It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

I’ve been reading a ton lately, and people keep asking me how I’m reading so much when I’m so busy.  I don’t know how to answer that — somehow I seem to read more when I’m under stress.  Does that make sense? I did spend ten hours on a plane last weekend, which helped.

In the last couple of weeks, I finished and posted reviews for Life After Life, Charlotte Street, and Cat’s Cradle.  Upcoming reviews are Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.

What I’m reading now is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and I love it.  What a strange book but the way it’s written, I don’t want to put it down.  This is my second book by Murakami.  Last year I read Norwegian Wood, which is considered one of his “more accessible” (less strange) books.  I like this one even better.

Having finished Cat’s Cradle and Gillespie and I, I have a question for the readers out there.  What do you think makes a book historical fiction?  Is it enough that a book is set in the past?  Or does there need to be more?  For example, is the author’s purpose to really explain a certain period in time?  Does it need to be a specific historical incident like a war?  Does it need to have characters based on actual persons?  Does it need to be based on factual research and provide details about life in that time?

Cat’s Cradle seemed more like science fiction than historical fiction to me, but I think it meets the characteristics I just described more than Gillespie and I, which takes place in 1888 but barely tells you anything about the time and place. I like a good genre-bending novel, and I think it’s a good thing when a book can’t be neatly categorized.  Still, I’ve been oddly troubled by this lately (it’s my semi-compulsive need for order and lists).

Another thing that’s troubling me.  A few weeks ago I went searching for good books written by Australian authors.  I was fortunate to pick up one on NetGalley, and the other two I downloaded first chapters from Amazon (The Light Between Oceans, Questions of Travel, and Floundering).  The problem?  I just didn’t warm to any of the three.  All three are award winners, but I couldn’t see myself sitting down and reading any of them.  It makes me a little sad that I’m heading to Australia and couldn’t find an Australian book I wanted to read.

On the positive side, I am super-excited to have scored a copy of Naomi Novik’s upcoming book in the Temeraire series, Blood of Tyrants (out in August).  Thanks, NetGalley and Random House/Del Rey!

Well, those are my musings on this Monday.  Happy Reading!

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Readers, last week was a tough one, and I’m definitely feeling a little ragged.  On top of a looming research paper and planning our trip to Australia, work is really intense right now and there’s a lot that has to get done before May 9.  On top of that, I picked up a cold from my cubicle-mate at work that knocked me flat for a couple of days and left me in something of a daze of cold drugs.  We leave for California in three days for a wedding and wine tasting, which sounds pretty good, although it takes me away from things that seriously need to get done here.

I’m done whining (for now)!  Some bookish news items:

• BBC is producing a miniseries version of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, airing in 2014 and filming this summer (no casting news at this point).
• It’s Stephen King’s world and we just live in it.  TV show Under the Dome comes out this year, and there’s a preview for a Carrie movie, and rumors of a possible Cujo movie.  Carrie will star Chloe David-Moretz, who seems perfect for the role, and Julianne Moore as the crazy mom.  This one’s supposed to be darker and truer to the book than the Sissy Spacek version (but don’t they always say that?). Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll be putting myself through that.
• In January I reviewed At Drake’s Command, a well-researched and highly-entertaining novel about the nautical explorations of Francis Drake.  Author David Wesley Hill asked me to let you know that the book  will be FREE to download on Amazon on April 16 and 17 (and afterwards $2.99).  More about the book here.

What am I reading?  I’ve recently finished Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and Danny Wallace’s Charlotte Street (both courtesy of NetGalley).  And then, because I was sick, I read some fluffy stuff (When Maidens Mourn by C.S. Harris) and a bunch of sample chapters I didn’t need to concentrate on.

Right now I’m reading Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, and I started out really excited about this book, but now I’m struggling with it a little bit.  It could just be my mental state – I feel like I’m not doing right by Vonnegut.  I might need to stick with fluff for a little while.  The other book on my virtual nightstand is Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, but that one isn’t grabbing me either.

Happy Monday, and happy reading!

