Mini-Challenges

Distracted from my reading by Sheery's Tile Word Scramble Mini Challenge. Apparently my brain is completely scrambled at this point because reading/unscrambling the puzzles felt waaay too easy. Maybe my normal reading would be easier if I mixed all the letters together...

1. Firefly Lane
2. Seat of Need
3. Water for Elephants
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. The Great Gatsby
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain
8. The Time Travelers Wife
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
11. The Polar Express
12. Love Walked In
13. Where the Wild Things Are
14. The Shining
15. Goodnight Moon
16. Interview with a Vampire
17. The Secret Life of Bees
18. The Search
19. The Help

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And now... a Wordle activity run by Reading Through Life!

Read-a-Thon Post 3

7 hours into my Read-a-Thon and I've just finished up my second book, Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun. It's funny, I read this book a couple years ago and had a very different response to it-- but perhaps I wasn't ready to understand how complicated and fraught 'loving' relationships can be? I don't know...

Anyway! I'm off to do a bit of 'real life' work and then I'll FINALLY start reading Hunger Games. I'm told that I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having read this series already. Hopefully by the end of the Read-a-thon I'll have made up for that horrible lapse of bibliophile etiquette!

Time reading (and or interwebbing!) 7 hours
Books read: 2 (The House of Mirth and The House Gun)
Pages read: 644
Mini-Challenges: Love to Hate, Back in the Day Children's Books

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Oooph! It's 1:15 in the morning and I'm getting verrrry sleepy! I was hoping to read through the night, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. I may just finish the last half of Hunger Games and call it a night. I honestly didn't think I was going to get all that into this book, but it's definitely engaging and well developed. I'm already a major Peeta fan!

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3am Update

I was hoping to read through the night but I'm crashing hardcore right now.. Just finished Hunger Games so it feels like a good place to stop.

On the day..
Hours read: 10
Books read: 3
Pages: 1028

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8am FINAL update!

I MEANT to go to bed at 3 when I finished the first Hunger Games book... but I found myself so excited about the characters that I pulled out the second book (Catching Fire) before jumping into bed and ended up reading for another hour and a half! I woke up a few hours later and got back to it :)

Final Stats:
Hours read: 13
Books read: 4
Pages: 1463

Thanks for a great readathon everybody! I had a blast :D

Now, in less happy news, I'm off to help a friend hunt down her runaway dogs. Wish us luck...

Read-a-Thon Updates

12pm Update!

I'm about 2 and a half hours into the Read-a-thon and I'm having a HORRIBLE time staying focused! It's just too tempting to hang out on twitter or to flip through other blogs to see what everybody's up to! I may need to close down the computer and spend some more time reading outside...

As far as my actual READING is concerned-- I'm still working on House of Mirth. It has some dry spots, but I'm really enjoying the relationship (if you can call it that...) between Lily and Selden. They totally have the star-crossed lovers thing going on and I can't help hoping Lily will get her head screwed on straight before the end of the book... not sure that's going to happen though.

Pages read: 116
Book read- still on numero uno

Also-- Looks like UGA remembered how to play football... it's about time!! Let's go DAWGS!

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3 pm Update:

Finished House of Mirth. I'll probably write a longer review on this later in the week, but I'm tentatively giving it 4 Smootches. I really enjoyed the characterizations (particularly Lily and Selden of course) and I was really broken up by the conclusion. It's not a terribly exciting read, but I found myself getting immersed in the story nonetheless (it felt kind of like slowly sinking into a pool of water).

Hours reading (while blogging/tweeting/interwebbing...): 4
Pages read:350
Books read: 1

Now off to grab some grub and pick out a new book!

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5pm Update and "Love to Hate Mini-Challenge"

Well, I'm chugging away at my second Readathon pick- The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer. I read this book a couple of years ago, but I KNOW it's going to show up on my grad comps next month so I figured I'd refresh my memory!

I'm about 115 pages in and in dire need of a break... SO! I'm going to join in with the '5 Characters you Love to Hate" Mini-challenge hosted by Blkosiner's Book Blog. 

My picks:
1. Serverus Snape from the Harry Potter series. Cause he's fabulously semi-evil. Also, in the movies he's played by Alan Rickman...nuff said!
2. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Crazy violent nutjob... but I can't help hoping he'll get the girl.
3.  Shiva of the Knees from Rushdie's Midnight's Children
4. Aunts Spiker and Sponge from James and The Giant Peach... they creep me out, but I love reading them :)
5. Rhea of the Coos from Stephen King's Wizard and Glass (of the Dark Tower series)

Read-a-Thon

I've been away from the blogging world for almost two weeks due to extreme CRAZINESS in my 'real life.'  I woke up this morning planning to do nothing but laze around on the couch or watch football... but then I logged into my blog and realized that today was Dewey's Read-a-Thon!! I can't imagine a better way to spend my day off : D

Granted I'm joining the party a little bit late.. we'll just pretend that I'm operating on Cape Verde time!

Where are you reading from today?

- I'm going to start with Edith Warton's House of Mirth then probably move on to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.. we'll see where it goes from there.

3 facts about me …

1. I teach freshman composition at a State University. I tend to focus my classes on things like pirates, zombies, or Law and Order characters..

