Recent Reads

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by JK Rowling - short, easy read, and some illumination on the world of Harry Potter, but I'd recommend for fans of the series only.

The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner - excellent. I'm looking forward to reading the two follow-ups.

Here Lies Arthur, by Philip Reeve - interesting, but I wouldn't recommend. There are so many Arthur stories out there, and frankly (this could be just me, since this story is so common), it's not compelling to me.

Halloween Party Menu

This is a bit late, but I thought I'd post it anyway so I'd have a chance of finding it next year:

-Wormy Orange Punch
-Constricting Snake Bites
-Bloodshot Deviled Eyeballs (we made to look like bloodshot eyes with red food coloring instead of pimento)
-Spiderweb Nacho Spread: layered Mexican dip with sour cream spiderweb drizzled on top
-Broccoli Boo Salad
-Spider Pretzels
-Cat Cookies 1 or Cat Cookies 2
-Ghosts in the Graveyard
-Popcorn Gloves

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is awesome. My favorite book is The Lorax. I recently checked it out from the library and read it with T, who's almost three and beginning to read. Yes, really.

Green Eggs and Ham has been a favorite with him for some time - he likes to flip through and try to remember the lines as he looks at the pages. This morning, however, I caught him trying to read another Beginner Book, Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? He was getting most of the words. Even though I'm around him all the time, I was surprised at how well he got some of the more difficult words, and how well he guessed at some he clearly didn't know by sight.

On an inspiration, I sliced up some of the ham Meme sent us home with yesterday, and colored a small batch of scrambled eggs green with blue food coloring. (They looked like they should taste minty, but I suppose that's just the food industry tainting my taste buds again.) He was so excited to eat them, and he ran and got the book to look at after lunch.

When he proceeded to read practically the whole thing to me. He got a little frustrated at the end by some of the longer pages, which are basically all repetition anyway - I think he was just used to it going a little faster. But seriously - I've tried to teach a young child to read before, and it was not this easy. I am absolutely stunned that he is picking this up with seemingly little interference on my (or anyone's) part.

So, an idea is born: theme meals. We've been working on T eating more variety (as previously mentioned, he likes everything sweet - breakfast foods, desserts, fruits...and not so much meat and veggies). He's already pretty clear on not liking beef very much, and he just won't give non-French fry-potatoes a fair shake. But other than that, we've been doing pretty well with the "you have to try a bite of everything on your plate" rule.

So, why not have a "letter of the day" like Sesame Street, and plan some part of the meal to revolve around that letter? Zucchini for Z Day, for example, or Cauliflower for C Day (except then I'd have to eat cauliflower, blech - one of the few veggies I do NOT like).

I'm pretty psyched about this idea, and about expanding his palate. He's surprised us already - who knew a picky 2-year-old could begin to like jicama (or spell it?), or black beans? He's got definite potential, this kid. Now, if I could just get him to like black beans and rice, or soup. So far, mixtures are beyond him. And yet, I have hope.

Currently Pondering: Upcoming Birthday Party for a Three-Year-Old Boy

Possible Themes:
Teddy Bears (something of an obsession with him)
ABCs and/or 123s (also something of an obsession, but I did this last year, so...)
Dinosaurs

It's a work-in-progress. I've still got to decide on a cake, menu, and decorations. Also, make the thank-you cards.

Which reminds me that I need to get started making my Christmas cards. Argh! And I thought I was catching up...

Update: This morning we chose a theme (based on a cake I found in one of my books). We're going to have a football theme, complete with a football field cake sporting teddy graham bear football players and goalposts made out of white-chocolate dipped pretzel rods. So awesome!

Now, I'll have to think carefully about the menu. How to balance the taste of a choosy 3-year-old who likes mostly sweet foods (when asked what he wants to eat for the meal at his birthday party, he responded "cake!") with the tastes of a group of mainly adults, some of whom don't like "breakfast for dinner" (one of my favorite meal strategies). I'll probably be trying to decide between a brunch menu vs. spaghetti or pizza. (Update: pulled pork sandwiches and cheese ball shaped like a football, and cobb salad! Exciting!)

Decor: I'm hoping I can find some blue and gold balloons and streamers. There are, after all, lots of big ND fans around here, my son included.

