Rounding past the first turn....

One of the books I had finished was due today, and a couple that I had put on reserve were ready for pick-up, so I went to the library yesterday, returned a few books, and picked up some new ones.

On the way home I finished The Alchemist, which I listened to on audio book.  Then when I got home, I finished So Long A Letter, which was a beautifully sad book about a woman mourning the husband who died--a husband who had left her five years earlier when he married a second, much younger wife.  A wonderful book at just 90 pages, to complete my "book under 100 pages" category.

Before leaving for the library I also finished Here Lies The Librarian, which was an odd book that didn't really seem to have much of a plot, although the main character was kind of fun.  But it was based in my home state of Indiana, so another tick mark on my list.

I also managed to read Calvin and Hobbes 1: Thereby Hangs a Tale and Freedom's Just Another Word for People Finding Out You're Useless to complete the "two comic books from the funny pages" category.

That officially puts me at 26 books, so I'm a quarter of the way done.  Woohoo!!!  Unfortunately I can't say that I've completed the "Fortnightly" challenge because in several categories I've read two or three books, and in others I've read none.  Some of that has to do with getting books from the library--I want to read them before they're due, so even if I've already read a book in a category, if I have a book due soon I need to read that and return it.  I've mostly identified all the books I'm planning to read at this point, and several of the categories are going to be books that I own.  If it's a choice between a library book due soon and a book that might just gather a little more dust on my shelf, the library book wins.

But I am hoping to hit at least one book in each category soon.

A Day Of Many Adventures

Late last night I finished A Desperate Fortune, which fulfills the "book more than 500 pages long" category.  It had its flaws, but overall I really enjoyed it and gave it five stars because I was left feeling happy and relaxed after--and isn't that one of the best things about reading?

Somehow a lot of the books I'm planning to read for this challenge are on the longer side, especially the ones next up in my queue (translation: due back at the library soon) but I thought I'd take a break from monstrosities this morning, and pulled out The Face On The Milk Carton.  It turned out to be just the perfect length to finish before an 11 o'clock appointment.  It fills the "choose for you by a family member, bff,..." category. Or at least I'm going to use it for that.  She didn't exactly "choose" it for me, and she's not quite a bff, but the woman who told me about it definitely is someone I'd like to hang out with more except our work schedules are in conflict.

After finishing the book I had just enough time to shower and get dressed before heading over to my appointment.  The woman I met with is super chatty and British and had two cute Westies, one of which was so excited to meet me that she peed all over, much to her mom's embarrassment.  We had a great chat, and I picked up my order from her and headed out.

Next I stopped at the post office, where I was delighted to discover that the custom dog bowls I had ordered were in.  Yay!

Then I hit the back roads to head over to Columbia, MD, to go to Daedalus Books.

I adore Daedalus. Unlike most bookstores which are mostly full of best sellers, Daedalus sells remainder books at discounted prices.  There's an awful lot of good books published that don't make the New York Times Best Seller list, and many of them end up at Daedalus, just waiting for you to discover them. (They also have a handful of new/popular books to appease people who really need to buy a best seller.)

This book challenge includes two items that made me sad over there today. First there's the "first book you see in a book store." Second, Daedalus usually has a selection of " staff picks" which I figured would count for my "recommended by a local librarian or bookseller" category.  (Have I mentioned I'm an introvert and find talking to people difficult? I figured this would work as a recommendation while allowing me to avoid talking to anyone.)

I popped an audio book (yes, for the challenge) into my CD player for the drive over and enjoyed a good story along with some pretty countryside.  I followed a horse trailer part of the way until it pulled into a little lane in the historic area in Sunshine.  Always have to wonder if they're picking up or dropping off.

When I got to Daedalus I put my "devious plan" into action.  Most bookstores put their super sale final clearance type books, like "Healthy Cooking With Margarine" or "How To Repair Your Toilet With Motorcycle Parts" in the front of the store, and Daedalus is no exception. I figured I needed to make it to one of my favorite sections in the store without seeing any other books. So I squinted my eyes mostly shut and walked with my head down trough the front of the store and back to the right, back to the young adult table in the children's section.  Woo hoo!  I did it. Made it all the way back there without seeing any books. Then I opened my eyes and saw...

...the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy....

Well crap. Guess I have to read the whole trilogy now.  Luckily I have it on eBook, so I took a picture just to remind me, and then went back to the front of the store for a shopping cart.

