Lissa Reads...

monthly catch up, as always

2011-09-12T08:40:00.003-05:00

Listening -- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer 6 hours
Artemis Fowl" The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer 6 hours
Reading for book group -- A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute 1080 "pages" on my iphone in Ibooks -- or 279 pages in a print edition.

reading in fits and starts

2011-08-08T08:45:00.004-05:00

Ditched - galley on nook

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner 569 pages
How Green was my valley by Richard Llewllen 497 pages
Best Staged Plans by Claire Book - 7 hours
Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich - 6.5 hours
First 6 hours of More Information Than You Require by John Hodgeman, lost interest in the mole men junk. Who does that appeal to?

Skimming various books on decluttering and organization.

june reading

2011-06-27T08:51:00.002-05:00

Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler - 355 pages
This Girl is Different by J J Johnson - read a galley on the nook, 316 pages
Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter - 6.5 hours

may reading

2011-05-25T12:00:00.002-05:00

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson 231 pages
Bellwether by Connie Willis 6.5 hours
Plugged by Eoin Colfer 277 pages

maybe some other stuff. but maybe not.

Birthday round up

2011-04-11T15:36:00.001-05:00

I am assuming I won't magically get to read much more before Thursday... best to do the math while I can... In the past year, (that I managed to keep track of) I read 6618 pages and listened to 60 hours of audiobooks. Grand book total was 29 books. I notice that magazines and also online news articles are getting more attention these days, both for their convenience, short attention span, and availabilty on my phone. I'm hoping to get netgalley set up on my iphone to access more content. I tried a nook but every time I have had a chance to pick it up, it has needed recharging. Here's hoping that I find some more fictional escapes in the coming year! Happy 33rd birthday to me :)

Catching up those i missed

2011-04-11T15:28:00.002-05:00

I recently read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, which was first published in 1854. My first reaction was that it was all well and good for this Harvard educated single man to go live in a cabin by a lake for two years, but how could what he learned in the 1850's be relevant to my life in 21st century modern family suburbia? And, as you might have guessed, Walden is still being read and reread over 150 years after it was published because it remains wonderfully and shockingly relevant in modern times. This is not to say that Thoreau isn’t a bit controversial in his thinking. Here are some memorable quotes from Walden: Anti knick-knacks and collectibles "I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust." Anti comforts of society "I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion." Anti accumulation of stuff "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." Anti pointless yet impressive buildings “Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave ... One piece of good sense is more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.” Advocate of living deliberately “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. “ Advocate of simplifying life “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” As if to prove Walden’s relevance today, I then spotted an article called “But Will It Make You Happy?” in this week’s New York Times. While no one in the New York Times article mentions moving to a cabin of solitude in the woods or even mentions Walden directly, one couple gets rid of most of their possessions and moves to a studio apartment, and a filmmaker moves to a trailer park near the beach. Almost everyone in the article has found greater happiness by simplifying their life, shopping and buying less, and focusing on natural experiences instead of possessions. Numerous research studies and psychologists are quoted with similar advice on simplifying and focusing on experiences, all ideas that Thoreau expounded on in Walden all those years ago. Check out Walden by Henry David Thoreau—still relevant after all these years! And for another modern look at Walden, a friend has recommended At least in the city someone would hear me scream: misadventures in search of the simple life by Wade Rouse, who is compared favorably to comedic essayist David Sedaris as he documents his move to with his partner to a rustic part of Michigan. Have you read Walden? Do you think it is still relevant today?Why do you agree or disagree with Thoreau's ideas 303 pages I am so disorganized that I am scanning the list of books I paid late fees on to see what else I read and might have missed. Wow. Runaway by Meg Cabot, last October, 7 hours Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 387 pages, in March 2011 And a note: kids books I have read over and over this past year: Harry the Dirty Dog The Easter Egg Artists Officer Buckle and Gloria Good night, Gorilla 10 Minutes til Bedtime In the Snow

Pioneer Women and more

2011-04-11T15:14:00.004-05:00

For book group, of course. (because when else do i prioritize reading?) Pioneer women by Joanna Stratton. Lovely lovely book. Made me miss by pandora's rag folks, simply because the feminist history of Kansas inspired me. Grateful for all of the hard work that early Kansas feminist put into this state, even if it doesn't feel so progressive right now. Highly recommend this readable collective biography written from 800 original remembrances from Kansas pioneers.267 pages. Oops - and last month for book group -- Hard TImes by Charles Dickens, which I reviewed on the library's site but forgot to post here: Charles Dickens published Hard Times in 1854 by serializing it in his magazine Household Words from April to August of that year. He doubled the circulation to his magazine, but the novel is sometimes criticized for the choppy chapters that resulted from writing it in installments. The novel is also only about half the length of Dickens’ other novels, a benefit that some readers find more manageable. The story concerns Mr. Gradgrind, who is the founder of the fact-based educational system in Coketown. His two children have been raised only on facts, never indulging imagination or emotion. His business associate Mr. Bounderby owns a mill and a bank and employs many of the working class characters in the novel. As Mr. Gradgrind’s children become adults, their education proves a disadvantage in dealing with the challenges of the real world. Dickens found great acclaim during his lifetime as a historian of the middle class and was praised for his descriptions and characterizations. In Hard Times, Dickens uses his story to advance his social criticism of utilitarianism. Dickens satirizes the educational system that concentrates only on facts to the exclusion of sentiment, as well as exaggerates the character of the successful self-made man. As we would expect in any Dickens novel, he portray evils against the working classes and dark depictions of those living in poverty. But there are likeable characters as well, people who give hope, who we can cheer when things go well and mourn when things go poorly. If you have never read Charles Dickens before, this would be a good book to start with simply because it is shorter than most. His dark satire may make you chuckle in parts, especially in the exaggerated chapters about the fact-based schooling at the beginning. Whenever possible, I also highly recommend reading an authoritative or annotated text, which provides a few explanatory footnotes and sometimes an excellent introductory essay. This book was the March 2011 selection of the library’s popular Literature with Lunch book discussion group. Check the library’s calendar for upcoming programs and book selections. Literature with Lunch meets on the 2nd Monday of each month from 1-2:30 pm. 299 pages

Blackout

2011-03-01T10:00:00.002-06:00

After buying the book and the ebook, I listened to the audiobook Blackout by Connie Willis 19 hours (and then bought the mp3 audiobook). Most money I've ever invested in book format redundancy. And then I listened to All Clear - 24 hours.

Save as Draft

2011-03-01T09:59:00.000-06:00

Save As Draft by Cavanaugh Lee
Girl meets boy online. Girl makes out with best guy friend. Girl has amazing first date with boy. Girl must choose. Girl doesn’t want to choose. Girl emails her friends for advice.
A love triangle evolving over e-mails, text, and Facebook messages that makes you wonder if the things we leave unsaid- or rather unsent- could change the story of our lives.
We don’t see every single email between every person in the book, the author chooses to reveal just enough to move the story along. And when people actually meet in person or talk on the phone, we only hear about it later if they happen to mention it in their email. The story is a bit asynchronous – the closest we get to a real time conversation is when characters text back and forth. The title of the novel indicates the very best part—the reader is privy to the emails that characters write to each other but do NOT send – the Save as Draft option in email that lets people vent their frustrations or blurt out their true feelings but then file it away without letting the other person read it. Of course, the things they almost say to each other as the relationships and the love triangle progresses are more revealing than the things they end up actually sending once their emotions are under control.
I’ve always been a fan of the quirky epistolary novel (From Pamela by Samuel Richardson to Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn) and I am drawn to this non-traditional way of story telling using the communication of modern times and modern romances. I would recommended Save as Draft to anyone who thinks the premise sounds interesting.
I read the ARC, 324 pages

Maternity Leave and Overdue Books

2011-01-18T15:17:00.002-06:00

I paid a lot of late fees this maternity leave. In fact, I've been back at work a month, and I've paid more late fees since then. And yet, for all of those $5 maximum late fees, I got very little reading actually done. I was willing to pay just to have the books nearby, even if I didn't actually get a chance to pick them up. I *didn't* read the new Gordon Korman (Pop), the new David Levithan/Rachel Cohn, or the new Connie Willis (yet!). I finally read:

Heist Society by Ally Carter 287 pages and loved it, although I thought it was going to be about a boarding school because for the longest time I had only read the first chapter, and it turned out to be about a family of theives. Very Oceans 11, in the way that I adore.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
187 pages
For book group -- no really likeable characters, and I had to hold book group twice because we got 10 inches of snow on the first scheduled date, but I didn't end up minding the chance to discuss the book or research the author multiple times. I wouldn't have pegged it for a book that left me thinking deeply about human relationships and how they related to facism and the Holocaust...but that's literature for you.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
343 pages
Sort of a bizarre story, but delightful. Not the happy ending I would have wished for. The movie follows the book very closely.

The Reivers by William Faulkner 376 pages - a lovely adventurous romp through Yoknapatawpha county and a coming of age story as well.

The Big Read -- why I thought it was a good idea to read THREE books instead of one for book group the month after I had a baby---well.....it turned out to be wonderful to have something (like noir mysteries) to divert my attention from those overwhelming first weeks of new baby nursing.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett 217 pages
Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky 244 pages
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler 139 pages

only the good spy young

2010-09-22T10:54:00.002-05:00

cranford by elizabeth gaskell -- the running joke at book group (which julie led - thank you!) was that I only read chapter one, but I read it so many times that I was a freaking expert at it!

Only the good spy young by ally carter - audiobook, fourth in the Gallagher Girl series - which just keeps getting more in depth and more exciting as the characters and the series develop!
I listened to 6.5 hours!

tweet heart

2010-08-26T15:22:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Twitter! Let the boy-stalking (ahem, following!) begin."
So begins this novel told entirely in e-mails, blogs and tweets between four high school friends at a prep school in the Carolinas as they navigate through spring semester of their junior year.
Claire (ClaireRBear) has been crushing on her school's most popular jock JD forever, although he doesn't know she exists. When JD(TopofGame17) starts following Claire on Twitter, she's really happy, but also confused, since in person he acts totally different.
Claire's best friend Lottie likes…well…everyone. Her username isn't "Lots0love" for nothing. Claire's guy friends, Bennett and Will, are both the geeky science fiction movie buff and video game type, although Bennett (KingofSlack) is several factors more annoying about it than quiet and sensitive Will (WiseOneWP).
When Claire starts to get suspicious about the difference between JD's entertaining and flirtatious tweets and his boring conversations in real life, something that started out innocent is suddenly looking like a matchmaking disaster…
At first, reading a bunch of tweeted conversations between characters was confusing to me, but as I got to know the characters and their intertwining stories, the format didn't matter as much anymore. The author included a few formatting features that make the conversations easier to follow, including having the characters' profile icons appear next to each tweet, setting private conversations apart in a blue outline, reprinting the date/time information and telling the story in chronological order, and making sure to include blog and email headers to give everything extra context. That said, this novelty format was still harder to just relax and read than a regular novel.
For a very modern take on high school relationships, check out Tweet Heart (a novel in e-mails, blogs and tweets) by Elizabeth Rudnick!
264 pages

serious, 16 of these?

2010-08-17T16:15:00.000-05:00

I read sizzling sixteen by Janet Evanovich
I'm not proud. I don't have anything else to say about it.
307 pages.

main street

2010-08-04T11:53:00.004-05:00

I read Main Street by Sinclair Lewis for book group in July. I was surprisingly irritated by the main character, a librarian who marries a doctor and moves to a small town and can't figure out how to fit in, but many people in the group defended her. I mostly liked this quote from the end about her baby daughter:
"Her baby, born in August, was a girl. Carol could not decide whether she was to become a feminist leader or marry a scientist or both, but did settle on Vassar and a tricolette suit with a small black hat for her Freshman year. "

And this whole passage about her young son:

Hugh was loquacious at breakfast. He desired to give his impressions of owls and F Street.
"Don't make so much noise. You talk too much," growled Kennicott.
Carol flared. "Don't speak to him that way! Why don't you listen to him? He has some very interesting things to tell."
"What's the idea? Mean to say you expect me to spend all my time listening to his chatter?"
"Why not?"
"For one thing, he's got to learn a little discipline. Time for him to start getting educated."
"I've learned much more discipline, I've had much more education, from him than he has from me."
"What's this? Some new-fangled idea of raising kids you got in Washington?"
"Perhaps. Did you ever realize that children are people?"
"That's all right. I'm not going to have him monopolizing the conversation."
"No, of course. We have our rights, too. But I'm going to bring him up as a human being. He has just as many thoughts as we have, and I want him to develop them, not take Gopher Prairie's version of them. That's my biggest work now -- keeping myself, keeping you, from `educating' him."