I'm still working on the thank-you cards. There's got to be something original I can do with them. (Update: I got blue and gold note cards and stenciled footballs on them in one corner, and stamped "Thank You" on them. They are, I think, fairly appropriate for a kid's thank-you note.)

Currently Making: Poncho

Navy/Gold/Slate Blue vertical stripes. No fringe. Crochet.

I haven't crocheted much in awhile, mainly due to my wrists hurting, but I decided to go for it with a gusto, and so far, aside from a little pain, my wrists are holding up. I'm liking what I've got so far. I'll post pics when I'm done.

Currently Reading: The Books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon

I've finished Book 1, The Naming, and have started Book 2, The Riddle.

The reviews I read compare the work to Tolkien's, and it's clear the author gave a great deal of thought about languages, customs, clothing, history, etc. (Not nearly so much as Tolkien did, but he was really in a class of his own. Who spends most of a lifetime creating mythology, history, and languages for a fictitious world? Tolkien.) There is a richness in the details in this world, and I'm excited to learn what happens to the characters.

Update:

I've now finished books two and three, and I'm eager for book four, which comes out next year. I did have some funny moments during reading; in book two, the death of one character made me laugh. No joke. As the main character laments, I found myself impatient and bored, with no sympathy for her loss. Why? I knew that the character wasn't dead.

However, I was completely blindsided by the death of a character in book three. I can't say more about that without giving away major plot points, but I was pretty ticked off when it was revealed. What a cheap plot device.

And no, that's not how I feel about the series in general. I really do enjoy the story, it's just that sometimes I feel that the author gets lazy with some of her plots, and it frustrates me. Also, the lack of emotion on the part of some of her characters at certain points makes me angry. They seem to forget about those they hold most dear when they're not in sight; it's bizarre.

Books to Read

Sigrid Undset: Kristin Lavransdatter
Ann Rinaldi: A Ride into Morning, the Story of Tempe Wick
Ann Rinaldi: Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (Phillis Wheatley)
Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Lost Prince
Ian McEwan: Atonement
Lloyd Alexander: The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio
Michael Gruber: The book of Air and Shadows
Nancy Farmer: The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm
Nancy Farmer: The House of the Scorpion
Lauren Groff: The Monsters of Templeton
Diana Wynne Jones: Drowned Ammet
Divakaruni: The Conch Bearer
Jonathon Stroud: The Golem's Eye and Ptolemy's Gate (Bartimaeus Trilogy)
Thompson: The Last of the High Kings
Robin McKinley: Chalice
Eva Ibbotson: The Dragonfly Pool
Septimus Heap: Magyk
Sharon Creech: The Castle Corona
Adam Gopnik: The King in the Window
Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book

Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel

This graphic novel confused the heck out of me. I can't really even explain what's going on with the story line, as there are two parallel stories that are so interwoven that I don't really even understand who the characters are.

Baffling and intriguing - I wish I could make heads or tails of it.

Thornspell by Helen Lowe

Ah, fairy tales. This book I picked up on a whim (okay, it was on display at the library, face-out, and the cover drew me in. And the title. And the description on the back..."A forbidden wood, an enchanted castle, a sleeping princess...and the prince destined to break the spell." Ooh!).

So, as you might guess, this is really the story of Sleeping Beauty - or rather, the prince who wakes her up. It begins well before he wakes her, and revolves around the efforts of his caretakers to keep him both alive and free from the control of Margravine zu Malvolin (pretty awesome name, btw). She's the evil witch (really of the Faie) who cast the original spell on Princess Aurora.

Anyway, this book is great. I loved every minute of it. The main character is both believable and flawed, brilliant and, at times, completely idiotic. In short, very human. He's surrounded by a cast of interesting characters, the most significant of which is Balisan, his master-at-arms, who teaches him everything a prince needs to know about defending himself - from understanding who your enemy's family is, to knowing how to swordfight. He's totally awesome.

Of course, fairy tales re-told can be awfully predictable - but this one is fresh and full of little details to keep the reader's interest. I can't wait to read more from this author (this is her first novel).

Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke

I loved Inkheart and Inkspell. Meggie and Farid, Mo and Resa - funnily enough, it is the everyday characters from our world that speak to me the most, despite their being surrounded by the fantastical creatures of the Inkworld. (Okay, okay, so Farid is technically from A Thousand and One Nights, or something, whatever.) This world is breathtaking - Funke is truly a master artist. The world she paints is vivid and shocking, at once beguilingly innocent and treacherously evil. Meggie is just a beautiful character - of course, we see a lot of her point of view; she's just the age of the target audience for this book. And it's really a story about how she grows up in the completely frightening world inside a book. Her father, Mo/Silvertongue/Blujay, has the power of reading aloud and making characters from books appear in our world. And of making things from our world disappear into books - which is what happens numerous times to various characters during this series.

But back to Meggie. I could listen to her thoughts all day. She's strong and brave (quality character traits for a young girl, and she wears them well). She's fiercely loyal and loving. People seem to act differently around her. She's special - I can't seem to put it any other way.

Yes, terrible things happen. Though Meggie is in love with Farid, his feelings are unknown. He clearly likes Meggie a good deal; but then, he doesn't seem to mind kissing the maids terribly much. His motives are beyond my ken. (I love that expression.) I hope to find a happily-ever-after for Meggie and Farid, Mo and Resa, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. The Inkworld is fraught with peril and bloodshed, and I'm a little nervous that not everyone will make it out alive.

Update: Yes, there is a happily-ever-after (of sorts). The resolution with Farid made me sad, but he should have seen it coming. It was really his decisions that led to the outcome.

Funnily enough, though, I can't really see this story as a happily-ever-after that way. I wonder if the author has some more Inkworld tales up her sleeve, perhaps to do with Meggie's little brother...I'd read them.

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman

I read Climbing the Stairs this week. The time period is so fascinating - around the time when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, but in British-occupied India. The main character is a girl named Vidya. Her family is progressive and open-minded; her father even tells her he plans to send her to college. But a terrible accident causes her father to become mentally incapacitated. Her family goes to live at the home of the very traditional grandfather and his sons' families. There, the men live upstairs, and the women live downstairs. The women cook and clean and tend to children, while the men work and study and listen to the wireless. Only during festivals do the sexes mingle.

There, Vidya discovers her grandfather's off-limits (to the women) library, and meets a young man named Raman. In a fairly predictable fashion, Vidya pushes her boundaries and receives permission to study in the library, and Raman falls in love with her.

The setting is what is so intriguing and beguiling about this book. The customs and culture of this place - so completely foreign to the world I live in - are so fascinating. I couldn't get enough. The ending is fairly conventional, in terms of coming-of-age stories, but it is the richness of India itself that will remain with me long after the names and circumstances of the characters fade away from my memory.

One caveat: I wanted Raman to be the man Vidya expected him to be, and I was a little disappointed by some of his ideas and expectations. But I loved that he was willing to consider himself in the wrong - that he allowed his ideas to change - based on his friendship with Vidya. It is so rare that a strong female character can have that kind of influence on a male character, especially given the time period.

I'd love to find more interesting books set in India. Got any suggestions?

Howl's Moving Castle

I recently read Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I very much liked the characters and the setting. Sophie is the eldest daughter of a hatmaker, who dies and leaves the girls - and their mother - without adequate funds to live on. The two younger sisters apprentice out, and Sophie stays at home to make hats for her mother's shop. One day, the Witch of the Waste comes into the shop and turns Sophie into an old woman. Sophie, realizing she can't continue her narrow, confined existence any longer, sets out to make her way in the world. She marches off, and finds a job - actually, forces her way into a job - cleaning castle for Wizard Howl. He may be infamous for eating the hearts of young, beautiful girls, but Sophie thinks she'll be safe with him, since she now has the body of a ninety-year-old woman (and she wasn't much to look on in the first place).

I really dug these characters. Sophie goes from a quiet little mouse of a girl who can only make hats to a strong, determined, fierce woman. Michael, Howl's apprentice, is a hoot. He seems as baffled by his master as Sophie. Calcifer, the fire demon who is bound to serve Howl, is amazingly developed for such a being - he has personality, likes and dislikes, and he definitely has a heart, whatever the story says.

