Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for art books] 

I was thinking about art this morning because I'm taking an art class next semester and I was driven to look at the art books I have under my coffee table and then write a post about the art books I own. To my surprise, I don't really own any art books. I have Hippie

, which is kind of an art book. I have several books about The Beatles with large photographs. Really the only art book I have is Masterpieces of Modern Architecture

, which isn't even mine, it belongs to my boyfriend. I also have my textbook from art history which has a ton of paintings in it, but they're very small and therefore not really what I think of when I say art book.

But why would I have a lot of art books? They're big. They're expensive. And most of the time they just end up on my coffee table where I look at them once in a blue moon. That being said, I've been perusing for art books this morning and have found some I think I'd like to have.

The 20th Century Art Book is part of a collection published by Phaidon. This collection has other books that span wider times periods and also a book on photography. All of these books look like great overviews and I think I would really enjoy have one or two just for the information and to learn about other artists.

50 Women Artists You Should Know this is the cheapest book I found about women artists (about $9 in paperback) and from the reviews I saw it looks like the authors provide a good amount of information for each artist. What really interested me in this book (besides the price) is that it includes a timeline of the artists, which I would find useful to see how he chain of influence might have worked. A more expensive book on women artists is Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art

, which I'm also lusting after.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction (Whitney Museum of American Art)

is an example of a single artist book I think I would really enjoy. From the reviews I read this book appears to be extremely well made and durable with a lot of images. It also includes essays about O'Keefe and someone even commented in their review to say the writing was interesting, which isn't true in a lot of art books.

Do you have any art books? Which ones do you enjoy? If you don't have any do you think you would ever buy one?

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For the majority of this summer I have been gravitating towards shorter books. Two hundred to three hundred pages has seemed to be my limit, and because of that I have already read quite a stack of books in June. I have always been a big fan of short books. I like to be deeply involved in something for a short amount of time, and then put it aside. As teenager and child I would sometimes go after a larger book and really enjoy it, but it would always be sandwiched by several smaller books. I think my favorite book length is about 250 pages- but this, of course, depends on the book. Some books demand more and some demand less. Some books I get to the end I think to myself No! You can't end yet! I want you to keep going! But in general I like books I can finish in a weeks' time. I can't explain it, I just do.

But since I've read so many short books lately and I've been reading several quick books this summer, I have decided to end out the month by reading two humongous bricks (accompanied by two medium length books of course). I've been reading lots of posts about Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell lately, in particular the recent posts at A Literary Odyssey. I have wanted to read this book since Christmas and I am finally going to do it, I'm finally going to discover if I like Scarlett O'Hara or not. A word I have often heard used to describe Gone With the Wind is "epic," and I really don't know the last time I read 1037 pages of epic so this seems like a sure bet.

The other brick I've decided to pick up is The Passage by Justin Cronin. Usually I don't pick up books just because I see them everywhere, but that is basically the case with this one. Books on the Nightstand made a real fuss over this book back in early spring (I remember listening to the podcast while walking back from the library with a stack of art books that wouldn't fit in my backpack and I was terrified I would drop them in the snow). I don't read just anything Books on the Nightstand suggests, but I think Michael and Ann are pretty convincing and they were especially convincing about this book. They might have described this book as epic as well, but don't quote me on that. When they first described this book on the podcast I wasn't entirely sure I would end up reading it, and I think what put me off was actually the length of 766 pages. I can't be sure what made me decide to commit to this book but I think it was Michael and Ann's reassurance that the book reads fairly quickly. Let's hope they're right!

I remember when I read the Harry Potter books in sixth grade and how proud I was that I read a book that was really long. The Goblet of Fire especially (my favorite) was a great source of pride for me. I realized I could finish a ridiculously long novel and that made me feel like a grown up reader. I had been reader my whole life just to reach the point where I could read something that was 400 pages plus. And really that is my definition of long to this day, maybe 500 plus. And now even though I know I can read a long novel, I rarely do. Part of me recent distaste for them might be rooted in the three Wilkie Collins novels I read for my English class in the Spring though (his are too long in my opinion).

Accompanying me in my brick reads are No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July, and The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. I mostly need to read two smaller books because The Passage and Gone With the Wind will not fit in my purse, and I simply can't walk around without a book in my purse. Also, I tried to pull both of the books off my bookshelf to do this post and I quite possibly twisted my wrist. That's how big these books are. If I got several I could probably build a home.

So what about you? Do you love long books, or do you prefer short ones? Do you remember what your first really long book was? What is a long book?

One Christmas while growing up, my parents gave my older sister a set of books for Christmas. She had them, which meant that I wanted them. But they weren't mine. (I'm still surprised at the number of times over the years that they have given a gift to one of us that would have been better suited for the other. Like the sewing machine... Seriously...) Anyway. I digress. So, I had to wait for the sister to either finish reading all nine books, or wait for her to get tired of them. I don't think she made it past the first few books before losing interest and then grudgingly allowed me to borrow them. (I'm pretty sure the parents were involved in pushing that...)

And let me tell you... I devoured those books. Seriously inhaled them. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder was insanely loved by me. I cannot tell you how much I loved these books. There are nine of them, and I was reading them when I was probably about 7 or 8. Nine books. Big books too (at least for a kid that age) But I read them. And I loved them. I loved them so much that I thought they were the greatest books ever. I wanted to be Laura. For real... I begged my mom until she made me a bonnet and then I would run around outside, letting my bonnet flop off my head and stream behind me like Laura's did. (And really people, Laura was right! Bonnets are seriously annoying.)

I remember so many games played by myself that involved me being Laura in some way or another. I loved all of the books, but my very most favorite was These Happy Golden Years because that's when Almanzo proposes to Laura. It's been years since I've read these books, but I've never forgotten that scene. I even looked it up a while ago to make sure I was right, and I totally was. 'That would depend in the ring.' Sigh. It gave me butterflies. I don't even think I was 10 yet when reading this book but I remember thinking how amazing and romantic that scene was.

But then... Book the ninth. I remember starting it, so happy and eager to read about them after they had finally gotten married. But as I started reading, nothing felt right. The writing was different and even as a young kid, the narrative voice felt... off. Somehow awkward and stilted. I remember forcing myself to finish the book, because it was the end to this deeply beloved series but being incredibly disappointed in the final book. It wasn't until later that I learned that Laura had died before writing this book and her daughter (I think...) had compiled the notes she had left behind and written the final book for Laura. Made me feel pretty good that I'd picked up on the differences as a 9 year old.:)

I really want to go back and reread these books because of how much I loved them growing up, but at the same time, I'm very afraid to. I'm afraid that they won't live up to the pedestal I've placed them on in my memories. Maybe I'll wait until I have kids of my own and then try and read them together. I'd love to go back and see how many of the scenes I vividly remember from these books are the same as I remember them, or if they are even in these books (like Laura running through the rain so fast she managed to dodge the raindrops. Do you have any idea how many times I tried that?! I lived near Seattle, WA. We were no stranger to rain and I used to try, so hard to run fast enough to dodge the rain. But alas. I never managed it.)

