24-hour Read-a-Thon Updates

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24hr readathon girl readingIt’s time: Dewey’s 24-hour read-a-thon starts now! I already know I won’t be reading for all 24 hours…I have a prior commitment for a few hours this evening, plus I’m on allergy meds that are knocking me out, so I’ll definitely be needing some sleep tonight! But I still plan to read as much as I can, and I’ll be updating my progress in this post throughout the day. Looking forward to checking out other people’s progress as well!

So, without further ado, the intro meme!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Arlington, VA
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? I don’t really have a stack this year…but I’m hoping to make some more headway in Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour, which I started a while ago but had to set aside because it was taking so long to read! Don’t get me wrong, I like it a lot — it’s just giant and time-consuming.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Again, I don’t really have specific snacks, although there are some cut-up veggies in the fridge. I am really underprepared for this read-a-thon!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I have a baby grand piano in my one-bedroom apartment.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? The main difference this year is that I’m not able to set aside the whole day! So I think I’m going to approach this read-a-thon in a much less structured way than usual. I won’t be counting the pages I read or logging my reading time down to the minute…I’m just going to try to read a lot and have fun!

10:47 a.m. — So I’ve been reading for about an hour and a half, and I finished my first book of the read-a-thon! It was Waiting on You by Kristan Higgins, a very quick read (although I did start it yesterday) with a great feel-good romance. I also did this mini-challenge in which you get to put jigsaw puzzles together! And now I think it’s time for a break…I need to shower, put on clothes that aren’t pajamas, eat something, and perhaps take a quick walk. Hope everyone is still going strong!

12:52 p.m. — Time for one of my favorite challenges of the read-a-thon, Book Puzzles! Try to guess what book I’m thinking of, based on the following pictures (short words like articles and prepositions have been left out). Winner gets bragging rights!

2:46 p.m. — More challenges, anyone? Here are some of the best books of my reading year:

  • Best sci-fi: Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding. If you still mourn the loss of “Firefly,” you should definitely track down this book! I haven’t gotten to the sequels (YET), but I hear they’re just as good!
  • Best romance: Unsticky by Sarra Manning. This may be British chick lit, but it’s no Bridget Jones’s Diary. This book is about a romance, but it’s not afraid to explore the darker, grittier side of relationships.
  • Best children’s book: The Giver by Lois Lowry. HOW did I miss this book as a child?! If you like dystopian literature, you have to check it out!
  • Best debut author: B.J. Novak. I just finished his first book, One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, which came out in February. The stories are mostly hilarious, but a lot of them have a sharp bite to them as well. I had high expectations because of his experience with “The Office,” but I was still very impressed.

And here is my six-word celebration of Dewey’s read-a-thon: No distractions, no guilt, just reading!

3:04 p.m. — OK, I had to do one more challenge because it was just too much fun to resist! The bookish brew I have created is: The Pitcher of Dorian Earl Gray. It’s very easy to make — simply brew the tea, let it cool to room temperature, then pour it over ice and serve. Mix the room-temperature beverage with a syrup composed of sugar and water, if you’re craving something a little more sinfully decadent. But above all, make sure you take a photo of the pitcher before serving the tea. The picture will look less and less appealing with time, but you’ll ensure that your beverage will taste fresh and delicious forever!

9:01 p.m. — I haven’t been able to update in a while (stupid prior commitments!), but rest assured, I haven’t given up just yet! I’m still plugging away at The Sunne in Splendour, which continues to be fascinating but time-consuming. And what edition of The Sunne in Splendour am I actually reading? Apparently it is the 15th printing (as indicated by the lowest number in the series of numbers at the bottom of the page). Who knew?

sunne in splendour copyright page

And here’s my name in book titles:

  • C – Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (a must-read if you like Regency romances!)
  • H – Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (love all her books)
  • R – Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (such a lovely, bittersweet novel)
  • I – Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
  • S – Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (oh, Austen, how I love thee)
  • T – Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (still one of my favorites, although I love Much Ado the most)
  • I – Impossible Things by Connie Willis (recommended for sci-fi fans, although some of the stories are better than others)
  • N – Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (deliciously creepy and creative)
  • A – Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery (my favorite in the Anne of Green Gables series)

11:05 p.m. — Still reading The Sunne in Splendour. I was hoping that I’d be able to finish it during this read-a-thon, but that is definitely not going to happen, since I plan to be asleep in an hour or two at most! But it looks like the plot has finally moved into its endgame, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

12:06 a.m. — All right, I’m too tired to stay awake, so I’m officially calling it. Good night, and good luck to all of you who are still reading!

