Teaser Tuesday

From The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, page 711.

Black, roaring silences swam sickeningly through his shattered mind. He knew with a kind of resigned certainty that he would survive, because he had not yet been to Stavromula Beta.

I'm so close to being done with this series and I can't wait to find out how it ends.

Interview with Emma Donoghue, author of "Room"

Nice review of Emma Donoghue's Room over at The New York Times. I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this book at BEA and just fell head-over-heels in love with it. Just a fantastic story (and great cover art*, which was why I picked it up in the first place) and in my opinion it really deserves all of the attention it's been getting lately (reviews at Bookish NYC and Reading Matters, and it was shortlisted for the Man Booker 2010).




*my copy of Room has a white cover, with "Room" written in different colors, like a five-year-old would.

September is actually off to a good start

It's only the 8th and I've already read five titles. If this keeps up (and it's highly unlikely), this might be my best month yet.

Once upon my dystopian summer

Leila has posted an amazing looking list over at her blog of ya dystopian books to read post-Mockingjay. Reading through it, I found that I haven't read most of these books, much less heard of them. The rock I've been spending my "free" time under had been particularly solid lately.

As I picked up Mockingjay at the NYPL this afternoon, I'll have to hold off new books until after I've had a chance to find out how this trilogy ends. (Will Katniss become the figurehead of District 13? Does President Snow really drink the blood of babies? Does Peeta survive? Will the drinking game--via Forever Young Adult--enhance the book or just ensure that I'm dehydrated?) I'm not going to let myself read it until the weekend, which will hopefully be nice and sunny (Hurricane Earl, if you're listening, please go away by Saturday night) so I can sit outside and enjoy the end of my summer.

*Update: I picked up Girl in the Arena last night at B&N. It was interesting...not quite what I expected though. Review to come.

Reading in verse

Recently, a few coworkers and I have started sharing books that we find interesting. It's worked out surprisingly well so far; we each have a chance to read something new and it doesn't cost us anything. While I've been loaning out the ARCs I picked up at BEA, my coworker loaned me Dante's The Divine Comedy, part 1: Hell. I'd never read it, despite always saying that I would, so when I saw that she was nearly done with it, I asked to borrow it.

I'd forgotten what a chore it can be to read verse. It's so much work! The best way, I found, was to read it like I was going to be reading it aloud, pausing only where there was a punctuation mark. That helped, and I found it much easier reading. (Note: that still doesn't mean it was easy reading. I think I understood maybe half of that whole story, even with the notes and illustrations at the end of each canto.) I'm hoping Part 2: Purgatory will be slightly easier reading. I know it'll be less depressing.

The haul

I'm going on record as saying this was my best BEA yet.*

I walked away with five tote bags, one umbrella, and fifteen books. Yup, fifteen books. One of the senior editors at work chastised me a bit, saying that "books are for the buyers," but I ignored her. The way I see it, the books at BEA are for buyers and poor peons like me, the ones who get paid pennies, work long hours, and grab the perks where we can get them. And a free book is always a perk to me.

Out of the fifteen books I picked up, I've very excited about reading By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan. I had read a review about it earlier this week and thought it sounded very interesting. By a fluke chance, I found myself at the Other Press booth on Wednesday, where they were not only giving away the book, but had the author signing copies. Totally fate. I queued up and got a signed copy. I've only read the first twenty pages or so, but I'm already hooked.

Other books from BEA that I'm (especially) looking forward to reading are The Holy Thief by William Ryan (Minotaur), Satori by Don Winslow (Grand Central Publishing), The Last Speakers by K. David Harrison (National Geographic), and The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent (Reagan Arthur Books). Oh, and Poisonville by Massimo Carlotto (Europa Editions); it sounds like a modern version of Dante's Inferno and the cover art is just amazing.

*It was also my first BEA, but that's just a minor detail.

Realizing a truth can be interesting.

It's slowly dawned on me that the novels I'm choosing to read have all been mysteries. It wasn't a conscious decision, but looking over the list of books I've read this year, there are only a handful that aren't mysteries.

I suppose I lulled myself into thinking I wasn't reading mysteries because they weren't the type of mysteries I had been reading, with police officers and private detectives. So much for branching out.