2. I've recently developed bit of a southern accent. I'm not thrilled about this development and try to compensate by dropping my Rs and tossing around "wicked" adjectives like a good Bostonian.

3. I'm using this Read-a-Thon in part to justify massive coffee consumption..

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

- I didn't really have a specific TBR pile for the day until 20 minutes ago... I may have to make a library run mid-afternoon!

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?

- I'd like to keep reading till the end. No napping!

If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?

-1st timer!!

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Top Ten Literary Couples

And it's Tuesday again! Woot Woot! I've had an absolutely crazy week (grading 75 freshman essays, holding 2 Plagiarism hearings, writing 2 chapters of my thesis (under major professor duress!!) and spitting out a semi-decent conference paper...*dies*) and I have a ton of craziness still ahead of me. But NO WAY am I missing my Top Ten Tuesday Post!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme run by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week we get a new topic to ponder, list, and explore.


This week's theme is "Favorite Couples in Literature."  I'm so excited to see what everybody else writes for this. The best literary relationships (in my mind) are the ones that sweep us off our feet and make us really feel the passion and the struggle. I think the types of relationships a reader 'falls in love with' say a lot about that reader, their dreams, and their image of 'the perfect couple.'

My Favorite Love-Bugs (in no particular order)

1. Jo and Laurie from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I know they don't end up together... but they SHOULD HAVE!!! I love their playful, sweet relationship and absolutely hate that that little whippersnapper Amy messed things up.

2. Elizabeth and Darcy- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice I have a thing for witty, independent, strong minded heroines falling for the complicated, silent, brooding, misunderstood leading man. Lizzy and Darcy are kind of the poster children for this.

3. Daine and Numair from Tamara Pierce's The Immortals Series Now normally I find the teacher/student thing kind of creepy, but I could not have imagined Daine ending up with anybody else. Numair's funny, brilliant, protective, curious, and (sometimes) humble. He's kind of my perfect nerd-guy.

4. Beatrice and Benedick from Wm. Shakespeare's As You Like It  Much Ado (Thanks for catching my brain-fart Allie!). Beatrice is one of my favorite literary characters of all-time and I would have been pissed if Shakespeare had married her off to some fluffy, air-brained twit. Benedick has just as much spunk and sass as Beatrice-- I'm sure their married life was chaotic (and probably involved a lot of chucking of crockery and witty repartee) but they totally deserve one another.

5. Lucy Snowe and M. Paul Emanuel from Charlotte Bronte's Villette Lucy hides her heart beneath a thick layer of calm self-control; M. Paul wears his heart on his sleeve (or pinned to his forehead, or on the tip of his tongue... wherever it will be most obvious). She's cool and collected, he's fiery, passionate and unpredictable.  I did not see this relationship coming (neither did Lucy), but absolutely adored it while it lasted.

6. Sayuri and Nobu-san from Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha I know most people think the Sayuri-Chairman thing is more romantic and more 'epic,' but I always loved Nobu's dedication to Sayuri, his willingness to be honest with her (especially when no one else would tell her what was what), and his desire to teach her to be practical and to stand on her own two feet. Sayuri was awful to him a number of times throughout the book (ungrateful little grrrr)... but I think she underestimated what she had.

7. Leah and Anatole from Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible Leah and Anatole come from wildly different backgrounds and have different views of the world and their place within it... but they find a way to make love work through these challenges (and many many many more struggles). Their relationship is never easy or uncomplicated and they may never be able to fully see eye-to-eye but they're willing to sacrifice everything for love.

8. Vivaldo and Ida from James Baldwin's Another Country This is another one of those "When Worlds Collide" relationships. Vivaldo and Ida never seem to agree on anything, and they constantly struggle (particularly Vivaldo) to figure out what the other one is thinking and why they do what they do. Their relationship is bound up in racial, class and gender tensions but even with all that working against them they continually fight to 'keep love alive'.

9. Kambili and Fr. Amadi from Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Purple Hibiscus This almost doesn't count as a relationship.. you know that Kambili and Amadi love eachother deeply and that they see the other as their link to a better understanding of beauty and joy in the world, but circumstances and self-less ambitions force them apart. Part of Amadi lives with Kambili forever though...

10. Cal and Abra from John Steinbeck's East of Eden I'm fascinated by Cal's character in this book. I hate him and love/pity him periodically throughout the story. He's a smart, emotional guy who has been royally messed up by his upbringing and his competitive relationship with his brother (Cal and Aron are based on Cain and Abel.. fyi). Abra is really one of the first people who can reach Cal and help him get over his anger and fear. It's a beautiful, incredibly painful and heart-wrenching story. You're never fully cheering for him, but your heart goes out to him anyway.

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Quotes

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme run byThe Broke and the Bookish designed help the blogging community share its very favorite titles/characters/scenes/etc. Each week we get a new "topic" and the instructions to list our Top Ten-- I love this feature both because it forces/allows me to think back over my years of reading to locate the books/personalities that have meant the most to me, and also because it gives me the chance to read and interact with blogs I never would have come across in my regular voyages. Sometimes, while reading another person's blog, I'll come across a title I haven't read in AGES and I'll wax nostalgic. Sometimes I'll even go hunt the book down in my stacks and have a grand old time getting reacquainted with an old friend. Occasionally, I'm convinced to pick up a new title and start a new relationship with a stranger-book. 