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

It’s Monday, and there is a LOT going on.  To start with, we bought plane tickets to Australia and in one month we head out for a 3 week trip.  It’s the longest and farthest trip I’ve ever made, and with the least time to plan.  We’ll be going to Sydney, then Adelaide (wine country), then Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, and finally Port Douglas (the Great Barrier Reef area).  We gave a lot of thought to what would be too much to see, and I hope we came out with a pretty balanced trip, where we see most of the good stuff but don’t run ourselves down trying to get to everything.

On top of that, we have a wedding to attend in California in three weeks, and my research class finishes up May 6 and I have a paper to complete.  So I expect to be a nervous wreck in the near future, which means the blog may go on hiatus for a while.

So for now, what have I been reading?  I finally finished On the Road by Jack Kerouac, which was a tough read.  I reviewed Over Sea, Under Stone for the Around the World in 12 Books Challenge.  I picked up a few new review-request novels and Net Galleys.  Right now I’m about halfway through Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which is awesome.

In bookish news, you may have heard that Amazon bought Goodreads.com.  For a thoughtful comment on the purchase, see this post at A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook.  I’m starting to worry about Amazon’s control of book reviews.  I realize I sold my soul to Amazon the day I bought my first Kindle, so I honestly don’t know how to feel about all this.  I don’t mind that they sell everything – I’ve started to buy most of my drugstore items, groceries, and even clothes on Amazon, so I’m pretty sure they are going to own the world one of these days.  That can’t be a good thing.  I certainly don’t want them controlling what I can read.  They do, to an extent, because I love my Kindle so, but I still buy books other ways.

Should we be worried?  Amazon doesn’t control how I learn about books, since most of that comes from other bloggers, magazines, and newspapers. And even though Amazon has a scary amount of marketing power, they still have an incentive to sell ALL books, not just some books.

And right now, I see the exact same reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads anyway.  I post identical reviews on both sites, so is there harm in them merging?  Well, for one thing, Amazon has to approve my reviews, while Goodreads posts them automatically.  And rather than using their approval power to weed out meaningless, fake, and paid-for reviews, they seem to go after legitimate reviews instead, if recent stories have any merit.

Thoughts?

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

It’s Monday, and I’m reading travel books about Australia!  Our big news is a semi-impulse trip to Australia in May.  I say semi because we’ve been thinking about it for a while but kept waiting for the right time to manage three weeks of travel.  A few things have happened lately.  The first is that I might be going back to grad school, and that means night classes for about the next three years.  The second is I have less responsibility at work right now, and staff to cover my absence.  So the time is right – plus the recent sequester madness has me feeling grateful for what I have. 

Can we pull off planning a trip to Australia in only 2 months?  Of course!  It’s just that we usually spend 6-9 months thinking about a big trip, so this is sudden for us.  I would LOVE to hear advice from anyone who’s been or lived there.  Favorite spots?  Best way to get over jet lag?  How soon to buy within-Australia plane tickets?  Is Ayers Rock worth the trip?  Will May be too cold? 

In other semi-bookish news, has anyone seen the new Oz movie?  I don’t plan to see it.  As most of you know, I’m a pretty big Oz geek – not that there’s an actual term for that, but there is a community out there of people who love the Oz books and L. Frank Baum as much as I do.  They even have conventions (though I’ve never been).  I really just wanted this movie to do right by the books, but according to the New York Times review, Disney has failed on that front.  What seals the deal for me is the NYT’s assertion that, despite the Oz series being full of strong female characters (revolutionary for its time), this movie “has such backward ideas about female characters that it makes the 1939 ‘Wizard of Oz’ look like a suffragist classic.”  And apparently Franco turns in another Oscar-worthy performance (as in, his horrible Oscar hosting performance).  I saw him on Colbert Report last week and almost couldn’t stand to watch.  

So I think I’ll pass.  And now that I’ve expressed my opinion without even seeing the movie, have you seen it?  Plan to?  

In other reading, I finished Karen Lord’s Best of All Possible Worlds, and I’m currently glued to Patricia Briggs’ Frost Burned.  I don’t know why, but reading a Mercy Thompson novel always makes me feel like I’m coming back to old friends – I can’t think of any other series that affects me like that.  I just love her characters. 