Any of you have memories of reading about the many adventures of Laura on the prairie?

Complete List of the books:

Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Priarie
Farmer Boy
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
The Long Winter
Little Town on the Prairie
These Happy Golden Years
The First Four Years

(Also, I hate the cover art with the real people on it... I loved the Garth Williams illustrated covers, even as a kid. They just fit the books so much better)

In most Memory Monday posts, I talk about a specific book or series that I remember strongly from childhood, although there have been a few posts devoted to authors as well. Today, I wanted to do something a little different.

I hope you've noticed that starting today, Jacinda at The Reading Housewives and I are hosting a summer long challenge devoted to reading books from the Newbery and Printz award lists. If you come back later today, I will have a post talking about what you can expect from me throughout the next three months in relation to the challenge, but I thought I'd also use my Memory Monday post to give some more love to the Newbery List.

The Newbery Award has been around since 1922, but I wasn't really aware of it until I was in college. Not specifically anyway. I had a vague idea of what it was, but nothing more than that. Then, I started noticing that an awful lot of the books I had read and loved as a kid had received either a Newbery Medal, or the Honor. It started me to thinking more about the Award and what it means to reading, and I pulled a complete list from ALA's website. I started going through the list, marking off those books I had previously read, looking up some of the books I hadn't and I decided that there was a lot of good to be discovered on this list and that I was going to read it. ALL.

So, here is a list of the Newbery books I especially loved as a kid (probably not complete, but forgive me... It's been a long time since I've read some of these) Seeing a book on this list does not count as their 'official' Memory Monday post. Some of these books or authors have already been spotlighted, some have plans for a spotlight in the future, and some, well, who knows.

* The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder — Oh man oh man oh man. My parents gave my older sister a boxed set of all nine Little House books for Christmas when I was around 7 or 8 and she wasn't terribly interested in them. But I ate them up. I devoured those books, and I wanted to be Laura. I used to play prairie in my backyard. Five of the nine books in this series were awarded honors in the 1930s & 40s.

* Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech — I read this book in (I think) 5th grade and I couldn't keep my excitement about it to myself. I went and asked my teacher for special permission to do an extra book report, complete with a diorama art project because I wanted everyone to know how wonderful this book really was. It also inspired a Sharon Creech binge and I've loved her ever since.

* The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley — I know I've mentioned these books before, but these books are the reason that I was willing to give the entire fantasy genre another chance. My friend bribed me to read them in 8th grade and I was completely blown away.

* Dicey's Song and A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt — These are books 2 and 3 in the Tillerman Sage and oh my goodness are these books powerful reads. The whole series is full of wonderfully real characters, full of pain and sorrow, hope, truth and trust. I've never met anyone else like Dicey, either in fiction or real life. She is one of the most fully drawn characters I think I've ever come across and every story that connects to theirs is powerful. These are the only two that made it on the list (a Medal and an honor, respectively but I believe that all of them easily deserved it)

* Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright — I never should have read this book, and it most certainly isn't a book I would have picked up on my own at that age. But, I had tried to buy a book through one of those Scholastic book orders and they ran out of the book that I had ordered. Rather than send us a refund, the book order sent replacement books they thought we would like. How they went from a book about the sinking of the Titanic (I was crazy obsessed) to a book about a girl on a farm, holding a pig on the cover is completely beyond me, but I read it, because I owned it, and figured, Might as well. But I didn't really expect much from it. But I read it over and over and although I still have that same copy, it's obvious looking at the book that it has been very well loved.

* Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine — This is one of the first books that introduced me to fairy tale retellings. This wasn't my fairy tale retelling, but it was incredibly influential in sparking my deep love for the genre, and it was (I think) the first I had read that took some serious liberties with the story, and deviated in an obvious and blatant way from the original. And I loved every second of it.

* Charlotte's Web by E.B. White — I shouldn't like this book. I'm not an animal person. Even as a kid, I never really wanted a pet and even when I was excited about an animal, the novelty worse off with astonishing speed and I was done. I also don't normally like reading books narrated by animals, especially when those animals think/talk/act like people do. But this book was wonderful. I read it over and over again and was just thrilled anew every time I read about the wonderful words in Charlotte's almost magical web.

So, these are some of my very favorite Newbery reads from childhood, and each of these was a large part of why I decided to read the list in its entirety. Do you have any old (or new) favorites from the list? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

This week at the Broke and Bookish we're talking about our top ten favorite book blogs. Since I was listed on their top ten I will definitely have to share the love! These are in no particular order.

1. The Broke and Bookish. I love the idea for this blog! It's great that they have multiple bloggers because each one has a different way of reviewing and reads different books. Lots of variety here!
2. Reading on a Rainy Day. Quite a few reviews of books dealing with India, which is different from other blogs out there. She really has eclectic taste and has reviewed some great books this year, including The Bell Jar which I love. I always come away with something I want to read.
3. 1330V. You can always count on this blog for really thoughtful posts about reading and great reviews on an assortment of books. Quite a few graphic novel reviews and lots of books I've never heard of before!
4. Sophisticated Dorkiness. A journalist and book lover blogs about mostly nonfiction. This is the only book review blog I can think of that focuses on nonfiction and that is part of the reason I love it. Since I found Sophisticated Dorkiness I have started to review more nonfiction myself because it's my favorite genre as well!
5. Sasha & the Silverfish. Sasha was one of the first blogs I read when I started blogging. Her posts are long but wonderful. It's like discussion in an English class, except you don't have to worry about getting a grade! Lots of great books here.
6. A Literary Odyssey. This blog attempts to read 250 classics and does multiple posts on quite a few of them. I like that about this blog because you get to hear so much more about her thoughts on a book than you would with just one post. With classics I think that works really well.
7. Drunk Literature. On a bit of a hiatus right now but still one of my favorite book blogs. Rebecca blogs about more than books, that includes art, music, and just what's she into at the moment. She has great taste!
8. A Guy's Moleskine Notebook. He reviews quite a few classics but also a lot of newer books so there is a lot of variety. The reviews are very thoughtful and specific, and he is great at starting discussions.
9. The Displaced English Major. Similarly to A Literary Odyssey this blog is trying to read a list of 100 books. I've been amazed at how patient she can be with books she doesn't really care for. She's read some fairly obscure titles so be sure to check out her thoughts!
10. Iris on Books. I didn't find Iris until this summer but it's quickly become one of my favorite book blogs. She reviews mostly literature and classics, but I really enjoy her posts about reading. She's funny too!