And this was the line that made me cry (because pretty much everything these days involving kiddos makes me cry a bit!):

Don't you ever get tired of fretting and stewing and experimenting?"
"I haven't even started. Look!" She led him to the nursery door, pointed at the fuzzy brown head of her daughter. "Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to blow up smugness. If you Tories were wise, you wouldn't arrest anarchists; you'd arrest all these children while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an industrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going to Mars."
"Yump, probably be changes all right," yawned Kennicott.

I read 486 pages.

Fly on the wall

2010-08-04T11:51:00.001-05:00

I listened to "Fly on the Wall" by e. lockhart read by Caitlin Greer while doing busywork at my desk the last two weeks at work.

First part sets up the story – Gretchen loves spiderman, doesn’t fit in at her art school in NYC, her parents just announced they are getting a divorce, her only friend Katya is busy al the time now, she is reading the Metamorphesis in literature class, she really likes Titus, a dark, scrawny, quiet a guy in her class, and really hates Shane, the new guy in school who dated her in the fall when he first arrived and then without warning dropped her for a sexier more popular girlfriend

When her parents go out of town for a week, she wakes up as a fly in the boys locker room of her school, where she is trapped.
At first she is just freaked out, and then she’s mad at how much better the boys locker room is than the girls. When boys start coming in to change for gym class, and then shower afterwards, she can’t help herself She watches. She rates them. She lusts and objectifies. But she also learns a lot about the guys in her school from watching them when they are together and alone in the locker room.

“And the moral is: you never know what’s going on underneath someone’s pants until you see it for yourself.”

Since Gretchen doesn’t know why she turned into a fly, she doesn’t know if or when she will change back “Nothing like this ever happens in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.” Complaining about her situation (turned into a fly) and trying to understand who or what might have caused her to turn into a fly and why…

I listened to it: 4 hours

The God of the Hive: the new Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes story

2010-07-07T09:21:00.001-05:00

When the latest book in a beloved series is released, I rush to read it, to find out the latest news and adventures from familiar characters.
I reviewed The Language of Bees last year, in which Sherlock Holmes is approached by his estranged son for help in locating the son's missing wife and young daughter. When the wife turns up dead, Sherlock's son is the prime suspect and they must elude Scotland Yard while working to clear the son's name. At the climax of the story, a faceoff with a religious madman, when a suspense novel would traditionally tie up the loose ends, this one ended "To be continued" instead!
In the continuation, The God of the Hive, Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell are separated during their attempts to protect Sherlock's son and granddaughter. Perilous travels by airplane and boat through remote parts of Scotland endanger various lives, and although both Sherlock and Mary are trying to make it safely back to London, neither is sure whether London will be safe for them at all. When Sherlock's brother Mycroft Holmes, a secretive leader of government intelligence operations, is reported to have been questioned by Scotland Yard and then gone missing, the group realizes that something much bigger and much more dangerous than just a religious madman is at work in the country. With each member of the team working in isolation for their own safety, when the obituary of a key character appears in The Times, the remaining members panic, mourn, and craft a plan to draw out the invisible adversary.
Author Laurie R. King is a natural storyteller. This book is every bit as adventurous, suspenseful, well narrated, and masterfully constructed as the previous novels in this series. With new characters introduced, richer and more complex backgrounds for familiar characters, and a fast moving story, this latest installment in the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series will not disappoint!
Read my original review of the first book in this series The Beekeeper's Apprentice or check out any of the books in this series from the library.
Bonus for listeners: All of the books in this series have been recorded as audiobooks by the excellent and talented narrator Jenny Sterlin.

354 pages.

Catch-22

2010-06-21T14:16:00.000-05:00

A classic you may have missed: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - I re-read for book group this month. 436 pages

"The only freedom we really have is the freedom to say no."—Joseph Heller
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, first published in 1961
I've never read it. What am I missing?
The novel is one of the great literary works of the 20th century. The main character, Yossarian, is a counter-culture Everyman for the late 20th century. And by that, I mean he is totally hilarious, supposedly insane, and probably the only intelligent, moral, rational person in the entire novel and possibly the entire war.
For me, the most amusing and realistic scenes are the ones showing the hopelessly convoluted bureaucracy within the military. Individuals are marginalized and absurdity is rampant (yet fully justified and explained, by invoking Catch-22 of course.) Fair warning: Don't read this book when you are looking for inspiration or a morale boost—I have been feeling a bit subversive and paranoid since I've been reading Catch-22!
What does the title Catch-22 mean?
"1: a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule" from m-w.com
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to." from Chapter 5, Catch-22
Is this a historical war novel? Or a black comedy?
The novel is set in World War II, but written after Korea, and published during Vietnam. Heller doesn't just parody the military—he also skewers business, medicine, religion, government, and politics with his ironic humor. You don't have to know anything about war or military settings to fidn something to laugh about in this book. Critic Philip Toynbee said the humor in the novel resembles a Marx brothers film as Kafka might have conceived it.
This is a classic anti-war novel. Did Joseph Heller have any war experience?
Yes, although he was not a career military man, since after the war he went to university to be a writer, taught at the college level and worked in magazine advertising as well as writing short stories and novels. "In 1942 Heller joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and from May 1944 to mid 1945 was stationed on Corsica with the 488th squadron of the 340th Bombardment Group. He flew about sixty combat missions as a bombardier, earning the Air Medal and rising to the rank of lieutenant." -from Literature Resource Center
Can't I just watch the movie version instead?
Check out Catch-22 (1970 film) from the library! Bringing an anti-war satire to the big screen was a daunting task. While the movie was a commercial failure, the sarcastic humor of the book is brought to life by notable actors including cast included Alan Arkin, Art Garfunkel, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight and Orson Welles. Many characters and story arcs from the book are changed, and the film is told mainly in flashbacks and dream sequences

Secrets of my suburban Life

2010-06-11T14:04:00.002-05:00

Secrets of my suburban Life by Lauren Baratz-Logsted 225 pages
Ren lived her whole life in New York City with her two famous author parents, until her mom is killed by a giant stack of books and her dad relocates them to the suburbs of Connecticut. At her new school, Ren is basically an outcast, although when she accidentally discovers that the most popular girl in school is chatting online with an older man whom she plans to meet, Ren has to act.
Ren schemes up a plan to stop the online pervert from getting his hands on the popular girl…but when she finds out who he is, the whole situation gets a lot more personal for Ren!
I had read some of this author's chick lit, including Thin Pink Line a few years ago, so I recognized the name and was drawn to try this book. I think that Lauren's writing style and characters are more suited to a teen novel, as her slightly-immature characters are much more believable at 16 than they were as twenty-somethings. This book was funny, well-paced, and had great supporting characters, particularly the three quirky taxi drivers in small town Connecticut that Ren relies on to get her around town!

I also read and LOVED the first 40 pages of You are Not a Gadget, until it was hideously overdue from the library. I am just going to buy it. If I would buy the books up front instead of paying late fees on them first, that would probably be....smarter. and cheaper.

Geek reading

2010-05-20T12:19:00.001-05:00

Geek High and the sequel Geek Abroad (243 pages) by Piper Banks
Totally cute teen romances, should be read in order for max effect!

not much reading lately

2010-05-19T08:52:00.001-05:00

Death comes for the archbishop by Willa Cather 345 pages (although I read a Barnes and Noble ebook version on my phone).

Geek High by Piper Banks "You say nerd like it's a bad thing." 235 pages

unwritten rule

2010-04-19T14:05:00.002-05:00

The unwritten rule by Elizabeth Scott

of course, if you don't just read a paperback teen romance, something everything that happens in the book isn't happy, but i took the risk on this one and it was worth it.

210 pages

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O'Malley

1 volume unpaged (probably about 100 pages)

Birthday roundup

2010-04-13T11:58:00.003-05:00

It's that time again (hence the many fill-in posts today trying to get caught up) when I celebrate another year of reading (measured from the first birthday when I started this blog.)

In skimming through my past year of entries, I notice that I am more likely to abandon a book, especially an audiobook, if it isn't absolutely captivating me. Also, our library introduced late fees for the first time last October, which has been motivating to either finish or return unfinished my library books by the due date.

Many of the things I made time to read this year were favorite authors or quicky teen romances. I didn't branch out or do much risktaking with new authors or genres. I also watched almost no television this year, and I have to admit that I haven't missed that at all, although the craft/photo editing time that comes along with tv/movie watching is missed. Audiobooks while cleaning the kitchen are a safer bet for getting things done.

Earlier this week I realized that I am needing a reading technology that isn't quite integrated yet -- a perfectly/magically synced device that would let me read a paperback book and also a digital version on my backlit phone for night time and also an audiobook version for driving and chores time. I'm much too tired to handle three stories at once, but it is pretty much impossible and expensive to coordinate the same book in three formats like that (at least at this time).

So -- the totals for my 31st year as I turn 32 tomorrow...

Best I can tell from my apparently sketchy record keeping this past year,

69 books read/listened to
110.5 hours listened for audiobooks
16625 pages read

stupid marketing departments

2010-04-13T11:38:00.003-05:00

The new Jennifer Crusie Bob Mayer book WILD RIDE -- I was so looking forward to it -- they have written two action adventure romances together and I enjoyed both of them a lot. Books often give away too much on the inside cover description, so without reading about the story, I got the book from the library's 14 day shelf, saw a roller coaster on the front (I love amusement parks as a fictional setting!) and dived right in.

The characters -- Mab, who is painting and restoring an old amusement park, and Ethan, who is a returning veteran with a bullet next to his heart and all of his military skills at the ready -- grabbed me right away and I was starting to really get into the amusement park setting

until page 21

when FREAKIN' DEMONS started talking to minor characters.

Here's the deal. If you are going to genre-hop, that is just fine and perfectly within your rights as a creative author of imaginative fiction. But don't pretend you are writing the same old stuff and trick your adventure-romance fans into buying your new demon filled crap-- just SAY SO ON THE FRONT OF THE DAMN BOOK.

The back cover copy is all quotes about cutesy action adventure witty dialogue romance attributed to the past two books these authors wrote together.
The front cover, there is a small black bird sitting on the roller coaster, otherwise has NO indication that this is a paranormal book. If I liked paranormal books (which, it might now be apparent that I do not, especially without fair warning) this book wouldn't appeal to me because the cover art doesn't look anything like all of the other paranormal books that are marketed to me these days.
I didn't read to page 22.
And I spent several days ranting to other librarians, my family, and pretty much everyone else, along with the innocent Jiffy Lube guy who was present when I got to the infamous page 21, about the horrors of tricky marketing cover art and the ill will that this bad choice of cover art is going to create for a lot of readers who are either upset they wasted money on a book they wouldn't have chosen otherwise, or will never know about this new paranormal book from hot popular authors.
Geez people.

I read only 21 pages

Food Rules

2010-04-13T11:37:00.001-05:00

Another older one I forgot to post here.