So, happy Monday!  Hope you had a great almost-spring weekend.  What are you reading? 

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

I’ve spent most of the last three weeks reading Storm of Swords, the third book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I also read Please Look After Mom, by Korean author Kyung-Sook Shin (review here).

Right now I’m reading What is the What, by Dave Eggers.  This is a novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee from Sudan who was one of the “Lost Boys” – children who were orphaned during civil war in Sudan in the 80’s and 90’s and had to walk hundreds of miles to find refuge.  It’s a compelling read written in a unique voice.  I know next to nothing about Sudan, which is why I’m reading this book for the Giraffe Days’ Around the World in Twelve Books Challenge.  I’ve also never read anything by Eggers before, and I figured he’s a writer I ought to try.

In the next month, I’ve committed to one review request (How Angels Die by David-Michael Harding), one NetGalley (The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord), and one classic for the Classics Club (On the Road by Jack Kerouac).  You might be interested to know that io9′s Book Club will be discussing Karen Lord’s book on March 5.

I’m also excited about the latest Mercy Thompson book, Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs, coming out March 5.

In other book news, you might want to check out the announcement of the Nebula Award nominees posted on John Scalzi’s blog.  The novels don’t look terribly interesting to me, although I would like to read Mary Robinette Kowal one of these days.  There’s a fantasy/SF take on Jane Eyre, which looks dreadful to me, but then Jane Eyre and I have never been friends.

February Update on Challenges: I completed two reviews for the TBR Pile Challenge, and started one book for the Around the World Challenge.

So that’s what I’m reading.  What about you?

The Classics Club Book Spin

The Classics Club is doing something called a “Classics Spin”.  What is that?  First, I have to take my Classics Club list of 50 books and pick 20 I haven’t read.  I post the list, and on Monday the Classics Club will pick a number from 1-20, and that’s a book I have to read by April.

I’m also supposed to include some books on my list that are challenging or that I’m kind of nervous about reading.  I am going to “cheat” a little since I’ve piled on a lot of challenges this year, and include books that are also on my TBR Pile Challenge.

This seems like a good way to choose my next book, so here’s my list. Some short (Lois Lowry, Edgar Allen Poe), some long (George Eliot), some intimidating (Rudyard Kipling, William Faulkner). I even random-ordered it.

1. Maugham, Somerset – Of Human Bondage
2. Kipling, Rudyard – Kim
3. James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady
4. Jackson, Shirley – The Haunting of Hill House
5. Heinlein, Robert – Stranger in a Strange Land
6. Twain, Mark – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
7. Murakami, Haruki – The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
8. Ishiguro, Kazuo – The Remains of the Day
9. Chopin, Kate – The Awakening
10. Poe, Edgar Allen – The Raven
11. McKinley, Robin — The Hero and the Crown
12. Lowry, Lois — Number the Stars
13. Eliot, George – Daniel Deronda
14. Kerouac, Jack – On the Road
15. Fitzgerald, F. Scott – Tender is the Night
16. Austen, Jane – Mansfield Park
17. Spark, Muriel – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
18. Faulkner, William – Light in August
19. Greene, Graham – The End of the Affair
20. Vonnegut, Kurt – Cat’s Cradle

Of course I could choose my own book, but I’m a rule-follower at heart so I’ll do what I’m told.  Stay tuned to see what gets picked!

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

On this Monday, I’m reading Storm of Swords, the third book in the George R.R. Martin A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I didn’t love Book 2, and this book throws you right back into the action.  Since it’s been a year or more since I read Book 2, I was more than a little confused.  And if you’ve read any of these books, you know that Martin doesn’t go easy on his reader with the number of characters — all of whom are related to each other in strategically important ways.  After I looked up a summary of Book 2 on Wikipedia it’s falling back into place and I love it.  You have to be pretty impressed with the amount of world-detail, action, betrayal and intrigue that Martin ties together in these books.