The secondary characters and storylines are also compelling. Lettie and Martha as Sophie's sisters develop from cardboard cutouts into interesting people, and Howl's mysterious past could merit another book. (I'd love to find out about his life in Wales before he became Wizard Howl.) Everything eventually gets woven together into a big, confusing, mysterious story that, ultimately, makes sense together. It's fun to read. Also, there's a hint of romance and some very keen scenes wherein Sophie realizes something very important about herself.

I took a look at the manga based on the novel, and I was disappointed. The characters are all jumbled up, the story line has been muddied with some kind of bizarre modern warfare that completely destroys the bucolic setting of the novel, and it's just weird. Starting and ending at the same place as the novel, but completely going off the rails on a crazy train in the middle. If I get a chance, I'll watch the movie the manga is based on, but I'm not expecting anything much from it.

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy

I recently finished books two and three of the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray. I really, really enjoyed book one (A Great and Terrible Beauty), and was so pleased that book two (Rebel Angels) continued to shine. However, I was so disappointed with the ending of the story (as told in The Sweet Far Thing), that it fairly ruined the series for me.

Okay, so I always had some serious misgivings about certain aspects of the stories. Such as how Gemma and her friends seem extremely cavalier about how they use the magic, both within the Realms and in our own world. Also, Gemma and her friends are shockingly unsupervised for young ladies of breeding in Victorian England. Don't even get me started about the implausibility of some of the things they do.

Here's my major problem, though: I'm just a sucker for a good coming-of-age love story, and this one had a doozy. Gemma and Kartik are lovely characters, and their developing romance is sweet and real. The fact that any relationship between them is impossible in the society in which they live - Indians at that time being considered by the English as lowly, inferior beings fit only for service - makes it forbidden and dangerous. But, as with so much in the Realms, anything seems possible. SPOILER ALERT! I so dearly wanted them to end up together. The climax of the book, when they go to the Winterlands to destroy the Tree of All Souls, made me feel cheated and betrayed by the author. Seriously - I don't know how she can consider that an acceptable ending. It doesn't even make sense.

In short, I can't recommend this book. I wanted so very much to like it, but in the end, I was disappointed by the completely bizarre ending.

The Tapestry trilogy

I just finished reading the second book in The Tapestry trilogy, The Second Siege (the third book is due next year). I had a lengthy discussion with C about whether or not the series was a Harry Potter rip-off. While I have to say that there are many similarities, there are a number of differences.

The major difference, to me, anyway, is that The Tapestry books are rooted firmly in mythology. Now, don't get me wrong - Rowling is also clearly a student of mythology, and she draws on that knowledge. But The Tapestry books draw on these myths for major characters and story lines. The main character, Max McDaniels, is Cuchulain reborn, and he's frequently referred to as "the Hound of Rowan" (also the name of book one of the series). He and his roommate at Rowan, an academy for "gifted" students (really those with a talent for magic), get themselves caught up in incredible and very dangerous adventures to protect their school and the world at large from the Demon Astaroth.

Although some of the characters come across as stock characters, these are pretty good reads, and I enjoyed them. I'll be looking forward to book three.

Movie Review: Persuasion (BBC)

I watched Jane Austen's Persuasion the other night - the 2007 version that was shown on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre this past year. I also saw recently another version (1995), with Ciarin Hinds as Captain Wentworth.

I definitely liked the 2007 version better, and this mainly revolves around my dislike of Hinds as a romantic lead. Anyone who's seen a film adaptation of an Austen novel knows that the male lead is inevitably brooding. Hinds just comes across as antagonistic - something that I also found watching him play Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. He doesn't even really come across as likable at the end of the story.

Twilight series

I just re-read the first two books in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, Twilight and New Moon. I certainly don't classify this series as classic literature or anything like that - even I was a little freaked out that I was reading a romance story that revolved around vampires and werewolves. But I do have to say that Meyer definitely tells a good story and gives you realistic characters to sink your teeth into. (Har.)

I've read some reviews that really pull Bella apart as a character, claiming she's not a believable character and that she's selfish and lets Edward tell her what to do. (This is actually why I re-read these books - I didn't remember feeling that Bella was such a whiny push-over.) And I have to say that while the Bella in New Moon is definitely a complete basket case over Edward, it's not without reason - he did leave her, and manage to convince her that he'd never come back. Other than that, I found Bella to be a very strong, believable character. She continually holds her own against vampires and werewolves, and her plan for escaping James in Twilight is way more realistic than any of the vampires'.