As a child of the suburbs in the 1980's, I was raised on canned soup and canned vegetables, boxes of au gratin potatoes to be reconstituted in the oven, colorful cereals, bright orange macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, frozen dinners, soda and chips and almost anything that could be "cooked" in the microwave. And it was all delicious.
As a adult, I've accumulated over 30 years of information from food industry advertising, but very little food common sense. The news media seems to constantly be announcing some new miracle food or diet that can solve all the worlds health problems, and the health claims made on food packaging, coupons, commercials and advertised by the food industry's marketing departments are overwhelming but not very helpful.
Sometimes, what I really need to hear is a message more like this one:
"Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself."
or
"Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does."
or
"Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry."
Last year I read (and recommended here) Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto in which he recommended that we "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." His new book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, is like a more useful and more memorable version of the scribbled notes I took while reading the last book. With 64 memorable food rules and a brief explanation of each, this small paperback book is a quick read with an important message.
The fresh broccoli, beets or bananas in the produce section may not flaunt their nutritional value with charts and shiny packaging, but as Michael Pollan would say (and he does in Rule #25) "Eat your colors" and those bright green, red and yellow fruits and vegetables suddenly look a lot more appealing!
112 pages

Food Rules

2010-04-13T11:37:00.000-05:00

Being Nikki

2010-04-13T11:21:00.003-05:00

I listened to the audiobook - maybe I was too embarrassed that I am starting to enjoy this series to actually post about it. I didn't review it for the library either. But I would totally read the third book when it comes out. Is that wrong?
Being Nikki by Meg Cabot - sequel to Airhead. About a brain transplant by an evil megacorp....
8 hours.

Life's a Beach

2010-04-13T11:14:00.001-05:00

Found another one I missed -- not sure I have the energy to actually compare my library reviews to my personal site but it is becoming clear to me that I have taken the library reviews a bit more seriously of late... oops.

I've been enjoying a summer beach read all week as our (hopefully LAST) winter snow melts and imagining warmer locales.
Claire Cook, author of the popular Must Love Dogs, is back to doing what she does best -- writing about 40-something women's lives, romances, friendships and families.
In Life's a Beach,Ginger Walsh is 41 years old and she still hasn't figured out what to do with her life. She lives above her parent's garage, although her mother is pressuring her father to sell the house and move to a retirement village instead. She makes sea glass jewelry, although she suspects that her cat has a better artistic eye that she does. She drives around and babysits her older sister's kids, although she has a standard daily rate since this is an important source of income for her. She has a boyfriend, a cute glassblowing artist, although their relationship is so casual it might as well be nonexistant.
When a shark is spotted off the coast of their New England town, a horror movie come to film beach scenes and Ginger's nephew is cast in the film as a shark attackvictim. Since her older sister is busy having a midlife crisis about turning 50 and is caught up in her addiction to working from her Blackberry, Ginger is suddenly spending every day on a movie set as her nephew's guardian.
In this funny and all-too-human story, Claire Cook captures the two sisters perfectly as they each struggle to find themselves and both wonder if they have wasted too much time already. My favorite character is Ginger's father though, especially his antics visiting the town dump and bringing home "treasures" when he is supposed to be clearing out the house for his wife! This is a delightful read, and the audiobook narration by Kymberly Dakin is enjoyable and appropriately light. 7 hours listening.

shades of grey

2010-04-13T11:08:00.002-05:00

I read this in February but just realized I never posted about it here. -- This is my review from the library's website. 390 pages.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
The problem I have with trying to tell someone about an awesome fantasy novel is that a large part of the charm and appeal of the book lies in the amazingly complex world which the author has created. It can be very tricky to describe that new world without giving away too much detail or citing a dozen examples. So, for simplicity’s sake, I will defer to an excerpt from the publishers blurb:
It’s our world, but not as we know it. Entire cities lie buried beneath overgrown fields and forests. Technology from other time peppers the landscape, and there is evidence of great upheaval.
As long as anyone can remember, society has been ruled by a Colortocracy. From the underground feedpipes that keep the municipal park green to the healing hues viewed to cure illness to a social hierarchy based upon one’s limited color perception, society is dominated by color. In this world, you are what you can see.
Eddie Russett is on the verge of adulthood. His upcoming color perception test that will determine his place in society, his value on the marriage market and his career prospects. Eddie is ready to unquestioningly take this place in society as a Red, but unfortunately, first he is sent to conduct a chair census as punishment for a prank.
When he travels with his father to a town on the Outer Fringes, where the Rules of society are less strictly enforced, Eddie begins to realize that all of the black and white truths of his world are actually a palate of shades of grey. With help from an aggressive and intimidating girl named Jane, with whom he immediately falls in love, Eddie learns that while curiosity and questions can be dangerous, the answers may be the most frightening thing of all.
Interesting side note: The library’s subject headings for this novel are Color blindness-Fiction, Dystopias, Fantasy fiction, and Love stories. Not a combination of subjects I would anticipate seeing in too many more novels. Ever. Jasper Fforde is a strong satirist and delightfully witty, especially as the readers recognize some of the historical references from the Previous times.
I’m really glad I don’t live in Jasper Fforde’s new fantasy world. But I thoroughly enjoyed visiting and I look forward to his next novel, which I hope will continue Eddie’s story.

Wedding season

2010-04-13T10:35:00.002-05:00

Wedding Season by Katie Fforde

For a wedding planner, Sarah is awfully cynical. In fact, she doesn't even really believe in love and marriage -- but don't tell her clients that! After having her heart soundly broken, she has thrown herself into her business and all of her hard work is paying off. Weddings are complicated and Sarah works closely with her suppliers, her caterers, her florists, her dressmakers, her vicars at local churches, her photographers, her reception hall managers. With two years of planning and effort, Sarah organizes a huge society wedding for a very picky bride. An American actress decides she wants a similar wedding, with all the same features but in only two months!
Sarah quickly reassembles her successful team of Elsa and Bron, women who have become her friends and confidantes as well as her coworkers.
Elsa, the dressmaker, dresses in black to remain unnoticed, but after being pulled in as emergency maid of honor at the society wedding, she is beginning to come out of her shell a bit. The best man from the society wedding even asked for her phone number, although she doubts he will call.
Bron, the hairdresser, is a woman of many talents, although unfortunately none of them include sticking up for herself to her bossy and unsupportive boyfriend. Bron can do hair and makeup and even makes wedding cakes for friends, but will she have the gumption to live on her own for the first time?
Sarah couldn't be more stressed, especially when her pregnant younger sister schedules her own wedding on the same day as Sarah's first celebrity client. With so many details to keep track of, Sarah tries to keep her distance from Hugo, the handsome and charming photographer. They kissed at the last wedding they worked on together and the last thing she needs right now is a man to distract her.
It's the Wedding Season -- equal parts romantic, funny, poignant and appealing. Enjoy!
424 pages

Plus I read Taming of the Shrew for book group, a side by side edition and on the computer. I would put it at about 75 pages.

BLACKOUT

2010-04-13T10:13:00.002-05:00

The new Connie Willis novel finally arrived. After I paid full price plus shipping for the hardcover, I quickly realized I was never going to have time to read an actual book, so I paid another $9.99 for the Amazon Kindle edition on my iPhone, which I read in about a week mostly in late-night baby holding sessions of furtive reading in the dark over her head....

So, the book. Is lovely. I missed the world of Oxford's time traveling historians. And this book had just enough early mentions of Mr. Dunworthy, Colin (who is all grown up at 16 now) and their adventures in the middle ages with Kivrin that everything quickly felt familiar. And then the new characters, as they went their separate ways into the past and then gradually their stories intersect within the London Blitz....
The plot devices of Connie Willis -- people remembering wrong information, worrying about things, near misses, coincidences, and time travel malfunctions -- are all tied together by her constant refrains -- in this book, it's everyday heros and every citizen being part of the war effort.
Everything was going along dramatically until the "to be continued" hit me out of nowhere.
Now I'm not-so-patiently waiting for the second part to be published in October...
491 pages

Scarlett Fever

2010-03-24T11:13:00.002-05:00

She lives in a small, unsuccessful and run-down hotel in New York City with her family. At fifteen, she lives in the shadow of all three of her siblings -- nineteen year old Spencer is an aspiring actor, seventeen year old Lola is beautiful and responsible, and her younger sister Marlene is hopelessly spoiled ever since her leukemia went into remission.

Maureen Johnson has created an enjoyable and memorable character in Scarlett Martin.
Continuing the adventures that began in Suite Scarlett, this novel follows Scarlett's relationship with Eric, her sort of ex-boyfriend, and her job as the assistant to Mrs. Amy Amberson, an eccentric theatre type. As school starts up again, Scarlett is given an assignment to spy on the angry yet attractive guy who is her new biology lab partner. And her brother lands a huge part in a television show that overnight makes him the most hated person in New York. Everyone in Scarlett's family is acting oddly lately Can Scarlett weather the change?

LOVED THIS BOOK. Have no patience waiting for next book that continues the story. this is why i only watch TV on DVD now. geez.
332 pages.

Travels with Charley

2010-03-08T15:15:00.002-06:00

I read Steinbeck's Travels with Charley for book group today and I REALLY enjoyed it. I think this is one that I would like to reread again sometime in the future. Even though it is already 50 years old, it is a real thinker about Americans and people and also what the observer brings to the observations...
246 pages.

Also, last month I read Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father for book group and it was also quite good. 442 pages.

Possibly I read some things in between, but it has been a really busy month and nothing is coming to mind right now :)

Prom Crashers

2010-02-04T13:06:00.001-06:00

I recently finished Prom Crashers(233 pages) and Drive Me Crazy(210 pages) both by Erin Downing
She is one of the better writers for the Simon Pulse teen romance line.

Generation A

2010-01-21T10:14:00.001-06:00

This novel is set in a near future world much like our own, where bees have suddenly abandoned their hives and gone extinct and many plants must be hand pollinated to produce fruits and seeds. An apple is a luxury.
Without warning, five unconnected young people are each stung by a bee. What was each doing to attract such a miraculous occurence?
In the United States, Zack was creating perverse crop art in an combine in an Iowa cornfield.
In Canada, Diana, a dental hygienist with Tourette's, was being excommunicated from her conservative church.
In France, Julien was skipping school at the Sorbonne to play World of Warcraft continuously.
In New Zealand, Samantha was thinking about her parents and taking a photo of sandwich bread.
In Sri Lanka, Harj, a tsunami orphan, was talking to a reporter while working at an Abercrombie and Fitch call center.
In this age of cell phone photos and instant communication, the governments, military and scientist react quickly, isolating each of the five to study them, and then bringing them together to find commonalities. These five people are instant celebrities; the hope of the world is pinned on their ability to be stung by an insect believed to be extinct. Can they bring back the bees? Or does the French scientist have another agenda altogether?
Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture helped popularize the term Generation X for the group of people born after the baby boom, who were young adults in the 1980s.
His new novel, Generation A, takes its title from a 1994 Kurt Vonnegut commencement speech, which is used as an epigraph before the story begins. This being Douglas Coupland, what starts as an intriguing concept gets even weirder when the five people are brought together, yet the social commentary and excellent, innovative writing style will keep you turning the pages even when you begin to doubt where the story is headed.
If you like reading and storytelling and computer technology and sexuality and pop culture, or you have ever read and enjoyed Douglas Coupland before, this book could be a good match for you.
I had to renew it twice but I read all 297 pages

Also recently read Love on Cue by Catherine Hapka - one of the better teen romances of late -- 274 pages.

Handmaid's Tale

2010-01-11T16:23:00.001-06:00

I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood for book group this week. Notoriously, this is the book I read at about 14, and this is where I learned about sex -- from a speculative fiction dystopia about subjugation of women and government control of reproduction and sexual acts for an entire society. It was excellent as a reread, although my life is certainly different now, and I am uncomfortably similar to the narrator as well -- in height, in age, in proven fertility. My heart broke repeatedly while I read about her separation from her child. Interestingly, the book is being referenced in modern news stories this month -- from institutionalized child care in Canada to the current health care reform's handling of abortion rights. I figure so many people turned out for book group today because after reading this book you either need a discussion group or therapy to deal with the fears and emotions it raises.
311 pages.

getting lucky

2010-01-05T12:18:00.004-06:00

Getting Lucky (in cards, in life, and in love) by Micol Ostow 240 pages
Something Borrowed (like your best friends boyfriend as a wedding date) by Catherine Hapka 252 pages

twenty boy summer

2009-12-27T18:25:00.002-06:00

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

I thought this would be a cute romance novel and instead it was about a girl who gets her heart broken by her first secret boyfriend and boy next door who dies. Still good but A LOT more serious than I had been counting on. 290 pages.

escape into fiction

2009-12-22T11:55:00.004-06:00

A few audiobooks got me through my holiday baking extravaganza.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett
from my facebook: "Noir is not my thing. I knew this.Listening to Maltese Falcon while baking Christmas cookies kind of balanced out in a surreal way. Cookies didn't make me sentimental and homesick; Sam spade et al didn't make me lose all faith in humanity. Now to read a romance novel before bed..." December 13 at 12:44am via Facebook for iPhone · I listened to it, 7 hours.

