Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for links] 

This week in Weekly Geeks, Chris thought it was a good time to revisit one of the original Geeky assignments: book review link exchanges.

1. Write a post encouraging readers to look through your archives (if you have your reviews in a particular place on your blog, point them there), and find the books that they have also written reviews. Tell them to leave a link to their review on your review post. For example, I've written a review for Gods Behaving Badly and Jane Doe leaves a link to her review of Gods Behaving Badly in the comments section of my review.

2. Edit your reviews to include those links in the body of the review post.

3. Visit other Weekly Geeks and go through their reviews. Leave links for them.

4. Leave a note somewhere on your blog to let people know this is your new policy.

5. Write a post later this week letting us know how your project is going!
(I've kept this policy on my own blog since the original assignment, and recently edited my Book Review Policy to mention that I participate in review-link exchanges, but other than that I didn't officially participate in WG this week.)

One reason for re-visiting this topic was so that newer arrivals to Weekly Geeks who might have missed this assignment the first time around, as well as Geeks who just haven't gotten around to it before, would have the opportunity to join in and start link swapping themselves. Joanne (Book Zombie) was excited to get this going for her book reviews, and so were Dreamybee (Subliminal Intervention), Farm Lane Books, and Heather (Belle of the Books).

Some of this week's WG players adopted the link exchange in May of last year and have stuck with it since then, but took advantage of the opportunity to re-state the policy. Geeks in this group include Jackie (Literary Escapism), Nymeth (Things Mean a Lot), Nicole (Linus's Blanket), Ali (Worducopia), Heather (Book Addiction), and Gautami Tripathy (Reading Room),

Some Geeks who have fallen off the link-exchange wagon seized this opportunity to catch up or reinstate the practice on their blogs, like Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness), and Megan (Leafing Through Life). Softdrink (Fizzy Thoughts) loves the idea, but confesses that despite her best intentions, she's probably going to keep forgetting to do it.

Check out the Mr. Linky on Weekly Geeks 2009-12 to see who else participated this week, and visit them to find out if you have links to share - but please be aware that this policy was never meant to be exclusive to Weekly Geeks participants. The idea behind it is community building, so you're encouraged to seek out links to any other blogger's reviews of the books you review, and to offer your own review links freely to other bloggers as well. Fyrefly has created a custom Book Blogs Search Engine for Google that makes finding other reviews quick and easy.

Happy linking!

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.
-W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) -
Weekly Geeks started in April 2008. Its brainchild was an effervescent and energetic blogger named Dewey who envisioned a weekly event which would unite the book blogging community. She posted a weekly assignment - a question, a task, a theme - to be completed and posted on the Geeks' individual blogs and linked at the main assignment post. It turned out to be wildly successful.

And then a heartbreaking notification appeared on Dewey's blog on Tuesday, November 25, 2008. The person who seemed to be everywhere in the blogging community, the quintessential community cheerleader who everyone seemed to know and love, had died - leaving a huge hole in our ranks. In the spirit of keeping Dewey's community efforts alive, several bloggers got together and decided to give Weekly Geeks its own space and carry on what Dewey had started.

Over the last nearly three years, the team keeping this blog running has ebbed and flowed. Mostly we've tried to be consistent in posting each Saturday and doing a wrap up each Friday. But, over the last several months not only has our focus as a team struggled, but participation in the weekly assignments has slowed to a trickle. There are those bloggers who come back week in and week out, and sometimes we see some new faces in the links, but overall attendance has sharply declined.

So after some discussion, the Weekly Geeks team has decided that it is time to end this event. We believe that Dewey would approve - she was never someone who hung onto things that were not working. She was willing to look critically at her own inventions and change them up or simply let them go if the community did not seem as excited about them as she was...and so we are taking our direction from the spirit of the person who started this event.

A great deal of thanks are due those individuals who have in some way stepped up over the last three years to help out here, or give us ideas, or participate by posting to their blog one of the assignments. Without the book blogging community behind us, this event would have closed down a long, long time ago.

This is probably also a good time to announce that Weekly Geeks was nominated for the BBAW Best Meme award for this year. The Weekly Geeks team is incredibly honored to be recognized in this way - thank you to those who submitted a nomination!