There are a lot more I'd like to list. Basically, check out any blog in my blogroll and know that I love what they do!

To be a lover of nonfiction is a dangerous and confusing thing. I have become aware of a major difference in the way readers who primarily love nonfiction shop over the way readers who primarily love fiction shop. When you go to the bookstore and you look for a fiction book, there is generally one place you're searching. Maybe two if you like YA or three if you like romance or western. If you love nonfiction there are an unlimited number of places you might find your books. This can be dangerous and frustrating.

For example, after a recent trip to Half-Price Books I purchased seven books and they were each in a completely different section.

• The first place I always look is in Essays and Memoirs, which is generally only one or two shelves of a bookcase (in a normal store there might be one whole bookcase). In this section I found Coop, which is a memoir, I suppose, of Michael Perry's life as a farmer and parent.
• I moved to the Sports section where I found The Lost Art of Walking, a history and discussion of walking.
• Nearby was travel, where in the further category of Iowa travel I found Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America

  

  , a profile of a town in Iowa.

• I went to graphic novels and found the graphic memoir Blankets

  

  .

• I caught up with Jason in the Science section where I found The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald's Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat

  

  on the one shelf of sustainable agriculture books.

• From sustainable agriculture I moved towards nature writing where I picked up The Control of Nature

  

  , a book of essays by John McPhee.

• I ended by trip in the close-by section of Green Living, which had a really neat copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

Seven books. Seven sections.

Can you see why loving nonfiction is a dangerous and frustrating process? Dangerous because, as you've just seen, it's very easy to hop around the whole store and find something you're interested in in every section. It's too easy, especially in a store like Half-Price Books, which organizes its categories down into smaller categories.

It's frustrating, however, because if you are looking for a specific book there can be at least three places it will be located. Is it in essays and memoirs? Is it in environmentalism? Is it in cookbooks? I've found Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in every place. Even from the books I purchased you can probably see some overlap. The Compassionate Carnivore, The Control of Nature, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Coop could have easily been found in the same section, but for some reason Half-Price Books distinguishes them. The distinguishing factor might be something as arbitrary as what type of writer wrote the book. Was it a journalist? A farmer? A scientist?

Part of this is just that the majority of the books in a bookstore are nonfiction, and bookstores do distinguish all the nonfiction by subject because that is how most people look for it. But when you're a general lover of all types of nonfiction it gets frustrating when there isn't just a single section titled Essays that contains all the books of essays. Since nonfiction is a constantly evolving genre (I'm not saying fiction is not, I'm saying literary fiction has a more established, concrete history) it's difficult for a lot of readers to make the distinction between literary nonfiction and what I would consider "How to" nonfiction. How to travel in Mexico. How to become a Buddhist. How to farm sustainably. Versus. My travels in Mexico. My experience as a Buddhist. My experience as a sustainable farmer.

Do you read nonfiction? Do you find yourself running around the store looking for a book? If you are a fiction reader, how many sections do you generally look in?

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I that Vasilly had done a post on what books she had to read this semester at her blog 1330v. I thought this was such a great idea I had to steal the idea to use here! I'm taking seven classes this semester but two of them are business classes and therefor not really that interesting, so I'll just skip those books (the classes are Nonprofit Organizational Effectiveness I and Foundations of Entrepreneurship in case you were wondering).

I'm taking a class called Film and Literature that is all about visual essays. For this class we're going to watch a film essay every week and have other essays that we read. I was really excited when I saw the book list for this class because it included some books I've wanted to buy for awhile. This includes The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present

and The Lost Origins of the Essay

. These are both humongous essay collections that will take me forever to get through, so I'm really excited I'll be required to read from them this semester. We're also reading Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South

. I'm not really sure what this one is about other than it deals with sharecroppers from the South. The final book for this class is The Pleasure of the Text

by Roland Barthes. This one appears to be about why people read, it's a very small book, only 80 pages so I'm interested to see what it's about.

The second English class I'm taking is Literature and the Book: Renaissance Texts as Technology. There are no books for this class but we will do a lot of readings online. I'm planning on using my nook to take the pdf's with me to class so I'll be sure to let everyone know how that goes. Even though we don't have books I know we're going to read Shakespeare, Donne, and Spenser, as well as texts about how reading formats have changed. I looked at the syllabus for this class yesterday and we're taking seven field trips!

The final English class I'm taking is Advanced Nonfiction Writing: Nature Writing. An opening just came up in this class yesterday and I was thrilled because I waited all summer for it to happen. I love nature writing and I'm excited to do some of my own. I'm also excited because while this class meets twice a week, only one meeting is actually in a classroom. The other meeting every week is at an outdoor location. For this class we're reading Nature Writing: The Tradition in English

, which appears to be an anthology of nature writing. A quick glance at some of the writers has me excited because they include Thoreau and Annie Dillard who I know I enjoy.

I'm taking an anthropology class that we're using the textbook Introduction to Physical Anthropology

for. I don't have much to say about that one. I'm also taking piano lessons but as far as I know there isn't a book for that yet.

I'd also just like to mention where I purchased the majority of my books. I rent expensive textbooks but for my book for English classes I just Better World Books. I'm mentioning this simply because I support this company. They offer free shipping in the United States and they use the money they get from the books to support global literacy organizations. If you have to buy textbooks anyway you might as well support a great organization as well.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I do like a nice book cover, but I don't give them nearly as much thought as Jana at the Broke and Bookish so my list won't be as in-depth or interesting as hers. Mine aren't in any order either because I'm just putting them in as I think of them basically.

There were times when I was reading The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova where I just couldn't help but stop reading and look at the cover. This is truly one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen. I love the darkness of the background and how the image changes for you as you read the book and find out more about the story. The text is great as well, kind of a mix between old and new, which is something the book plays with a lot. Also, I know this isn't part of the cover and I don't know what the books that have been released look like, but on my ARC the binding is gold and looks quite nice on my shelf.

One of the most effective ways to sell books is probably to have them cover out instead of binding out. If it wasn't for that, I never would have seen The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell this weekend. I was attracted to this cover because of the bright colors, fun font style, and the mystery about why she's covering her face with a picture of her dad. I picked up the book and read the back cover, thought it looked interesting so I opened it up to find it was a graphic novel! I was really excited to find a graphic novel in memoir form because I loved Persepolis so I bought it right away.

This cover is really simple and white, with a great brightly covered image that totally sums up the message of this book. It looks comicy, but still empowering. This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson is probably one of my favorite covers from books I've read this summer. Every time I see the librarian with her cape I smile and I realized something a little different about the picture every time I look at it. For instance, it took me awhile to realize that those were books she was flying out of.

I think part of the reason I read Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick was that every time I looked at it I said "Pretty!" I love Sunflowers and Vincent Van Gogh's art and I think it was really effective to do a close up of one painting rather than try to fill the cover with an entire painting. The white text allows the image to speak for itself, and those who know Van Gogh will be immediately attracted just by recognition. Plus I just love green and yellow.

I buy children's books all the time even though I have no children and I'm not a teacher nor do I want to be one. Part of it started when I was a reading tutor and it's just kind of carried on since then. One day I'll have kids to share some of these beautiful children's books with and one I can't wait to share is The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. This was a staff pick at a store once and the artwork is just beautiful. I was attracted by the little red haired boy who sticks out amongst the green and blue of the natural scene behind him.

I still haven't read Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman but every time I walk by the cover I get the urge to start it. It is so simple, most of his covers are, but it just looks interesting. The image reminds of a children's reference book about dinosaurs with all of the labels on it. I love dinosaurs so I'm attracted to that. And I like how the author's name and the title are the same size and sandwich the image.

I just had to add one more children's book to this list. Boris and Bella, authored by Carolyn Crimi and illustrated but Gris Grimly is just a great cover. It's Tim Burton-esque and creepy. Normally when you see a male and female name on a book you assume they are in love, but this is not the case with Boris and Bella. We can tell from the image that these ghouls obviously do not like each other. I also like the purple and black for a creepier story like this one, plus the text fits perfectly.

I haven't read Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart yet, but I intend to soon because the book sounds great to me. I love this cover because it combines and simple colorless photograph with a tiffany blue colored box for text, and then the box is topped with a bow like one from Tiffany would be. I just think that was a really cute idea and I love the simple color scheme of this book.

I read this book a week ago and I think it has a pretty neat cover. This cover of Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman really embodies Rita's personality. The orange and green are bright and fun, which is just like her attitude. I also like the map at the top of the cover that shows all the different places she goes to and how she's constantly traveling back and forth. Plus I like that they used a photograph for a travel narrative because it let's you feel like you're in on their trip a little bit.

My last cover is the 50th Anniversary edition of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It's beautiful. The color scheme is really unique, you don't see that deep, wine red on books very often, and it let's the green of the tree really pop. I have the older lavender version right now and I have been lusting after this book ever since I saw it. I also love the text they use on this cover, a slanted print that looks almost like a child's handwriting.

I actually learned a lot about myself by doing this, I appears that I'm really attracted to colors or white covers with a single image on them. Who knew! What are you attracted to in covers?

Awhile ago I announced that I planned on reading all of my humongous Montaigne essay collection in 2011. The year tends to start more in February for me than January, because January is my birthday month so I'm never on a "normal" schedule. I'm planning on updating the Montaigne reading list later today so you can follow along with what I'm reading if you so choose. I'll post my thoughts about the essays I read every Monday along with some questions about them. EDIT: The new schedule is now available online.

I bought a few books recently that I'm really excited about. The first is Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books

, which is about Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her career as a book editor. I heard about this book in December on Books On the Nightstand and wanted it immediately because I love biographies and I think biography in books sounds like the best kind of biography. I also got House of Leaves

due to a superb recommendation from my friend Marleen. The book looks super bizarre but I can't wait to read it, which is unfortunate because I don't think I'll get to it until Spring Break. I bought Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

on a whim while perusing the newly arranged Young Adult section at the Barnes and Noble in my mall. It's a story collection including stories and art from M.T. Anderson, Libba Bray, David Levithan, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Westerfeld, and several others.

Today I'm catching up on some reading and doing a little homework. Jason and I are also recording a new podcast for Green Reads. I'm talking about a book I'm super enthusiastic about, Farmer Jane: Women Changing The Way We Eat

and Jason is talking about The 1,000-Year Flood: Destruction, Loss, Rescue, and Redemption along the Mississippi River

. Keep your eyes peeled for that so you can hear about these great books!

Is anyone else going to Book Expo America this year? I'm going and I'm still looking for a roommate if anyone is interested-- let me know!

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Well I've been spending a lot of time buying textbooks recently, which is always frustrating for me because textbooks suck a lot of my funds. One day my bank account is overflowing and the next it's maxed. I look in there and think, "Oh my God! Someone stole my money!" Then I remember, oh yeah, I'm a college student. I love to buy books, but it's a lot more fun to buy books when someone isn't telling you you have to buy them. I'm actually only taking ONE English class this semester, which is almost the opposite of last semester. I only took English classes last semester. You see, I'm taking more history classes now, which is nerve racking for me because I was really bad at history when I was a kid. But I'm more interested in history now. So wish me luck on that...

The English class I am taking is about sensation fiction and the authors in focus are Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I'm reading Armadale (Collins), Wyllard's Weird (Braddon), The Woman in White (Collins), The Moonstone (Collins), and Lady Audley's Secret (Braddon), which I read last semester for a different class. For my other classes I'm taking American History since the Civil War, Art History since 1400, Civilizations of Asia, and Nonprofit Organizational Management (woohoo, betcha want to hear about the book for that class).

Honestly though, I complain about buying books but English major's have a pretty sweet deal going. My boyfriend spends twice as much as I do on books. Even though he can sell most of them back it's still a chunk of change that is gone, and if he can't sell the book back he will probably never look at it again. With me, I keep most of my books and would probably have bought them at some point anyway. So being an English major is kind of fun! Sometimes...

Oh the papers will be coming soon...

Thanks to Amy from My Friend Amy's Blog, I'm excited to announce the dates of the 2009 Book Blogger Appreciation Week. For those of you that don't know, Amy has devoted a ton of her personal time to recognize the value book bloggers have, and to celebrate the book blogging world!

Last year over 400 blogs came together to celebrate the art of book blogging during the first ever Book Blogger Appreciation Week! The second annual Book Blogger Appreciation Week will be taking place September 14-18.

WHO Anyone who blogs about books is invited to participate. In fact, we want everyone who blogs about books and reading to be a part of this week!

WHAT A week where we come together, celebrate the contribution and hard work of book bloggers in promoting a culture of literacy, connecting readers to books and authors, and recogonizing the best among us with the Second Annual BBAW Awards. There will be special guest posts, daily blogging themes, and giveaways.

WHEN September 14-18, 2009

WHERE The new Book Blogger Appreciation Week Blog! (Please note that this year there are three separate blogs and feeds—one for the main event, one for giveaways, and one for awards.)

WHY Because books matter. In a world full of options, the people talking about books pour hard work, time, energy, and money into creating a community around the written word.

WANT TO PARTICIPATE? Please help us spread the word about Book Blogger Appreciation Week by posting about it on your blog, twittering about it, and telling everyone you know that it’s time to have a party and celebrate book bloggers!

Please register by filling out the registration form! Registering ensures your inclusion in the BBAW 09 Database of Book Bloggers and enters you into the drawing for the BBAW 09 Grand Prize!

Award Nominations opened July 15 on the BBAW Awards Blog.

I am so excited that my first official Fairy Tale Fortnight post is with returning author Jaclyn Dolamore! She was a part of FTF last year (go check it out, yes?!) and she pretty much rocks. She's has written Magic Under Glass, the (very) recently released Magic Under Stone and Between the Sea and Sky (all links to Goodreads). Misty has some totally rocking stuff on her blog today from the lovely Jaclyn (awesome guest post, review, and a giveaway) so make sure you check out Misty's blog today too! But first, here's the interview!

What do you make of the resurgence in popularity for fairy tales? (Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsmen) all within a very short time? Do you see it as a trend that will sort of peter out, or is it just getting started?

It seems to be one of those "collective unconscious" things that suddenly everyone started planning fairy tale entertainment at once. I don't have a crystal ball to know if it has legs, but I do think it's AWESOME and I won't complain if fairy tales are kind of "the next big thing." I think fairy tales tend to be hopeful, and I've never really taken to the dystopian trend because it gives you such a big swallow of strife with a tiny dose of hope, whereas fairy tales are my cup of tea, from the sweet Disney-ish kind to the dark, sexy kind. I love them served up any old way. (I don't know why I'm into this "eating stories" metaphor right now...)

Both of the Magic Under books and Between the Sea and Sky are very fairy tale-esque in the style and approach to the story, and in the stories themselves; any plans to ever “officially” tackle a fairy tale retelling?

I actually had this idea for a fairy tale/real world mashup like Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Fables, etc, but set in the early 1970s. I wrote the first chapter, but I don't have time to go any farther with it right now, so I probably shouldn't give any more details...

You’re known for doing little character sketches in your books — would you ever consider turning one into a graphic novel, or writing/illustrating a book or graphic novel?

I don't see that on the horizon, because graphic novels are just a crazy amount of work... like, in the time it would take me to draw a 22 page comic, I could write a quarter of a novel and you'd get way more story in the novel than in the comic. I think, for someone who is more a storyteller than an artist at heart, it's a painfully slow way to tell a story. I don't take enough pleasure in rendering the visual world to stick it out. The only way I think it would happen is if I just felt like I'd told enough stories in novel format and I wanted to stretch myself.

Magic Under Glass and Magic Under Stone are directly related, with Between the Sea and Sky being a companion novel, set in the same world — do you intend to continue setting your books in this world ala Discworld (every book set in the world, but independent) or do you have plans to tackle something new?

Alas, alas! Money dictates art more than I'd like sometimes... I do have more stories I could tell in that world, but I'm looking forward to my new series with Hyperion. I might self-publish some little novellas or something someday, if I have the time. I often think about what the characters are doing after the end.

I do have a story world I've been writing about since I was a kid. When I was a kid all the authors I liked best basically had this one "world" I knew them for, like Piers Anthony's Xanth, the Pini's World of Two Moons, Discworld is another good example... basically I had this idea that that was what fantasy authors DID. They came up with a world and wrote stories about it for their entire lives. It was practically their identity, in my mind, and the places were real. I'm sure a lot of people feel that way about Hogwarts too (I was a little old to get lost so deeply in it, but Hogwarts is definitely the kind of place that makes you believe it exists). So, whatever I might be paid to do at any given time, I still always write stories in this world. It is practically real to me. I am both excited and terrified for the day those books can go out into the world.

When you’re not putting your new house to rights (congrats on the move!), what are you working on?

The sequel to my 2013 novel, Dark Metropolis (which is supposed to get a title change), a dark fantasy inspired by 1920s Berlin and the silent film Metropolis. The sequel was inspired a bit by some stuff I was reading about magic in Russia, among other things. It was a struggle to get an idea for a sequel at first, because I'd only thought of it as a variation of Metropolis, which has no sequel and doesn't really suggest one either... And when I need a break I'm working on a middle-grade about witches and their familiars in a magical version of St. Augustine, Florida. (It isn't really much of a stretch to imagine magic in St. Augustine, Florida, anyway. Creepiest place I've ever been.)

What impact do you think fairy tales have on society (especially with the same tales popping up in various forms in every society)?

Fairy tales tend to have patterns: people who want things, people who take on great struggles to get the things they want, true love, scary things in the forest... It's easy to see why these stories resonate with people all throughout time and around the world. They speak to our desires and our fears. For most of human history they would have been spoken aloud, around cook fires, to children in their beds, as cautionary tales... I love imagining these tales traveling around the globe from voice to voice, from year to year, changing with distance and time. I love writing, no doubt about that, but sometimes I envy the storytellers of the past their ability to speak right to their audience and enjoy their reactions. Nowadays, though, we still share these stories and we still twist them in our own way, and I suspect this will always be true.

QUICKFIRE:
Favorite fairy tale:
The Seven Swans.

Most underrated fairy tale?
The Seven Swans? It's one of those stories that most people kind of know, but it never gets put in with the major canon.

Most overrated fairy tale?
Hmm. Hard to think of an overrated one because they can all be told well. Like, a year ago I might've told you I never liked Rumplestiltskin, but in Once Upon a Time he's my favorite character. Sure, it's kind of a mash-up of a few tales on the show, really, but I still think it's proven to me that it's all about execution.

Last year we asked everyone’s fairy tale hero/heroine name; this year, we want to know your fairy tale villain name:
I don't know if Disney names count, but I feel like you can't beat the way Maleficent rolls off the tongue.

Using that name, give us a line from your villainous fairy tale:
I must be desperate to ask this old crone for a favor, Maleficent thought, gathering more firmly about her neck the furs she'd had made for the journey north, and sniffing a bit at the very idea of a house held up by chicken legs.
(I think Baba Yaga is a great villainess too, so I can't help but imagine them teaming up.)

If a genie granted you 3 wishes, what would they be?
Seriously? Genie wishes tend to go awry a little too often. I'm not sure I want to mess with it! But I'll imagine I have a relatively kind genie like Ifra in Magic Under Stone... and if I truly had three wishes I'd probably think about them a lot longer, buuut...
1. I wish that I am always able to make a comfortable with writing and that the stories I love to write would also be the most financially sound.
2. I wish I enjoyed flying on airplanes, even through turbulence!
3. I wish to free the genie, because, I feel that's what you're supposed to do at the end. =)

Best way to read fairy tales? (ie location, snacks, etc)
In the woods, on a crisp cool night, around a bonfire, read aloud. At least, that sounds really romantic. In practice, it would be more likely to be curled up in bed with a cat and a chocolate bar.