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
companion to Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, which I liked. 9.5 hours on audiobook by Kate Reading, who is always a delight!

from my facebook: "Read a book from start to finish under the covers and with my trusty booklight. Fabulous way to spend an evening quasi-alone! (kivrin is snuggled next to me) the book was "Busy Woman Seeks Wife" by annie sanders-- smart fun chick lit career girl romance, and British" Sat at 1:27am via Facebook for iPhone Only Friends
I also really liked this writing duo's first book Goodbye, Jimmy Choo from 2006, which I reviewed here
303 pages.

teen romance fest

2009-12-12T11:00:00.000-06:00

Party Games by Whitney Lyles 284 pages
South Beach Sizzle by Weyn and Gonzalez 250 pages
Dancing Queen by Erin Downing 245 pages

teen love

2009-12-02T15:13:00.001-06:00

The Ex Games by Jennifer Echols 302 pages
In the Stars by Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon 288 pages

Post nanowrimo I'm feeding my YA paperback romance addiction. But I have the new Jasper Fforde and the new Douglas Coupland, so I will be moving back to quirky grown up fiction soon!

nanowrimo stole my reading time!

2009-11-30T08:50:00.003-06:00

As I have for the past 6 years, I wrote my 7th National Novel Writing Month book this November. The 6 week gap in updates is because working full time, raising a toddler who is a bad sleeper and trying to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days can zap even a dedicated reader's book time.

I did read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man for book group mid-November, which was no small feat, both because it is a long novel, full of many diverse scenes and characters and because Ellison is a freakin' amazing writer and he had me feeling completely inadequate as I was trying to craft my own story. I took solace in the fact that he wrote his novel in 7 years and when I was reading it I was about 7 days into my own novel. If you don't have time to read this book, find a copy that includes his introduction, it is an AWESOME few pages about writing.
572 pages.

I also read/listened to the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, which I bought as a self-contained app for the iPhone. It was a great recording by Simon Jones and also provided the text of the story as well.
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
275 pages

And in the 24 hours since I finished my Nanowrimo novel, I read 2 quickie teen romantic comedies in the car ride home from St. Louis. (Thank you spouse for driving and baby for sleeping!)

Major Crush by Jennifer Echols 287 pages
The first female drum major in the high school marching band has to share the job with a stuck-up guy she just happens to have a crush on. Either this book has some of the snappiest dialogue I have read in a while, or...I haven't read much in a while. But I really enjoyed the way the characters were portrayed using mainly their actions and dialogue and almost no background explanations or interior thinking.

Love, Hollywood Style by P.J. Ruditis 246 pages
A girl working as a page on the set of a Hollywood movie studio decides to try to all in love and have a perfect romance by making her life follow the formulaic plots of her favorite romantic comedy films. Nice movie references, but the writing couldn't compare to the book I had just put down.

And the main thing that I "read" all month was my Nanowrimo novel, which ended up as 108 pages (61615 words!!) with the standard formatting defaults in Microsoft Word.
Seeing Red by Lissa Staley :)

Juliet, Naked

2009-10-19T09:09:00.002-05:00

I read Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornvy when I should have been reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It was quite the reading weekend (over a week ago now) and I am still trying to play catch up after all of that novel excitement!

Juliet, Naked was another great story from Hornby. Even though his books are about modern relationships and quirky characters and obessions, usually with music.

Juliet, Naked 406 pages
Wuthering Heights 357 pages

don't judge a girl by her cover

2009-10-08T15:38:00.002-05:00

The third book in the Gallager Girl series by Ally Carter was still delightful although the series isn't progressing as fast as I would like. Cammie Morgan continues her adventures at her spy girl school where her mother is headmistress. This book introduces her aunt Abby, who is also a spy, and Cammie and her roommate Macey (who has famous influential parents) get involved in a kidnapping plot.
I listened to it - 7.5 hours.

reading and listening

2009-09-28T10:05:00.005-05:00

Last of the Mohicans for book group -- mostly read on my phone, was better than I anticipated after pulling an all-nighter to finished The Deerslayer in a single night in high school.
350 pages

The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King I listened to it, 16 hours

Don’t let the fact that the last three words of this book are “To Be Continued” prevent you from reading and enjoying it. In the latest installment in this series, instead of “to be continued” being implied, it is an outright promise at the end of the story. And if you are a fan of mystery author Laurie R. King, this is an excellent ending indeed…

The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King continues the story of Sherlock Holmes and his young wife Mary Russell. In this new addition to the popular historical mystery series, the grown son of Sherlock Holmes, a Bohemian artist named Damian Adler, is introduced. appears before Holmes at his home in Sussex to humbly beg for his estranged father’s assistance in locating his missing wife and daughter. Holmes leaves abruptly with his son and Mary is left at home to piece together where they have gone and how she can help. When Yolanda Adler’s body turns up just after Damian Adler goes missing, Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russel must solve the crime without letting their involvement be known to Scotland Yard and while fervently hoping that Damian is not as involved in the murder as it seems. While the mystery comes to a conclusion, the excitement of introducing new characters into the lives of Holmes and Russell will clearly continue into future books in this series.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jenny Sterlin, whose familiar and talented voice is always a treat for my ears.

Love off limits by Whitney Lyles teen halloween romantic comedy 268 pages

I also got caught up on parts of Psych and Eureka tv shows. :)

My Most Excellent Year

2009-09-01T14:58:00.003-05:00

First off, let me say that I loved every single word, phrase, character, page, scene, entry and chapter in this book, and because of that, my review does no sort of justice. I laughed out loud even when I was reading next to a sleeping spouse, or worse, holding a sleeping baby. I giggled uncontrollably in front of my inlaws at passages I couldn't begin to explain. I put the book down for almost a week because Ted Kennedy passed away in real life while I was reading about it, and I was so enthralled with these characters who were obsessed with the Kennedys that I was too sad to keep reading. One of the most thoughtful readers advisors I know (Michelle) recommended this book to me, telling me "It definitely had Lissa written all over it." and she was soooooo right.

My Most Excellent Year: a novel of love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park by Steve Kluger
Let’s Start at the Very Beginning…T.C. Keller and Augie Hwong have been “brothers” since they were six years old and met on the playground of their Boston school. They understand each other completely even when they don’t agree. T.C. loves the Red Sox and gets into trouble starting quirky projects with his Pop, but he doesn’t remember much about his mother. T.C. is one of the coolest kids in school, but he doesn’t even realize it. Augie loves his parent’s bookstore and singing show tunes but he might be falling for fellow athlete Andy Wexler. Augie idolizes Broadway divas and is well on his way to becoming a drama queen himself.
Alé Perez is new to school, a stuck-up snob with distinguished political parents. At first, she has no trouble resisting T.C.‘s romantic advances, especially because he asks her out with a form letter. Before long though, T.C. befriends an adorable little boy, which makes him look more sensitive. Augie tricks Alé into auditioning for the school musical. T.C.‘s father is getting called into the school counselor’s office almost as often as Augie is quoting lines from old Bette Davis movies. Alé has found fast friends in Augie and T.C. whether she likes it or not, but if T.C. keeps taking romance advice from his widowed father, his future with Alé is less likely than a post-season Red Sox victory.
The title says it all. As these three juniors reflect back on their freshman year of high school for an English class assignment about “My Most Excellent Year” you won’t be surprised when they come up with something transformative and magical. Some stories get better in the retelling. This narrative is pieced together from journal entries, emails, phone calls, chat logs and letters between T.C., Augie, Alé and their families as they look back and celebrate a year than changed everything.
As an adult, I enjoy reading novels written for teens, because I like to remember my own most excellent growing-up years through these funny and heart-breaking coming of age stories. My Most Excellent Year is one of the best books I have read this year and I highly recommend it.

I checked it out. 403 pages.

buy buy baby

2009-08-16T18:15:00.002-05:00

I finally finished the super-scary book about consumerism and marketing targeting infants and toddlers. Buy Buy Baby is a few years outdated already which doesn't make the information it contains any less alarming. The main things I am taking away from the book are that there is no research to support the educational claims on products for infants and toddlers. Information on marketing in school, including preschools was disheartening. And there is no reason for kids under 2 to watch TV or videos in the foreground or the background. And licensed character stuff teach the kids to recognize the characters, not anything else. And advertising is everywhere and it will be almost impossible to avoid indoctrinating my kid with it, but it is still worth the effort to try.
230 pages

I am also watching the documentary "Consuming Kids" which is shocking both because of the information it presents and because I haven't watched television in so long that the commercials are sort of overwhelming.

And for fun I read - Ransom my Heart by Meg Cabot 396 pages

Sovay

2009-07-30T17:48:00.003-05:00

In 1783 England, Sovay Middleton is not a typical young lady, although she is wealthy and beautiful. To unmask an unfaithful fiance, she dresses as a man and robs his stagecoach at gun point. To protect her father, she robs a mail coach. She makes enemies in England, especially when she interferes with a scary spy-master who is taking advantage of the tense situation between England and France. When her father and brother go to Paris during the Terror, Sovay follows, even though she risks her life for her love of family and freedom.
In this thrilling adventure tale, Sovay stars as a striking young woman who defies expectations in pursuit of justice.
I listened to the audiobook, 12 hours, narrated by Bianca Amato. At the end of the CD, there is a traditional ballad about Sovay, sung by the narrator, which sent me to wikipedia and eventually these lyrics to learn more. Celia Rees takes th

Publish Post

e traditional ballad and expands it into a wonderful adventure story about the Terror in France. Very cool!

too many pirates

2009-07-23T15:39:00.002-05:00

For the last several weeks, I have been struggling to read a paperback romance "High Seas to High Society" by Sophia James 277 pages and also listen to an audiobook Sovay by Celia Rees (I'm about 6 discs in). Both are great escape stories but both are about girls masquerading as boys, one as a pirate and one as a highwayman, and both have father issues (one pirate dead, one escaped to Paris to avoid arrest) and it has been very very confusing. But delicious adventure, and the whole dress like a boy to accomplish your goals ploy is always a good one.

Also, in the middle of all that pirate goodness. I read Gone with the Wind for book group, 1000 pages and about 200 pages of criticism, mostly from the new book Frankly, My Dear, which was excellent. And what is a blockader if not practically a Southern gentleman pirate.....

vacation reads

2009-07-09T19:46:00.002-05:00

Crafty Mama: makes 49 fast, fabulous, foolproof (baby and toddler) projects by Abby Pecoriello
I loved this book for the inspiration it gave me, and for the light vacation reading it conveyed. I only made one project from the book, but that made it all worthwhile -- FAIRY SKIRTS (and Kate, if you are reading this, we made one for each of your girls, I just haven't mailed them yet).
I was disappointed that the "no sew" instructions sometimes made the fabric projects much more complicated than if the author had just bought a cheap sewing machine and tried an inelegant straight stitch on her project, but overall this was a winner! I'm also sad to realize that my baby is more of a toddler (she actually took her first steps the same day I read this book) so some of the projects in this book were too "young" for our family now. Since Leigh Anne and I both had crafty-baby-showers (scrapbook pages at hers, drawing on fabric squares at mine), the many ideas that gave instructions for how to adapt it for a baby shower were definitely of interest! I don't feel up to this right now, but they also have ideas for crafty mama play groups, to find fellow crafters and get together to craft!
255 pages

Tourist Trap by Emma Harrison was thicker than my regular teen romance paperbacks, but the extra pages weren't filled with anything special, just teen angst self doubt and tired plot lines. At least I was on vacation when I read it.361 pages.

scary beautiful

2009-07-02T15:29:00.002-05:00

Scary Beautiful by Niki Burnham - a fun romantic comedy about a gorgeous and recently dumped girl who is insecure about the new school year and her role in her group of gal pals, especially when she realizes she likes a geeky guy from the local pizza place. Cute fun. 264 pages.