This blog will remain up, at least for awhile, so that those who wish to may browse the links or read the assignments - perhaps find inspiration for their blog.

This will be the final Weekly Geeks "assignment"...share one of the following on your blog:

• If you knew Dewey - a favorite memory of her, or one of your favorite "events" which was Dewey-inspired.
• Browse the topics here and re-post one of your favorites

It's no secret that I love classic lit, and I love literary jokes (I think it's safe to say this to other book lovers) so when I saw the book Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook by Sarah Schmelling I had to buy it. Literally had to, I couldn't wait to get it. And let me tell you my friends, it was worth full-price. Let me sum up the book for you the short way: Classic Lit characters and authors on Facebook. Status updates, groups, poking and all. This book at me laughing for a week.

I loved the passage on Jane Eyre, obviously. I'll give you a little taste of Jane's News Feed so you get an idea of what this book is like:

"Jane Eyre has "Hard Knock Life" on repeat.
John Reed sent his cousin Jane a Book (at her head).
John PICKED A FIGHT with Jane using the Violent British Children application.
Result: SWEET! Jane won! Her fuming little British girl just taught John's irritating British boy the meaning of pain. Ouch!
Mrs. Reed does not see how in fact Jane won.
Jane took the Quiz: What Color Room Should You Not Be In? with the result "Red.""

Another one of my favorites was from the Oedipus Rex section: "Oedipus has some things to talk over with the wife." I just couldn't help myself with this book. I laughed out loud everywhere. In my bedroom, at work, secretly reading in lecture. It was just too funny. I'll be honest though, I only read the sections about books I read or authors I was familiar with, which was actually about 75% of the book. I know this is a book I will come back to when I read some of the other selections included. I'll admit it, I've read the Jane Eyre section four times already.

I really don't have any complaints with this book. I thought the sections were dead on, the quizzes were hilarious, and honestly I can't imagine what book lover would not enjoy this book. And that is why this book earned an A. Also, I don't usually plug my Amazon links, but this book is bargain priced on Amazon right now for $6, so if you're going to buy it now would be a good time! It's normally $15 in case you were wondering.

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.

Two events are happening at the moment: Bloggiesta and Book Blogger Appreciation Week Registration. Both provide an opportunity to reassess your blog and your blogging goals.

If you are participating in either one, great but even if you are not you can still take part in this week's Weekly Geeks.

During Bloggiesta participants are asked to take a look at blogging goals. What are your blogging goals? Maybe you did this for the last Bloggiesta, find that post and reevaluate those goals. Have you reached them? Do they no longer apply?

And/Or

If you are a book blogger*, register for BBAW. It's a great way to find new readers. To register you must find your best 5 posts from the last year. Find yours even if you don't register for BBAW. In your Weekly Geeks post, link to your registration post or put the 5 links in your Weekly Geek's post.

Then tell us why are these your best posts of the last year? By looking at these posts, you can figure out your blogging goals: be more funny, personal, concise, topical, etc.

*If you're not a book blogger, find your 5 best posts of the last year anyway.

So, it's a bit of work but a chance to see where you are and where you want to go. Good luck!

** I've been bit by Mr Linky too many times. Please leave your links in the comments.

Another one of the things Dewey did so well with Weekly Geeks was a weekly round-up. In her weekly post, she would feature a few of the bloggers who participated in the prior week’s activity.

We’re a little slow in getting that part of Weekly Geeks off the ground, and since it takes many Geeks to carry out the tasks of one Dewey, the round-up will be in the form of a separate post.

Since the first week’s activity asked us to list our favorite blogs and subsequently increased the size of all our feed readers by 5 gazillion blogs, I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I skip that round-up and start with Weekly Geeks 2009-02.

Last week, an unfinished person and Joanne posed the following questions:

For those who have been with the group, either from the start or joined within recent months, what does being a member mean to you? What do you enjoy about the group? What are some of your more memorable Weekly Geeks that we might could do again? What could be improved as we continue the legacy that Dewey gave us? For those just joining us, why did you sign up for Weekly Geeks? What would you like to see here?

