Dewey’s October 2012 24-Hour Read-a-thon

So it’s time for my first ever read-a-thon. In fact, it appears I’ll be late, because I need to start reading in 18 minutes and I haven’t even finished my morning blogging. :p I’m not as hardcore as some of the read-a-thoners out there…I am certain that I will eat, shower, and go to sleep tonight. However, I thought it would be fun to join anyway, since I will be spending much of today packing up my apartment while listening to an audiobook. That’s close enough to reading, right? 😉 I also want to get as far as possible in The Garden of the Evening Mists because it is one of the few Booker shortlisted novels that are available in the US, and the prize announcement is Tuesday!

Instead of creating a new post for every update, I will simply update THIS POST whenever I need a break. I’m not sure how regular those intervals will be. We’ll see how intense I get. This is all new to me! 😉

Narcopolis, by Jeet Thayil
Format: Audio (from Audible)
Reason for reading: Booker shortlisted
Start position:  6hr 33min of 8hr 54min
Current position: COMPLETE (6:12pm)



The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum
Format: audiobook (from library)
Reason for Reading: Halloween theme read at LibraryThing
Start Position: Part 2 of 11 (9hrs 27min total)
Current Position: Part 9 of 11 (9hrs and 27min total)






Blood and Other Cravings, ed. Ellen Datlow
Format: Hardback (from library)
Reason for Reading: Being considered for the World Fantasy Award 2012
Start Position: pg 195 of 317
Current Position: pg 282 of 317



7:56am (New York time–though, actually, I’m in Ohio). That means I have 4 minutes to prepare to read. 😀

8:13am Update: I’ve been catching up on blogs this morning, which I hope counts as reading. It seems like it should. Here’s the introductory questionnaire from the Read-a-thon blog. 

Introductory Questionnaire

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Ohio, USA

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

I would really like to finish The Garden of the Evening Mists, but we’ll see if I have time…I will do a lot of audiobook listening. 

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

I don’t really snack except on pickles and popcorn. So I guess that’s what I’m looking forward to. 😉

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I’m a biomedical scientist and I do a LOT of reading. I’m currently in the process of moving from OH to MN, so I’ll be packing up my apartment while listening to audiobooks for a good deal of the day.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my first read-a-thon, and I’m most looking forward to finding out how much I can ACTUALLY read in 24 hours if I put my mind to it. I’m skeptical, yet optimistic. 😀


9:02am Update: I spent the first hour catching up on blog reading. I did my first Feature and Follow Friday yesterday and I had to check out all the other bloggers. I don’t know how they do that every week? I suppose they get lazy at it after a while? PHEW! Ok, I’m now moving on to Narcopolis for a while. 


10:45am Update: I’ve finished packing up my books and 7hrs 43min in Narcopolis (1 hour and 10 minutes completed so far today). I’m hungry, so I’m going to walk to the Subway to get a sandwich. 🙂 Unfortunately, the ipod that I have Narcopolis on is now very low on charge so I’ll have to charge it up while listening to The Poisoner’s Handbook. 

2:31pm Update: Ok, I wasn’t actually at lunch that entire time. I came back and have continued listening to The Poisoner’s Handbook while I did some monotonous work at my desk. But now my ears are buzzing and I’m going to take a “real” reading break. 😀 Currently, I’m on part 5 of 11 in The Poisoner’s Handbook. That means I finished approximately 3 hours of audiobook in 4 hours. Hmmm. Very wasteful.

3:30pm Update: During the past hour, I read 16 pages of Blood and Other Cravings. Wow. 16 pages an hour. That’s sad. The short story I read was called “Mrs. Jones.” It was about a couple of old maid sisters who hated each other. And then a little bat-like man with a huge erection enters the picture. Wow. Sounds pretty bad when I put it that way. 😀  

4:53pm Update: I’ve finished another two “parts” of The Poisoner’s Handbook, having now moved up to part 7 of 11. While listening to that, I started sifting through my clothes with thoughts of what to keep and what to give to Goodwill before I pack it all up. Ah! Memories! Now my ipod with The Poisoner’s Handbook needs to be charged, but my ipod with Narcopolis is ready to go. So I’m making the switch again! 

So far, I’ve listened to 5 hours of audiobook and read 16 pages. So what am I doing during all the rest of that time? To be honest, I don’t know. It probably has something to do with the internet, though. 

6:12pm Update: I have now completed Narcopolis, by Jeet Thayil. The review will appear on my blog sometime next week. Hopefully before Tuesday (because that’s when the Booker Prize is announced).