How weaning happens by diane bengson (la leche league)
Of course this book says that weaning happens a bunch of different ways and there is no one way it happens and gradual is better, etc. Still not sure what Kivrin and I have in store for us, but nursing is still going okay for us so we will continue for now (while offering whole milk in sippy cups a lot too!) The book claims it "reassures parents that weaning is a natural process and does not have to be a stressful event for mother or child" but I didn't actually get that impression from the book. Much like childbirth itself, you can't predict it or control it, you can let the kid sat their own pace for it but you might decide to intervene if they take too long, and everyone else will offer you critical advice the closer it gets to the big day....156 pages which I read several times and am tired of looking at now.

finger licking good

2009-06-28T14:36:00.003-05:00

Have you read the latest installment in the Stephanie Plum series yet?

In the opening pages, Stephanie's friend and coworker Lula witnesses a grisly decapitation. The killers are on the loose, and trying to hunt Lula down. To save her own skin, Lula decides to solve the murder herself and she enters a barbecue contest to get closer to the murder victim's associates. Of course, Stephanie, her Grandma Mazur, and Connie from the bail bonds office are drawn into Lula's scheme to create an award winning barbeque sauce.

At the same time, Ranger has hire Stephanie to snoop around his security business. A series of break-ins at the homes of residential clients appear to be an inside job and while Ranger doesn't want to suspect one of his men, he is losing clients and street cred as more burglaries occur.

Joe Morelli is irritated to see Stephanie wearing black Rangeman uniforms, even though Joe and Stephanie are taking a break in their relationship after an argument about peanut butter.

The romantic tension between Stephanie and Joe and Stephanie and Ranger in the last few Janet Evanovich's novels has really been getting on my nerves. I felt like she was stringing them both along and I was ready for her to settle down with someone already. Evanovich really got the balance right in this book though -- Stephanie is still attracted to both guys, but by taking some time to be single, sort of, Stephanie's ongoing relationships with two men didn't bother me nearly as much. Always bumbling, chaotic and hilarious, Stephanie Plum is the best version of herself in this newest book in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed her newest adventure and I hope that you will too!

Finger Lickin Fifteen by Janet Evanovich

308 pages

teen fiction

2009-06-25T12:06:00.008-05:00

30 guys in 30 days by Micol Ostow

Claudia is starting college as a single girl, after several years of dating her first and only boyfriend. After some spectacular screw-ups, she realizes that she doesn't know how to talk to guys, and especially doesn't know how to flirt! Her roommate Charlie challenges her to talk to 30 guys in 30 days as target practice to overcome her lack of experience and get comfortable talking to boys again.

While Claudia's nervousness around guys seems believeable, her easy access to alcohol as a college freshman seemed less realistic. This fun romantic comedyfeatures a great feminist older sister role model (via email at least), who is balanced out by Claudia's kind and fun-loving beauty-pagent-winning sorority-rushing roommate.

282 pages.

Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell
Vassar Spore is a 16 year old girl who has her whole life planned out, right up to her Ph. D. and Pulitzer Prize. Her father is a time management consultant and her mother used to be a life coach but has been devoted to helping Vassar plan her life for the last 15+ years. Vassar was even named after the pretigious college, in the hopes that such a name would help secure her acceptance to the ivy league school, in addition to her years of planning and academic acheivements.

Her plans change when a mysterious package arrives from her equally mysterious Grandma Gert, and somehow her parents are blackmailed into sending Vassar on a summer backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. As they journey from Malaysia to Cambodia to Laos, Vassar is faced with many challenges to her planned and organized life -- including a cute Malaysian cowboy bodyguard, and the truth behind the family secret that her Grandma used to make Vassar go on the trip in the first place.

The story is told by Vassar herself, who is also writing a thinly-veiled version of the events as a novel to fulfill an AP English requirement over the summer. She is also emailing chapters back home to her friends, who send back hilarious comments critiquing the actions and decision of her "characters." I recommend this as an all-around delightful book for a teen summer adventure with some romance, college goals and family issues thrown in for good measure!

I listened to the audiobook. 9 hours.

The Lit Report

2009-06-12T09:18:00.003-05:00

While this novel doesn't really seem like it is written for teens, and the narrator, Julia, is WAY too smart for her supposed age of a senior in high school, there were still parts I enjoyed quite a bit. Julia's friend Ruth gets pregnant, but since Ruth's parents are very strict conservative Christians (her dad is known as Pastor Pete around town) Julia helps Ruth hide her pregnancy and eventually delivers her baby. The ties to literature are mainly at the beginning and the end -- while Julia is establishing her voice as narrator and beginning the book, and then tying up her loose ends at the end of the story -- but she seems to worship Austen and Vonnegut, so it's not all bad. I'm not reviewing this for the library site because I don't know that teens would like it very much.
The Lit Report by Sarah N. Harvey
197 pages.

the new audiobook test

2009-06-11T12:17:00.001-05:00

If I am not interested after the first CD, it gets returned.

I tried John Green's "Looking for Alaska" but all of his books sound the same and I just listened to Paper Towns -- both are about boys questing for mysteriously unattainable cool girls. I listened to about 3 hours.

Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs - probably a lovely story, but with three women's viewpoints on the first two CDS, I can't keep their stories straight with the scattered listening time available to me. I got over an hour in.

The Annotated Wizard of Oz

2009-06-10T08:57:00.002-05:00

This centennial edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum with pictures by W. W. Denslow and with an introduction and notes by Michael Patrick Hearn is worth reading. Whether you have read the story before, viewed the popular 1939 MGM movie version, or simply because you hear references to Oz and wonder what all the fuss is about.
The introduction is lengthy, about 100 pages, but well illustrated with photos, line drawings and reproductions of books and artwork from Baum's life and time. Placing Baum both within a historical context (he wrote the book in 1899) and a literary context (the children's fantasy Alice in Wonderland had been popular since 1865), the biographical essay provides details about the variety of Baum's jobs before writing the Oz books, and the partnership with W. W. Denslow, the original illustrator of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
What a treat to read the original text and illustrations together! I was surprised by how young Dorothy looks, how large the lion looms over her, and how friendly the Winged Monkeys' smile at everyone. If you can only picture the Judy Garland movie when you think of the Wizard of Oz story, these illustrations will certainly expand your imagination!
The annotations of the original text are referenced using small numbered notes in the margins. Readers who prefer to enjoy the original text and illustrations may do so easily, but those who are intrigued by the explanations, expansions and discussions of various topics will be drawn into the interspersed annotation pages as they read. Not only did I read all of the annotations for myself, I read some of them out loud to friends and family. For example, did you know that "According to the 1902 musical extravaganza of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy lives near Topeka"?

Treat yourself and give the Wonderful Wizard of Oz a close reading with help from the special edition The Annotated Wizard of Oz!

I read 450 pages.

Summer Blowout

2009-06-03T16:48:00.000-05:00

A fun summer ready by Must Love Dogs author Claire Cook, Summer Blowout is about a beautician with an eccentric family business who is interested in an entrepeneur she meets at the neighboring table a college fair. Lovely audiobook, entertaining, not too serious. Too much about a dog that she steals from a wedding where she is doing the bridal party make up, but I dealt with it. 6 hours

lighter notes

2009-05-22T09:20:00.004-05:00

Sea of Love by Jamie Ponti
The formula for a teen romantic comedy book (only slightly more complex than a teen romantic comedy movie, frankly) seems to be -- girl's parent(s) move to a remote and interesting place (or alternately, girl goes for the summer to an interesting place) and meets a guy very different from her norm. She isn't sure about it, then is sure about it, then suddenly a boy from her past reappears to ruin everything with his sudden interest in her again, then everything works out for the best in the end. Sea of Love is set at a small Florida coastal tourist hotel which Darby's parents buy after leaving their Wall Street jobs in New York City. The story takes place in the off season, and everything else follows the formula mentioned above. That said, the writing was witty and made me laugh frequently. A book can have a lot more good lines of dialogue than a movie, and more "good moments" as well.
236 fluffly pages

I also read The Perfect Waltz by Anne Gracie, who is a wonderful and witty Regency Romance author that a library customer recommended to me a few months ago. 341 pages.

too heavy

2009-05-22T09:14:00.002-05:00

I'm giving up on Billie Letts "Made in the U.S.A." After the teenage girl and her elementary school age brother ran away to find their father, who died in prison, and are stranded in Las Vegas, she turns to modeling for child porn photos to pay for illegal paperwork so she can work while they live out of their car. After she is raped while working as a hotel maid, she starts snorting coke, needs more money to get an apartment so her brother can attend a really nice grade school, and so is about to star in a porn movie for a very smooth man who "helps" her. This is where I am stopping. It seems unlikely that things will get better right away, and this story is way too intense for me right now, especially on audiobook where I can't skip ahead. The only bright spot is that there is someone who is watching over the two kids and leaving them little presents, an apple, a flashlight, a note about where the local shelters serve food, and I am going to have to just imagine a happily ever after ending involving a fairy godmother....
I listened to 4 hours out of about 9.

The Sound and the Fury

2009-05-13T10:10:00.003-05:00

I read The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner for Lit with Lunch this month. I really liked it, even though it was one of the more challenging books I've read, ever. I loved the wikipedia summaries of each section, both because they helped me figure out what in the world was going on and because they offered such helpful encouragement. This was a statement about section one: "Readers often report trouble understanding this portion of the novel due to its impressionistic language, necessitated by Benjamin's retardation, and its frequent shifts in time and setting." This was a statement about section two: "While many first-time readers report Benjy's section as being difficult to understand, these same readers often find Quentin's section to be near impossible." Luckily, section three is hard to read only because the narrator, Jason, is a big jerk. And section four is not told in the first person and is more like a traditional novel, although all of the sections before it are present in the reader's mind, shaping the perceptions in this section.
Reading a book about dysfunctional families and the complexities of family relationships right around my own dysfunctional mother's day was an experience all-it's own.
It is unlikely I would re-read this book for fun, but it is an experience I will appreciate and reflect upon in the future.
321 pages.

B is for Beer

2009-05-13T10:08:00.001-05:00

As a long-time Tom Robbins fan, I will happily read whatever outlandish adventure he cares to write. His new book, B is for Beer advertises itself as “A Children’s Book for Grown-ups” and “A Grown-up Book for Children.” I tried reading it aloud to my young daughter with little success. Not enough lift-the-flap and pop-up illustrations to amuse the baby, although the occasional line drawing are lovely for adults. Robbins hints within the story that reading the book to a child might have gone better if I had already been drinking a nice cold one.
The characters includes a 6-year-old girl, Gracie Perkel, who idolizes her Uncle Moe. He is a part-time philosopher and full-time beer drinker who delights and disappoints those arond him in equal measures. Uncle Moe certainly appreciates Gracie’s free spirit more than her parents do. Her mom is distracted by grown-up concerns and her dad is focused on his career (and his secretary.) As Gracie learns more about the mysteries of life and beer, we are drawn along on a hilarous adventure through this world and into another.
Tom Robbins is one of those writers who can turn a phrase and make you laugh out loud at the most mundane observations. Even if you aren’t much of a beer-drinker, this short novel will still make you wish you could recapture that free-spirited imagination of childhood.
125 delightful pages

teen reads

2009-05-05T12:00:00.002-05:00

Suite dreams by Rachel Hawthorne, 273 pages

Airhead by Meg Cabot -I'm listening, if I finish it will be 7 discs.

Seriously. a brain transplant princess and the pauper story. completely unbelievable yet sort of starting to by addictive for the snarky sarcastic narrator's voice (which is now coming out of the sexy lip-glossed mouth of a teen supermodel)

my first library patron

2009-05-01T11:33:00.003-05:00

Upstairs in the cafe, I just ran into my first ever library patron from my first day on the job here at TSCPL almost 8 years ago. I have been priveleged to help this same gentleman several times over the years, and we have both remembered that he was the first customer I helped on that very first day here. (He was an audiobook listener at the time, but has since retired.)