Review: Roseanna

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RoseannaMaj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Roseanna (trans. Lois Roth)

This book begins in the summer of 1965, when a dead body is dredged up from the bottom of a Swedish lake. The corpse is female and naked, with no clothing, jewelry, or personal effects of any kind. The police determine that she was raped and strangled to death, but they have absolutely no clue as to her identity, much less the murderer’s. Police inspector Martin Beck launches an investigation with the help of his colleagues; after weeks of diligent searching, they are able to identify the woman as Roseanna McGraw, an American woman who was touring Sweden by cruise. Slowly, Beck and the other policemen begin to piece together Roseanna’s final days, and with help from the American police, they are able to learn something about her character as well. Beck gradually begins to form an opinion about the personality of the murderer, and sifting through the scanty data gives him a specific suspect. But due to the lack of hard evidence in the case, Beck and his colleagues must set a daring, and dangerous, trap.

I’m a big fan of the mystery genre in general, but I tend to gravitate toward mysteries in which the reader is able to solve the crime right alongside the detective. This book is definitely not like that, but it offers a fascinating alternative perspective on what a mystery novel can be. The focus isn’t on the victim’s character or on a list of potential suspects who can be eliminated one by one; rather, it’s a very realistic portrayal of how police investigations actually work, with all the tedium and frustration and dead ends they entail. One detail I loved is how the case actually took the policemen months to solve, and how they were also working on other cases in the meantime. Interestingly, Beck’s personality is basically irrelevant, and we don’t learn much about him even though this is the first book in “his” series. Crime-solving is much more of a communal endeavor in this novel than it is in the (predominantly) British and American mysteries I’ve read — indicating a broader cultural difference, I suspect! Be that as it may, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to mystery lovers, even though it was a departure from my normal reading experience.

Tune in Tuesday with Katelyn: It’s doomsday on the other side of town

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Tune in Tuesday-pinkFor this week’s Tune in Tuesday I’m sharing yet another song from Pandora (my Arkells station, if anyone’s interested!). It’s a little bit silly, but the video is very topical, considering the popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction these days! 🙂 The artist is one of those ’90s bands that I was sadly unaware of at the time, but lately I’ve heard and enjoyed several of their songs. So anyway, here is Phantom Planet with “Do the Panic”:

Review: Transformations

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TransformationsAnne Sexton, Transformations

This book is a collection of poetry, and I don’t really know how to review it, or even whether “reviewing” is appropriate for something that is supposed to strike you in a fundamental, visceral way. The poems are all re-imaginings of fairy tales as told by the Brothers Grimm, and Sexton uses the old stories to shed light on modern themes and concerns. For example, here’s the end of “Cinderella”:

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

The stories are all set in that quasi-medieval fairytale past, which is interestingly juxtaposed with some very modern language. When the witch in “Hansel and Gretel” is cooked in the oven, “Her blood began to boil up / like Coca-Cola.” When the prince in “Cinderella” tries the glass slipper on every maiden in the kingdom, the narrator observes, “The prince was getting tired. / He began to feel like a shoe salesman.”

All in all, this collection didn’t make a huge impact on me, but I would recommend it to people who like poetry and fairy tales. I’d definitely like to read more of Anne Sexton’s work!

Review: The Quick

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Quick, TheLauren Owen, The Quick

This novel, set in late Victorian England, centers around James Norbury and his sister Charlotte. After growing up isolated in a crumbling country estate, James is eager to move to London and try his luck as a poet. He slowly begins to conquer his shyness and mix a little in society, and eventually he even falls in love. But everything changes one fateful night when James is attacked, kidnapped, and initiated into the sinister Aegolius Club. Meanwhile, Charlotte has grown more and more anxious about her brother, who seems to have vanished without a trace. She journeys to London and attemps to discover what has happened to him, but what she finds out is more shocking and horrible than she ever could have imagined. As the Aegolius Club’s secrets are slowly revealed, and its members become more and more dangerous, Charlotte realizes that her only course of action is to destroy the club; but even if such a thing were possible, would she truly be able to rescue James?

