed to be out in the next year or so.

So what else am I reading? I started Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  It’s a letter from a a father to his fifteen year old son about being black in America and protecting your body from harm.   It’s very intense, and I could only read a little at a time.  With a one week digital check out from the library, I didn’t get it finished.  It’s been short listed for the National Book Award under non-fiction and it’s been on my radar for a couple months, but it only just arrived in digital form at the library.  I put it back on hold and I’ll try to finish it next time it comes into my queue.

I also read most of  The Boys in the Boat, which was a reader recommendation.  (Thanks Dad!)  I am a much slower reader of non-fiction so it took a while to get into it, but I enjoyed it a lot.  I had to share facts from every page to the delight/annoyance of my loving family.  Again, this was a library book and it was due today, so I had to skim the last half and then devote myself to the ending which was very exciting.

I also still have The Year of Magical Thinking and Kitchens of the Great Midwest waiting in the wings. Tomorrow I chaperone my third field trip in less than a week, and I recently learned how much work moms put into class parties, much to my surprise.  It used to be that I was lucky to take an hour off to show up and help out.  When you volunteer earlier in the process, you end up making elaborate (by my low standards) crafts for the whole class to do.  Props to all you moms that have been planning parties all these years, I had no idea.  Long story short, I have not had time to read with all the momming I have been doing, but I think I am approaching a lull, and the reading will pick up soon! &nbsp

I love book lists, and summer reading was always one of my favorite things about summer.  In fact, this summer I was talking to a librarian and I suggested that there be a summer reading program for adults.  She was on board, but I’m not sure it’s actually in the works.  Today, I was reviewing the National Book Award short list, and ordering books from the list that I haven’t read. I have been dying for Fates and Furies, but our library doesn’t even have in the catalog yet?!?!  I ordered it from another library system for which I just got a card.  I also ordered Between The World and Me, which seemed to appear in the catalog just today.

Then I remembered I had started a reading challenge several months ago – the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2015.  I think at the time, I assumed I would naturally read something from every category, but as we close in on the end of the year, I think I am going to have to make a special effort to complete this.  I’m open to suggestions on my blank catagories!

A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25 ——————

A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65 ——————- (I ordered The Year of Magical Thinking for this one)

A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people) — Redeployment

A book published by an indie press ————

A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ – Paying Guests

A book by a person whose gender is different from your own – The Buried Giant

A book that takes place in Asia –  A Palace of Treason

A book by an author from Africa –  Americanuh

A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture 

A microhistory 

A YA novel –  Maze Runner

A sci-fi novel –  The Bone Clocks

A romance novel 

A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade –  Brown Girl Dreaming

A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.) – Cinder

An audiobook  – Yes Please

A collection of poetry  – A Thousand Mornings

A book that someone else has recommended to you –  All The Light You Cannot See

A book that was originally published in another language 

A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind  –  Roller Girl

A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure  

A book published before 1850 

A book published this year –  The Girl on the Train

A self-improvement book –   Better Than Before

Continue reading →

Since my last blog book club, I finished A Feast for Crows, the 4th Game of Thrones book.  Then I lovingly stroked the cover of book 5, but I couldn’t turn my back on my life and my family for another 1000 pages.  I also had a another swarm of library books come in so I read A God in Ruins next.  This is a companion book to Life after Life, which I loved loved loved.  I had mixed feelings about A God in Ruins.  I loved it, but at first it felt like it was jumping around in time too much and I didn’t trust that the the author had the timeline right.  I had to make a consious effort not to care about that.  But even so, it felt like I could see the wires behind the magic act.  But I loved to have more Teddy and Ursula.

Now I am reading Mislaid.  This started off as a book that I figured I would like, but couldn’t recommend to anyone because it’s “weird”.  But  there are a lot of great lines.  I’m about halfway through so I’ll let you know what I think when I finish it.  Goals for this week include finishing Mislaid and making my bed before Lucy takes her morning nap.

What are you reading this week?

I recently had an idea for a book club where I invite a bunch of people over to eat a fancy cake that I make, and then everyone just shares what they are reading and if they recommend it or not.  I put a lot of thought into this and went so far as to subtly invite one person who said, “maybe.”    So that idea is still in the works.  I’m not sure who else to invite and it’s too hot to bake a cake right now.

I used to be in a book club, and I’m not sure what happened to it.  Either it slowly fell apart, or I stopped being invited, or I quit or had a baby or something.  I guess all book clubs memberships were set in stone in 1996 when Oprah invented book clubs though, because I’ve been on my own ever since.

So for now this is my new book club, I’ll just share what I read in the last week and/or what I am currently reading. Feel free to join me!