Librarianship is a funny business. We protect people's privacy, their right to read, their individual choices, their reading history, but we also connect with them, learn about their preferences, their personalities, their histories.

I treasure the interactions I share with my customers. While libraries are often thought of as being about all about the stuff you can get, the human connection is still what makes us different from a free pile of books and movies.

And yes, I know this is completely nerdy. But someday when I am less enamored with my job, I'll re-read this and remember that patron, and feel better about the time I have spent here.

Paper Towns

2009-04-30T12:47:00.002-05:00

John Green had me at "This Machine Kills Fascists", and then almost lost me with a Woody Guthrie insult. And then he had me again with a Billy Bragg Mermain Avenue reference, and he kept me through to the end.

Quentin Jacobsen has lived next door to Margot Roth Spiegelman for a long time, and he has loved her from afar for an equally long time. When she invites him on an all-night revenge caper around Orlando, he is drawn into a crazy and risky adventure that includes dead fish, spray paint and Sea World. When Margot disappears the next morning, Quentin realizes that the adventure is only beginning. As Quentin and his quirky friends follow the bizarre and complicated series of clues that Margot has left behind, he worries about her mysterious disappearance. Margot has run away before, but she is just so awesome, so popular, so ...Margot...that everyone assumes that she is pulling some sort of amazing prank before graduation. Is this one of Margot's dramatic runaways, or are the clues she left for Quentin trying to tell him something more?

In his fabulous new novel, Green combines equal parts of mystery, adventure, comedy, and drama for an end-of-senior-year road trip that is chock-full of obscure cultural references. Highly recommended!

I listened to it -- 8 hours.

Labor of Love

2009-04-24T14:07:00.002-05:00

While I don't think this is her best work, I enjoyed Rachel Hawthorne's teen romance "Labor of Love" which was about teenagers helping rebuild houses in New Orleans post hurricanes. In the Author's Note at the back, Rachel explains that she got the idea for the novel while attening the ALA conference in June 2006, when she was out to dinner and observed a table of teenagers who were in town to volunteer. The main shortcomings of this book were that the rebuilding efforts did not seem believable or well researched compared to other similar books I have read (Dana Reinhardt's "How to Build a House" for example) and that the plot replied on a psychic to help the characters address their feelings, and that is a personal annoyance for me as a reader, especially when the psychic is not later debunked, etc.
298 pages.

Readaholic

2009-04-18T21:13:00.002-05:00

Fiction being my drug of choice when I need an escape, I have devoured several titles this week.

So Inn Love by Catherine Clark-- predictable teen romance about kids spending their summer jobs at a Maine resort. 327 pages

The Finishing Touches by Hester Browne
London finishing school on verge of bankruptcy is revived by adopted daughter of founding family using modern approach to refined and elite life skills. This is the second book I've read this year that addresses the practical topics that well rounded girls should be taught. The first was "Everything Nice"
416 pages

Peeled by Joan Bauer - GREAT teen audiobook. 5.5 hours

And some nonfiction parenting stuff:

Wonderplay from the 92nd St. Y Parenting Center 118 pages
First Foods by Bryan Vartabedian 231 pages

Birthday roundup

2009-04-14T19:53:00.002-05:00

65 total books
90 hours of audiobook listening
And 15170 Total pages

Not really that much compared to previous years, but I had a baby, so my reading time declined as well as my ability to remember what I have been reading. I've left more books unfinished this year than at any other time in my life, and it seems like I only blogged about them if I abandoned them on purpose because they made me mad, not if I just got distracted and returned them to the library when they were overdue.

I look forward to another great year of reading and I'm going to start right now!!
What better way to spend my birthday than with a good book (and my wonderful spouse, who is reading as well. Of course, for Dan to total what he read in the last year, just look at what has been posted on slashdot, engadget, etc. and then add it up because he has read it all!)

natural born awakening

2009-04-14T19:18:00.002-05:00

I listened to SEP's Natural Born Charmer, which I had read before. It was narrated by the late great Anna Fields. 12 hours.

I read The Awakening by Kate Chopin for my book group. People at the discussion were very mixed/confused/conflicted by what they thought about it, what they were supposed to think about it, and whether or not they found Edna inspiring or disgusting. I read most of it while holding the baby, which made it hard and easy for my to sympathize with a woman who didn't want to be defined by her children and family. 190 pages.

Dan and I read aloud to Kivrin for 30 minutes at a booth for National Library Week yesterday, but it was all board books which I traditionally have not counted here.

I feel like I have read more things lately, but I can't seem to find any evidence of them lying around the house so this will be my last post for this year.

Snowed In

2009-04-07T13:58:00.003-05:00

No, I don't wish for more snow. Or any snow. But Rachel Hawthorne's Snowed In was a nice little escape during this week's cold snap. Ashleigh and her recently divorced mother move to a small island off the coast of Michigan to run a bed and breakfast. The guest rooms are being redecorated over the off-season and the tourists are all visiting some place warmer, like the Texas city that Ashleigh just left behind. Coming from a huge high school with over a thousand kids in her class, she is very worried about enrolling in a school where the junior class has only 6 students. Also, dating might be a big problem. Ashleigh doesn't believe in having a boyfriend, and likes to just date a guy a couple of times before moving on. What will she do with such a limited selection? The first few guys she meets are all very cute, but all of the girls seem to have steady boyfriends. What is a girl to do when she is new in town and the snow is falling?
Rachel Hawthorne is the best teen romance writer I've ever read. Funny and light-hearted stories with occasional laugh out loud dialogue. She creates characters that I would want to hang out with and get to know better, and puts them in situations that are different from my own life, but still believable. Her novels are first-rate fun!

261 pages.

raising bookworms

2009-03-31T16:06:00.002-05:00

obviously I hope to be raising a little bookworm at home. I am an avid fiction reader. Her dad is a non-fiction and tech-website reader. We hope she will like to read also.

Raising Bookworms: getting kids reading for pleasure and empowerment by Emma Walton Hamilton

The premise of the book is that children begin life being read to, hearing inspiring stories, and generally enjoying the experience. When children are sent to school, a shift to learning to read independently may place a focus on pressure, deadlines and responsibilities instead. The purpose of this book is to help kids read for pleasure.

In the section for Babies and Toddlers, Hamilton recommends reading aloud while nursing or cuddling together, to associate reading with pleasurable feelings of warmth, joy and love.

For each developmental age group, fun and practical suggestions are included for "In the Home" and "Beyond the Home" as well as ideas for what your child will enjoy reading at that level.

I skimmed the library's copy - 156 pages.

Schooled by Gordon Korman

2009-03-26T16:22:00.002-05:00

Gordon Korman was one of my very first favorite authors. Sometime late in elementary school, I discovered his Bruno and Boots boarding school adventure series, and I was hooked. His classic comedy-of-errors A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag remains on my best-books-to-read-again list, and amazingly, he has continued to write excellent books for middle school readers ever since he was a teenager.
I happened upon one of his new releases - Schooled - as a full cast audiobook from Recorded Books and I really enjoyed it.
The premise is straightforward enough - Capricorn Anderson has been raised on a hippie commune by his grandmother. Over the years, everyone has left the commune and returned to the real world, except for Cap and his Grandma. When she breaks her leg, Cap is sent to live with a social worker and attend public school for a few months until she has completed rehab and can return to their community. Cap has never seen television, never held money, and has been raised to believe in peace, justice, fairness and selfless sharing of resources. The school lockers are a mystery, the school bullies are confusing, and the school lunches are disgusting. Within a week of his arrival, he's been elected 8th grade class president as a joke, and then things get really crazy. Cap's gentle hippie outlook is strange to the 21st century teenagers, but who will really get schooled?
I listened to it - 5 hours

3 willows

2009-03-25T11:41:00.000-05:00

3 Willows: the sisterhood grows

3 willows: the sisterhood grows by Ann Brashares
Sometimes, they speak of the older girls – the sisterhood – as of mythical local heroines. Those girls, who shared a pair of pants, have been much emulated, but no other friendships can compare to the stories about the sisterhood. Those girls are all in college now, 20 years old, and the stuff of legend in the hometown of Polly, Jo and Ama. Polly, Jo and Ama have been friends since the first day of grade school when they were the last three kids to get picked up. They sneaked out of an empty classroom and off into the woods by Pony Hill to begin their adventures. Since that day, they have been together almost every day. Now, the summer before high school, the girls are not as close anymore. They have grown apart, found separate interests and made new friends. Do they even still need each other anymore? Polly lives alone with her eccentric artist mother. She is staying home this summer while her friends go away. She wishes her family was larger, and when she finds out about a relative who was a popular model, Polly will do whatever it takes to become a model herself. Jo is working as a bus girl this summer at a restaurant near her parent’s beach house. Her family has never been the same since a tragedy a few years earlier, and Jo’s dad isn’t coming to the beach with Jo and her mom this summer. After Jo meets someone new on the bus, she finds a pleasant distraction from the confusion of home. Ama is focused on her grades. Her sister has excelled, gone off to college early, and Ama wants to do the same. When her scholarship to prestigious summer camp assigns her to an outdoorsy hiking trip instead of a research lab, Ama is horrified. Author Ann Brashares has given a wonderful gift to fans of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by extending the world of Lena, Tibby, Carmen and Bridget to include another story from their community. If you liked the Sisterhood books, or the movies, you will probably enjoy this story also. Meet three new girls who are embarking on their own summer journey of growing up and enjoying their own unique sisterhood.
I listened to it about 8 hours on CD. Excellent story.

creative play for your baby

2009-03-19T19:20:00.002-05:00

Creative play for your baby by Christopher Clouder and Janni Nicol

I checked out this book because it has a cute picture on the front of a litle girl playing with little rag dolls in wooden boats made from tree limbs, all sailing on a river of folded blue fabric. Creative play sounded like a great concept, but what I didn't realized until I started reading more closely is that it is actually a craft instruction book masquerading as a parenting book and contains "step by step instructions for over 20 natural, home-made toys". It's cool, and if I could just buy the toys, I would, but otherwise....Kivrin's getting storebought toys. (Although I did buy her a natural wooden spoon at the grocery story and she loves it) 125 pages.

Books a million

2009-03-11T05:55:00.003-05:00

Not really, but I'm trying...

I read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck for book group-- 578 excellent pages and very timely in the current economic situation and also the current trend towards locally grown produce.

I'm judging the booksellers best romance contest again this year, all Harlequin/Sillouette serials-- I had An Ideal Father and The Single Dad's Virgin Wife and Heart of a Thief so far. 245, 212 and 214 pages.

I reviewed As Sure as the Sun by Anna McPartlin for freshfiction.com - 384 pages

I listened to the H2g2 primary phase radio show adaption, 3 hours., and the secondard phase, 3 hours.

And I read Sex for busy people: the art of the quickie for lovers on the go, which has been the subject of much discussion in Topeka lately. I wasn't impressed by the book, mainly because I didn't learn anything new (except something about a trenchcoat for quickies in public). The images are cartoon drawings and brightly colored, and I thought they were more funny than instructional. Also, the book didn't address safe sex or condoms, which I find unforgiveable in any modern sex instruction book, no matter what the premise. The book reads like half-page articles from Cosmo magazine and is less titilating than a racy romance novel and less graphic than many of our graphic novels. If this book is the gold standard for harmful to minors in Topeka, we are in BIG trouble. 79 pages.

anathem

2009-02-24T15:01:00.002-06:00

When is a carrot not a carrot?

While this is not the driving question of Neal Stephenson's new book, Anathem, the answer to the question provides a decent summary of the story. In short, a carrot is not a carrot when it is grown on the planet Arbre, which is similar to Earth in many ways, but distinctly different in others.

In this book, you will learn more about Arbre, including the historical timeline of events and rich cultural traditions of their academic (or "mathic") world.
You will get to know Fraa Erasmus, a young man who has lived for the last 9 years in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, studying and pursuing a life of research and contemplation.
Just when you start to enjoy the idea of life without technology and material goods, Erasmus will be evoked -- sent out from the Concent into the Extramuros world. Erasmus and his friends will go on an adventure beyond their wildest dreams ...an adventure to save their world.