This week's topic is Top Ten Favorite Book Quotes. I'm going to have to say right off the bat that my post is going to be more like "Ten (of my) Top Favorite Quotes" because there's no way I could limit myself to having 10 favorites and I KNOW I'm going to leave some out that I absolutely adore... C'est la vie!

1. "Only strangers have no secrets. Before you begin to know them they are faces, open and pure, only when you delve deeper do they grow personalities, grow mysteries, grow caves of experience to plunge and explore." 

Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood

2. "What a great difference there is... between dreaming of something and dealing with it." 

Another Country by James Baldwin

3. "Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't born dead. I never met a man who was less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that's the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone cold dead." Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

4. "Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him." 

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

5. "Meaning is a shaky edifice  we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old films, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to the death. " "Imaginary Homelands" by Salman Rushdie

6. "I do not know how I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilest the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." 

Diaries of Isaac Newton

7. "You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark, or sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what's broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it's broken, you are automatically disqualified."

 Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

8. "Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever."

 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

9. "To espresso or to latte, that is the question," he muttered, his free will evaporating. I had asked Hamlet for something he couldn't easily supply: a decision. "Whether 'tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain," he continued in a rapid garble, "or to take a cup to go. Or a mug to stay, or extra cream, or have nothing, and by opposing the endless choice, end one's heartache--... To froth, to sprinkle, perchance to drink..."

 Something Rotten (from the Thursday Next series) by Jasper Fforde

10. "You will never be alone, with a poet in your pocket!" 

Letter from John Adams to John Quincy Adams

And a bonus quote-- "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Maya Angelou

Trivia(l) Pursuit!

Last weekend a couple friends and I decided that we would attend a trivia night at a local bar. We'd never really done anything like that as a group before, but since we have such a diverse group of interests we thought we'd be able to handle any question that got tossed at us. It was the first time any of my friends had attended an event like this... but during undergrad I attended trivia nights fairly regularly, and absolutely loved the atmosphere (a weird mix of light-hearted frivolity and cut-throat competition..) and the excuse to celebrate my nerdiness. I was excited to be 'back in the game' but worried that my once semi-formidable skills would be all rusty-useless :(  *all-time favorite trivia question: What is the longest 1-syllable word in the English language?... I'll put the answer at the bottom of the post. No peeking now!*)

We ended up doing decently as a team (11th out of 38 teams), and, now that my friends have caught trivia-fever, we're definitely planning on going back next week (and the week after that, and probably the one after that...). I'm wickedly competitive though, so I decided that it would be a good idea if I boned up on my trivia during the week. So... I poked through the stacks and came across the ultimate guide to random-facts and nuggets of knowledge:

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs

I picked this book up partially because it seemed to suit my needs (who WOULDN'T want the smartest person in the world on their trivia team?!) and partially because I read Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it. I was looking for obscure facts presented with humor and humanity... and I got exactly what I wanted, plus a whole lot more!

At its most simplistic level, The Know-It-All is a record of the year Jacobs spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.  It highlights some of his favorite random facts (did you know that you only need to  get three rowdy people together to legally qualify as a riot? or that Hank Aaron once played for a baseball team called the Indianapolis Clowns?) and traces patterns and contradictions throughout the text. Jacobs is an incredibly funny writer, and half of the humor of the book comes from the fact that he is such a normal guy (a former writer for Entertainment Tonight who admits that he "stopped reading anything except tabloid gossip columns for years!") undertaking such an incredibly immense project.

While the factoids themselves are fascinating, thought-provoking, and often hilarious, Jacobs breaks up the encyclopedic exploration by interweaving narratives from "his life outside the Books." He deals with family members and friends who are confused and often dismissive of his (crazy) goal, and describes his contrast attempts to work his new-found knowledge into daily conversation (there's a particularly wonderful cocktail party dialogue about the mating habits of amoebas...). There are also stories about his attempts to become recognized as "The Smartest Person in the World:" He attempts to join Mensa, competes in a hard-core Crossword Puzzle Tournament, hangs out with Alex Trebek,  tries out for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire... and each experience teaches him that he's not quite "there yet." He says, tongue-in-cheek, that the only reason he doesn't blow his competitors away is because he hasn't reached the Z's yet!

I absolutely adored this book -- I learned so many randomly wonderful things and had a wonderful time reading (and laughing) along with the author. There's something awfully joyous about reading about somebody else's reading (I guess that's why we blog, after all...) and I enjoyed every minute of this one!

5 STARS We're heading to Vegas and getting hitched next Tuesday. Send flowers!

* the longest 1 syllable English word is "screeched" just fyi :)

BBAW: Forgotten Treasure

Today’s Topic:  Sure we’ve all read about Freedom and Mockingjay but we likely have a book we wish would get more attention by book bloggers, whether it’s a forgotten classic or under marketed contemporary fiction.  This is your chance to tell the community why they should consider reading this book!