I find that I really can’t talk about this book without mentioning one significant spoiler, so please STOP READING NOW if you don’t want to know anything else about the plot of this book! … If you’re still interested, here goes: this book is about vampires. I mention it because there is nothing in the book’s description or on the cover blurb about them, yet they are central to the entire book! Personally, I’m not a big fan of vampire novels and would not have picked up this book if I’d known they would be such a big part of the plot. That said, I actually really liked it a lot; Owen is a wonderful writer, and I found the novel a real page-turner despite the fact that it’s over 500 pages long. In fact, my other complaint is that it could probably have ended a few chapters before it did. I wasn’t a huge fan of the (largely depressing) ending, and I would have liked a little happiness for the main characters in the end, after they’d suffered so much. Still, this is a very accomplished gothic novel, and I’d definitely consider reading more by Lauren Owen.

Bookish Update: March 2014

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bookish updates mar 2014

Sorry this post is a few days late! The past week has been a bit rough for me, but now that the weekend is finally here (and I’ve gotten some sleep!), I can focus on what’s really important. 🙂

Currently reading: The Quick by Lauren Owen

Books read in March:

  1. Ellis Peters, The Raven in the Foregate
  2. Elizabeth Blackwell, While Beauty Slept
  3. Kathryn Miller Haines, The Girl Is Murder
  4. Caprice Crane, With a Little Luck
  5. Lorna Goodison, By Love Possessed: Stories
  6. Hannah March, The Complaint of the Dove
  7. Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome
  8. Frank Baker, Miss Hargreaves

Favorite: I have to go with Mistress of Rome — even though it’s a total soap opera, it was a completely addictive read!

Least favorite: With a Little Luck — it wasn’t terrible, but there was absolutely nothing original or interesting about it.

Books acquired in March:

  1. Deanna Raybourn, City of Jasmine
  2. Lauren Owen, The Quick (ARC)
  3. Ismail Kadare, Broken April
  4. Kristan Higgins, Waiting on You
  5. Penelope Hughes-Hallett, The Immortal Dinner: A Famous Evening of Genius and Laughter in Literary London, 1817
  6. Jennifer Crusie, Trust Me on This

E-books:

  1. Deanna Raybourn, Whisper of Jasmine (free)
  2. Ashley Gardner, The Hanover Square Affair, A Regimental Murder, The Glass House, “The Gentleman’s Walking Stick,” and “The Disappearance of Miss Sarah Oswald” ($0.99 for the bundle)

Review: The Grimm Legacy

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Grimm Legacy, ThePolly Shulman, The Grimm Legacy

High-school student Elizabeth Rew is feeling lonely: her new stepmother is taking up most of her father’s time, and she’s just transferred to a new school where she doesn’t have any friends. So when her history teacher suggests that she get a job with the New York Circulating Material Repository, she looks forward to the new experience. The Repository is a lending library for objects, including famous historical artifacts like Marie Antoinette’s wig; but Elizabeth soon discovers that there are even more important objects to be found. Specifically, the Grimm Collection houses fairytale items with magical properties, including flying carpets and seven-league boots. As Elizabeth explores the wonders of the Grimm Collection, she also befriends her fellow employees, including popular Marc, beautiful Anjali, and standoffish Aaron. When some of the magical items go missing, it’s up to Elizabeth and her newfound friends to discover who is stealing from the Grimm Collection — before they become the thief’s next victims.