Erin from crazy comma momma is a self-confessed newbie who is already doing happy dances when the Weekly Geeks blog updates. I practically did a happy dance myself when I read that. Erin says she is new to book blogging and Weekly Geeks gives her a chance to get her feet wet. Welcome Erin! We’ll keep an eye out for that video of you doing the happy dance. ;-)

Megan at Leafing Through Life is a long-time geek. For her (and for a lot of people), Weekly Geeks is about community. Megan was “a particularly big fan of the weeks when we were asked to go out and visit some Geeks we hadn't seen before either to comb their archives or to find something we had in common or just to leave a comment to say "hey, I've been here" and post the links to our travels in our Weekly Geeks post.” “Links to our travels”…I just love that line, don’t you?

Julie at Booking Mama is another fairly new Geek. One of her New Year’s resolutions is to “to be a bigger part of the blogging community. In addition to leaving more comments, I also decided to start participating in Weekly Geeks. So here I am and here's to hoping that I stick with it!” We hope you stick with it, too, Julie! Although we won’t send the Geek Police after you if you skip a week.

Maree at just add books is in it for the fun. “For me, it's a fun thing to do once a week where I get to virtually hang out with lots of like-minded people :)…I really enjoyed the Weekly Geeks where we interviewed each other about what we were reading. I'd be happy to see a repeat of that one. Oh! And the quotes one, where we posted a quote a day on a specific subject. That was a lot of fun too.” Since I'm all about the fun, too, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Maree!

Ms. Ulat Baku of Ulat Baku in the City sees Weekly Geeks as “a great platform that allows me to make new friends, exchange ideas and learn new things from people regardless of race, religion and background and that’s the main reason for my participation. Plus the fact that I love Mr. Spock to pieces and never had an appropriate post to feature him in my blog until now of course, LOL.” Well said, Ms. Baku, and may Weekly Geeks live long and prosper.

Many of you mentioned favorites Weekly Geeks that you wouldn't mind seeing again. We will be adding the suggestions to the list of themes, and as usual, if you think of any other ideas, feel send us an email.

We will try to post this weekly round-up every Friday. Additionally, once a month we're hoping to feature some of the other Dewey-inspired events that are continuing around the blogosphere. Look for that post next week. In the meantime, happy geeking!

When Dewey started Weekly Geeks, one of the first projects she encouraged us to do was link our book reviews to each other. Sadly, I've fallen of the wagon on this one. For people like me who need a refresher and for all the new Weekly Geeks this is a topic that could use repeating.

Let's look at Dewey's original post : Dewey's post.

Here's what we'll do:

1. Write a post encouraging readers to look through your archives (if you have your reviews in a particular place on your blog, point them there), and find the books that they have also written reviews. Tell them to leave a link to their review on your review post. For example, I've written a review for Gods Behaving Badly and Jane Doe leaves a link to her review of Gods Behaving Badly in the comments section of my review.

2. Edit your reviews to include those links in the body of the review post.

3. Visit other Weekly Geeks and go through their reviews. Leave links for them.

4. Leave a note somewhere on your blog to let people know this is your new policy.

5. Write a post later this week letting us know how your project is going!

This is a big undertaking but as Dewey put it, it's 'community building'. Have fun!

Reviews
Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden
The Bell Jar by Syvlia Plath
The Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen

Other
Moleskine Passions Book Journal

Where the Wild Things Are Vlog

Please use the same links for all categories.

Weekly Geeks 2011-14 was a big hit with list-loving Geeks, as Suey invited us to share our favorite authors - in alphabetical order:

You know how when someone asks you who your favorite author is? And you feel a bit crazy coming up with just one? Now is your chance to come up with 26 (at least) favorite authors by making a list of them ABC style.
Naida @ the bookworm has multiple favorites for some letters, and none at all for some others.

On the other hand, Darren @ Bart’s Bookshelf has an entry for letter except U on his list, but he admits to a little fudging: He switched from last-name order to first names to fill in spots for a few letters.

For her very first Weekly Geeks post, Yvonne @ Socrates’ Book Review Blog made a list of her all-time favorite authors.