Why I loved listening to the audiobook:
The audiobook features great narrators, several different voices, all working to create this story in my mind as I listened. Because Neal Stephenson makes up words like he's J.R.R. Tolkein trying to cheat at Scrabble, having a narrator pronouncing everything for me was a real blessing.

Dan and I listened to the 28 disc, 34 hour sound recording of Neal Stephenson's book Anathem, mostly together, or at least in the same 6 week period.

Boyfriend League

2009-02-24T14:41:00.002-06:00

The new teen romance from Rachel Hawthorne (author of Thrill Ride) was a nice spring-training kind of baseball novel, although it was actually about the summer leagues of a small collegiate team in Texas. 315 pages

I'm giving up on Plum Spooky, the newest Janey Evanovich between the numbers book about Stephanie Plum. The THIRD guy she is romantically involved in is just too much for me, especially since he has oddly unexplained supernatural powers. I've checked out a 14 day copy twice now and I just can't make myself pick it up.
I hate to admit it, but I'll probably still make an attempt at Fabulous Fifteen or whatever the next Stephanie Plum book is in the series. Stupid fiction addition. I probably read about 70 pages.

teen books

2009-02-19T12:01:00.002-06:00

Fake Boyfriend by Kate Brian was almost too predictable. I put it down towards the beginning, but picked it up to confirm that I knew what was going to happen. then I got drawn in and finished it....262 pages

Clubbing by Watson and Howard - a Minx graphic novel. The cover makes it about partying, but it's actually about getting sent to live with the grandparents on their golf course. and then it takes a turn toward the mystery/supernatural, which is where it lost me. I finished it though, hoping for romance....which I didn't get....darn it. 151 pages.

What I Did for Love

2009-02-12T09:58:00.002-06:00

What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Georgie York was America’s sweetheart. With her unruly curls and wide mouth, she charmed the country for eight years as the star of the family sitcom Scooter and Skip in which she played an orphan runaway hiding out in the large Scofield family mansion. Her costar, first crush, and now lifelong enemy Bramwell Shepard brought the show to an end almost a decade ago, when his addictions got the better of him, a sex tape surfaced, and their show was cancelled. From her childhood days in a revival of Annie, Georgie has always lived in the public eye, but in the year since her action movie star husband left her for a sultry dramatic actress, Georgie has been hounded by the press. When the sonogram photos of her ex-husband’s new baby surface, Georgie’s shock and dismay is photographed by the paparazzi for all the world to see.
Trying to escape, she ends up in Las Vegas, and through circumstances beyond her control, she ends up at a wild party with her worst enemy, Bram. Even worse, twenty four hours later, she wakes up married to him. To get an annulment wouldn’t strike the marriage from the public record, and the fallout from the tabloids would ruin any chance of her salvaging her career. Somehow they have to make the public believe their antagonistic relationship has developed overnight into a loving marriage.
Everything Bram says to Georgie is a lie and she would do well to remember that. When he starts selectively telling the truth, she is even more confused. From his rude young housekeeper to his constant talk of drinking and smoking, Bram enjoys keeping Georgie on her toes and in her place. Georgie is unhappy to be stuck in a relationship with him, even if it is completely fake. Bram and Georgie are both excellent actors, but how long can they deceive themselves and each other from the truth of their feelings?
This novel features a few minor characters from Glitter Baby and Natural Born Charmer and is sure to please fans of SEP!

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is my favorite romance author. To be honest, this book makes me cry, but not for the reason you would think. The dedication is to Anna Fields/Kate Fleming, my alltime favorite audiobook narrator, who always read SEP's books. When I first moved to Kansas, I would listen to SEP novels when I was driving back home to visit, and the voice of Anna Fields became like my best friend on those otherwise lonely car trips across boring old Missouri. Kate Fleming died in a flash flood a few years ago and even though it's silly, and I didn't know her, and I actually only ever heard her reading other people's writing, and I don't even know what she looks like, I really mourn her passing, even now.
401 pages

To kill a mockingbirg

2009-02-10T20:13:00.001-06:00

Why are you reading this post when you could be reading Harper Lee's wonderful novel?
Seriously. Go pick it up right now. You won't be able to put it down.
(I read it. And it's the big read this month, so I'll probably read it a few more times)

cute books from the library

2009-02-06T15:56:00.002-06:00

I don't think these count toward my "reading" goals, but I need to return these board books to the library and don't want to forget the titles because we really enjoyed them.

Does a Cow Say Boo? by Judy Hindley
I Kissed the Baby! by Mary Murphy
Bless Me by Grace Maccarone
What's on my Head? by Margaret Miller

The first three are great for reading aloud, the fourth has pictures of babies with silly things on their heads.

sweet love

2009-02-05T11:27:00.002-06:00

Sweet Love by Sarah Strohmeyer features a giant cupcate on the front of the book, complete with three pink icing roses. Obviously, this is a love story about desserts. It's also the story of Julie Mueller, a divorced television news reporter raising a teenager daughter and watching out for her own aging parents. Her mother, Bettie, is known for being meddling, so when she gives Julie a gift certificate for cooking classes with a local chef, Julie is suspicious. At the classes, over the sumptuous desserts that everyone is creating, Julie encounters a man from her past, a man of whom her mother strongly disapproved.

Michael Slayton was raised almost as an extra sibling in the Mueller household, after his own mother proved neglectful. Ever since Julie made a pass at him when she was a teenager, Michael has kept his distance. Of course, when Julie broke a news story about a sleezy sex scandal in the campaign Michael worked on, that didn't help their relationship. As Julie and Michael are forced to spend time together each week over desserts, old issues including attraction and jealousy bubble to the surface. Julie is juggling home, work, health, family and romance when all she really wants is another bite of dessert!

I've known I shared Sarah Strohmeyer's sense of humor from her very early days as a writer. own a copy of her first book - Barbie Unbound - a photo book of Barbie dolls in unexpected and silly situations. To add to the pleasure, Sweet Love also incorporates quotes from Shakespearean poetry throughout. This latest novel does not disappoint, with a story that is humorous, honest and affirming. If you are looking for light-hearted women's romantic fiction, this story will tickle your taste-buds and leave you wanting more.

297 pages.

Everything Nice

2009-01-24T09:04:00.002-06:00

Mike Edwards is tough for a girl. Actually, she's tough for a guy, at least that's what her ex-boyfriend said when he left their shared apartment last year. Post-break-up, Mike's only friend is her good buddy Gunther, an Australian news reporter stationed in New York City. She's never had women friends, and she's mainly interested in men for quick flings, nothing serious. In fact, the less emotionally involved she can be with the world, the better.
Work was going great, until it wasn't. Mike knows she's a good writer, but when her mentor gets fired, Mike is asked to leave the ad agency and she quickly finds that she can't get hired again - anywhere. Her reputation - as icy, unfriendly and argumentative - precedes her. At 30, Mike is moving back in with her father, who has unexpectedly started dating after being a widow for 25 years. She is trying to avoid confronting some big issues from childhood, avoid her dad's new girlfriend, avoid her changing relationship with Gunther, and avoid getting a new job since no one wants her anyway. Her life has completely fallen apart.
Just when things couldn't get any worse, she gets talked into substitute teaching in a "Life Skills" class at a private girls school. A room full of seventh graders is not what Mike needed to get her life back on track. With embroidery and baking on the syllabus, Mike is even more clueless than her students. Mike knows nothing of sugar, spice and everything nice, because that's not what this woman is made of!

I loved this book. I was expecting something totally different, but Mike's gruff, tough, almost bitter personality really grew on me as I read her story. It was inevitable that she would change and grow as a character, because she is really miserable early on in the story, but her journey from sarcastic, cruel and blunt to...something nicer...was a great read!
312 pages.

In Defense of Food

2009-01-05T14:49:00.003-06:00

The new book from Michael Pollan is just what I was looking for as I start trying to determine what kind of foods will be best for the baby. With his seven word mantra "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan is out to reverse effects of the Western diet by encouraging people to make good choices based on common sense and quality instead of the modern mayhem of nutritionalism, packaging and marketing.

While I don't always expect non-fiction reading to be entertaining, several parts of this book made me laugh out loud, including an explanation of qualified health claims on processed food packaging. Pollan explains that many of these claims are sketchy to begin with and the disclaimers in tiny print are even more confusing for consumers. As an example, he offers this scenario for the future: ""No doubt we can look forward to a qualified health claim for high fructose corn syrup, a tablespoon of which probably does contribute to your health, as long as it replaces a comparable amount of --say--poison-- in your diet and doesn't increase the total number of calories you eat in a day."

6.5 hours of listening

I also read the delightful "The Wayward Debutante" by Sarah Elliott, a regency romance paperback with a broken spine so I could one-hand read while feeding/rocking the baby. 294 pages.

Burnout and boyproof

2009-01-02T11:41:00.004-06:00

I know, cheery titles for the new year. But I indulged in some reading, so I am happy about that, even if my choices were weird.

Burnout written by Rebecca Donner, illustrated by Inaki Miranda
After her dad leaves them, Danni and her mom move from the city to a remote Oregon logging town. Her mom moves in with an alcoholic bar owner, and suddenly Danni is sharing a room with her cute soon-to-be-stepbrother, the brooding and mysterious Haskell. The environmental terrorists are sabotaging the logging operations to save the forests, but many of the jobs in the region depending on the lumber mills. Her mom's boyfriend is increasinly violent, and Haskell is sneaking out the window in the middle of the night with a backpack. What will Danni be willing to sacrifice to have a real family again? And will the sacrifices be worth it?
The black and white drawings of Danni, Haskell and the forest backdrop in this graphic novel really bring this quick-paced adventure to life for the reader!

147 pages. graphic novel

Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci
203 pages
I came to this novel from Castellucci's graphic novel Plain Janes, which I loved.

Victoria is known as Egg because she always dresses like the main character in her favorite post-apocalypic movie. Egg is boy proof. She doesn't need anyone, because she is smart and focused and driven. She is invisible to boys, even the geeks in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Club at her Hollywood school. She is obsessed with movies. Her mom is a formerly famous actress looking for a comeback and her dad makes special effects makeup and props for big-time movies.
When Max Carter arrives at her school, Egg is shocked to find a boy as smart and witty as she is. Max immediately makes friends with everyone at school, although he pays special attention to a beautiful and silly girl named Nelly. Soon Egg actually feels lonely instead of just being a loner, especially after she keeps a secret about some movie gossip and alienates the few friends she had. As graduation approaches, unexpected encounters with some of her favorite movie stars may just change everything...

regifters

2008-12-30T11:18:00.002-06:00

Re-gifters by Mike Carey is a graphic novel from MINX, which are illustrated stories aimed at teenage girls. I thought it would be about Christmas gifts, but it was in fact about marial arts in Koreatown in LA. Great story though, and very well portrayed!
148 pages.
I listened to part of the Doomsday Book by Connie Willis for Christmas and part of a Katie Fforde audiobook before it was due back to the library.
And I've read a few dozen books to Kivrin....

Nation

2008-12-14T13:00:00.003-06:00

Nation by Terry Pratchett
367 pages

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book - it's not a Discworld novel, which is the setting of the other novels by Terry Pratchett that I have enjoyed. And it's marketed as a young adult/teen novel, so I wondered how the writing might differ from his usual wit and subtle social criticism. Since I don't have much reading time these days though, I hoped it would be wonderful though. I was not disappointed.

In this alternative history set in a place similar to the Pacific islands, Mau is an island boy on a week long quest to become a man. While he is away from home, a devasting tsunami destroys everything and everyone. Mau returns to his island, no longer a boy but not yet a man, because it is the Nation. Mau knows that he must protect it and rebuild it; he is the new chief, even if he is the only one left. He discovers the ghost girl, a pale skinned girl who arrived on the wave in a large wooden ship that crashed into the island. Daphne and Mau set about finding a common vocabulary and dealing with the influx of refugees who are coming to the Nation.
Mau's old life is gone, washed away by the wave, along with his family and his faith in the gods. He is left only with doubt and disbelief, and an aristocratic and proper British girl to help him figure out how to restore all the things that are important in their lives.