7:35pm Update: Fantastic news! I just read another 16 pages of Blood and Other Cravings! I’m really zipping along now!

9:07pm Update: I took a bit of a break for a while. And then I read another short story in Blood and Other Cravings. I’m now on page 248 (so I’ve moved another 20 pages). 

10:31pm Update: After a bit more sorting/packing (and playing with my cats) while listening to audiobook, I am now at part 9 of 11 in The Poisoner’s Handbook. I’m going to do some “real” reading for a while, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep my eyes focused.

11:17pm Update: Ok. I know this is really wimpy because it’s only 11:17pm, but I’m tired and I’m going to have to go to bed if I want to have a productive day tomorrow. Perhaps if I’m lucky I’ll get up in time to get another couple hours of reading one before the read-a-thon is over. (Might or might not happen. 😉 )

6:39am Update: Well, I’m awake again and I’ll try to get a few more pages read before the read-a-thon is over. 🙂

7:43am Update: Well, I guess this will be my final post, given that I don’t think I’ll get anything significant read in the next 17 minutes. This was a good first read-a-thon for me…it was fun knowing I was reading with people all around the world. I hadn’t really planned on participating in the read-a-thon, and didn’t plan ahead. Perhaps I’ll be more organized next time around. 😉 For instance, I’ll plan on having both ipods and my Nook charged (I didn’t get to read ANY of The Garden of the Evening Mists because my Nook was dead haha!). And, hopefully, the next time around I’ll also have more time to just sit and read instead of doing housework the entire day. I might also try adding in some graphic novels next time. I’m not highly experienced with graphic novels, but a read-a-thon seems like an ideal time to try them out (as well as some exciting suspense novels). Non-fiction and literary novels aren’t really meant for this type of intense reading, I think. 🙂 

Despite these issues, I finished around 8 hours of audiobook (thus finishing Narcopolis and getting a good way into The Poisoner’s Handbook) and read 87 pages Blood and Other Cravings. That’s good enough for a disorganized and distracted start at read-a-thoning. 😀

Devil’s Pass, by Sigmund Brouwer

2012 Book 145: Devil’s Pass, by Sigmund Brouwer

Reason for reading: This book was provided by the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. The thoughts expressed in this review are mine, and I receive no benefit from giving a good review.





My Review:

When 17-year-old Webb’s grandfather dies, he leaves a list of seven mysterious tasks to be completed by his seven grandsons. Webb’s task is to hike out into the Northwest Territories on a mission to find a buried secret. While on this trip, Webb struggles with his own identity, and the changes he’s seen in himself ever since his widowed mother remarried an abusive husband. On this trip, Webb learns a lot about his well-loved grandfather…and a lot about himself. This is part of a series of seven books, about the seven grandsons–each with a task from his deceased grandfather. In order to give each grandson an entirely unique personality, the series was written by seven different authors. This is the only book in the series that I have read. Technically, it’s the fifth book in the series, but since the story of each grandson is completely independent of the other books, they can be read in any order. 

I was pleasantly surprised by this little book. Not that I expected bad things from it, but I didn’t expect to be caught up in the action. Brouwer has worked in some interesting action scenes right at the beginning of the story, and by the time the action has slowed to a pace more suited for plot and character development, I was already quite interested in the book. I read it in only a couple of sittings. This would be an excellent book for boys in the 5th or 6th grade age range, even though the main character is 17. 

Character Thursday:

Fanda at Fanda Classiclit has organized a weekly blog event in which we can provide a detailed character analysis of a book that we’ve been reading. I thought I’d try my first character analysis out on Webb. I thought he’d be an interesting character to start with because his identity is developing throughout the story. The following information will contain more details than I usually provide in my review, but I’ll try not to include any plot-vital spoilers. 

When Webb was 5th grade-ish, his widowed mother remarried a man who was abusive to Webb, but apparently not to Webb’s mother. So Webb was manipulated and threatened into keeping the abuse a secret. Eventually, at maybe 16 or 17, he ended up living on the streets. This is where he was when his grandfather died and the adventure begins.

Because of the abuse in Webb’s past, he adopted a protective role for other victims of abuse. At the beginning of the story, he saw a young woman being beaten by her boyfriend, and in order to defend her, he ended up in a fight with this very dangerous man. 