I sat and stared at my computer screen for a long time after coming across today's topic. At first I thought it would be easy to come up with a title (or an author? maybe even a genre?) that I thought was woefully under-read and in need of some blogger-loving, but I had a terrible time narrowing down my ideas. There are so many books I've loved that seem 'out of fashion' in today's reading community. I often feel lost reading other blogs because I'm fairly out of touch with the contemporary/YA lit world-- I love visiting and maybe adding other blogger's favorites to my TBR pile, but I never quite get over the feeling of being a tourist in a strange land... 

Anyway-- here are my final picks for forgotten treasures!

The Big Sea by Langston Hughes. I think Hughes, in general, is horribly under-read at the moment. Sure we usually get a couple of his poems in school (usually in the month of February when teachers are instructed to celebrate African American History month...) and during President Obama's inauguration Hughes quotes were tossed around all over the place... but actually reading his collected works? Or his short stories? His plays? His non-fiction work? Not so much! I was actually guilty of 'forgetting' Hughes (or of never really knowing him...) until fairly recently. A dear friend of mine in grad school is a Hughes scholar (one of the few, the proud) and he basically tied me to a chair and refused to let me up until I'd worked through a couple collections. It was an eye-opening experience. I'd never realized quite how long Hughes's career was-- he was a major voice not only in the Harlem Renaissance, but also throughout the Second World War, the Red Scare of McCarthyism, and the early Civil Rights Movement. He traveled extensively in the US, the Carribbean, Western and Eastern Europe, West Africa, and Japan, and wrote about his experiences every step of the way. He wrote in almost every genre imaginable (even opera!) and was a huge American presence-- artistically, politically and socially-- for over 4 decades.

I would really encourage anyone to dive right into Hughes's work, but if you're only going to read one thing of his cover-to-cover, I would suggest checking out the first volume of his autobiography, The Big Sea. It's a fabulously lyrical account of his childhood (in the US and Mexico) and his growing awareness of both racial identity and the power of the written word. It follows him on his journeys as a young writer in Harlem, on book tours deep into the American South of the 1940s, and over to the artistic community in 1950s Paris. It's a beautifully written, emotionally powerful narrative that gives you an insight into one of the most prolific and influential writers of the first half of the 1900s. I can't shout enough praises...

AND (because I love this one too much to leave out...)

John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead. I know this book got some flack(!!) for being 'overly literary' and Whitehead's complicated prose and kaleidescope of images, scenes, time periods, genres and voices can be messy and confusing, but if you let yourself get lost in the story/stories the experience is really magical. It's a haunting book. It's an ambitious look at the history/development/modern applications of the John Henry myth (a former slave working as a pile driver for the railroads who engages in a man vs machine contest to save his livelihood). The novel playfully, yet dramatically, explores stereotypes and race relations over the course of the past hundred years. It also engages with modern commodity culture-- where history, myth, and tensions have been turned into purchasable 'things' so that we can buy (and own) little bits of the past (a 'John Henry action figure,' 'black face lawn jockeys for the front yard,' 'stereotyped Aunt Jemima syrup bottles' etc.) You may not love the book for its language (though I actually do..) or for it's wildly spinning construction, but the messages and characters will stay with you!

BBAW: New Treasure

It's Day 3 of Book Blog Appreciation Week! Each day we share the blogger-love and describe posts, bloggers, and relationships that have shaped our experiences as readers and writers.

Wednesday’s Topic: 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've added a huge number of books to my TBR pile thanks to wonderfully thoughtful reviews by fellow bloggers, but unfortunately I've only been able to actually read a couple of them :(

I laughed out loud when I read English Major's Junk Food's review of Ophelia Just Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook by Sarah Schmelling, and then I immediately logged on to Amazon to order a copy. I loved the idea of this book (perhaps more than I loved the book itself) and couldn't wait to share it with my students. What a great way to 'modernize' the canon! A couple weeks ago I assigned Hamlet to my first-year English class and then had them read the 'Facebooking' of those characters. It really seemed to bring home some of the relationships and emotions from the play.. plus is was so much FUN to talk about. I asked my students to pick characters NOT represented in the Schmelling book and to write their own Facebook interactions. It was the most energetic and engaged class-period we've had all semester!

The other review that made me jump off my seat and run directly to the used book store was Things Mean a Lot's reading of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. The review gave a great, intriguing plot summary without giving too much away, and then gave a list of similar works and provided a number of (fabulous!!) quotes. I was hooked as soon as I read this paragraph:

 "But before I go any further, let me tell you a little more about the alternative world that Thursday inhabits: this is a world where dodos have been brought back from extinction thanks to cloning and are popular pets (Thursday has one named Pickwick); a world where the boundaries between reality and fiction are malleable at best; a world in which a device called a Prose Portal allows people to enter works of fiction; a world in which the interests of the giant Goliath Corporation have pretty much trumped democracy; a world in which Wales is an independent nation behind a sort of Iron Curtain; and finally a world in which artistic and literary matters are the subject of debates so heated that they can lead to imprisonment or to terrorist acts."

I LOVED this idea, and ordered the rest of the series before I'd even finished the first one. I've been sticking pretty exclusively to classic and 'academic' literature, so the playfulness and chaos of Fforde's books was a bit out of my norm... But I'm so very glad I was encouraged to go there!

How about you? What "New Treasures" have your blogging adventures led you to? 