NicolaO @ Alpha Heroes managed to limit herself to one author per letter, and fill all 26 slots, by getting a bit creative.

And Becky @ Becky’s Book Reviews not only had authors for 25 out of 26 letters (no X), she included links to her reviews of some books by each one of them.

You can find links to even more Alpha Author lists at Weekly Geeks.com. Thanks to everyone who played along this week!

Last week Ali challenged us to think about the classics. She gave us four questions, and allowed us to mix and match.

1) How do you feel about classic literature? Are you intimidated by it? Love it? Not sure because you never actually tried it? Don't get why anyone reads anything else? Which classics, if any, have you truly loved? Which would you recommend for someone who has very little experience reading older books? Go all out, sell us on it!

2) A challenge, should you choose to accept it: Read at least one chapter of a classic novel, preferably by an author you're not familiar with. Did you know you can find lots of classics in the public domain on the web? Check out The Popular Classic Book Corner, for example. Write a mini-review based on this chapter: what are your first impressions? Would you read further? (For a larger selection of authors, try The Complete Classic Literature Library).

3) Let's say you're vacationing with your dear cousin Myrtle, and she forgot to bring a book. The two of you venture into the hip independent bookstore around the corner, where she primly announces that she only reads classic literature. If you don't find her a book, she'll never let you get any reading done! What contemporary book/s with classic appeal would you pull off the shelf for her?

4) As you explore the other Weekly Geeks posts: Did any inspire you to want to read a book you've never read before—or reread one to give it another chance? Tell us all about it, including a link to the post or posts that sparked your interest. If you end up reading the book, be sure to include a link to your post about it in a future Weekly Geeks post!

Many people chose to answer the first and third questions, although every question did get answered. Some geeks love the classics, while others are a bit more apathetic. But everyone had something great to contribute to the discussion. Here is a sampling:

Both Chris Voss and hagelrat from Un:bound answered this week’s challenge. Un:bound is a team blog, and in a possible history making event, more than one team member participated. Very cool. I also love this line from hagelrat: “it's my pet theory that a girl who has nothing but classics on her bookshelves keeps nothing but mills & boon under the bed.”

In another potentially history making post, Weekly Geeks appears in Danish! Dorte kindly translated her post into English, as well. For which I am forever grateful. I did a double-take when I first saw her post, but then I noticed the helpful arrow for us English readers directing us to look below. Thanks for joining Weekly Geeks, Dorte!

Frances at Nonsuch Book included a beautiful mosaic of book covers in her post. All of the covers are from the same book, The Damnation of Theron Ware. Although I’ve never heard of the book, I found the first cover with the windows to be quite appealing. Frances also reflected on the role classics played in her own development.

Puss Reboots admits that “many of the books I read are older than I am.” She also talks about how she compares Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to Jay and Silent Bob. Dude! Awesome comparison. Go check out her post and enjoy the links!

I will confess to letting out a little woo-hoo when I read Terri’s confession that she feels “pretty inadequate about classic lit, considering I have a BA in English.” Sometimes it’s nice to know that English majors haven’t read it all. Terri also made a wonderful comment about comparing reading the classics to music…”it’s a bit like learning music theory and getting a good base of classical music before journeying off into other styles.”

Sassymonkey discusses how different the classics are from each other. She also mentions the required reading list she made for her boyfriend. Inquiring minds want to know…did he make it through the entire list?

Finally, a note about Aunt Myrtle. Poor Myrtle, I’m afraid we were a bit harsh on her. Although she did get plenty of good books out of the deal. I kind of want to be Aunt Myrtle, just to get the books.

********************

In other news…

At the end of each month we’re going to attempt to give shout-outs to the other Dewey-inspired events that are going on. Many of these events already have links over in the sidebar, but a little more linky love never hurt anyone, right?

Chris and Robin are hosting the Dewey Books Reading Challenge, complete with monthly mini-challenges and nifty prizes. This event lasts all year, and just happens to be dear to my heart because I’m participating and reading some incredibly good books. Go check out the blog for more info. Or this site to read some of the reviews of the participants. Betcha find a book you wanna read.