A few years ago I read Polly Shulman’s other book, Enthusiasm, and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, this book didn’t work for me quite as well. I absolutely loved the premise — what if you could actually borrow the magic mirror from Snow White or Aladdin’s lamp? — and many of the details related to this concept worked very well. I especially liked the idea that borrowers had to leave a “deposit” for the items, which could be something like their sense of direction, their singing voice, or their firstborn child. The problem with the book is that it’s geared toward a very young audience. I don’t have a problem with YA in general, and I’ve read many excellent books in the genre, but this one really felt like YA or even juvenile fiction. If I’d read the book at age 11, I probably would have loved it, but as an adult, I found it far too simplistic. There were also a few plot points that weren’t fully fleshed out, such as Elizabeth’s relationships with her dad and stepmom. Overall, the book is a decent read, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re really OK with juvenile or YA fiction.

How I hated the finale of “How I Met Your Mother”

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For this post, I was trying to find an image that featured the entire cast — the one including Cristin Milioti, the lovely and talented actress who played Tracy McConnell, a.k.a. the Mother. The fact that I couldn’t find one speaks to only one of the many problems I had with the series finale of “How I Met Your Mother.” My thoughts on this issue — as well as the series as a whole — are long, ranting, and very spoiler-laden, so read more at your own risk!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Gateway drugs

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Top 10 TuesdayWhen I was in elementary school, I honestly thought that I hated to read. I have no idea why I believed this; probably it had something to do with the utterly boring “see Spot run” stuff we were forced to read in school when we were first learning. But eventually I discovered the magic of reading, and I’ve certainly never turned back! This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is those “gateway” books and authors that introduced us to a new genre or to the love of reading in general. Here are ten of mine, in no particular order:

1. The Hardy Boys mysteries by Franklin W. Dixon — These are some of the first books I remember reading and loving; I’d check out at least two or three every time I went to the library. Yet for some reason I never really got into Nancy Drew…

2. Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman — I think I had to read this one year in school, and I think it’s responsible for my ongoing interest in the Middle Ages. It gives a lot of great details about what life was like during that time from a young girl’s perspective.

3. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh — This is the book that introduced me to the idea of keeping a journal. And for a brief period in my childhood, my best friend and I totally used to “spy” on the neighbors!

4. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley — This wasn’t my first encounter with Robin McKinley, but as far as I can remember, it was the book that introduced me to the fantasy genre as something more than kiddie fairy tales. It also made me realize that I needed to read all of McKinley’s other books IMMEDIATELY.

5. Pierced by a Sword by Bud MacFarlane, Jr. — Looking back on it, this book isn’t terribly well-written, but it’s one of the few books I can genuinely say changed my life. It presented my religion (Catholicism) in a way that made sense to me, and I’ve become much more serious about my faith because of it. Obviously not a book for everyone, but it definitely resonated with me!

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen — This was the book that really catapulted me from the youth section of the library to the adult section. (Seriously — I went directly from the Sweet Valley Twins to Jane Austen!) Not only did I discover my new favorite book of all time, but I quickly fell in love with the classics of English literature, which have given me countless hours of enjoyment ever since.

7. Murder in Retrospect by Agatha Christie (a.k.a. Five Little Pigs) — My first Agatha Christie, which then sparked an enormous reading binge in my early teens as I plowed through ALL of her mysteries. Though I’d read and loved mystery stories before, Christie became (and still is) the gold standard for clever, well-written whodunits.

8. Shards of Honor and Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold — I honestly think these were the first science fiction books I ever read (aside from required school reading like 1984). Spaceships, aliens, light sabers…they just didn’t seem very interesting to me. But these books from the Vorkosigan series showed me that sci-fi can be just as moving and character-driven and emotionally resonant as any other genre.

9. Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James — This is the book that convinced me that not all romance novels are terrible. I used to wander through the romance section of a a bookstores with my friends and giggle at the melodramatic cover blurbs and embarrassing cover art. (And I have to say, that’s still fun to do sometimes!) But this novel is not only sexy; it’s also funny and clever and a lot of fun! So while I’m still not quite a romance novel lover, I’m much more open to reading and enjoying some authors in this genre.

10. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson — This novel introduced me to a whole new literary world that I never knew existed: female British writers of the 20th century. It’s a weirdly specific niche, but I have found so many LOVELY books fitting that description. Sometimes you just want a sweet, wholesome comfort read that evokes a simpler time, and books like Miss Pettigrew absolutely fit the bill.