Top Ten TBRs

I know that I'm going to be posting later today for the BBAW topic, but I love my Top Ten Tuesdays and just wouldn't be able to get through the week without my fix...

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly meme run by The Broke and The Bookish (if you're hopping around for BBAW, definitely go check this one out!). Every Tuesday they post a Top Ten Topic for us to answer. This week's question is "Top Ten Books I'm Dying to Read." I'm struggling with this one, which is surprising since I have a TBR pile that is slowly taking over my room...


Top Ten Books I'm Dying to Read

1. Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Different Languages by Guy Deutscher. I've always been interested in the ways language shapes our understanding of the world (and of our place with/in it). I've had Deutscher's book on my shelf for a while now but live keeps interrupting!

2. High Tide in Tuscon: Essays From Now or Never by Barbara Kingsolver.  (One of) My mission for the year was to familiarize myself with essay writers/writing and, since BK is one of my all-time favorite writers (Poisonwood Bible!!) I grabbed her collection to get myself going. Still haven't managed to crack the cover though...

3. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Language games, conspiracy theories, meta-fictionality... there are so many juicy tags attached to this book. Friends are always shocked (and appalled) that I haven't gotten to this yet.

4. The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins. Before you start yelling at me about this.. I KNOW I have to read it, I KNOW it's supposed to be wonderful (except, possibly, Mockingjay?)


5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. I'm not allowed to watch the movie until I've read the book. And I hear the movie's incredible...


6. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. An epic Whodunnit about censorship that takes place at a library known as The Cemetery for Forgotten Books? Yes Please!


7.  The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.


8. Songs of Enchantment by Ben Okri. This is the sequel to Okri's Booker Prize winning The Famished Road. Loved the first one, feel guilty I haven't touched the second


9. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. I've read his controversial stuff (Satanic Verses in particular), so it'd be nice to engage with him as a storyteller instead of being caught up in the politics.


10. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon.

BBAW: First Treasure

It's finally time for Book Blogger Appreciation Week!! I was a lurker last year and promised myself that I would have my own blog up and running in time for this year's festivities. It's such a great opportunity to explore new blogs and to celebrate the bloggers who help to shape my reading and reviewing habits. I'm also madly truly deeply in love with the theme of this year's celebration -- “A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs” -- because I have a minor obsession with pirates and treasure maps. I taught a class last week on the parallels between first-year composition projects and pirate map construction, and I plan to teach next Monday (the day AFTER International Talk like a Pirate Day...) in a full peg-leg/eye-patch/parrot-on-the-shoulder glory.

Anyway! Today's topic is "First Treasure," an account of the blog that first got you interested (obsessed) with book blogging and with the blogging community.  My first blogger-crush was definitely Amanda over at Dead White Guys. She's hysterically funny and often has pointed insights about the nature and relationships of classic literature. I was particularly drawn to her blog because it was the first time I'd seen a blogger try to take on 'classic, high-brow literature.' I'd read plenty of blogs about YA and chick lit, and while I love those genres, I am an academic and feel guilty if I don't engage with the big guns. Dead White Guys turns reading about Hemingway or Thomas Moore into a rocking, rollicking good time.

I'd recommend her blog to anyone interested in an irreverent take on the Old Masters, or to anyone looking to bone up on the big names without getting too intimidated by their dry authority.

Logophilia!!

It's hard to be excited about this Tuesday. I had a fabulously relaxing holiday weekend (hanging at the beach, exploring the history of St. Augustine, going wine tasting... all kinds of lovely-ness) and then this morning reared its ugly head and forced me to rejoin the real world. Booooo!! I came home to an email Inbox absolutely flooded with angsty, "Why aren't you responding to meeeee" type messages. My students are working on drafting their first papers of the semester. For most of them it's their first college paper ever.... so they're freaking out. I'm amazed by how much hand-holding this year's gang seems to expect -- they email about evvvverything and expect me to pass out answers/excuses on demand. They're a charismatic, really bright group, but they have a hard time accepting responsibility for their work. Drives me batty!

Anyway! Despite all the stress of getting back to teaching, and of responding to all the questions/demands I "neglected" over the weekend, I'm stoked that it's Tuesday! Why? Cause it means that it's time for Top Ten Tuesdays at The Broke and the Bookish. Woot Woot!

This week's topic is... Your Top Ten Favorite Words. That's a tough one, but I'll do my best :)

1. Facetiously- adj. not meant to be taken seriously or literally.  I love this word for a number of reasons-- it's fun to say, it has all the vowels in alphabetical order, and it contradicts itself (starts out by presenting you with a "Face" but you can't take it at "face value").

2. Onomatopoeia- n. a word that sounds like its referent. The world would be a much more musical place if all words were onomatopoetic. 

3. Brouhaha- n. excited public interest, a hullabaloo (bonus points for sneaking my 11th favorite word into a definition!) When I try to practice my mad scientist cackle I just repeat Brouhaha with a creepy, drawn-out accept.

4. Tintinnabulation- n. the sound of bells. You can almost hear them ringing ...

5. Orangutan- n. King Louie from the Jungle Book. The epitome (12th favorite word) of awesomeness

6. Amoeba- n. a protozoan bottom-dweller. Not sure why I dig this one... it's not like it comes up in regular conversation... but it has a fun ring. I'd totally name a kid Amoeba.