Jackie has started a new blog to continue the Bookworms Carnival. Info on the upcoming themes and hosts can be found at that site, The Bookworms Carnival. The 23rd Edition of the Bookworms Carnival will be held by Jessica over at The Bluestocking Society, where the theme is Books to Movies. Submissions are due by February 13th.

Also, Jackie has made mention of a Facebook blog network for Weekly Geeks and the Bookworm Carnival. Since I know squat about Facebook, I’ll give you the link and hope you all know what she’s talking about. :-D

There has been chatter about the continuation of Dewey’s popular Read-a-thon. As far as I know there are plans to continue (yay!) and the next Read-a-thon would be held in April. We will let you know more info once the planning starts.

I finally picked up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

because it was the September selection for the Drunk Literature Book Club. I apparently had more luck than Rebecca though because I actually finished it. I must agree with her, crime fiction is not really my cup of tea, but I was strangely in the mood to give some a try. Maybe it's because a lot of my friends and some of my favorite podcasts have been talking so excitedly about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I felt like I was missing out on something. The story is about a journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who is offered a large sum of money by the wealthy Henrik Vanger to find out what happened to Vanger's favorite niece many years before. Blomkvist takes the challenge, mostly because he thinks it will give him so power in the middle of the libel case he is a part of. Blomkvist gets some help from investigator Lisbeth Salander along the way. Lisbeth is young, incredibly intelligent, and deeply misunderstood.

One of my favorite aspects of this book that I don't think gets discussed very much is the portrayal of violence against women. There are moments in the book where Lisbeth is raped or put in the position of sexual submission, and other moments later in the book where you find out several other stories about women who were treated violently. And these things are by no means only present in the book. Things like this happen all the time in the real world, and just like no one does anything about them in the book, most people don't do much about it in the real world either. I think Stieg Larsson did a great job of portraying the after effects of sexual violence against women in this novel.

While I really enjoyed that aspect of the book I found the first half painful to get through. I was expecting a page turner, something I really needed at the beginning of the semester, and what I got was much denser than I expected. I also didn't like the repetition, sometimes you would learn something and then ten pages later you would have to learn it again. He probably did this so the reader didn't have to think about it and could just keep reading without having to search in their brains for what the plot, but I always find this device rather insulting. The second half of the book was quite thrilling, but I thought the ending was a little dull. So overall I wasn't as excited as I thought I would be, which is why...

I'm giving this book a C.

For October the Drunk Literature Book Club selection is biographies. Any biography you want-- you should join in if you can!

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Last week I announced a self-challenge I'm undertaking in the month of May. I'm reading books that are approximately 200 pages or less for the entire month. I'm happy to say that it's gone extremely well this week-- I've already finished four books! I read Missouri

and The Only Dance in Iowa: A History of Six-Player Girls' Basketball

, which I recently purchased, and Lonesome Traveler and Summer Rain

, which I've had on my shelves since high school. It was a double whammy for me because Summer Rain and Missouri are both books in translation, which helps me on my goal of reading ten books in translation for my Day Zero Challenge. All in all it was a successful week of reading. Have any of you started reading short books for this month? I'd love to hear about your progress or plans!

I have four days left of my semester. I've been a little slow with blogging lately so I'm looking forward to being in the swing of things again. I actually don't have too much work this week. I have a five page comic to finish today, a Renaissance poetry take home final to finish tomorrow, and an entrepreneurship exam on Thursday evening. Then I will be free of this semester! Next year will be the final year of my undergraduate career. It's going to be a weird one since I'm taking almost the minimum amount of semester hours and in the fall I'll only be in one English class. I'm pursuing certificates in nonprofit management and fundraising and philanthropy; next year most of my classes will be in those certificate programs.

And on a final note, I'd like to wish a happy mother's day to all the moms out there who read my blog. I'd also like to say happy mother's day to my own mother who always spoiled me with books, my Grandma Marilyn who taught me to read, and my Grandma Sheree who has always supported my love of reading. Best moms in the world!