Daphne, who's real name is Ermintrude, firmly believes that her father will come find her eventually. She is frightened of Mau and the island at first, but she tries to fit in with the locals, even taking off most of her fancy layers until she's only wearing three clothing items under her grass skirt. Daphne doesn't believe in the gods either, she believes in science. She investigates the mysteries of the Nation, applying the scientific method to discover how to make the bubbling poison into tasty beer, and using an old medical text from the wrecked ship to bring doctoring to the refugees.

I freely admit that I may just be noticing these things more since I'm doing most of my recreational reading while nursing my baby, but this is the second thing I've read this month that devotes a good chunk of text to the issue of breastfeeding. In this story, a baby arrives on the island as a refugee and his mother cannot feed him. With no other options, Mau has to risk his life to get mother pigs drunk and push aside the piglets to express the milk for the human baby. (At least until another new mother arrives, who can make enough milk for both babies.)

The other place I ran into breastfeeding in fiction was in the audiobook of Wild Designs by Katie Fforde. The main character Althea is a 38 year old mother of three teenagers. Her younger sister gets pregnant unexpectedly at 36 and is horrified to remember and retell a story about Althea breastfeeding in a supermarket. Althea quotes a maxim "a crying baby offends everyone, a nursing baby need offend no one." It's a very nice fictional discussion overall of the issues of breastfeeding in public.

True Grit

2008-12-14T12:59:00.002-06:00

I re-read this for book group. It was wonderful. Everyone liked it, but it left us enough to discuss that is was a good end-of-year choice.
215 pages.

wow, reading is getting harder

2008-11-23T19:21:00.002-06:00

Besides numerous board books read aloud to the baby (I have "Opposites" by Sandra Boynton memorized already), I read the entirety of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View on my iPhone using Stanza, and I read the ARC of Here Today, Gone to Maui by Carol Snow for freshfiction, although my review was a week late. Probably too much information, but poorly bound page-proof ARCs are the perfect choice for reading-while-pumping, and of course I read the iPhone book while feeding or burping the baby. Hmmm. Is there a market for some sort of product/tool to make it easier to read while breastfeeding? Does such a thing already exist? (not in the first 20 google results of my impromptu search...)
The review for Here Today, Gone to Maui was tricky to write without giving too much of the plot away. (spoiler alert!) Jane goes to Maui with her boyfriend Jimmy, who is them presumed to be dorwned in a scuba accident, but then is revealed to have stolen another man's identity, and Jane finds the real Jimmy attractive, but then the fake Jimmy resurfaces, and giving away any of that would ruin the first half of the book for the reader, so my summary for freshfiction was very very vague, at best!
Room with a View - 240 pages
Here Today, Gone to Maui - 296 pages

getting ready for nanowrimo

2008-10-28T13:39:00.002-05:00

Writing & Selling the YA Novel by K.L. Going 224 pages, although I didn't read the parts about editing or selling because this was my preparation for Nanowrimo and I can't think about those parts and still write a novel in 30 days.

Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
I am enamored with the idea of PLAIN - People Loving Art in Neighborhoods - and the girls who make it happen. This is an excellent sequel to Plain Jane.
152 pages

I'm returning almost all of the other books I have checked out from the library -- if I didn't get them read by now, they aren't going to get read during November!

naomi and ely's no kiss list

2008-10-19T11:24:00.003-05:00

Like their previous collaboration "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist", Rachel Cohn and David Levithan set their second book firmly in the NYC big-city world. Naomi and Ely have lived across the hall in a New York City co-op apartment their entire lives. Ely lives with his two moms, and now Naomi lives with just her mom, since her dad moved out after having an affair with one of Ely's moms. (That's kind of a miserable story, really, and they are all trying to move on with their lives.) Naomi and Ely are inseperable, best friends forever. They share clothes, music, DVDs -- everything except boys. To protect their friendship, they create the "No Kiss List" and anytime that there is a boy (or girl) that they might both like, they put the name on the list, to avoid competition or hurt feelings. There is one definite glitch in their plan though. Even though Ely is obviously and openly gay, Naomi idolizes their perfect life together and imagines that they will always be together, even romantically. Everything is peachy until Naomi's current boyfriend Bruce the Second ends up kissing Ely. Even though Naomi didn't like Bruce the second enough to add him to the list, she is devastated and angry that Ely has stolen her boyfriend. Will their friendship every be the same?

This story is told in a unique fashion through alternating chapters from Naomi, Ely, two Bruces, two Robins, and the hot doorman named Gabriel. I have trouble believing these stories where kids have easy access to nightclubs and drugs, stay out all night in the city and generally seem to have more freedom than I remember having at seventeen or eighteen years old. But I still love to live vicariously through their coming of age stories!

I checked it out. 230 pages.

deadlines and priorities

2008-10-18T19:54:00.002-05:00

things that motivate me to read (and finish) books these days:

my book group is meeting and I am the discussion leader: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - about 150 pages including literary criticism

i have a book review due to tanzey for fresh fiction.com: The Pre-Nup by Beth Kendricks - 291 pages

I am in the middle of several overdue library books - hopefully that will mean I make time to finish those soon too!

pirates and vampires

2008-09-25T21:50:00.003-05:00

Escapism anyone?

To Catch a Pirate by Jade Parker is a teen YA romance that came recommended by another librarian. Good pirate adventure, nothing too stereotypical, girl captain avenging her father's wrongful imprisonment, definite romance though. 230 pages.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Dan and I listened to this audiobook on the way to and from St. Louis for Grandma Staley's funeral a few weeks ago, then we just managed to finish it up tonight because it is due back to the library. It's had a lot of hype, and I guess I can see why - it's not earth-shattering, but it is safe for a vampire story - very much about the characters more than the mythologies. I have been uber-disturbed by the power dynamics of the attraction between Bella and Edward - it's very creepy old man and innocent young girl sometimes, plus it almost seems to parallel an abusive relationship, since the threat of violence, him being honored for showing control constantly simply for not killing her, and her always in trouble for being a temptation both sexually and by being so darn human and tasty.... the ending of the book only intensified this impression for me, and I don't think I'll keep reading, although given another car trip, I would listen if it was playing. I am such a sucker for audiobooks.
13 hours.

seriously, i'm reading, i swear

2008-09-18T17:26:00.004-05:00

most nights, for example, I spend some time reading the scrolling text on the TV Guide channel, trying without much success to find something to watch while nursing the baby -- 3-4 am is the worst selection, as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is basically the only thing on. Not that it isn't a good show, in a retro-childhood kind of way, but it's not what I would choose every single night.

I've also read several magazines -- Parents, American Baby, the New Yorker -- and I just borrowed some of the La Leche League magazine back issues, which I am looking forward to....

Today we took Kivrin to the Baby Bookworms program at the library --

and we read a book to the baby, although I already forgot the title. It was cute though -- about 6 pages long and with lots of pictures of little babies in it.

Okay, okay. I'm grasping at straws to update my reading blog. Everyone was right and now that I have a baby I no longer have time to read.....

now that I don't have as much to write on "Lissa Reads" at least I have a new title "Kivrin's Mommy" so check out our latest happenings on http://www.kivrinanne.com

baby!!!!!

2008-09-02T04:23:00.003-05:00

I had a baby and am trying ten days later to update my reading blog from my iPhone at four thirty in the morning while i am up nursing her. i am really not sure when i will read something more than a magaZine article but when i do I will still be blogging here - until then find us at kivrinanne.com

more waiting, more reading

2008-08-19T09:00:00.002-05:00

Tanzey dropped off a new ARC for me, and I read it all last night. Unravel Me. It's the sequel to How to Knit a Wild Bikini by Christie Ridgway -- this one follows the third sister, Juliet. It's a good setup because now there have been two books were we didn't quite get the first sister's story and from the sample chapter at the back of book two, it looks like Cassandra's story will finally be told in the third book. I'll review it for freshfiction.com. 304 pages.

The Education of Mrs. Brimley - not to give it all away, but the moral of the story is - don't pretend to be aa sexually experienced widow if you are going to become a sex-ed teacher. 325 pages

I had high hopes for a new paperback romance called Lord Scandal, but I'm returning it to the library because around page 40 everyone in the book has started complaining about pregnancy. Here is the last sentence I read before I closed the book "It's no wonder the polite world refers to pregnancies as confinements. God knows that's how it feels sometimes."
Somehow, since I am at work again this morning and 5 days past my due date, this just struck me the wrong way.... I read the first 40 pages....

9 months and counting

2008-08-14T14:35:00.002-05:00

So, today is my "due date" -- a completely meaningless date in my opinion, but whatever. To cheer myself up about still being hugely pregnant, I've been reading my way through a stack of paperback romances. Here is a brief summary of recent reads:

(lots of pregnancy and baby first year books, re-reading chapters on labor and delivery, hospital stays, and the baby's first month in each book.)

Ripped at the Seams bu Nancy Krulik 326 pages (too much plot on the back cover ruined it)
She's Got the Beat by Nancy Krulik 303 pages (decent read)
Summer in the City by Elizabeth Chandler 358 pages (one of the best teen romances I've read lately.)

I also read O Pioneers for book group last Monday and really enjoyed it. 210 pages.

the little prince

2008-07-24T12:19:00.002-05:00

My book group read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery this month. It's a quick read, only 113 pages, and illustrated with line drawing by the author. I enjoyed reading it, I remember parts that my mom read aloud to my class in 3rd grade, but I also enjoyed learning more about the author, who was a pilot and loved to fly, especially for his country (France). The dedication is especially touching - to his friend who was a Jew in German-occupied France during the war.
Highly recommended to read or re-read.
113 pages.

what my girlfriend doesn't know

2008-07-23T14:24:00.002-05:00

What my girlfriend doesn't know by Sonya Sones

I read when I put this book on request that it was a sequel to "What My Mother Doesn't Know" which I knew that I had read, but didn't really remember. Luckily, you don't have to have read (or remember) the first book to really enjoy this one.

Written in free verse (non-rhyming poetry), this book is a very fast read. Sonya Sones does an incredible job of capturing Robin's feelings about Sophia, about life, and about being a fourteen year old boy.

291 pages.

Count Karlstein

2008-07-03T16:36:00.002-05:00

I listened to the audiobook (full cast!) of Count Karlstein by Phillip Pullman - a delightful Gothic tale for children.5.5 hours.

Also I read The Pirate's Dilemma; how Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism by Matt Mason -- sort of edgy and not exactly my thing, (I'm just not cool enough to be a pirate) but good for me to expand my horizons a bit and try to understand how other people think.239 pages.

fearless fourteen

2008-07-01T10:51:00.002-05:00

Why do I keep reading these books?
Seriously, it would be okay in like...a movie...or even a tv season...if one girl was in love with two guys for awhile. But the Stephanie Plum books are just getting creepy the way that she draws out her relationships with Ranger and Morelli in book after book. It's handy for plotting for a bounty hunter detective to work "intimately" with both the police force and the less-law-abiding-private-security firm, but from a personal standpoint, it's just tacky to sleep and flirt around like that. The reasons that she doesn't commit to Joe Morelli are thinner in every book, but that doesn't mean that their relationship is stronger, just that the reasons to keep flirting with Ranger are less and less appropriate. So, anyway, I read Fearless Fourteen, and I'll probably read "Sexy Sixty Two" and I'll probably still be complaining about it then too....
310 pages.

the pleasure of reading

2008-06-26T08:34:00.003-05:00

So, I indulged in a historical regency romance - Pleasure for pleasure by Eloisa James. Not to give away the ending or anything, but the unexpected best part was when the main character gave birth in the epilogue and she was only in labor for like 40 minutes. I guess this is what my life is becoming -- trying to live vicariously through fictional characters successful birth stories....
406 pages.
I also read part of Duke of Scandal by Adele Ashworth, but the characters were really annoying me so I switched books.
I read about 100 pages.