7. Indubitably- adj. cannot be doubted, unquestionable. Great word when you want to sound pretentious. It also has a fabulous rhythm when it comes off your tongue. Kind of like a kettle falling down stairs. Also... rhythm is a weird word. Where are the vowels? How does that "thm" thing work?

  

8. Frumious- adj. blend of fuming and furious. I love love love the the Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/ The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/ the frumious Bandersnatch!" Oh so fantabulous! 

9. Smite- v. to deliver or deal a blow.  It's always fun to play with the tenses of this one. "I have been smitten" "I was smote" "He smit me"... good times :)

10. Ken- n. knowledge, understanding. I enjoy this one because one of my best friends is named Ken, so whenever he's confused about something we can say "Ah, so sad, it's beyond our ken..." Plus, it works best when you assume a Scottish accent (i.e. pretend to be Sean Connery) and that always makes for a good time!

My Lit Ladies

        Is it too dorky to admit that Tuesdays have quickly become my favorite day of the week? Part of that new-found Tuesday-love is probably due to the fact that it's my one day off from teaching... the one day I can dedicate to MY reading, MY projects, and MY LIFE!  But the other part of my preference for Tuesdays is definitely the Top Ten Tuesday meme run by The Broke and the Bookish. I love the opportunity to go digging back through my reading-memories to come up with answers to the weekly question, and I've really enjoyed checking out other people's answers. Every once in a while somebody will talk about a book I haven't read in YEARS and I'll float away on a tide of nostalgia... or run right over to the bookshelf to get reacquainted with the old favorite (last week's major re-find was The Giver... love love love that book)

Anyway! This week's episode is Top Ten Favorite Heroines! So, in no particular order... away we go!

1. Beatrice from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. She's snarky, sarcastic, a quick-thinker, and not willing to put up with any crap from any of the men in the play. Plus.. Emma Thompson plays her in the 1993 movie version.. and that gives her instant bonus points.

2. Lucy Snow from Charlotte Bronte's Villette. While I'm not huge on the whole 'repressed Victorian maiden' thing, I do love how self-reliant and resilient Lucy is. She's an intensely introverted character, but she also easily understands and reacts to the more emotive needs of others.

3. Precious in Sapphire's Push. It hurt to read this book-- the story was uncomfortable, disgusting, and horrifying. But no matter what happened, Precious managed to find a silver lining that was creative, hopeful and often hilariously funny. By the end of this book I was literally cheering out loud for her.

4. Elizabeth Bennett from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I love Elizabeth's spunk and her willingness to thumb her nose at convention. If I ignore the whole 'I won't really fall in love with Darcy until I see his fantabulous estate' business, she's pretty much perfect!

5. Jo March from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. In elementary school, my friends and I used to pretend that we were the characters from Little Women. It was a great way for girls with different interests to hang together- some of us could play house (the Megs and pre-death Beths), some of us could play dress-up and be lovely young ladies (the Amys) and some of us could be skallywag tomboys (the Jos). I always wanted to be Jo, but I usually got cast as Laurie because I couldn't seem to be lady-like enough to be a March daughter...

6. Thursday Next from Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. I'm still new to Fforde's series, but I have already decided that I want Thursday Next's life. She a literary detective (LiteraTec) who runs around INSIDE books trying to keep plots in place and characters happy. It's pretty much my dream job.

7. Ada from Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. This is my all-time favorite book, and Ada (or Adah, depending on her mood) is a large part of the reason why I can't seem to go a month or two without rereading. She was born with a condition called hemiplegia (half of her body and brain is impaired) and she believes this condition changes the way she views and understands the world. Ada has an unusual way of looking at things (she often reads backwards and is obsessed with palindromes) but she has such heart and humor that you can't help but relate to her. 

8. Kambili from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. This is one of the books that really started the genre known as African Gothic, and Kambili, in her way, is just as determined to face her demons as any of the Victorian Gothic heroines who came before her (Jane Eyre, Catherine Earnshaw). She's also more successful than many of them tend to be..

9. Hermione from the Harry Potter Series. Wicked smart, somewhat snarky, and perfectly willing to punch Draco Malfoy in the face when he deserves it. 

10. Petra in the Enders Game series. Petra has a chip on her shoulder the size of Gibralter, but (as you see in the later, Bean-focused books) she also has a huge heart and a willingness to do just about anything to help those she loves. 

Country of My Skull

Title: Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa

Author: Anjie Krog

From the Inside Flap:

"Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited. The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied upon, and harassed people of color and their white supporters, was dismantled. But how could this country–one of spectacular beauty and promise–come to terms with its ugly past? How could its people, whom the oppressive white government had pitted against one another, live side by side as friends and neighbors?

To begin the healing process, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Established in 1995, the commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims of apartheid as well as the oppressors. Amnesty was granted to those who offered a full confession of any crimes associated with apartheid. Since the commission began its work, it has been the central player in a drama that has riveted the country. In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families. Through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, from the appearance of Winnie Mandela to former South African president P. W. Botha’s extraordinary courthouse press conference, this award-winning poet leads us on an amazing journey."