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 recently decided to join the Day Zero Project. I created a list of 101 things I'd like to accomplish in 1001 days, which works out to roughly one thing every ten days. It doesn't sound to hard to make the list, but I actually found it incredibly difficult to find 101 things I really wanted to accomplish in a little less than three years. This isn't because I'm unmotivated, I just tend to do things I want to do. I wanted to backpacking and I made it happen. I wanted to date my boyfriend and I let him know I liked him. And so on and on. But everyone needs encouragement and I really enjoy challenging myself. I'll blog about this process from time to time.

The first task I completed is writing a letter to myself in ten years. I'll be 31 at this point and my life will be incredibly different. In my letter I talked about children, careers, and how I would remember this point in my life. I actually used the website FutureMe to write the letter. You can set the date on there and it will email you the letter when you tell it to. You're not able to read the letter before that date, but you can change the email address it's sent to in case you get a new email.

I also asked my future self if I was still blogging at English Major's Junk Food. Time will tell...

The process of imagining a different version of myself was a little empowering. It made me realize that while I do have some control over the way my life turns out I shouldn't be upset if it goes differently from the way I planned it. I'm considering writing a few more of these letters to myself, perhaps one for the day I graduate college.

My list is at Day Zero for interested parties. Encourage me by asking me how it's going every once in awhile.

If you were to write a letter to yourself in ten years what would you say?

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.

VIA Rachel Nichols 2America Beautiful Actress 2011 tops

Every month Aths and I are reading one eco-centered book for our feature Leif Reads. To find out more about this feature visit the about page.

Last week I talked about Bill McKibben and his climate change organization 350.org. This week Aths is taking on a big question, which is, "What exactly is climate change?" She specifically talks about melting of the ice in the Antarctic and the gradual disappearance of islands that are below sea level. These are just two manifestations of global warming in our world, but they are by no means the only ones. Head over to Reading on a Rainy Day to read Aths's beautiful and informative post. If you've enjoyed our posts so far you might want to read Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

for yourself. It's a great book to learn the basics of climate change and what it means.

350.org had a great post recently called 2010: Year in Review. 2010 was a big year for the environment, we had some good times, and some definite bad ones. BP oil spill anyone? This post focuses on the way people banded together during all of these times and it will truly make you glad to see that people are making a difference in the environment around the world.

Over 7,000 people promoting clean energy in Istanbul, Turkey. Just one example of the way people are banding together around the world.

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 was thrilled to find a class that was teaching Wilike Collins' The Woman in White this semester because I had been reading about it forever (at least it seemed that way to me). And the description on the back of the book got me even more excited when it said the novel was "the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism." Great, right? Right?

Well my friends, it was great. Excellent in fact. The narrative structure copies a criminal investigation. The first character we meet is Walter Hartright, a romantic character who has a strange encounter with a creepy woman in white on the road. She seems different, perhaps not quite insane but there is definitely something wrong with her. And why is she dressed all in white? He doesn't know it at the time, but this woman is going to change the general course of things for everyone he meets. He is on his way to new place of work, a drawing master for Laura Fairlie. When he meets Laura Fairlie he is pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful she is, but later finds out that she is already engaged to someone else. Sir Percival Glyde.

We lose Walter fairly quickly and the bulk of the novel is narrated by my favorite character, Marian. Marian has the body of a goddess and the face of mole, but she is extremely intelligent and observant. Her ugliness truly buys her freedom, as no man would want to marry that. She watches Sir Percival Glyde and his friend Count Fosco. She want to trust Percival since he is marrying her half sister, but she just cannot bring herself to do so. She is also pulled in by my other favorite character, Count Fosco, but she realizes Count Fosco tricks people easily and tries not to succumb to his powers. Fosco is a strange man. He is enormously fat, sweet to his wife in public, and is constantly eating sweets. He also knows exactly how to make people listen to him which makes him a humongous threat.

So who is the woman in white? What is the relationship between Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde? Why did Sir Percival want to marry Laura? These and many more questions pop up along the way in this book. It truly is a thrilling read. So why a B you might ask. The reason for the B is basically that I thought the ending was too neat and tidy, although I realize this would have been the preferred ending by most people in the book's day. I don't always like perfect endings though, and I wish this one would have ended differently. But it is certainly a must read!