I wasn't in the mood to spend hours looking at the shelves, so I mostly skimmed the display tables, picking up a couple young adult books, a few mysteries, some history books, and a cute book Tiny Hats On Cats that will make a fun Christmas gift for my mom next year.

Unfortunately the "staff picks" section was basically signed first editions that were fairly expensive--and I had to wonder if staff had really picked them. I took a picture of one that looked interesting and figured I'd check it out from the library.

I took my purchases to the front.  One of the guys bagging my books stopped as he was bagging and held up one of my books.  "This is a great book. You'll love it." Dude. Got a recommendation. Score.

And so I headed home with two bags full of books, plus my recommendation and my "first book I see" category filled.  And on my way home the same horse trailer pulled out in front of me. I couldn't tell, when I finally passed it, if it had a passenger or not.

Now I gotta get back to reading!

Snow Days Mean Lots of Reading

I really would have preferred not to get 30 inches of snow.  I mean, I'm from northern Indiana, so I know how to deal with big snow.  I learned how to drive in big snow.  That doesn't mean I like it that much.  One of the things I like about Washington, DC is minimal snow.

But every once in awhile DC likes to prove that big snow can happen.  And last week it did.  In a major way.  I've lived in the DC area off and on for more than 20 years, and honestly this was one of the biggest storms I remember.  There were a couple of others where we got back to back storms, or a second fairly large snow after a big storm, but this was just snow snow snow for about two days.  Which meant lots of shoveling.

And between shifts shoveling, lots of time to read.  Which has actually put me a bit ahead of my reading goal of two books a week--hopefully that will help later in the year if my schedule gets crazy (at some point I need to do inventory and get Gregory Road updated!).

So thanks largely to the snow, I managed to finish nine more books:

1. A book you are constantly recommending to others: One of my all time favorites, The Bellwether, by Connie Willis.
2. A book written by a celebrity:  Me: Stories of My Life, by Katharine Hepburn
3. A book by your favorite author: Hard for me to identify a single favorite author, but Cynthia Voigt is definitely high on the list, so I went with The Book Of Lost Things
4. A science fiction novel: Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom
5. A book you haven't read since high school: A Horse For X.Y.Z.
6. A National Book Award winner: The Color Purple
7. A book that's more than 600 pages: Lair Of Dreams
8. Read a children's book aloud: Three More Stories You Can Read To Your Cat (and yes, I did read this to my cats)
9. A book with a blue cover: The Assassin's Curse

I have been busily working on identifying other books for the challenge, and have quite a pile in my house of things I want to read.  I also recently replaced my library card and have been having a blast reserving things through inter library loan.  Having a list like that is encouraging a sense of urgency (READ ALL THE BOOKS), which I may have to rein back at some point so I don't get totally burnt out.  But I am having fun so far. 

A few more notches on the bedstand...

Overall, I'm feeling a little behind in my reading.  First, I read The Sister.  My normal "MO" for reading is that I read a book at lunch for a couple of days, get pretty well hooked, and end up staying up way too late one night to finish it.  Unfortunately last week was full of errands that needed to be run in the evenings, so I wasn't able to finish it in the evening.  I was feeling very frustrated by the time Saturday rolled around and I was able to finish the book and then, well, it ended.  And I was left feeling like WTH?

I'm not sure what even caught my eye about the book.  When I first read the blurb, for some reason I thought it was going to be a funny book.  "Humorous book" is one of the categories, so I was okay with that.  Then about 50 pages in I could tell it wasn't a funny book and thought maybe mystery, but then it wasn't really a mystery.  It was kind of a horror story, but (as one goodreads reviewer said "The only thing it lacks is a sense of horror....") it really wasn't that either.  By the end I was like "Did I just waste a week of my life on this?"  Luckily there's a "book by/about someone you don't like" and I definitely didn't like the main character of this book by the end, so I guess we'll pop it there and have done.

Because I could tell generally where that book was heading, I decided to go for a book I knew I'd likely enjoy for my next book.  When I was a kid, one of our teachers was a fairly conservative Christian and we were forbidden from reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  I've always wanted to read it, though, and this seemed a good opportunity to jump in.  I was not as enamored of it as I had hoped, but it was a relief after The Sister.

I got suckered in by a colorful cover and thought maybe I'd enjoy The Cherry Cola Book Club, but overall it was a really disappointing read for my "book with a fruit in the title" category.  This is the kind of book that you feel like publishing companies publish just because they need to meet a quota this month, and hey everyone loves a good "they're going to close the library--we need to save it" drama, right?  Yeah, do yourselves a favor and pass.

