Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

Posted on September 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia

An adrenaline-filled rush of a thriller about an adopted woman’s search for her true identity, and the consequences for her own family.

Sara Gallagher has always known she was adopted. It’s not until she has a much-beloved six-year-old daughter, Ally, and is about to get married that she decides to search out her birth mother. But she never dreamed of the repercussions: it’s her birth father’s identity that is the real shock, and the threat he poses to her and her happy family begins to rip their world apart. Sara and her fiance, Evan, struggle to maintain their relationship as the police tap their phone lines and begin to take over their personal lives. The horror only grows–and the pace ratchets up–as she finds herself unable to extricate her birth father, “John,” from her life.

Stevens uses the same unique format that was so successful in her bestselling debut novel, Still Missing: the novel is told in first-person, through Sara’s long one-sided conversation with her psychiatrist, whose voice we never hear. This lets us in to her inner conflict, as she struggles with her love for Evan and Ally (and her sisters and adoptive parents), and her need to protect them from the evil she fears she’s inherited.

Never Knowing addresses issues of adoption, family, and parenthood; it exhibits what a mother’s love can do, and what it means to be a parent. This thriller is relentlessly, heart-thumpingly fast-paced. The suspense will leave you breathless, as you learn to care for the conflicted but likeable characters, whose family ties make it all worthwhile.

I wrote this review for Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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Back of Beyond by C.J. Box

Posted on September 21, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A fast-paced, twisty thriller set in the backwoods of Yellowstone in which an alcoholic cop tracks a killer, hopefully in time to save his son.

Cody Hoyt’s job as a policeman in Helena, Montana teeters delicately in balance with his self-destructive behaviors. He has nearly two months sober when he’s called to the scene of his AA sponsor’s death: Hank Winters and his cabin are burned nearly beyond recognition. Cody spins off into a drunken relapse, mistakenly shoots the county coroner, and heads out of town in search of Hank’s killer–against orders, since the local authorities see no signs of foul play. But Hank’s death is just the beginning. It seems that a brutal killer has joined a backcountry horseback-riding trip into the depths of Yellowstone–along with Cody’s son, Justin. Reeling with the DTs and enraged by Hank’s murder and the threat to Justin’s safety, Cody sets out into the wilderness to bring down a killer and bring his son back safe, even as the bodies pile up around them.

Sympathetic secondary characters include Cody’s long-suffering partner Larry, a still-hardy retired wilderness outfitter who agrees to take Cody into the backcountry, and a precocious young girl on the pack trip. Yellowstone’s natural beauty is partly overshadowed by the very real dangers, both natural and manmade, that the motley crew of near-strangers encounters in this adrenaline-charged setting. Far from civilization, there is no lack of suspects, and everyone wonders who can be trusted. While Cody searches for a killer, multiple plots intertwine and complicate beyond what he’s imagined, and he’ll have to follow Justin to the very precipice to save him.

I wrote this review for Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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On Bicycles ed. by Amy Walker

Posted on September 20, 2011 by pagesofjulia

An exhaustive how-to manual and impassioned plea on behalf of riding bicycles for transportation and as a way of life.

Editor Amy Walker is joined by some 30 authors–policy-makers, researchers, business owners, activists, parents and/or cyclists–in this instructive manual. On Bicycles is not concerned with colorful Spandex, racing bikes or speed. Rather, this is a handbook for North Americans who want to use bicycles for commuting, transportation and fun.

The book covers a range of subjects and possible needs. First, why we ride: for better health, for the environment, for a better connection with our communities. Next, chapters cover what gear is needed, how to ride safely in various conditions, how to make the transition away from the car; how to transport kids by bike and how to get them on bikes themselves; how to use a bicycle for cargo needs; different kinds of bicycles; community services and connections including and beyond the retail bike shop; and redesigning our infrastructure and culture to allow for more and better biking. Your experienced-cyclist-and-book-reviewer learned new things; the novice rider will be thoroughly equipped with information and empowered by the enthusiasm pouring off these pages.

Walker’s examples come largely from that exemplary bike town, Portland, Ore., and some of her discussion feels a bit removed for cyclists in, say, Houston–but her arguments and advice are more, rather than less, relevant for cities (and riders) with further to go before reaching cycling nirvana. The only caveat: if you are in the camp that occasionally resents Portland’s reputed smugness, you may find a touch of that here. But it might be worth the stellar and scrupulous advice.