This novel earned a B.

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.

Yesterday was the long awaited Twin Cities Book Festival. I got to Minneapolis on Friday night and was excited to see a Borders right across the street from my hotel. I went there right away of course, but didn't end up buying anything. That, of course, doesn't mean I didn't buy anything on Saturday.

This is the nice stack I came away with. To be fair four of these books are literary magazines (which were only $2 each, it's amazing I didn't just buy the entire table) and one of the magazines is for a friend. I got two issues of Creative Nonfiction, a magazine I love for obvious reasons but rarely get. I talk about Number 31 yesterday in my Awesome Essays post because the subject is publishing and writing in 2025, which seemed to be a huge theme in the panel discussions I went to. Check out that post to share your ideas! I also got Number 23, which is about Mexican-American writers, something I've recently become interested in. I got a little poetry magazine called Bateau and the Alaska Quarterly Review for my friend Michael.

As far as actual books, I got the first comic book in the Fables series, A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler (the publicist, Courtney, did a great job selling the book to me), and If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home by John Jodzio from Replacement Press. I'm super excited to read all of these!

Yesterday was a very long and exciting day. Right away in the morning I met Reagan from Miss Remmers Review, Sheila from Book Journey, Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness, and Alea from Pop Culture Junkie. We all had a great chat about books and life before heading over to Sheila's panel discussion about the future of publishing. Her panel was awesome-- and Kim and I said that she answered all the blogger questions just how we would have answered them. After the panel we browsed some of the tables where publishers and authors were promoting their books.

It was a huge crowd! I was excited to see so many people interested in books all in one room. We all went to get lunch with Liz from Consumed By Books and Joanne from Jo Jo Loves to Read. We talked about books (more) and life (more) and then headed back to the festival because Kim, Alea, and I wanted to go to a panel about comic books and comics that Bill Willingham was speaking at. I never realized there was such a great comics scene in Minneapolis and I'll definitely be checking into the other speakers' work as well.

Later at night Sheila, Reagan, Kim, and I went to Borders for awhile and I found a bunch of books I wanted but didn't buy any, which I think deserves a round of applause. Then my boyfriend met up with us and we went to a Chinese place for dinner.

Take One: Reagan, Sheila, me, and Kim.

Take 423: Reagan, Sheila, me, and Kim.

So that was my fun exciting time at the Twin Cities Book Festival. Hopefully I'll get to go again next year and we can do another Midwest Book Blogger meet-up again soon!

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Jan Morris' Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

is a travelog of the city Trieste. Trieste is a place for those who are exiled and Morris is fascinated by the "nowhereness" of the place. It has had many famous inhabitants, including James Joyce, Sigmund Freud, and Richard Burton. It is on the far northeast side of Italy, and as Morris points out, very few people in Italy actually know Trieste is there. The travelog weaves between Morris' own experience and Trieste and the ancient history of the city, as well as stories from the famous people who have lived there.

I was set up to dislike Trieste for two reasons, the first is that I hate Italy, the second is that I hate travel writing that moves away from the narrator's experience. I didn't hate Trieste, but I wouldn't say it is my favorite book I have read. Some parts are beautiful. Morris has been to Trieste several times and has a keen eye for small parts of life. She is also willing to admit she messed up when she judges something wrong, while some authors wouldn't include it she does and I admire her for that. What I didn't like about this book is that on page it will be present day and the next page it will be 1382. Perhaps I wasn't reading carefully enough, but I really struggled with the movement back and forth.

It's a quick read if you're interested in Italy or travel writing in general. It is the first travelog I have read that talked more about how everything is different within the city rather than how everything is different from where they came from. Demographically, Trieste is very unique because it is so close to Slovenia. The population is made up of Italians, Croations, Slovenes, Romanians, and people that have fled their country. It truly does have a fascinating history so read the book if you can keep up with the constant changes in time.