I picked up this book about a year ago and let it languish on my TBR pile for far too long.  I've done quite a bit of work on South Africa and its democratization during the early 1990s, but I've never read such a poignant, painful, but ultimately beautiful account of the TRC process.  Anjie Krog's narration draws you right into the action and gives you a unique look at the powerful personalities who shaped the fate of the new South African nation. Her descriptions of amnesty hearings were unbelievably moving-- reading the stories of victims (black and white) and the justifications of perpetrators (black and white) really brought home the horror of the apartheid system. The most fascinating/horrifying section, for me, was when Krog documented the testimony of former S.A. president F.W. de Klerk. In this testimony de Klerk dismisses gross human rights violation as "the bad judgement, overzealousness or negligence of individual policemen".  It was fascinating to think of the lengths to which people will go to cling to power and privilege.

This is not an easy, or a pleasant read-- I cried several times. But its final message is one of hope. S.A. did progress to a democratic style of government and the TRC gave hundreds of people the opportunity to speak their stories, and, in many cases, to come face to face with their persecutors.  

I would absolutely recommend this book to anybody interested in African politics, in questions of morality and humanity, or in the remarkable triumph of forgiveness. 

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme run by The Broke and the Bookish. This Week's Episode...Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I've Never Read.  I want to point out that this is a list of books that I, myself, am shocked to admit I've never read-- my professors have their own (lengthy) list of holes in my education...

1.   Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. I've had this in my TBR pile for years now but every time I go to the shelves to pick out a new read I seem to just waltz right past this one. 

2.  Actually... I've never read ANYTHING by Nick Hornby. I hear such good things, but we just never seem to be in the same place at the same time.

3.  The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. It seems like every third person on the street is reading a Suzanne Collins book this week. I've read blurbs and reviews and the series sounds like a good time. Maybe when I get a break from 'academic reading (of Doooooooooom!)...

4.  The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. This book sits on my TBR pile and taunts me from across the room. It's not necessarily something that I WANT to read, but in order to consider myself a good little English scholar.. I probably ought to have read something by both of these guys! They seem to be kinda important...

5.  Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. I think I've started this book twice, but life interrupted.

6.  The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. 

7.  Atonement by Ian McEwan.

8.  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers. I want to read this one just for the title. Dude's got some cajones to put that one out there...

9.  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. I got embroiled in a long conversation with a friend last week about whether or not Adam and Eve (or Frankenstein, or most of the Greek Gods for that matter) had belly buttons. If you're not born in the 'usual' way there doesn't seem to be any need for an umbilical cord and, therefore, no need for a belly button! At the end of the conversation I declared that if I ever wrote a novel about an android I would call it No-Navel Nanette. My friend then replied that Philip Dick had already written a book about this exact topic and that I should read it before wasting my time scribbling away.  

10.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  

Saturday Review

It was rainy and unbearably humid out today... so I did what any good book-junkie does when situations like these arise- fill up the coffee pot, put the ipod on shuffle and curl up on the couch with the pooch and a stack of long-neglected TBRs. What with the start of the new semester and the arrival of hordes of screaming, high maintenance undergrads I haven't had much time lately to read for pleasure, so I decided that today, at least, I was going to read for ME!
Here are a couple of the friends who kept me company:

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I came across a review of this book on Bibliofreak's blog about a month ago and I was intrigued. From the back cover: "Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense." Our guide through this world is a LiteraTec (literary detective, I assume) named Thursday Next. Thursday is a sympathetic and wildly entertaining protagonist who gets into all sorts of scrapes and misadventures. Now normally I'm not a huge fan of YA fiction or science fiction in general but as a huge literature nerd I fell in love with the idea of a world where EVERYBODY obsessed/freaked-out-over books the way that I tend to on a daily basis. What book-lover hasn't dreamed of stepping into the pages of their favorite novel and living alongside so characters they've read so many times?
My major problem with the book, however, was that there was just way too much going on! There were side-plots and secondary characters coming out of the woodwork and the resulting chaos was a bit distracting. Cutting down on some of the less-essential adventures might have made the story easier to follow, though it would have cut down on the fast-pace Fford is obviously going for. If Fforde was going to magically take my suggestions and do some paring down of the plot I would also suggest that he cut out the incredibly necessary/boring love-triangle aspect of the story... I hear Thursday's love-life gets more interesting in the sequels so maybe Fforde felt he had to throw some drama in there to get things started, but I by the end of the book I was actively cheering for the relationship to fall apart.
I enjoyed this book- it played around with some of my favorite reader fantasies. I would give my eye teeth to jump into this book and become a LiteraTec myself, cause it sounds like my absolute dream job! That being said, however, I probably will not read this book again or recommend that people run right out to buy it. If you have a rainy day and feel the need for some seriously escapist book-loving, by all means look this one up. It's quick, dirty, and entertaining :)