Read Last Week

God Help The Child by Toni Morrison: I liked it.  Let’s be honest, I am going to read Toni Morrison when she has a new book out, no questions asked.  I heard this wasn’t that good, but I have no complaints.  It was a quick read.  There was one part that seemed to get a little supernatural but it was also clearly a metaphor and it started to bug, but then I decided just to let it go and see what happened.

Dietland by Sarah Walker: This was on “eh” for me.  I liked how weird it was, and I loved the feminism, and I loved to body acceptance message  but it got to be too violent for me.  There was one part in particular that I had a big problem with and it skewed the message for me.

Currently Reading

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin: So good.  I am having a problem putting the Game of Thrones books (and books in general) down and having a life.  Restarting my blog is a way to force myself to do something other than read.  First blog post: The books I am reading!  Its the last full week of summer break and I need to seize every minute for fun with the kids before school starts!  And I need to finish this 700+ page book.  It’s so good.

What are you reading this week?

Tuesday, I signed the boys up for the summer reading program at the library. I have always loved summer reading, even, and especially when I was going to be tested on the books at the beginning of the next school year.  I always read more than I needed to from the list, and my non-nerd reason was so that I could answer the easier questions.  But I love to read, and I love lists.  So, a summer reading list is pretty much the best thing ever.  I can remember turning a summer reading list into the library with so many books on it, that I was sure I would win a prize, even though I had been repeatedly assured that there was no prize and I should get off the couch and go outside for the LOVE OF GOD.  There was no prize, not even a “Hey, that’s a lot of books, great job.”

Luke has always had a one track mind when it comes to books.  Right now he is reading the 39 Clues series, and he has zero interest in anything else.  Last summer it was Harry Potter,  before that, Percy Jackson.  When we started going to the library, he would only pick out Curious George books.  For at least two years, he never picked a non-Curious George book.  And it may have gone on longer, but I eventually just stopped taking him to the library for a couple years when he would correct me for saying “an” instead of “the” in the middle of 60 pages of Curious George goes to the Hospital.  So, fine, he likes to stick to one thing.  Well, we got the sheets for keeping track of your summer reading, and Luke got the next 39 Clues book, and Jack started making his stack of books, and I could see the wheels turning in Luke’s head.  Jack was going to have a lot more books to write down on that list.  And then Luke did something I have never seen before.  He chose a bunch of different books.  At first I almost teased him for picking shorter books with lots of pictures and then I realized, this is what I have been hoping for all along.  Branching out!  Reading different things!  Thanks summer reading program!

And what am I going to read this summer?  I started Nanjing Requiem, by Ha Jin.  I didn’t know much about the history of that particular horrible atrocity, and I really enjoyed War Trash, but hated Waiting. So I figured, I would try to read Nanjing Requiem.  It didn’t go well.  I guess I don’t know what to hope for when reading about something horrible.  I supposed I expected to be drawn into the story and to care about the characters, which would have made it a more difficult and emotional read.  But it seemed very choppy, and as far as I got into the atrocities, which wasn’t very far, it read like a factual account.  So I just read the Wikipedia article about it and returned the book.  Not summer reading.  Ever since IQ84, I have been getting really liberal with my “not finishing a book” policy.  I also read one page of The Visible Man, and rolled my eyes and returned that too.  I am currently enjoying The Old Reliable, and I am open to suggestions for my summer reading list.

**In the picture above, Jack is writing the first book of the summer on his list.  I was pretty impressed that he copied the letters off the cover of the book, even if it does looks like he is using laser vision.

I have finally compiled the list of books that I read in 2011, and they are available in the “Books 2011” section to the right.  But just in case I ever delete that section, here they are for posterity:

A Visit    From the Goon Squad
An Object of Beauty
Bossypants
Catching Fire
Cutting    for Stone
Freedom
Harry Potter and the Chamber of    Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Scocorer’s    Stone
If He Hollers Let Him Go
Little House in    the Big Woods
Mockingjay
My Hollywood
Swamplandia
The Bridge of Sighs
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Golden Compass
The Happiness Project
The House on First Street:My New Orleans Story
The Hunger Games
The Last Picture Show
The Leftovers
The Lightening Thief
The Lost Girl
The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity
The Passage
The Plague of Doves
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

2011 marked an exciting return to YA fiction for me, a genre I have loved for 30 years.  I tried to keep up with Luke, but I couldn’t quite cover everything.  He’s one Harry Potter ahead of me, at the moment.  And he is reading Anastasia Krupnik books at school, and he is always surprised when he says, “Then guess what happens…” and I happen to remember what happened next.

The library has been conspiring against me lately, sending me all my holds at once, so I have been reading furiously.  So far, 2012 has already been a great year for books.