I was reading Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon, but I stopped about a third of the way into the book.  I was telling myself “just get to at least 50% before putting it down” and then I decided that if you have to keep telling yourself that, you’re NOT enjoying the book.  I feel like Chabon is putting word-smithery ahead of telling a good story.  I don’t mind complexity – I appreciate it in fact.  But it does help if the author lets you know what decade you’re in, who’s talking, and what the hell is going on.  Advice from readers?   If you’ve read it, please let me know if I should keep reading.  I like Archy and Gwen and Julie and some of the other characters.  But it just feels like WORK.

My choice of Storm of Swords may have been influenced by the fact that my husband is teaching me to play Dragon Age, a computer fantasy game.  I’ve never played one of these games before, except for Zelda on the Wii, and this is really, really fun.  I started playing and had no idea what I was doing, so the husband’s tutoring has made a big difference.  You have to know how to arm yourself, target the bad guys, go on quests, pick up treasure, make potions, etc.  Plus you actually have to make moral (or immoral) decisions and you have to make friends with your companions.  You get a choice of different kinds of dialogue so you can be snarky, kind, deceptive or helpful. And with the gorgeous graphics it’s like being in a George RR Martin book only I’m the main character.  Anyone else play these things?  The husband’s been playing computer games for years, so what I know comes from him and from The Guild.  I’m not playing with real people, but that’s okay because I barely have time to play and I still don’t know what I’m doing.  But it’s been a lot of fun.

And speaking of time, I started my grad school class and I’m super excited about it.  I got my textbook (ridiculously expensive), my university parking pass, and my student email account, and I’m ready to be a student again.  The class is Intro to Education Research, and even though I’ve worked with ed research for years, it doesn’t mean I can tell you what an independent variable is.  The instructor seems great and I had a good time talking to some of the other “mid-career” students in the class (there are just a few of us and we all sat in the back of the room).

Books I finished recently: just The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, which was thought-provoking even if it wasn’t the best Boyle I’ve read.

Next up?  Storm of Swords will have me wrapped up for a while, I think.

Lastly, a Challenge update.  I’m 2 books into the TBR Pile Challenge, 1 book into the Classics Club and 1 book into the Historical Fiction Challenge.  Not bad for the first month of the year!   I didn’t complete the Around the World Challenge in January, and February’s locale is Sudan.  Suggestions?

How is your Monday going?  What are you reading?

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday, What are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

This Monday, I’m actually in Southern California visiting my in-laws — my father-in-law had heart surgery last week.  He’s doing well but he and the family have been through a lot.  I’m doing what I can to help, which basically amounts to making fried eggs this morning for breakfast.  It’s not much, but I try.

So, what am I reading?  Recently I finished Jasper Fforde’s latest, The Woman Who Died A Lot.  Fforde’s books are always good although I hate to say it, but this series is starting to get a little old.  I think it’s time for new ideas and new characters.  Maybe Fforde could finally write a sequel to his brilliant but unfortunately-named Shades of Grey?

I also finished At Drake’s Command by David Wesley Hill.  This is a book sent to me by its author, and one I enjoyed.  It’s English nautical history, but written for non-nautical types like me.  I found it clever, entertaining, and never too difficult to understand.  I don’t know what that means for fans of C.S. Forester and Patrick O’Brien – I understand those books are for hard-core nautical history geeks.  But if you’re not entirely sure the difference between a fathom and a firkin, but you like a good story of exploration, adventure and piracy, this is a good book to check out.

I picked up a lot of books recently because a) I knew I’d be spending hours on a plane; and b) I got a new Kindle Paperwhite (yay!) but it doesn’t have 3G so now I feel I have to stock up when I leave the house.  Oh, and c) I signed up for challenges this year and I’ll be damned if I don’t finish them.  I’ve been reading pretty fluffy lately and felt it was time for something literary, so I picked up Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut and Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook-Shin.  I also have NW by Zadie Smith and Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon.

On the plane I started A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and it’s pretty amazing.  It’s set in 1912 from the perspective of Francie Nolan, an eleven year old growing up in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn.  It’s a classic but one I’ve never read, so it’s on my list for the Classics Club and the TBR Pile Challenge.