I give this book: 3 Stars

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. I've been meaning to work my way through Coetzee's work for some time now- I have a 4 or 5 of his books stacked up in my office gathering dust and/or doing duty as paperweights and door stops. I'm not sure why I have such a hard time getting into Coetzee's novel. I've read and enjoyed several of his collections of essays and postmodern/political theorizing but his fiction leaves me absolutely cold. I read his Foe a week or so ago and found the experience a bit like having my teeth pulled. Once I finished the book I could think about it and acknowledge the fact that I gained something from the experience and that it was probably a necessary/beneficial thing to have undergone, but at no point was it pleasurable. In Foe, however, the dentist was unusual and occasionally had interesting and thought-provoking things to say as she poked and prodded away at me; the Disgrace dentist, however, was old and tottering and seemed to be telling stories that I'd already heard hundreds of times. The story is about an English professor who has an affair with a student, is caught, and is dismissed from his position and who seeks refuge on his daughter's rural homestead. Here the protagonist runs into issues of class, race and sexuality. In a normal novel these interactions with Others might force a selfish, sexist, racist, out-of-touch Ivory Tower type to face his own weaknesses and evolve as a human being. Not in this book! There is relatively no character development from start to finish, the protagonist remains as unpleasantly self-serving and offensive as ever. Coetzee even seems to go out of his way to underline the fact that his main character learns practically nothing over the course of the narrative. Perhaps there's a deeper meaning here that I'm just not getting... it did win the Booker Prize (a second for Coetzee) and received rave reviews. Perhaps my issue is that the book's perspective is sooo male. The female characters are well-rendered, diverse and interesting but we are pointedly forbidden from getting to know them at a deeper level. The story is about one man's understanding of himself and of his relationship to the world- the main character can't hear or understand the perspective of his daughter, his middle-aged neighbor, or his teen-aged student mistress, and as a result we as the audience don't get those insights either.
I found this book frustrating- it had an interesting plot, tight and vivid language and a couple interesting characters. I just think Coetzee picked the least interesting and the least dynamic of the characters to focus the narrative on!

I give this book 2 Stars 

Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays!

Last week flew by like you would not believe! Maybe it was because last week was my last week of summer "vacation" or maybe it was because I was woefully under-prepared for the classes I had to teach this morning.. but time definitely sped up!

Anyway- I now have the first day of classes under my belt. I'm cautiously optimistic about my students- even though when I asked them to write down their concerns about the semester almost ALL of them said some version of "I'm not a writer. I'm not creative or a deep thinker." I'm prepared for the rest of my teaching responsibilities for the week and ready to focus on MY reading!

So... I'm participating in this weeks "It's Monday: What are you Reading" event hosted by bookjourney. I actually found this useful because it made me acknowledge the number of books I'm reading at once... maybe I'll try NOT to start a new one until I finish a couple of the current projects.. maybe...

1. Sigmund Freud's The Uncanny- I'm not a huge fan of Freud's but this collection of essays deals with fun things like the undead and DaVinci's neuroticisms... so it's actually been an enjoyable read so far

2. Ben Okri's The Famished Road- I'm working my way through contemporary West African fiction for my comps and Okri's been one of my favorite finds. Famished Road won the Booker Prize in 1991 but somehow or another I've missed it until now!

3. Steve Stern's The Frozen Rabbi- ehh, it's gotten a lot of hype and I suppose some of it is deserved, but I'm struggling to really get into it!

4. Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues- I love him. He could write just about anything and I'd sing praises

5. James Clavell's Tai-Pan- I really enjoyed Shogun but am finding this a less engaging read :(

6. Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah- Very different from Achebe's earlier work.. I'll let you know more when I get deeper into the book

7. Langston Hughes's The Big Sea Book One of Hughes's autobiography- his prose is just as much fun/moving to read as his poetry. Really enjoying this!

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the 8 am Comp Class

So I've spent the last couple of days plugging away at my syllabi trying to come up with a fun (and not toooo dorky) way to keep first year college students interested in Composition Studies at 8am. Now I was a college student not all too long ago and I remember how absolutely painful early morning classes are- especially on Mondays and Fridays... and I know that a class has to be incredibly engaging/challenging/bizarre to keep people from passing out left, right and center. I've been having a difficult time, however, coming up with a hook that will both intrigue my students, and fulfill all the requirements of the strict First-Year Composition Program at my University. The funky thing about our Program is that the first semester's course has to focus on non-fiction. We can look at essays, articles, and criticism but absolutely no creative fiction, poetry, or film. That cramps my style a bit.. It's tough to be creative, inventive and slightly off-the-wall if you have to base everything in the real world! Where's the fun in a class without whimsy? Ehhhh?

I've decided to skirt around the rules a little bit by looking at non-fiction through the lens (through a magnifying glass perhaps?...) of a fiction. I want to focus the course around critical reading and analysis by using the character of Sherlock Holmes as a central, unifying trope.  We'll use quotes and scenes from the books to shape the way we discuss attention to detail, pattern recognition, audience awareness, and argument presentation. I think it could be a fun way to bring some silliness into what could otherwise be a pretty dull subject. Also.. it gives me the opportunity to periodically wear a tweed hat and a monocle and to pretend to smoke a pipe in class.

This is the quote that first got me thinking about Holmes as a Freshman Comp teacher...

"It seemed to me that a careful examination of the room and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson. There was not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry. And it ended by my discovering traces, but very different ones from those which I had expected."
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)

I'm still working on coming up with ideas for class projects and paper topics that would deal primarily with current or historical events but that could also work with the detective theme we've got going on. If anybody has any suggestions for readings or project topics you think might work I'd LOVE to hear about them!