Still, I can't really complain about this, because if I didn't subconsciously sabotage myself into reading nothing but mysteries, I wouldn't have read the Julian Kestrel series by Kate Ross, or the Sebastian St. Cyr series by C.S. Harris. I wouldn't have read The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault, which gave me words like editrix. And sentences like this, on page 320:

I tried not to despair too much in the notion that this holding pattern of identical days might eat up life while I waited for weekends.*

I would have read the Marilyn Todd titles, but I wouldn't have remembered her if I hadn't read the collection of short mystery stories, which I only read because it featured a story by Kate Ross. (And let's not forget that the Marilyn Todd titles are mysteries.)

So maybe I should just accept that I like to read mysteries and move on. To reading another mystery.

What? It's not like I don't have a stack of them waiting for me.

*Sadly, I find this sentence to be closer to my life sometimes than I'd like.

Victory is mine!

Read Silver Borne yesterday, which brings my total books read for the month to fourteen!

I feel very, very accomplished right now.

Monthly Update

And, just like last month, I did not meet my reading goals for the month. In fact, I read one less than I did in January.

Books read in February: 7
Books read total in 2010: 15
Books that should have been read so far in 2010: 28

I'm breaking my own promise

Argh. Remember that time when I said I wasn't going to do any reading challenges this year? All of what, two months ago?

Yeah, I'm breaking it.

I've had this urge to reread the Harry Potter series for a month or so now and while I've been struggling to suppress it, it's not going away.

So, I figure I might as well join the Harry Potter Reading Challenge while I'm at it. It ends July 31, 2010, so I've got plenty of time to finish.

I cannot believe I broke on this so early in 2010. Shame. Shame on me.

Except, not really. It's going to be so much fun.

One year ago

...I broke down my reading for 2008. I'd read 168 books that year and my goal was to add ten books to that number in 2009.

I read sixty-eight books in 2009. Sixty-eight books. I can't even begin to wrap my head around this small, pitifully tiny number. Sixty-eight books.

Do you think I'll jinx myself (again) if I say I'm going to read 178 books in 2010?

_____________________________________________________________

Sassymonkey just posted her 2010 reading goals, which got me thinking about my own. I've already sworn off reading challenges this year, have already stated my desire to read more military nonfiction, need to finish reading the books I started last year (like Mere Christianity and Bleak House--actually, Bleak House should be started from the beginning, if we're being honest, it's been that long.), need to read 2666 (my roommate gave the set to me eleven months ago and I haven't started it), and I too should spend some time reading the books on my shelves.

That's good, right? I should be able to hit 178 books. That's only ... 14.8 books per month ... 3.7 books per week ... .5 books a day...

Wistful

Every month Colleen posts another list of books at Bookslut for teens and every month I wish (again) for more free time so I could just read them already.

So it's November

And I think that no matter how much I want to post fun, interesting things, it's not going to happen this month.

I literally don't have enough hours in the day.

So instead: Teaser Tuesday

From The Light in High Places by Joe Hutto, page 89:

At Kathy's, a biologist can pull a plastic container from her refrigerator, casually sit down at the dinning room table, and spend two hours sorting through a hundred ziplock bags filled with fecal samples from bighorn sheep, mountain lions, and bears, and she will never bat an eye. "Make sure my cats don't get into that."

I know, a nonfiction book about biologists in Wyoming studying the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep; so not my usual taste. But I'm branching out, or trying to anyway.




Disclaimer: No one asked me to read and review. And it's my book.

Tuesday Teaser Times Two

Hee, I love alliteration!

The Return by Victoria Hislop. I've only just started this, so my random page isn't going to be super random (I don't want to spoil myself!)

Page 49:

Purposefully, she strode toward the sunniest table and sat down. She hastily scribbled the postcard to her father and then began to read her guidebook. It seemed that the city had much more to offer than the famed Alhambra and its gardens.

Dear Mr Unabomber by Ray Cavanaugh. Again, a book I've just started reading, so I think this teaser will also be from the first third of the book.

Page 44:

I tried to console her, but then it dawned on me that I was supposed to be angry. I was actually getting a bit irritated by her histrionics. I went to her refrigerator and began helping myself to some of her food. There was a package of brownies I knew she liked, and I ate them all.

Sick, sick, sick

Sick, sick, sick...

From over at A Work in Progress, Danielle is recommending her recent read, “We Were Young and At War,” which looks very good. I’m adding that to my library queue.

I finished my reread of “Good Omens” and I have to say that it was funnier the second time around. That dry, British humor gets me every time.

I’ve started reading two new books, “The Return” by Victoria Hislop—found this one on a newsletter I subscribe to—and “Dear Mr. Unabomber” by Ray Cavanaugh. I’ll be posting reviews this week, and snippets tomorrow!

I think I’m trying to cram everything I want to read—and can get my hands on—into October, because I know once November starts, I’m not going to have any free time left, not with NaNoWriMo taking up all my non-work and non-sleep time. Oh, the insanity that is NaNoWriMo.

I can’t wait!

Ill, ill, ill

And for this, someone must pay. I'm thinking... biblically.

Since my brain has been nothing but cotton wool for days now, bullets!

• National Book Foundation has released the finalists for the 2009 award.
• I read the last three books in the Sookie Stackhouse series over the weekend while on cold medicine.
• Summers at Castle Auburn is as good around the eighth time as it was the sixith.
• The FTC is not going away, although they are, because we bloggers are responsible people. (Thanks for the tip, Mr. Wilson.)
• NaNo is getting closer and closer and I'm so not ready to write anything worth writing right now. (Stupid cold.)
• Neil Gaiman is a very smart man: "When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning. (From Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions)
• Regarding above, I need new career goals. I miss sleeping in.

Picked up

I swung by the library on Tuesday to return a few items and as I was leaving, spotted an old favorite on a shelf, Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn. It's has been a delightful read this time around--my sixth or seventh--and I enjoy it all the more for the slow way that Shinn gives us pieces of the overall plot.

I may read it again this weekend.

TGIF!

Finished the most recent Maisie Dobbs book, Among the Mad, last night. I was hesitant to read it because I disliked the last one so much, but I was quite pleased with the latest story. I'll post a review this weekend.

Only about halfway through Cut to the Quick. I didn't get any reading done last night and it's killing me, having to wait to find out who those people were talking in the snippet I put up! I plan to finish the book this weekend.

I'm taking Collected Stories by Wallace Stegner as my new subway book. I have no idea who this man was, but I remember reading an article about his death in the NYT and decided check out some of his stuff. This collection looks quite promising.

Hot off the press

Hee! Not only do I have an awesome interview for you (see my previous post!), but I'm holding an advance copy of Ilona Andrews' On the Edge.

*wards off the grabby hands*

My day, it just keeps getting better.

PS: Thank you, Ilona, and thank you, publicist at Penguin.

Quickly

I cannot believe I jammed my finger again by playing (touch) rugby. Seriously, you'd have thought I had learned my lesson last time. (Sadly, I didn't. Maybe this time the lesson will stick.)

I used to love, love, love mysteries when I was younger; I devoured them, reading them through as quickly as I could before moving on to the next one. I used to hand them to my mother was done; I turned her on to A.E. Maxwell and J.A. Jance that way. Sadly, as I grew older, I became less interested in mysteries and turned towards science fiction; I can't figure out why. Is it because the mystery plots became outlandish or because after a while, they all sort of seemed the same? (Hmm, I think I answered my own question there.)

And now, science fiction is leaving me bored and I'm hunting for new things to read. Cycles, gotta love them. In an effort to inspire myself, reading wise, I've turned back to mysteries... and I really mean back. I'm going to read all the classics, things I've never read but should have, like Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple Series." (I don't think I'll read the other ones, featuring the french detective; he leaves me cold. Kind of like the guy on "Law & Order: CI." You know the one I mean, the white, brown-haired detective who ALWAYS figures it out. I don't like that character.)

Anyway... as I mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of the "Miss Marple Mysteries" on PBS and when I realized I had hit another reading rut, I thought why not read those books? True, I'll know how some of them are going to end, but there have been enough changes in the televisionization of the novels that even knowing whodunnit, it'll still be a new story to me. I'm starting with Murder at the Vicarage and Why Didn't They Ask Evans?. I also picked up a non-Marple book, The A.B.C. Murders. Hopefully they'll keep me occupied for a week, which is what I need, since I'm going home to visit family for two weeks after that.

(Note to self: Tap & Gown should be bought, and soon!)

Well, damn. Looks like I'm a liar, because The A.B.C. Murders features that french detective guy. Now what do I do? Suck it up and read the book anyway, or return the book unread because the french detective guy pisses me off?

(Yes, I know that the french detective guy's name is actually Hercule Poirot. I just like my way of naming better.)