Edward, however, does tick me off in New Moon. I mean, for a guy who professes undying love for Bella, what the hell is he doing leaving her all alone and completely undefended? Even if he felt he had to leave, he definitely should have had some sort of contingency plan for keeping an eye on Bella, who is, after all, incapable of going anywhere or doing anything without falling down and hurting herself. Oh yeah - and some vampires have already tried to kill her.

I keep thinking back to my reading of the last two books in the series as well (I read the fourth book when it came out in August, so that's pretty fresh in my mind). Two comments: first, what the hell is with the name Reneesme?!? Second, Jacob imprinting on Reneesme still freaks me out. Not even just that he'd been all about Bella until R. showed up (by being born), but just the fact that she's an infant. I mean, come on. I know it's not even necessarily supposed to be a romantic thing on the werewolf's part, but it's still icky.

But, all criticisms aside, I loved these books. Stephenie Meyer is an amazing storyteller, and Bella and Edward are great characters. I could wish that they weren't quite so inward-oriented, since that leads to bad things; and also, the pace of Twilight is almost laughable. They dance around one another for months, barely speaking and brooding almost continuously, and then suddenly they declare that they're beyond boyfriend/girlfriend and Bella is part of the Cullen family. And then, practically the next minute, they're racing to save Bella from the tracker James. But then, it's fiction - which many reviewers don't seem to have a strong grasp on.

My Favorites

Everyone who loves books has a list in their head of their "favorite" books. Sometimes they're books that they come back to again and again, and some are books that struck a chord at a certain stage of their life. Here's my list of favorites:

JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings trilogy
JK Rowling, The Harry Potter series
CS Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia series
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
LM Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables series and Emily of New Moon series
Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma
Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising series

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

I can remember my first reading of each of these books or series very vividly. It's amazing how just thinking about a certain book can spark a flood of memories about what was going on in my life when I was reading it.

The Sisters Grimm

I just finished the fifth and sixth books in the series The Sisters Grimm, called Magic and Other Misdemeanors and Tales from the Hood. Each of the books in this series (there are six already published, with at least two more to come) is a fast read. There's lots of action, mystery, suspense, and fairy tale characters who turn out to be real. The Sisters Grimm are two young girls (Sabrina and Daphne) who are descendants of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who wrote the fairy tales.

Some of the characterizations within the series can be a bit one-dimensional, but at least some of this is due to point of view issues (the main character is Sabrina, and she's got some serious issues with trust and her inability to allow certain other people to have an opinion or make a contribution). I really enjoy this series, and I especially love when fairy tales are "twisted" and you get to see an alternate version of what might have happened in the story.

These are fun reads, and I definitely recommend them. I have enjoyed reading these books as a bit of a break from some of the more serious fare that I read.

The Manchurian Candidate

Last night, we watched The Manchurian Candidate. C was watching it for a class, and I was just along for the ride.

The story is of a group of American soldiers that gets captured in Korea (in 1952) and gets brainwashed. One member of the group becomes an assassin, and upon their return to the United States after an 18-month tour, he gets introduced to his American operative.

I was really impressed with how this story unfolded. It was absolutely chilling at times - and Angela Lansbury (as the assassin's mother) is amazing. Plus, who doesn't like getting to watch Frank Sinatra thinking he's losing his mind? Old Blue Eyes is just fun to watch.

Verdict: Watch it! I'm pretty squeamish about over-the-top violence, but this movie is fairly low on the gore factor - though there are at least half-a-dozen on-screen deaths. Having said that, this is definitely a PG-13 movie. Younger children would just find it disturbing and confusing.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I'm playing around a bit with the design/layout and also the color scheme. I'd like to get more of an ochre-colored background than the yellowish color I've got right now.