This review originally ran in the September 20, 2011 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

Posted on September 17, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I have finished reading one of the two books that Thomas of My Porch sent me. You done good, Thomas, I found it charming and funny. Pym is not entirely different from another Barbara I recently discovered, through Stuck in a Book: Barbara Comyns, whose Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead I really enjoyed. Simon, Thomas, anyone, if you can help me come up with a better genre tag for these ladies than “misc fiction,” I’d be obliged. Do these count as “domestic fiction” or whatever they call Jane Austen? Sorry, I’ll get on with it…

Some Tame Gazelle is the story of two spinster sisters, Belinda and Harriet, in a little English village in the 1950’s or thereabouts. We get the story from Belinda’s perspective primarily. She’s the dowdier and more humble of the two sisters, and her day-to-day life revolves, perhaps more than she realizes, around the local Archdeacon, who she knows and still loves as Henry from their school days. Henry is married, of course, and she resignedly sighs and gently envies his difficult wife Agatha, with whom he does not seem entirely happy, and alternately resolves to be a friend to her. Harriet, on the other hand, is still regularly refusing marriage proposals (mostly from the same man, Ricardo, an Italian count who Belinda rather wishes she would marry). Harriet is a bit sillier and prouder than her sister, but they depend on each other and are very much settled in their life together.

We read about this little village, where the sisters have tea, buy groceries, attend church, and help out with church functions. Where Belinda is devoted to the Archdeacon and worries over what garments she can appropriately knit for him, Harriet attaches herself to one curate after another and teases Ricardo and criticizes Belinda’s beloved Henry. Day follows day.

Sort of like what I said about the Comyns novel, this is a quiet book; there aren’t loud noises; you don’t jump in your seat. But my, is it ever quietly funny. Pym is compared to Austen, which I guess makes sense, but they’re not so similar you’d confuse them or anything. Part of this I suppose is the subject matter, that is, spinster ladies vs young women chasing marriageable men of independent wealth. (And I haven’t done my Pym research so don’t know if this is her standard subject material.) But I suppose the tone is comparable to Austen: people are so confined by custom and what the neighbors might think that they do silly things, and worry about silly things, and certain gentlemen do even sillier things that the women make excuses for. It’s a humor of quiet, respectable absurdity.

It also has in common with Austen, a female preoccupation with marriage. I don’t want to give anything away, but there are marriage proposals and there are weddings (okay, only one is onscreen), and there is much agonizing over marriage. There is also some rather blasphemous talk of spouse-switching – all completely theoretical and private, of course.

This book is set firmly in religion; most of the main characters are clergy, or obsessed with a member of the clergy, and all are church workers. This was a little foreign for me, someone with no church or religion in her life (don’t pity me, I’m very happy this way, and I don’t like being judged either, thanks) but I think I followed along okay. It’s not “Christian fiction” in any way; the church is just the backdrop. If anything, the church is an object of some merriment too, since the clergy tend to behave at least as ridiculously as anyone else.

Without getting too spoilery, I’m going to stop here in discussion of plot, but I want to note the title. The book opens with a Thomas Haynes Bayly quotation:

Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:
Something to love, oh, something to love!

Which perhaps tells us what this book is “about” better than anything.

If you are okay with the spoilers and/or have read this book, highlight the white text below.

One of my favorite things about this book is that it came full circle and we ended up right exactly back where we started. I was worried along with Belinda that one (or the other!) of the sisters was going to accept a marriage proposal, but I was much happier ending with Harriet preparing to dote on a new curate, and back again to the first line. So this is another book in which not much happens – but it’s surprising how satisfying that can be.

Thomas! You are wonderful! Thanks so much. Can’t wait to get into The Home-Maker.

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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (audio)

Posted on September 15, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Truman Capote captured my undivided attention with this medium-largeish* book in remarkable fashion. My first issue for this review: is this fiction, or non? It is most commonly referred to as a “nonfiction novel,” a term I have a lot of trouble with. The story is either based very closely on, or is, the true story of the quadruple murder of the Clutter family in small-town Kansas, and the investigation, arrest, and eventual execution of the two perpetrators. (My library’s OCLC listing calls it “postmodern fiction.”) Capote himself said, “I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.” So, fiction or non? I’m going with fiction, but clearly this is one of those areas where the line blurs. More on that in a bit.**

I came across this book recently in several blogs, which is curious because it’s not new; it was first published serially in Life magazine in 1965, and in book form in 1966. I already had the book on my radar, but these fine fellow bloggers definitely solidified my interest. In telling you about the story, and the book constructed about the story, I’m going to be fairly spoilery, because this is history. If you want to read it yourself and be surprised, I’m not your top-choice review.

So. The subtitle reads, “A True Account of a Multiple Murder.” On the night of November 15, 1959, the Clutter family was bedding down on their farm in Kansas, just outside the small town of Holcomb, itself a suburb of Garden City. Herbert Clutter, the patriarch, was a respected member of the community and devout Methodist; his wife Bonnie had been suffering from depression and had been in and out of hospital, but at this time was home. Sixteen-year-old Nancy, the belle of local society, sweet, talented, generous, and universally beloved, had just sent her boyfriend Bobby home and was getting ready for bed. Fifteen-year-old Kenyon was slightly socially awkward but friendly and respected as a member of a well-liked and important family. The two older Clutter daughters were living on their own outside the home – one married, one about to be.

Meanwhile, two paroled convicts of the Kansas state prison system were on the road. Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene “Dick” Hickock had been cellmates and although very different in temperament, had teamed up for an endeavor that Dick described as being the perfect crime. As you’ve already guessed (or already knew), these six characters converge when Dick and Perry kill the Clutters in the night and make off almost as perfectly as Dick imagined. They spend months traveling, living briefly in Mexico where Perry hoped to become a successful treasure hunter, and then roaming the US again until they were apprehended in Las Vegas. They were tried in Kansas, convicted, and finally hanged in April of 1965.

Capote follows both groups of characters – the Clutters, and Perry & Dick – alternately in the days leading up to the night of the murder. Then he follows Perry and Dick in their roaming, and then through their imprisonment and trial, and right up to the hangings. His voice is omnipotent third person, and he quotes extensively from letters, documents, and trial proceedings, as well as from his interviews with various players and especially Dick and Perry themselves. Capote was on the case (so to speak) well before they became suspects, and published after they were killed, so his perspective and the timeline of his coverage is pretty extensive.

But, perhaps not entirely objective. The Clutters are painted in admirable detail, in lovely little vignettes. But their role is minor and short-lived (ouch, pun not intended). And of the two killers, Perry Smith is treated far more sympathetically and examined more deeply. I was pondering this as I listened to the book, wondering if this was all Capote’s apparent subjectivity, or if Perry was inherently more sympathetic; in other words, would I have found him so if I had been researching this case myself? There are a few fairly easy markers for this, at least for me: for one, Dick liked to rape little girls. Perry apparently stopped him from raping Nancy (by both their accounts). Dick ran over stray dogs with his car for fun, which Perry found revolting (as do I, obviously). Perry’s childhood was patently rough, while Dick’s is characterized as fairly normal. Perry seems to more clearly have a mental illness or defect that “causes” his criminal and violent tendencies. But, I’m not sure we get all of Dick’s story; Capote looks much more closely into Perry’s past. So what I’m trying to say is, I think there may be a bias in favor of poor Perry the murderer, having been manipulated by evil Dick. Apparently, it was alleged that Capote in fact had a sexual relationship with Perry while he was imprisoned, although obviously I can’t speak to that. This is not a criticism. I just want to point out that perhaps Capote is not entirely impartial with regards to his two main characters.

I found this book incredibly powerful. Capote has a fine sense of drama and of timing. Scenes and people are sketched artfully, sometimes quickly and with broad strokes that paint a pretty complete picture just briefly, and sometimes in painstaking detail. The stories of the Clutters’ deaths and Dick and Perry’s adventure and executions are fascinating and engrossing, yes. But it’s Capote’s rendering that makes this book, more than his subject matter. (I guess this is always the case.) I was blown away by the emotional effect of this story. I couldn’t get enough; I wanted more of the inside of Perry’s head, of Dick’s (ew, how creepy), of the small-town life of Holcomb and Garden City. This is my first experience with Truman Capote, and I’m a fan.

Also, as Marie said at The Boston Bibliophile, Scott Brick’s narration is excellent. I recommend this book on audio if you’re so inclined. (I also picked up a paperback, though, to have on hand. I never did reference it while listening but I think I’d like to have it for future use.)

*My audio version is 12 cd and 14.5 hours; my paperback edition is just under 400 pages.

**Back to the fact vs. fiction question. It does seem that Capote behaved like a journalist in putting this book together: gathering facts, interviewing key players, confirming dates. It could pass as “true crime,” a genre which itself may have trouble with fact vs. fiction. The biggest place where Capote appears to leave the realm of nonfiction behind is in dialogue; he has recreated a great many pieces of dialogue, mostly between Perry and Dick, that were unrecorded. He has relied upon Perry and Dick themselves in this recreation, I think, but memory being what it is, some creativity definitely come into play. I did note that on the night of the Clutters’ deaths, Capote has not tried to recreate their experience or any dialogue, except in the accounts shared by Perry and Dick in their confessions. This seems to show a reluctance to just “make things up,” and a respect for the question that (I think) still remains: did Perry kill the two male Clutters and Dick the two women, as Perry originally claimed? Or did he Perry kill all four, as he amended his story to say, and as Dick claimed all along? Capote doesn’t answer this question for us – presumably because he respects the fact that he can’t answer it authoritatively. (I do wonder what he thought, though, considering that he apparently was very close to Perry in particular.)

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The Hemingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman

Posted on September 14, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This was a delightful short read. The Hemingway Hoax was loaned to me by my friend Amy, librarian (newly, my coworker librarian! yay!), science fiction enthusiast, and science fiction author to boot. (I wrote briefly about one of her short stories here.) After my recent raving about Hemingway’s Boat (my review to come at Shelf Awareness), she lent me her signed, personalized copy, ooooh. It’s an easy read at 150ish pages; I ran right through it at one sitting.

David Baird is a college professor and Hemingway scholar. He and his (much younger, former student) wife are summering in Key West, where they meet a con man with a scheme to “find” the manuscripts of Hemingway’s early short stories, and a partial novel, that H’s first wife Hadley lost on a train in their Paris days. Baird, with his expertise, should be able to successfully forge them. In so doing, however, he gets wrapped up… transported through times… to parallel universes… meets the Hemingways of various eras… or does he? I won’t ruin the whole surprise, but there is time travel and questions about What Is Real. Some bad things happen. Or do they?

I enjoyed the Hoax. It had suspense, interesting characters, intrigue. It had Hemingway! And the Hemingway parts were well done; Haldeman knows his Papa well enough to pull this off without offending the armchair Hemingway scholar. (I didn’t pick it apart or check references or anything but it held together.) And that would have been a deal-breaker for me, of course. Not for the first time, I say: this is sci fi? I thought I didn’t like sci fi! Well done, Amy. You may keep lending me books. Thank you!

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The Second Son by Lee Child

Posted on September 12, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A slight diversion from the norm here, for Mr. Child as well as for me: he has written a Jack Reacher short story (as opposed to his usual novel), set in Reacher’s childhood (as opposed to adulthood), and here’s the big one – gasp – available only as an e-book, and not in “real” print. I was excited about the first two and not about the third. I have been a late adopter of many forms of technology, and the e-book, while a great thing for a lot of people (even some friends and family, people I KNOW), still scares me and strikes me as a little bit blasphemous. Give me ten years to get used to the idea and maybe I’ll get one someday. But for now, I said, how will I read this Reacher story? My mother bought it for me (thank you Mom) and I went over there on a Saturday afternoon with a brown bag lunch and sat down and read it. So this was an experiment with the e-format, as well as a Reacher story.

So. First, the story. We know Reacher (in the series of novels about him, of which I’ve read 10-and-change of 16) as an adult; I believe he was 36 when we met him in Killing Floor. In The Second Son, he’s 13. As his fans already know, his father is in the military, his mother is French, he has a brother two years older (Joe), and they move constantly – like every few months. The family of four has just arrived in Okinawa, and as usual, the local military kids (who have been there just perhaps a little longer than the Reachers) want to fight Reacher and Joe. (Yes, he went by Reacher even as a kid.) Joe is accused of one crime, and their father of another. Their maternal grandfather is dying, back in France. And Reacher saves the day. I don’t think that’s too spoilery, since he always does.

This was an enjoyable little story. If you normally like Reacher, you’ll like this; it has all the right ingredients. Reacher is a badass; he meets a cute girl and impresses her; he saves the day. If anything, the requisite suspension of disbelief is slightly greater than in the novels, because he’s just a kid here, so his badassery is that much more amazing. There’s one line I found especially funny where …some sort of military authority can’t believe he’s about to ask this 13-yr-old kid for help in his investigation. But really, if you’ve bought into Reacher, you’re comfortable with the suspension of disbelief, so you should be fine. It made me sigh with satisfaction. It’s like a Reacher novel in miniature.

And the format? Well, I don’t have any strong or specific complaint. It worked fine, although I had to tilt it just right to avoid glare at one point. The pages turned. I played with changing up the font size. I’m not against it. The strongest argument I know in favor, is for travel: not having to lug a largish number of books around, but having them all in that slim little package. My mother has some 40? books open on her machine right now, just because they’re there, but I don’t see this as a selling point; I’ve been known to read 2, 3, even 4 books at once, but more than that is just silly. I see that as actually detracting from the reading experience, because I’d be so confused, so start-and-stop. I’d rather be immersed in a book. I know the point is not to have 40 books going at once, of course, and if I were traveling it would be nice to carry less. But so far in my life this is not a great need for me.

I’m not angry at the e-book. But I’m not enamored; I love real books (battered old paperbacks, preferably) too much, and don’t feel a need for what I see as the greatest reason for e-books, that carrying of less. But it was an interesting experience to get to try one out with a quick read like this. Thanks Mom. If you read The Second Son, please do share your thoughts.

And the rest of you (Mom included) – would you care to share your e-reader-vs-print thoughts?

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Gone with the Wind part 3 (ch. 17-30)

Posted on September 10, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Follow the Great Gone with the Wind Readalong at The Heroine’s Bookshelf. Today we discuss part 3.

I’m quite late on this one, as noted before vacation – I hadn’t actually read this part before we set out, so it’s posting after my return. Ho-hum. I should be on track for the last two readings: part 4 on Sept. 26, and part 5 on Oct. 17. For now, you can go check out the discussion of part 3 at the Heroine’s Bookshelf, here. As as aside, Erin at HB is doing a fabulous job of leading these discussions! Not only does she summarize chapters, but she also gives us links for further reading on any number of historical facets of this amazing book.

So. I’m still just devouring GWTW; it’s an epic with momentum, emotional impact, and plenty to think about. It’s entertaining, heart-wrenching, and instructive.

These fourteen chapters are fast-paced and stomach-churning. Scarlett is living in Atlanta as the Civil War really ramps up; casualties increase, and the fervently loyal Southerners begin to face the fact that they can’t win this war. Social niceties that Scarlett (and Melly, and Pitty, and everyone) thought could be relied upon fall apart. Scarlett ends up undertaking some incredible challenges, simply out of necessity: she safely delivers Melanie’s (and Ashley’s) baby, and then grits her teeth and grinds her way home through dangerous, contested territory towards Tara. She enlists Rhett Butler’s help in doing this, but he abandons her – near Tara, but not close enough for safety.

When she gets home, she learns that her beloved mother has died, her two sisters are ill and no more tolerable to her than ever, her father Gerald is no longer a rock but rendered a pathetic simpleton by his wife’s death. Everything falls on Scarlett’s shoulders and, again, necessity births greater strength and skill than she would have thought possible.

I never liked Scarlett, in the sense that I would have wanted to be her best friend; but I always respected her, greatly in fact. Conniving, manipulative, and nasty? Yes. But determined? Oh, yes. And now I respect her more than ever; she’s really pulled it together. She’s my kind of woman, in a way: she doesn’t waste too much time whining, not when it really comes down to it. She rolls up her sleeves, picks her own cotton, earns blisters and calluses and loses weight and saves the farm, when her sisters are ready to roll over and die rather than stand up straight. I respect her immensely.

But I’m also concerned for the vision that Scarlett, and everyone around her, has of some reborn Southland. It’s just not going to happen. (Says I, with the benefit of lots of hindsight!) It’s never going to be the same again. And then Ashley comes home… finally… and Scarlett is still wasting her time pining over him. Just like the reincarnated South she dreams of, her perfect life with Ashley is impossible. I’m frustrated at her slowing down her own progress by mooning over impossibilities.

In response to some of Erin’s discussion points:

The descriptions of war are grotesque and well-done; I can really see and feel and smell the horrors. But I guess I failed to be entirely shocked, if only because this is the reputation of the Civil War in our time. Perhaps Mitchell’s contemporary audience was less clear on this point? I think we all learned in school at least about the idea of the Civil War as awful. But she certainly evokes it viscerally here.

Prissy is a deplorable character – as is Mammy, I must add. I have little patience with the way these slaves are depicted. It’s so obviously stereotyping, using set parts, simplifying these black slave who were – hello!! – real people, like every other population on earth made up of smart, dumb, hard-working, lazy, creative, dull, kind and evil people. My greatest difficulty with this book so far is in the portrayals of the slaves. Does Prissy drive me crazy? Yes. And there’s every chance that somewhere, one specific slave girl had all these characteristics that Prissy does; but it’s just too easy to paint them all with the same brush, and that I do not buy. Mammy’s relief and pride at still belonging to a good family is disgusting, coming from Mitchell’s pen. Pork’s pridefulness on being a “house n*gger” is offensive, to my modern eyes.

Rhett Butler… oh, my. I was at least as disappointed as Scarlett when he proposed, not marriage, but prostitution! (And I wonder if she would really have turned him down, as she planned to, if it had in fact been the former?) I think he’s rather wonderful, and I also think that he and Scarlett are two peas in a pod; she’s self-delusive if she doesn’t see how alike they are. It’s funny, because what she hates in him is what carries her through her own life, too.

The momentum of this section of the book is amazing. I couldn’t put it down. Can’t wait to discuss part 4 with everyone! But some of the portrayals of the south, and of the slaves, are getting a little uncomfortable. What’s next?

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A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd

Posted on September 2, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A quiet but fully-wrought WWI mystery involving war orphans, family dynamics, and nurse Bess Crawford’s good intentions.

Mother-and-son writing team Charles Todd (the Ian Rutledge series) delivers the third in the Bess Crawford series. Bess, a World War I nurse and sometime amateur sleuth, is trying to make her way home on leave at Christmas when she discovers a battered and crying woman huddled on her London porch in the freezing rain. Of course Bess takes her in, and is persuaded to accompany Lydia back to her husband’s family home. A smattering of domestic violence is just the beginning; the family is haunted by past losses, at odds with one another and thrown further off-kilter by the question of a possibly missing and possibly illegitimate child. Bess’s hesitant commitment to Lydia and her family will follow her to the front lines of the war in France and back again, to the tense, almost haunted family estate where her own life will be endangered before all is resolved.

Todd paints a remarkable, poignant wartime scene of people quietly seething with tragedy and loss, stoically soldiering on, with layers of disinherited and heroic minor characters. Bess is a well-developed character: strong, brave and imperfect, she has involved herself beyond her intentions and proprieties in this story. Two male friends raise the question of a romance in the reader’s mind, but Todd is not ready to answer it yet.

This is a well-constructed and understated historical mystery. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs mystery series, in particular, will want to read A Bitter Truth immediately.

This review originally ran in the September 2, 2011 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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Challenge Update

Posted on September 1, 2011 by pagesofjulia

My last update was at the beginning of June. Time to check in again.

Where Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at One Person’s Journey Through a World of Books. The idea is to read one book from each of the 50 states within the 2011 year. (Bonus points are awarded for foreign locations.) Take a look at my map to see where I’ve been. So far, I’ve read in 25 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Washington DC, Wyoming) and 17 foreign locations (Canada: Toronto and BC, Wales, Mexico, Dresden, Dublin, Kenya, London, Nepal, Paris, St. Mark’s, Stockholm, Switzerland, Jerusalem, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Okinawa).

This has been a fun challenge because, so far, I’ve yet to start hunting down locations at all. It’s interesting to see where I’m reading. But soon… the pressure builds, and I think I’m going to have to start searching for some of these locations. It’s funny to see what’s been easy and what’s been difficult; I’m not surprised that Texas (home state), Louisiana (neighbor), New York, and California (big, important states) were easy to take care of. But I was surprised to see places like Nebraska and Connecticut get ticked off so easily. It will certainly be an interesting game to pull it all together in the final weeks of December!

The Classics Challenge is hosted by Courtney at Stiletto Storytime, and I signed up for the bachelor’s degree level, meaning 10 classics in 2011. It’s been a great motivator for me this year. I’ve read:

  1. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
  2. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  4. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  5. Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
  6. Don Quixote by Cervantes (just part one for now, but the rest is to come, I promise)
  7. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  8. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
  9. Othello by William Shakespeare
  10. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (just parts one and two so far, the rest to come by mid-October)

HEY look at me! I finished this one with months to spare! Yay classics! I did, of course, read a number of very short classics – the two Shakespeare plays, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Tender Buttons (short, but not quick!!), and Main Street of moderate length. But I think Gone With the Wind and Don Quixote should more than compensate. I think there will be more to come, too. Why stop here? (I did do some post-bacc English coursework after my BA and before my MLS. I guess I won’t stop at the bachelor’s level of this challenge, either. :)) I’ve got Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood going on audio as we speak!

What’s In a Name? is hosted by Beth Fish Reads. The goal is to read books with certain title attributes.

Wow! Another one! I tell you, when I started drafting this “challenge update” post I had no idea I’ve have 2 out of 3 completed this early. Very exciting.

So now it’s just down to the Where Are You Reading? challenge. I knew that one would be a doozy. Soon, it might be time to start seeking books out by state, sigh.

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