Finally, I greatly enjoyed reading Bloodsucking Fiends to complete my "humorous book" category.  It really was a humorous book, by the same author who wrote "Lamb," which is an old favorite of mine. This was a fun book about a woman who was turned into a vampire (mostly to amuse the vampire she turned into) and her struggles to figure out how to survive.  Campy and entertaining, with a solid plot and good characters.  I need to read more of Christopher Moore's books when I have time.

Next up is my behemoth "book over 600 pages" category, which I'm guessing will take me awhile (and disturb the cats as a 600 page hardcover takes up too much lap space for them to be comfortable sitting on me), and I'm working my way through a "book written by a celebrity."  We'll see which I finish first!

Off to a good start!

I'll admit to cheating a little bit.  I had already read about seven books by the time I have this list created--but due to my late start creating the list, I'm going to go ahead and use a few of them.  I don't know that I will have time to review every book I read, but so far I've managed to do reviews.

First, a trilogy, The Nightblade Epic First Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 of The Nightblade Epic  Luckily these books were fairly quick reads, because honestly they wouldn't have been worth the effort if they were longer.

Second, a book of poetry, Goblin Market  Technically this was one long poem, not a book of different poems, but I found it enjoyable and will likely go back to it in the future.

Third, a book about trains, Orphan Train  I'm being a little loose here in my interpretation of the topic, but I feel like it's in keeping with the spirit of a book challenge.

There's two other books I've read--one I actually started in 2015 (even if I only read 40 pages) so I'm not going to count it, and the other I'm not sure what category it might fit into so I'm going to add it quite yet.  Still, three books (five really, if you don't count the trilogy as one book) is a good start.  I've got a start on a couple of other books, and have been looking at what I can read to complete the other topics.



Knowing myself, and how long a year it, I don't know for certain if I'll want to create a 2017 Pick Your Poison list, but I am considering things as I go along, such as: How easy/hard is this list?  Are there changes I would make?  What would make it more appealing?  What would make it work better?

One thing that has occurred to me is that I wrote this from a very American-centric viewpoint.  I have Facebook friends in a handful of different countries, and my initial blog post was viewed by folks in fun places like Spain, Germany, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia and Great Britain.  Looking at my list I see topics like "a book from your home state."  I choose "state" over "city" because the book challenge I did last year had a city one and, being from South Bend, IN--a lovely city, but not the world's most happenin' place when it comes to exotic book locales--I found "city" a bit too restrictive.  But now I'm thinking not every country has states.

Maybe I need to consider that in the future.

Also, I made topics like "a book set in Europe" because for me that's an exotic and different location.  Perhaps someone from Spain would rather read "a book set in the US" or "a book set in India."  And I have topics like "a New York Times bestseller", "an Oprah Book club book", "a Newbery Award Winner."  (And I just noticed a typo in "Newberry" on the list--whoops!)  Maybe I'm including too many books from lists that are common in the US but not so much elsewhere.

Granted I would go crazy trying to find award winning lists in every country around the globe, so it probably wouldn't be in my best interest to try to be all inclusive.  But perhaps focusing on other types of awards (an award winning Fantasy or Mystery) instead of specific lists would be helpful.  Or maybe just limit the number of topics related to location.

Just things I'm pondering.....

The 2016 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge

Sometime early last year (or late 2014) I saw a 2015 reading challenge. Anyone who knows me knows I love to read. When I was a teenager I would often read a couple books a night (much to my father's dismay) and while I no longer have that luxury, I still love to settle down with a good book as often as possible.

One thing I've found recently, though, is that my tastes have changed, and new genres are out there, and some of the genres I loved really don't exist anymore, so I've been a little frustrated finding things I want to read. Stuck in a rut, really, with a fairly narrow mind about what genres to pick up, and often I've found the books to be poorly written or uninteresting. A book challenge sounded like an excellent way to get me out of the rut. I printed off the graphic and left it on my desk at work.

Around about October I was cleaning off my desk and found the book challenge printout and thought, "Bummer. I was going to do this." Then I started looking at the list and realized that I'd already read books that would qualify for a good bit of the challenge. So I buckled down and started a reading marathon and managed, just barely, to finish the challenge. Whew.

Immediately I started thinking about 2016, and looking for challenges to keep me going. One was too long. One was too short. One had multi-levels, but tended to be all on the same topic.... I was beginning to feel like Goldilocks stumbling around in the three bears' house. (Anyone interested in checking out some other challenges, this article has some great ones.) I finally decided to take the best bits of all the challenges and put them together into something I thought would work not just for me, but for some of my friends who also were looking for a good challenge.

The result is the "2016 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge." There are five levels, starting with the Baker's Dozen (a book a month plus one) through the Freaky Reader (two books a week baby!). Topics are arranged in groups in order to push you a little out of your comfort zone, so that you can't read 4 children's books and skip the 500 page monstrosities. And because just about every challenge I saw had at least one topic that was a real doozy, I decided to include a couple of wildcard topics to help you out.

So here you go.  The 2016 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge.

A printable pdf is available here for your convenience.

I will be trying to blog about some of the books I read--probably not all, as I'm gonna go for broke and try to do all 104 (it is my challenge after all).  But feel free to check back to see how I'm doing.

Super Awesome Special Thanks go to my friend Good Karma for helping with the fonts and layout of the final challenge and for suggesting some topic changes to replace the ones I made while brain dead. You should totally check out her shop here! And of course, thanks to the whole Cafe gang at Creative Breakroom for putting up with my stress and shenanigans while I was putting this together.

Regarding recent events.

This post was originally on FB, but I felt it needed a better venue.

(picture from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-against-decision-not-indict-garners-death-continue-n262606 )

I have mostly stayed quiet about the events of these last couple weeks for a number of reasons: I'm generally a quiet person; I feel as though so many others have said things so much better than I can; I feel like there's a lot of negativity in the world and I prefer to post things that make people smile; I'm white and no matter how hard I try to understand I know I will never really "get" what it's like to be black and I don't want to come off as condescending or misunderstanding or clueless. But this article, this pisses me off.

Police: Chokehold victim complicit in own death

It's bad enough that there has been this huge miscarriage of justice. It's bad enough that shining stars of our youth are harassed and threatened and killed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us. It's bad enough that there is a huge imbalance in the number of arrests made, the number of trials, and the severity of punishment. All of that desperately deserves our anger and frustration and call to action.

But this? Oh, this is wrong. Let's minimize whar happened by focusing on the fact this man was overweight and in poor health. Let's minimize the fact that someone died by trying to take it out of the racial realm and trying to make it about something else.

And then, let's compound that by saying that police all over have hurt feelings and feel misunderstood and are crying to each other on internet chat rooms, because "not every police officer is bad." By all means, let's pity the cops.

I might not be black, but I am a woman. And this sounds awful damn familiar to me. How many times have women heard "if you dress that way you're asking for it?" How many times have we heard not to walk alone at night and not to drink at parties and all of that shit. And when we are assaulted or harassed or raped, it's because *we* didn't take precautions or *we* "asked for it" or "invited it" because apparently men can't control themselves and it's our responsibility to make sure they don't turn into raging monsters.

Yeah. Bullshit.

And then we say ‪#‎yeseverywoman‬ and suddenly all these men are all up in arms because "not every man is a sexual predator." You're missing the point, bro. Yes. Every. Woman. All of us. Every single last one of us. We all face this every single day. We're not saying every man is a schmuck. We're saying every woman feels this fear and hears these rules and we want to be heard. And we need the men in this world to stand by us and fight for us so that maybe some day we won't live in fear.

And I look at what's going on now and hearing how this man was overweight and this man was in poor health and this man had been in trouble before and I'm angry. Because this isn't about health or weight or the past. This is about a man who died. And I look at other similar cases, and I read all these stories about blacks who have been taught "be polite, don't make waves, don't do anything they might misinterpret" and this sounds to me like ‪#‎yeseveryblackperson‬. And it makes me angry.

And I'm totally cool with the thought that not every police officer is out there killing blacks. And I'm cool with the thought that most police officers truly want to make the world a safer place for us.

But it's needs to start with a recognition that we need to change. Really, really change. We need to take the blinders off our eyes and see this shit is happening every day in a hundred little ways. And we need to look at ourselves and say "What can I do to make this better?" And we need to really look into our hearts and see when we might be perpetuating these attitudes and behaviors in others.

And I'm sorry there are some police officers out there feeling depressed and victimized, but seriously, put on your big girl panties and do something about it. Get out there and be the face of justice this world needs. If there's some hurt feelings along the way, well life ain't all fun and games. Deal with it and move on. Because this is everyone's fight here.