I finally posted a review of The Round House — this was a challenging book to read and even more difficult to write about.  Also, I hope you saw my recent review of Descent, and my interview with its author.  It’s only my second author interview and I’m proud of it — and very impressed by this writer.  Please check it out.

It’s Monday and sunny here (if a little colder than Southern Cal ought to be).  I spent all last week away from my husband so I’m happy just to be with him.  Although spending a week on my own allowed me to watch the entire first season of Homeland, a show I’m now completely obsessed with.

So happy Monday — what are you reading?

Monday Reads and 2012 Challenges

Happy Monday, and if you’re in the path of Hurricane Sandy, here’s wishing you safety, warmth, and power.  I have an unexpected day off today, which is nice – but it also means sitting by the window watching our one tree blow around and worrying (a little bit) about the increasing water level in the canal behind our house.

But on this Monday, here’s what I’m reading: The Nobodies Album, by Carolyn Parkhurst, a book I’ve been meaning to read for a couple years since it came out.   It’s about a writer who rewrites the ends to all of her novels, and somehow that all gets caught up in the fact that her son has been arrested for murdering his girlfriend.  It sounds like a strange book and I’m looking forward to it.  Parkhurst wrote Dogs of Babel, a book that was also strange and so disturbing I’ve never forgotten it.

I’m also reading Andrew McCarthy’s The Longest Way Home, which is subtitled “One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down”.  It all seems a bit pre-determined to me, in that he’s a travel writer taking one long trip so he can freak out about getting married.  And yet I’m intrigued by the concept — I like the idea of an actor turning travel writer, and I like the introspective nature of the book (travel as exploring the self rather than just seeing stuff).

What I’ve finished recently: This is How You Lose Her, by Junot Diaz; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain; and a very cool science fiction anthology called Diverse Energies, where the stories are written by and about people of different ethnicities (including Paolo Bacigalupi and Ursula LeGuin).

It’s the end of October, and that means I have two months to complete the Challenges I signed up for in January.  I’ve been thinking about these challenges lately — obviously, no one’s counting, except for me.  And maybe no one actually cares if they complete a challenge or not.  But for me, it’s both a strength and a compulsion that when I set myself a task, I finish it.

So here’s what I have left:

On the TBR Challenge, I have two books to read, once I finish The Nobodies Album:

• Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
• Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

On the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Challenge, I have:

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (which I tried and didn’t finish)

The Classics Challenge: I easily read more than 7 classics.  However, I failed completely to post reviews based on the November’s Autumn monthly question.  I guess I prefer a challenge to be about what I read rather than how I review something.

The New Authors Challenge: I easily read more than 15 new-to-me authors.  I didn’t have to try with this one.

The Classics Club Challenge: I’m supposed to read 10 from this list each year, but I only recently signed up, so I don’t think that counts.  I’ve read 6, but if I complete the books in the above challenges I’ll have read two more.

For the non-bloggers out there, I realize you probably think this idea of “assigned reading” is silly – we’re not in school after all.  But I will say that the TBR Challenge and the Extraordinary Gentlemen Challenge pushed me this year to read books I wouldn’t have otherwise.  It’s so easy to reach for something new and bestselling.  And of the books on those two lists, almost every one is a book I’m really glad I read.

So there you are.  I think if I’m going to finish Daniel Deronda before the end of the year I should start soon.

Monday Reads and Vacation Photos

Happy Monday!

Right now I’m reading two books: This is How You Lose Her, by Junot Diaz (just nominated for the National Book Award), and a science fiction anthology from NetGalley called Diverse Energies.  I have reviews pending for The Report by Jessica Kane, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

Instead of a review I thought I’d post a few photos from our trip to Italy.  It was hard to pick just a few, so this isn’t a great representation of all the cool things we saw.  Enjoy!

First, to Florence:

Then, to Siena, probably our favorite town:

This is a day tour to wineries in Tuscany.  We drank a lot of Brunello and ate homemade cheese, honey, olive oil, etc.  Awesome day!

Then, to Sorrento:

From there we visited Pompeii and Herculaneum:

Then, to Rome: