Today I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I loved it. It is beautiful. I think my favorite thing about it is the story could be incredibly depressing, but Smith writes in such a matter-of-fact way (when it could be very sentimental) that that's not the case. The story flows like life; things happen - good and bad - and the characters get on with it.

I read this book incredibly slowly. I'm not sure why. When I would sit down with it, I could read pages and pages, but then I'd put it down for a few days before picking it up again. Maybe it's because I was sick. Maybe it's because I didn't want it to end. Maybe the book demanded to be read in small chunks rather than devoured over two days. I don't know.

Now I'm reading St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell. It's short stories. I've read two so far. They're interesting. I think I'll reserve judgment until I finish all of the stories.

I read Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli today. It's a book that I often looked at, thought about reading but never did. I don't know why. It was very good, as every Jerry Spinelli is (that I've read anyway). I like that he deals with heavy topics, like race and death, without being heavy handed about it.And his characters are always interesting. Maniac Magee reminded me in bits and pieces of Stargirl. They're both larger than life characters who seem to exist outside the world they're placed in.

I'm counting this as my "read a book by your favorite author" for the 4 Month Challenge. I don't think I technically have a favorite author, but I have enjoyed all of Jerry Spinelli's books, so I figure that's good enough.

PS As I was writing the bit about heavy topics, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. I wrote something similar in my review of When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt. I'm sure I'll write it again at some point, as I think this is one indication of great YA literature.

I finished Othello today. This is the slowest I've ever read a Shakespeare play. I think for the next one, I'm going to just take an afternoon and read the whole play. When I picked the book back up I often found that I had forgotten what had happened in the last part I had read. All in all it wasn't bad though. I think my opinion of it will be higher if I ever reread it (there's precedence... I enjoyed Hamlet and King Lear more the second times around).

I'm slowly making my way through A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I haven't been feeling great lately, so I've been watching a lot of TV instead of reading. Hopefully I'll be feeling better soon and the reading will pick up again.

I know that I've mentioned that I am terrible at reviewing books. And I am. I thought my reviewing skills were something I wanted to improve this year, but they're not.

I do review books on goodreads, so it seems silly for me to simply repeat myself here. If you want to read my reviews, head over there. I'm pretty good about updating my page.

That being said, I finished Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki today and am starting A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and possibly Othello by Shakespeare tomorrow.

In other news, I watched my second full episode of Leverage today, and I'm hooked. I am also in love with Parenthood but am extremely sad that Peter Krause and Lauren Graham play siblings. Before I knew that fact, I totally thought they were going to hook up. But I haven't given up hope yet.

Good-bye, 2010

I just finished rereading The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares.

Here's a little recap of my reading year:
Number of books read: 71 (22 were rereads)
Number of pages read: 19,256
Favorite book read: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

The 4 Month Challenge, December review:
I read eight books for a total of 75 points.

And that's it for 2010. Hope 2011's even better.

Out with a Bang Readathon Update 2

I finished The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I love the whole series. I read each one when I was (almost) the same age as the characters. I think Ann Brashares does a great job of capturing what it is to be a teenage girl. I'm always amazed when adults get it right. I've already forgotten what it was to be a teenager (so much that I don't think I could convincingly write about being a teenager), but rereading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants brought me right back to when I was 15. This is partly because of nostalgia but mostly because of Brashares's ability to convey both the joys and pains of being a teenager.

I'm now torn between what I should read next. As I was reading Sisterhood, I had the overwhelming desire to read the second novel and to read Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (which also has a sequel). I think I'm going to try and squeeze in Stargirl tonight and possibly start another novel. We'll see how that goes.

MINI UPDATE

I think I have to give up the idea that I will finish reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books. I got no reading done this morning. We took down our Christmas tree instead. And now I'm off to a basketball game (Stanford vs UConn... it's going to be big). Since that has basically eaten up my entire day, I'm going to try and finish Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli and The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares before the new year. Two books seems manageable. Three might have been possible, but I also want to hang out with my family/do things other than read in the last two days of 2010.

Out with a Bang Readathon update

I started The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I'm hoping to finish all four by the new year, but at the rate I'm going I might make it through two. I also wanted to reread The Last Summer (of You and Me) but I highly doubt that will happen. I know I could at least get through all the Traveling Pants books if I just sit and read, but there are so many other things that need doing too. Maybe I'm just bad at readathons.

I'm still working my way through The King of Attolia. If The Queen of Attolia is all about war and battles (I know I said it was about politics, but I'm taking that back). The King of Attolia is all about politics. It sounds boring, fake politics in a fake world, but I can't stop reading. Probably because it doesn't feel fake. The characters and their problems feel very real. I might just have to stay up until I finish it.

In other news, today is the start of the Out with a Bang Readathon (it runs from Dec 29-31). I just decided to join. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a few more rereads so I'll be ready to start on my TBR pile (and the TBR Dare) come January 1.

I finished The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner around midnight last night. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner has a twist at the end, but I had forgotten that Turner did the same in TQoA. I'm now rereading The King of Attolia, trying to get in all my rereads before the new year when I might participate in this challenge. We'll see how the next week goes.

And to end this post here's The Queen and the Soldier by Suzanne Vega. Turner's books always make me think of this song. 

I'm on a reading roll lately. I think it helps that I 1) only read two five books in November and 2) am rereading children's books from my youth.

I just finished The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I loved this book. I wasn't so young the first time I read it (I was 14 I think?). I also read The Queen of Attolia around this time. I then kind of forgot about the books until a few years (maybe six?) later when I realized there was another book in the series and one more to be published.

I bought The King of Attolia and read it a couple of summers ago. I enjoyed it but was struck by how slow it was and how much of the book was about politics.

Rereading The Thief, I realize that it was much the same as The King of Attolia (maybe substitute politics for geography in this one though). It was so slow, most of the book is description of the geography of the countries as the characters travel through them, one of the most exciting parts is downplayed as it's happening and is only relayed to the reader through a story told after the fact. It actually has a lot of elements that I hated in Lord of the Rings (yes, I hate them). But for some reason I loved the book when I was younger (it's a great story despite my complaints above) and I can't hate it now.

I'm hoping to get through The Queen of Attolia soon. I don't remember liking that one as much as The Thief. I can't even remember the story. Hopefully it won't disappoint.

Warning: This review contains minor (mostly vague) spoilers. 

I recently reread When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt. I first read it one summer - I think I was eleven or twelve - while I was staying at my grandmother's house. I liked it a lot.

When I started rereading it - a decade later - I thought I felt like I was reading an entirely different book.

I was amazed at the small details I remembered, Scarlett's lip gloss, Kate's POW bracelets, Juan's five iron. But I had forgotten whole characters and story lines. I thought there was much more about Toby (the main character) and his crush in the story. I completely forgot that his mother is absent the entire time.

However, I liked the book just as much the second time around, maybe more. It made me nostalgic for my own childhood when I first read it. But it also made me nostalgic for a childhood I never had (the book is set in a small town in Texas in 1971).
 
I also like that Holt writes about heavy subjects - the book touches on death, divorce, obesity/otherness, adolescence - without feeling preachy. There is a subtlety - Holt never beats her reader over the head with a message of acceptance - and a simplicity to her writing that make this book a good read for anyone (although that could be the nostalgia talking).

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

Happy Guy Fawkes Day everyone!

This week has been crazy, so I dug out one of my favorite books, The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier. I've reread it almost every year since I first read it.

I like to read something familiar when life gets crazy (as it always does around this time of year, what with school in the past, work in the present and the holidays always). This year I have the added stress of trying to complete NaNoWriMo around strange schedules, practices, family dinners and trips. I'm already over 2,000 words behind. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up between today and Sunday.

New Challenge?

I'm thinking of joining this challenge. I currently am challenging myself to read the books I own but haven't read. I'm going to wait until closer to the end of the year to sign up (if I do decide to sign up). That way I can see how many books I read this year and gauge my level according to that.

In other news my body has been rebelling these last few days. I don't know what's up. Probably an allergic reaction to something. It's not fun though. Luckily it hasn't happened while at work (knock on wood).

And I started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I'm only 13 pages in. This is one of my first crime fictions. I hope I like it because I already bought the other two.

An open question from The View from Saturday: 

"If you could live one day of your life all over again, what day would it be? And why?"

I don't know what day I would live over again. I think I focus on bad things much more than good things, so most of the days that really stand out in my mind don't seem that great. I might relive a day from when I was living in the UK, or a day in Hawaii.

Also, my choice depends whether that day would be exactly the same (in which case I would choose a good day) or if I could change anything (in which case I would pick the worst day of my life).

However, I think if it were a good day, I would be alone (make of that what you will) and if it was the worst day of my life, I would try to correct my one regret.

And what I'm reading now: I started rereading A Horse and His Boy (my least favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia) but I might give up and reread Lamb by Christopher Moore or The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold instead. Or perhaps something else will become my next read by tomorrow. We'll see.

I've been writing lame reviews of books as I finish them here, but I think I'm going to stop that. I already write lame reviews on my goodreads account. If you're interested, there's a link in this post and on my page. If I ever get better/have the sudden desire to post the same thing in two places on the internet (it's been known to happen occasionally here and on my tumblr), I might start up again.

However, I do want to put the books I am reading up here still. It gives my "what I'm reading" tag a purpose. Also, I care more about what everyone else is reading than about what they think about it (I'm shallow like that).

Today I finished Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech and started The View from Saturday by EL Konigsburg. I'm trying to decide what to read after I finish this. I had an epiphany this weekend but did not write it down so I of course promptly forgot it. Here's to hoping it returns soon (along with my ability to construct a readable sentence).

I just finished The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Fun fact: Ellen Raskin illustrated the original book jacket of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. It was really interesting. In the beginning I had trouble keeping all the characters straight (there are a lot of characters). But once I got into it, the mystery kept me reading. It's like Clue (the movie) with an element of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl thrown in.

This was the fiftieth book I read this year. I reached my goal of reading 50 books this year and 8 books this month. I read a lot of children's lit though (aka shorter books), so I'm a little more than a thousand pages short of my 15,000 page goal. Something to work on in November and December (not that I'll stop reading this month...). 

Another goal: to read a (preferably a new to me) Newbery Medal winner from every decade. When You Reach Me and The Westing Game get me started with... the 2010s (is that right?) and the 1970s.

It was that or to read every Newbery Medal winner from one decade. Maybe I'll tackle that one next year I only have to read three new books to complete the 1990s,* but I'll probably tackle the 2000s. I've only read one of those.**

*The three I haven't read are Maniac MaGee by Jerry Spinelli, Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, and Missing May by Cynthia Rylant.
** The one I have read is The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

I just finished When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and it is the most beautiful thing I've read in a while. I wish it had been written ten years earlier so I could have read it when I was 12. This book is like an old friend I've just met (to steal from Gonzo), and it's made me want to give five stars to every children's book I've ever read.

Even though I wasn't surprised by the ending, I'm confident I could reread this book many times and still take away something different, or notice something I missed the last time I read it. Also, it doesn't hurt that this book references A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle several times (I totally have a signed copy of A Wrinkle in Time that also says Tesser Well).

This book was also great because it broke me out of the reading slump I hit after the read-a-thon when I started Watership Down (aka Lord of the Rings with rabbits). Hopefully my next reads (probably Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech with some Watership Down thrown in with the hopes that I'll actually finish it) will keep this ball rolling. One more book to 50 for the year!

I finished The Catcher in the Rye by today. It was OK. It took me four days to finish though. When I was reading it, it was easy to read. When I wasn't reading it, it was hard to pick up.

Also, when I started reading it I realized I knew NOTHING about the plot. No one really talks about what happens in the book (maybe because not much happens in the book). People always talk about how much they love or hate Holden Caulfield. At times I thought he was a genius and at times I thought he was the most annoying character ever.

I'm off to start The Great Gatsby now. I read parts of it when I was a junior in high school (I think I even wrote a paper on it), but I've never read it all the way through.

And just for a laugh, here's the Book-A-Minute summary for The Catcher in the Rye:

Holden Caulfield Angst angst angst swear curse swear crazy crazy angst swear curse, society sucks, and I'm a stupid jerk.

Banned Books Week

Like the title of this post says, this week is Banned Books Week. Read more about it here.

Also, here is a list of classics that have been banned or challenged. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne is on this list as a challenged book... which tells me that some people are seriously deranged.

In honor of the week (which I just learned about five minutes ago, so pardon my lack of information), I will read at least one of the books on the list. I'm going to try reading The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. I started it once before but feel that I've missed the right time in my life to read the book. We'll see if I'm right or if I can still appreciate it even though I'm not 16 any more.

If I finish that or decide that I want to read a different book, I'm going to read The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald.

Happy reading to everyone whether you're reading a banned book this week or not.