If one of your books was being turned into a movie and you could cast 1 character, which character would you cast and who would play them?
I actually finished all the questions several days ago, except this one. I feel like I should be able to cast at least one person! But I can't seem to think of anyone. I really just want my books to be turned into anime. If it was a movie, I'd probably be mostly like, "yay, money, pomp, circumstance" but if it was an anime I would GO CRAZY WITH EXCITEMENT. (Or a good American animation as well, like Avatar: The Last Airbender.) I tend to see my characters that way anyway, and I usually prefer TV series to movies. Although my favorite movie is Marie Antoinette and I think it would be really awesome if Sofia Coppola took her lush, intimate, slice of life style and made a fantasy movie with a bunch of dreamy 80s new wave for the soundtrack. I feel like Erris could have fit right in to the Marie Antoinette world.

Thank you so much for participating with us again this year Jaclyn! I totally loved this interview, like, a lot!
Everyone else, if you have not yet read anything by Jaclyn, I suggest you go do that now! As of right now, I've still only read Magic Under Glass but I enjoyed it a lot (also reviewed last FTF) and Misty has read them all, and she is definitely a fan:)
And speaking of, don't forget to check out the awesome stuff Misty has going on today!

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That's what happened to University at Buffalo faculty member Philip Kiernan, who heard a rumor from a UB alumnus in 2010 that the UB Libraries housed the rare coins. Three years later, Kiernan, an assistant professor of classics, channeled his inner Indiana Jones and journeyed to the depths of the UB archives to find them.

The collection, he was shocked to learn, was real: 40 silver Greek coins, three gold Greek coins and a dozen gold Roman coins -- one from each era of the first 12 Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian. They range in date from the fifth century B.C. to the late first century A.D.

Not your usual find.

"I must have been the first person to touch them in almost 40 years," says Kiernan, who brought in two experts to verify the coins' authenticity last semester and is now developing a graduate course to examine the items' history.

It's the first time the coins will be extensively studied, and Kiernan and his class will publish their findings.

Within the collection is a "remarkably rare" coin of Roman emperor Otho, who reigned for a mere three months. The Greek coins were struck by some of the most powerful city-states and rulers of the ancient world, such as Athens, Corinth and Alexander the Great.

The coins were donated in 1935 to the UB Libraries Special Collections by Thomas B. Lockwood as part of a larger collection of rare books. However, it wasn't until Kiernan examined them out of curiosity that the currency's rarity and value were realized.

Kiernan focuses much of his research on ancient currency and antiquities, and the experts he brought in to examine the coins were numismatists -- people who collect or study currency.

The coins are one of the many treasures stored in the UB Libraries, which also hold original works by James Joyce, Dylan Thomas and William Shakespeare.

"Libraries are becoming museums," says Michael Basinski, curator of the UB Libraries Special Collections. "Everything is going digital, but we remain tied to the physical objects."

Lockwood's collection includes more than 3,000 books, medallions and additional coins from early America and England. Other notable items include a medallion of Napoleon Bonaparte and 36 British gold coins, including one of Queen Elizabeth I.

Lockwood, an avid reader and collector of rare and special books, purchased the items to supplement his personal collection. Accruing relics and art was common practice among affluent men in the early 20th century.

"For book collectors, owning such extraordinary objects connects them to the history that's recorded in their books," says Kiernan. "They could read about the Emperor Augustus and then examine a coin with his image."

Most of the coins are in excellent condition, despite remaining in their original 80-plus-year-old casing. A few of the silver coins require conservation treatment. The collection's casing also will be improved.

The UB Libraries will open the collection of coins to members of the campus and local communities pursuing relevant research.

Author: Marcene Robinson | Source: University at Buffalo [March 11, 2015]

I am participating in the Dewey Readathon today! My readathon mornings are always messed up. I always oversleep, and it seems like I'm always going to my parents' house for the weekend. This readathon was new different. I got started about two hours late, nine o'clock my time. I haven't wasted much time though, one and a half books finished. Jason and I made a little pit stop in Pella, Iowa on the way home to meet some of family for lunch. Now I'm at my parents' house to read for an hour before we go get our engagement pictures taken.

Time spent reading: 15/21
Pages read: 704
Hours listened: 3
Books completed: The Walking Dead Volume 2 by Robert Kirkman, Welcome to My Country by Lauren Slater, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Pharmacist's Mate by Amy Fusselman
Activities completed: None
Trees planted: 8

I'll be returning to update this post throughout the day. You might be wondering about trees planted. For each book I finish during the readathon I am planting two trees through Eco-Libris.

Update: My engagement pictures are complete! We had a lot of fun getting out pictures taken and I read a little Shakespeare during the photo shoot. I'm sure I'll share some of those later. For now I will just say The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a fantastic book. A really quick read too! Also, I didn't fill this out during hour one, so I'm doing it now.

1) My parents' house in Altoona, Iowa. Started at my house in Iowa City, Iowa and read on the road in between.
2) I love essays, almond macaroons are my favorite cookie, and I'm probably going camping next weekend.
3) 10
4) I don't really have any specific goals this time around, I'm just hoping to get a lot of reading done!
5) Relax and have fun. Try to get some actual reading in instead of checking up on everyone else's blogs!

Update: It's now 11:18 here. I went and got some dinner, took a nap, and started two books. I was originally planning on reading Molly Fox's Birthday, but decided it wasn't really working for today. Right now I'm reading Welcome to my Country by Lauren Slater instead. I've been working on some art projects for school while listening to Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World, which has been a nice break from reading and a good opportunity to get some work done. Now I think I'm going to get back to some real text reading for a few hours. Who is still out there? Are you hanging in there?

Update: A few hours have gone by since my last update. I'm officially starting to get tired. I've accomplished a lot more in this readathon than I thought I would. I've finished four books and made a pretty good dent in the beginning of an audiobook. I even managed to get a little homework done. In the last few hours I read a graphic novel to give my eyes a rest from all the text. In the next couple hours I think I might listen to some audio while trying to get some more homework done and then see how I feel.

Update: This will probably be my final update for the readathon. My eyes are heavy and I'm at the beginning of a book which is making it difficult for me to keep up with it. I might try to get up after a little nap to read just a little bit more-but I am basically done for this readathon. I also keep thinking about the paper I have to write tomorrow and how I should probably be a little coherent for that!

How is your readathon going? If you're not participating then how are you spending your Saturday?

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I feel like I've spent more time making books than reading books as of late. I'm enjoying taking two art classes this semester but it is a lot of work. These four books probably took me about ten hours last week. The bottom two were my first tries which is why there is so much sewing. I didn't really think that through-- it took forever.

The bottom one is 60 pages, so 120 front and back.

Some of them have flaps which is nice. The one picture above probably turned out to be my favorite. I glued two sheets of paper together to strengthen the paper for sewing. Everything turned out nice and even. I'm looking forward to using this one as a journal once I finish the journal I'm currently using. I have so many books I've made I don't know what to do with them all! I'm making at least 11 more this semester and already have 18. Who knew I'd end up with so many journals?

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The day has finally arrived for discussing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

. One month ago I decided to host a readalong for this book, and some of you along the way have dropped by to say if you loved it or hated it. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is the story of Joe Kavalier, an escaped Jew from Nazi-invaded Prague, and his cousin Samuel Klayman who lives in New York City. When Joe arrives in New York Sam doesn't know what to think really, but they bond over a love of art and comic books. Together they decide to create a comic book that will fight the Nazis and hope to earn enough money to bring the rest of Joe's family to New York. Joe is the artist, the creator, the escapist. Sam is the brains and negotiator. Together they battle monsters throughout this epic story by Michael Chabon.

When I started this book I was still in a bit of a slump from Middlesex. I just loved Middlesex, and every book I read after it felt a little pointless. I mean, it just wasn't going to be as good as Middlesex. But when I started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay I got that same feeling in the pit of my stomach that I did within the first ten pages of Middlesex. That feeling that whatever I'm about to read is going to be absolutely amazing. They're very similar in some ways. They both have long, breathy prose that makes you want to read slowly and soak every last page in. They're both terrifyingly long, but difficult to put down even though neither have them have super exciting plots. There are exciting moments in Kavalier and Clay, like when Joe is escaping from Prague or when they find out they've been cheated by the owners of the company who publishes their comic books-- but Chabon is not a suspenseful writer. If Kavalier and Clay were written by Dan Brown the story would have been more of a page-turner in those instances. What keeps the pages turning with Chabon is his well-developed characters and recognizable relationships.

Oh, and did I mention Chabon is the master of bringing comic books alive in prose? Because he totally is. Check out this passage for proof: "His eyeballs seemed to clang in their sockets. He felt as if someone had opened an umbrella inside his rib cage. He waited, flopped on his belly, unblinking as a fish, to see if he would ever again be able to draw a breath. Then he let out a long, low moan, a little at a time, testing the muscles of his diaphragm. "Wow," he said finally. Sammy knelt beside him and helped him to one knee. Joe gulped up big lopsided gouts of air. The German man turned to the other people the platform, one arm raised in challenge or, perhaps, it seemed to Joe, in appeal" (192). The book is full of examples such as this, where Chabon can slow down town just through words. And when he slows down time his writing becomes the panels of a comic book. One line is one panel, and as you're reading you see everything happening as if it were drawn for you. It's masterful.

And the epic quality of his writing is perfection, this passage stopped me cold on the bus, "So much has been written and sung about the bright lights and ballrooms of Empire City--that dazzling town!--about her nightclubs and jazz joints, her avenues of neon and chrome, and her swank hotels, their rooftop tea gardens strung in the summertime with paper lanterns. On this steely autumn afternoon, however, our destination is a place a long way from the horns and the hoohah. Tonight we are going down, under the ground, to a room that lies far beneath the high heels and the jackhammers, lower than the rats and the legendary alligators, lower even than that bones of Algonquins and dire wolves" (267). The light changes in this passage. In just two sentences Chabon takes the dimmer switch from dazzling and dancing bright lights, to dark, low light where shadows are everywhere. It plays with your emotion. You're entranced by the beauty of the city, then frightened by unknown underground.

I could go on and on about Chabon's writing and how much I loved Kavalier and Clay-- but I think I'll give some other people the chance to discuss. What did you like about this book? What did you not like about it? Did you even finish it? Have you ever read anything about Chabon before and after experiencing this do you think you will again?

Oh I'm giving this an A by the way, like I even have to say it. In January Books on the Nightstand is hosting their own readalong of this book-- so if you didn't catch it this time around try to get in on theirs! And if you have a review of this book please add it to the Mr. Linky. If you don't have a review, please leave a comment with your thoughts!

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John is one of the books I was most looking forward to in 2012. So when I invited Antony to take part in Just Contemporary and he sent me an ARC, to say I was ecstatic is an understatement.

I am going to warn you in advance that this review is all over the place and it's long. Although my feeling are overall positive, they range from surprised to shocked to disappointed to confused to annoyed to thrilled to amazed to Seriously? to pleased and pretty much everywhere in between. So.

To be perfectly honest, a part of me is devastated that I didn't love this book the way that I absolutely adored Five Flavors of Dumb. This doesn't mean I didn't like it, but this book lacked a certain authenticity in everything except the religion talk. Which makes that a great place to start.

I was surprised when I started reading this book to realize just how much religion plays a part in the story. I don't know how I missed it, because the title includes the words 'thou' and 'shalt' and the main character is on a book tour for the book he wrote called Hallelujah. So, I was instantly wary. Because, for a lot of reasons, that I'm pretty sure I don't need to numerate, books with really strong religious themes are not always my favorite and, in my experience, they aren't always done very well. But for me, this was actually the best part of the book. Rather than being a book about RELIGION it is more a book about a boy who happens to be religious. He believes in God, says his prayers, wants to see other people happy and he also questions his faith and beliefs. As someone who has been religious my whole life, this was incredibly refreshing to me. Here we have a mostly normal teenage boy, who is religious and it isn't this huge thing or problem or issue or whatever. It just was.

And Antony gets the full Ashley stamp of brilliance, because he managed to talk about religion a lot (Luke is on a book tour through Christian book stores) but he never, not once, came across as preachy to me. There were morals to the story, and life lessons learned but none of them were strictly brought about because of a religious lesson. They were normal. And it was amazing. Here is a book with religion in the summary that didn't turn into either an excuse to hate on religion and demonstrate its utter evil OR a 300+page Sunday School lesson. There are a lot of people and a lot of teens who go to church every Sunday. It an important but normal part of their lives. It's nice to have a book that gives us a religious character and handles it well. So, serious awesome points to Antony for that. Seriously.

However, I had a really hard time with just about every character in this story. Luke is supposed to be on tour for his book and his older brother, Matt, is brought along to act as his chauffeur. But Matt decides to bring along his girlfriend, Alex, and her little sister, Fran, who happens to be Luke's ex-best friend and major crush. Awkward. Fran has changed physically a lot in the past year, and Luke interprets this to mean that everything he knows about Fran has changed. And since she is a large part of the reason he's questioning a lot of his decisions (including his faith) and feeling disconnected from his life. So the author of this inspirational best-selling Christian self-help novel finds himself feeling... less than charitable as their road trip advances.