Also, I'm going to start posting my recent reads and reviewing them. Yay! I've been keeping a reading journal since I was in high school, but I've always wished that I wrote down more about what I liked/didn't like about a book. I have a pretty hazy memory of some books, and some I can't remember at all. :(

Books to Look For:

Stuart Hill, Last Battle of the Icemark
Juliet Marillier, Cybele's Secret
Shannon Hale, Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack
Nancy Farmer, Islands of the Blessed
Christopher Paolini, Brisingr
Michael Buckley, The Sisters Grimm: The Everafter War
Alison Croggon, The Singing (Book Four of The Books of Pellinor series)

Favorite Modern Authors

A short list of several of my current favorite authors. I tend to read a lot of YA (young adult) lit and plenty of fantasy.

Shannon Hale, Princess Academy, Book of a Thousand Days, and Austenland
Juliet Marillier, Wildwood Dancing and others
Nancy Farmer, The Sea of Trolls
Tasha Alexander, And Only to Deceive and A Poisoned Season
Stephenie Meyer, Twilight series
Robin McKinley, Spindle's End and Beauty, many others
Jane Yolen, Briar Rose and Sword of the Rightful King, Wizard's Hall, many others
Susan Cooper, Dark is Rising series, others

New Projects: Baby Blanket and Cross-Stitch

I recently finished a fairly major project, cross-stitching a pattern I created of 1 Corinthians 13 (Love is patient, love is kind...) for my husband. So, feeling accomplished and slightly restless, I moved on to a counted cross-stitch I've had stashed away for a few years. It's mostly to keep my hands busy, to work on while watching TV or whatnot, but all the better - sometimes it's nice to not work under pressure.

Although I did also start a blanket for a baby shower gift, and that's coming up pretty quickly now, so I should get on that. Blue and yellow for a baby boy, plain crocheted stripes. I think it'll be cute. And, more importantly, warm and toasty.

My Reading List(s) Overfloweth

I recently finished organizing many of my reading wishlists into one massive list, some 800 titles long. (And that still doesn't include many classics that I'd like to read, but feel pretty intimidated trying to tackle on my own.) In the interests of not losing my mind about how many wonderful books I should be reading, I've decided to methodically chip away at the list. Every month, I'll choose 15 books to attempt to read, from 10 specific categories plus two "fun" "books of my choice." (The quotations are because these selections will probably end up being determined by books I've started and haven't gotten around to finishing, but feel I ought to. Not necessarily fun at all, you see.) The 10 categories are: Caldecott Medal/Honor Books, Newbery Medal Books, Classics, Adult Fiction, Adult Non-Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy, Folk/Fairy Tale/Mythology, Poetry/Drama, and Mystery/Historical Fiction.

I plan on choosing 4 Caldecott books each month, because I enjoy them a lot, can share them with my 2-year-old son, and they go really quickly, which gives me a huge sense of accomplishment! I've been plugging away at the Newbery Medal winners since I started library school 5 years ago (sheesh! that long?), and had gotten away from them, so I'm making a new effort. It's not that I don't like them (I can count on one hand the Newbery winners that I've disliked, and I've read several dozen), it's just that, as I may have mentioned, there are so many other tempting books to lose myself in...

The other categories are all either catch-alls (adult fic/non-fic, etc.) or genres that I especially prefer (fantasy, YA, historical fiction). Plus, I was an English major, and will feel until the day I die that I haven't read enough classics, or poetry or drama, for that matter. In fact, when I read too much genre fiction or modern stuff, I begin to feel that I'm letting someone down. I can't think who it might be, but it's a pretty powerful sensation, so I feel I ought to do something about that, too. Oh, dear...

I haven't really any expectation that I'll actually be able to get through 15 books a month, even if 4 of them are picture books. I do plan to limit myself to reading the books from my list before other books, however, and plan to move books to the next month that I haven't finished, or (gulp) even managed to start. I might should make myself tackle those first, even, but that might be too many rules even for me.

On the off-chance that I manage to get through all of my selections, anything is fair game, which I don't expect to happen often.

As I've managed to knock 50 titles off my reading list in the past few months, I'm already down to 750, and I hope I can knock that down another 50 by the end of the year. I'll post updates, but they're mostly for myself, since I can't imagine anyone else finding my Quest to Read Every Book that Looks Interesting (to me) will be compelling to anyone else.

April Reading List

1. Caldecott - various
2. Newbery - Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
3. Classic - The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
4. Adult Fiction - Atonement by Ian McEwan
5. Adult Non-Fiction - The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
6. Young Adult - Alcatraz versus the evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
7. Fantasy - The golden dream of Carlo Chuchio by Lloyd Alexander
8. Folk/Fairy Tale/Mythology - The Old wives' fairy tale book by Angela Carter
9. Poetry/Drama - Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
10. Mystery/Historical Fiction - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
11. Choice - The book of air and shadows by Michael Gruber
12. Choice - Route 66 A.D. by Tony Perrottet

March Reading List

X1. Caldecott - various

X2. Newbery - A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
This was a quick read of a few hours for me, but I enjoyed it. There's something so wholesome about many of the Newbery Medal winners that I find quite appealing, and this book has that quality.

X3. Classic - Persuasion by Jane Austen
I couldn't believe I had never read this book before. I've been reading Austen since middle school, and believe I've re-read P&P somewhere in the 6-8 times range, as well as several read-throughs of S&S and Emma. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen Austen movies, either. It's something of an addiction, and no, I can't very well explain it to you. You either get Austen, or you don't. So a new (to me, anyway) Austen book to read was quite a pleasure. I can understand why this is not as popular as the three above-mentioned titles, though it is still perfectly enjoyable. I found the main characters appealing and everything charming, of course; though the Eliots (father and sister) I found flat and trivial beyond belief. Though, to be fair, they were portrayed as completely self-absorbed, so they couldn't be all that interesting, could they?

X4. Adult Fiction - I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
I have to admit that I was disappointed with this book. I'd read a review recently that compared this book positively with Austen's work, and though I should know by now never to get my hopes up so much, I couldn't help myself. I wanted quite badly to like this book, but in the end, it just didn't strike me right. The characters were very odd, and they seemed to fall in (and out) of love with all the wrong people at the drop of a hat. Aside from that, and some bizarre motivations, it was a decent read. Although I'm always left a bit flat by such a bittersweet ending.

X5. Adult Non-Fiction - My Life as a Furry Red Monster by Kevin Clash
Yes, Elmo. I'm sure some would enjoy this book, but I didn't. I wanted to know more about Muppeteering, and less about how Elmo is the coolest. (Besides, Cookie Monster is way better than Elmo.)

X6. Young Adult - Pearls Before Swine collections by Stephan Pastis
I love PBS. Often irreverent, but just plain funny.

7. Fantasy - The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
Started last night, but too sleepy to continue. I'll try again in a day or two.

8. Folk/Fairy Tale/Mythology - Fairy Tales by Oscar Wilde
I've read some already. I enjoyed the couple I could find in comic form (illustrated by P. Craig Russell), though these were adapted. Very funny and slightly odd to read these stories. I've read several Wilde plays, and of course Dorian Gray, and these are (for the most part) remarkably dissimilar. Though with the same Wilde humor, naturally.

9. Poetry/Drama - The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Not started. Hopefully soon!

X10. Mystery/Historical Fiction - A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander
I can't help but like this book, a sequel to And Only to Deceive (which I loved). Romantic and sexy without being vulgar or crude, great mystery involving multiple characters and a variety of incidents, reference to great literature and a fascination with Greek antiquity, and above all, a heroine so outrageously rebellious against Victorian society as to be almost laughably implausible. I'm looking forward to the next book, which I believe is due out later this year.

X11. Choice - The Professor's Daughter by Guibert & Sfar
This was a recommendation from a library comic I read called Unshelved (check it out: library humor is totally funny to non-librarians! I swear!) They do a "Sunday Book Club" feature where they talk up a book (conveniently called a "book talk"). This one sounded really fascinating, but the interest was all in the possibility, I'm afraid. Short read - 20-30 minutes - but even so, not really worth it. Never lived up to the promising set-up (several-thousand-year-old Egyptian Pharaoh mummy comes to life in Victorian England and falls in love with an antiquarian's daughter).

X12. Choice - The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More Roald Dahl
I'm attempting to read through all of Dahl's books, and this is a collection of short stories. Well-written and (at times) funny, but nothing like as compelling as Charlie or Mr. Fox, et al. Not a bad read, overall. This was one of my "must finish" choices.