Pub. Date: August 2002
Publisher: Da Capo
Format: Paperback, 212pp

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Awesome Essays has returned, and with a graphic essay! Today I'm going to talk about Alison Bechdel's graphic essay Compulsory Reading. I think a lot of you will like this essay because you are readers. She starts the essay talking about how she hasn't read a novel for enjoyment in a long time and how she feels guilty about it, but then moves onto her early reading and how she felt she had to read a lot of classic novels because her dad told her to. She ends the essay on a different note, which is hilarious and true. You can read the whole thing on her website, Dykes to Watch Out For. Here is a funny bit from the beginning of the essay to start you off.

I obviously really like the subject of this essay as a reader and someone who believes that reading for enjoyment should be exactly that, enjoyment, and not an attempt to complete some lists of books "everyone has to read." I love the way Bechdel portrays the frantic search for a book after she realizes how long it's been since she read one. It seems like she is chased by a reading guilt ghost (don't we all have one of those?) and she can't escape the ghost until she finds the perfect book and finishes it. Of course, it's not enough to just pick one book, she has to make a stack of books to finish in order to assure herself she will not go this long without reading again.

There are a couple of questions this essay raises for me. Firstly, do any of you have a "reading guilt ghost" too? When you know you haven't read enough or feel like you haven't been reading the "right" books does it make you sweat a bit? How do you deal with that? Secondly, I've tried to show essays that take the idea of the essay to a different medium. This is obviously a graphic essay and I've also done posts about video essays before. Have some of you been surprised by how many forms essays come in?

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Right now I'm still having that experience you always have at the beginning of the semester where everything is new and exciting and awesome. Today has been extra great because my first class is about comic books, my second class is taught by a professor I love, and my third class is piano. And I got home at 3:40 which is earlier than I ever got home last semester (I actually get to make dinner for my fiance for once!) so I just have good feelings all around. I didn't even mind buying textbooks this afternoon, see pictures below for happy faces with textbooks.

To be fair, I had to buy The Best American Comics 2010 and Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book

for my comic book class and I actually wanted the books, so I didn't mind forking over the cash for them. I will be less enthusiastic about purchasing my entrepreneurship books tomorrow. I'll probably be pretty cranky about the whole thing.

This is also the post where I say my brain is still scrambled from my trip, so I probably won't be on my normal schedule again until next week. I need a few days to write posts, get organized, figure out how exactly my post schedule is going to go this year. All fun stuff I know. But now I'm off to enthusiastically do my homework before the excitement wears off!

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Hopefully I'll be back to normal blogging this week. I have plenty of reviews and things to post. I've been spending a lot more time thinking about my life and what I want to do than I have reading recently. I'm reading my first self help book right now, which probably has something to do with it. I'm not really a big "self help" person necessarily, but when I saw Jillian Michaels' book Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life

I was really drawn to it. I'm a big fan of her work-out videos and I loved her show Losing It With Jillian. A lot of people think she is mean and scary, but I find her commitment to honesty and helping others inspiring. She's no joke and her book has really pushed me to analyze my habits and attitude. I've really been searching for myself over the past year and I think this book came at a great time. It's Spring, a time of renewal, and I'm taking some of my first steps towards life after graduation even though I have a year left of school.

When I started this blog I wanted to read more and read like I did when I was a kid. I wanted reading to be fun again. I think I've accomplished that goal, but I don't ever want to make reading stressful or not fun. Lately with the amount of school and work I've had it's been hard for me to balance the blog with my life outside it. I was also struggling with friendships when I started this blog, but now I think I have a good solid group of friends and I've become a lot more social--hence less time for reading. I'll be done with school in three weeks, but until then I'm going to allow my blogging to be a little irregular. Once summer comes I should get back in the swing of things.

I've thought a lot about priorities recently. My blog is a big priority to me because it brings so much joy into my life. While I'm glad I've had the opportunity to go to college school has never been my number one priority. I'm an A-B student, but I could probably get better grades than I do. It's always seemed to me that when I work really hard to get straight A's other things in my life start to fall apart. My parents never stressed good grades to me and for that reason I've let things slide a bit more this semester. I also decided I didn't want to go to graduate school right after college, which has lightened my stress. I guess sometimes I wonder what that means, to be in college and have school not be my number one priority. I know I'm rambling, I've probably rambled a lot lately.

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