I found myself really frustrated with these characters. Luke's disinterest in his own life, his naivete and his complete and total self-centeredness were incredibly frustrating to read. Not that he didn't grow as a character, because he did and by the end of the book I was absolutely rooting for him. But it was a struggle getting me there. Fran has made some drastic physical changes — outrageous hair, piercings, tattoos, drinking etc. All things that usually signal a cry for help. But all Luke can see is that his best friend is suddenly different and he feels so wounded. When he talks to her, even when he thinks he is being so magnanimous and gracious, he's judgmental and feels as if her problems are all about him. Again, he grows as a character but it's a bit rocky in the beginning.

Matt was probably my least favorite character (although undeveloped Alex isn't far behind.) He is supposed to be in charge of organizing Luke's schedule and getting him places on time. Instead, he regularly took long detours, made decisions about where they would stop without saying anything about it to Luke and there were a few times he outrighted lied to him. While it's very true that Luke needed to lighten up a bit, Matt's behavior drove me nuts. He ignored phone calls from Luke's publicist, used the emergency credit card too often and ignored Luke's distress without even trying to alleviate it. Pretty much every time he did anything, Matt frustrated me. You understand him and his motivations better by the end of the book too, but he still never really grew on me.

Fran was an interesting character and probably my favorite of the bunch. Aside from Luke, she has the most depth and personality and meaning, but even then, I felt her main purpose in the story was to bring balance and understanding to Luke and give him the motivation, reason and environment necessary to invite growth and change. Luke has some depth as a character (for good or bad) without Fran, but Fran had very little without Luke. She was the next best developed character overall, and I felt for her, I really did, but not enough.

The book also include excerpts from Hallelujah, Luke's books, and they are seriously laugh out loud funny. Written as Bible passages, full of 'and he spake' and 'thus sayeth' and 'art thou' they are basically stories of inspiration and hope and insight. Some are funny, some are motivating, and some are a little more tinged with despair, but each were placed perfectly throughout the book to build and move the story forward. These were a fabulous addition, one that added a lot of depth and feeling to the story that would have otherwise been missing.

I do have one other confession about this book, lest you think I was totally disappointed. I have been in a bit of a reading slump lately. And when I'm in this kind of mood, I read very slow, I start and stop books frequently, and I have to kind of force whatever book I'm reading. This has absolutely nothing to do with the book I'm reading, and everything to do with my personal mood. And even though I really and truly did enjoy this book, I am 99% positive that if I had read it when I was more in the mood to read, I would have really loved the book. It's definitely one that I'm going to reread. Maybe I'll even reread it soon, so that if my feelings change drastically, like I think they could, I can rereview the book closer to its April release date. Who knows.

What I do know, is that even not being as enamored of this book as I was of Dumb, it is definitely a book worth reading and it's one that I've already been talking about and recommending. I think this book has a lot to offer and Antony John is going to be firmly stuck on my favorite authors list for a long time. It's a story about life and love and second chances, about friendship, looking beyond the surface and being true to yourself. It's a story that makes you laugh, but one that also makes you think. And while it's not necessarily a story for everyone, it is a story that I believe is important. It's a book that is going to stick with me and even though they weren't my favorite, I have a feeling these characters aren't going to get out of my head for a long time

After spending a lot of time listening to panels about the future of books today I thought it was only fitting to talk about an essay I read (in an issue of Creative Nonfiction I got at the Twin Cities Book Festival) about what publishing will look like in 2025. In number 31 of the literary magazine Creative Nonfiction essayists wrote on the topic Writing and Publishing in 2015 and Beyond. Phillip Lopate, the man who edited the anthology The Art of the Personal Essay titled his predictions The Best of Times, Worst of Times. One of his most interesting ideas is bringing old authors back from the dead, and in doing this he predicts they'll produce nothing more than boring biographies full of their regrets. You can read a portion of this short essay on Creative Nonfiction's website.

Lopate also predicts that the physical book will continue to exist, but that the industry will be full of experimentation. One example is the book-lozenge, "which dissolved novella-sized works on the tongue, not to mention the book-shot, devised for cultivated diabetics who requested a literary does with their daily injections." Can you imagine being given an entire book through candy? I think it might be fun to try every once in awhile, but I wouldn't want it to replace books. What does that say about our culture? That we'd rather be fed culture than experience it?

I'm really interested to hear what other people think about Lopate's predictions and what all of you think might happen in the book industry by 2025. A more serious suggestion made by Jeff Kamin at the Twin Cities Book Festival today was offering paperback books with the hardcovers simply because people will probably buy the book sooner. I think this is a really good idea and a lot of us agreed on that today.

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As readers we all have our own way of deciding how fast or how slow we add books to our TBR pile and how fast we get through them.

We make list of books, we get recommendations, we drool over the cover art or just hang around in the book section reading excerpt all under the guise of making a decision about what we will delve into next.
If you are like me YOU WILL HAVE A TBR PILE, no if, and or but about it. My print pile is just about everywhere and my ebooks are taking up too much space on my hard drive.

That said…

Once in a while I read a book I have had for years and I think “How the hell did I miss this one? Why did I not read this one before?

Is there a book that has hang around your reading pile for far too long before you got to it, A book that probably got packed away until you accidentally got to it or a book that you read a few pages in and never got back to.

If so share or ask your readers about that book that really made an impression on them (good or bad) after having it or hearing about it for far too long?

Wishing you all a great week.

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So as I've mentioned on here a few times before one of my jobs is a reading tutor. I work with struggling readers at an elementary school twice a week. I'm still off right now but I wanted to start my children's book reviews this week. This first book is one of my favorite books to use for tutoring. SuperHero ABC by Bob McLeodis the only book I could get one student to read and enjoy. And I mean quite literally the only book. The student was really interested in video games and superheroes, so as soon as I saw this book I knew it would be perfect for him.

Unfortunately the language is a little difficult for a struggling second grader. the book is divided into two parts. There is the normal story, which is the description of the superheroes. These are all alliterative and fun to say. There are also speech bubbles in the scenes. These are easier to read, so I had my student read those parts and then I read the descriptions. After reading the book a few times he caught on to some of the words as well.

This book has amazing art work and I really enjoyed how interactive the scenes were. I can't stress enough how great this book is for beginning letter sounds! That was something we really focused on. For those of you who don't have kids around to share books with this is still a fun book to check out. I was really into comic books as a kid, so this was a fun one for me too. And some of the superheroes are annoying and fun to complain about. Laughing Lass just happens to be one of my most loathed superheroes.

Pub. Date: January 24, 2006
Publisher: HarperCollins
Format: Hardcover, 40pp

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