At first blink, you’d see Webb’s behavior as “good.” He was using his own experience to help a woman in trouble. But soon you find out that as Webb gets angrier and angrier, he loses his logic…he wants to seriously hurt this man. A rational part of his brain says that seriously hurting people in self defense isn’t necessary, but that rational part of his brain isn’t working once his rage has fired up. So Webb is a protector of the weak, but he’s also teetering on the brink of violent, hateful jerk himself. The identity crisis that Webb struggles with throughout the book is where to draw the line between protector and wrathful avenger? 

Webb didn’t think that his grandfather knew about Webb’s troubles. But his grandfather is more astute than Webb expected. Webb was left with two Nietzsche quotes to ponder during his hiking trip in the Northwest Territories. The first was: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. The second was: He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Webb had already experienced and accepted the meaning of the first quote. But he was puzzled by the second quote. It made him question what he was becoming…whether he needed to become that…and what the alternatives were. 

Webb’s identity crisis was, granted, quite straightforward and clearly-laid-out for the readers. That’s because this book was written for 5th graders, who aren’t as attuned to subtlety as they will be as adults. I think Webb’s identity crisis allows someone of the appropriate reading age to learn something new about how the world affects their personalities…and how their personalities can affect the world. Thus, Web was a fascinating character, and I’m happy I met him. 🙂

Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis

2012 Book 144: Surprised by Joy

Written by C. S. Lewis, Narrated by Geoffrey Howard

Reason for Reading: I’m slowly working through the books of C. S. Lewis out of curiosity for his theology. 



Reveiw

In this short memoir, C. S. Lewis describes his spiritual journey from youthful atheist to firm and faithful believer. This isn’t really a memoir of Lewis’ life, although it does contain some interesting anecdotes about his school years. Mostly, he only focuses on incidents in his life that impacted his spiritual development. I have read many spiritual development memoirs, and this one is like the others…only it stands out because it is a classic. It was written when these types of journeys were not as commonly shared in memoirs. (In fact, I suspect that this book was one of the ones that inspired so many of the spiritual-journey memoirs that we see today.) One thing I found interesting about this book is it explained to me why so many people retro-diagnose Lewis with Asperger’s syndrome. He talked about his difficulties dealing with other students…not knowing how to respond in social situations and being told to “take that look off [his] face” when he was trying very hard to keep an appropriate facial expression. I think it is important to recognize that we can’t accurately retro-diagnose people with today’s syndromes, but it IS interesting to see how such personality traits were present in Lewis’ day, and how he excused them with stories about how childhood events affected his social interactions. It was definitely an interesting read…and anyone who likes to hear about others’ spiritual journeys really should start with C. S. Lewis.


The Little Green God of Agony, by Stephen King



“The Little Green God of Agony,” by Stephen King 
(Found in A Book of Horrors, ed. Stephen Jones)


In the introduction to his new anthology, Stephen Jones expresses dismay at the overpowering onslaught of horror-lite which has obliterated the good old-fashioned horror story from the market. The purpose of this anthology is to take back the market with some bad-@$$ creepy stories. He opens his anthology with “The Little Green God of Agony,” a story by the well-known master of horror, Stephen King.

Newsome, the sixth richest man in the world, is a man in agony. A plane crash has left him scarred all over his body, and unable to get out of bed due to neuropathic pain. After exploring all the traditional medical procedures for freeing himself of this burden, he cashes in for the non-traditional treatment–a reverend who claims that Newsome is possessed by a god of agony, and that he (the reverend) has the power to expel the demon. Is the reverend a charlatan? Or is Newsome really possessed by a demonic agony?

This is the first Stephen King story I’ve read in quite a long time. I’ve always felt that he has an incredibly creative mind, and an amazing power to delve the reader into the darkness of his stories. On the other hand, the almost-book-snob in me cringes at his metaphors sometimes. (eg. “she…laced her hands together on the hanging hot-water bottles of muscle beneath his right thigh.” I’m sorry. That just really falls flat for me.) Once I’d managed to rid myself of the sharpened pencil stabs of distaste for SK’s continued use of unsatisfactory metaphors, however, I enjoyed the story quite a bit. His dark imagination was the perfect taster for the savory horrors to come in this anthology. 😉

Classics Club: October Meme

It’s time for my post for the Classics Club October Meme! This meme is a way for all of us classics clubbers to interact with each other and remind ourselves that we can’t always be introverts. 😉 The question of the month is: Why are you reading the classics?


I have always loved reading the classics. First of all, if they’ve survived this long, that’s generally because they’re so powerful that they resonate throughout the ages. I appreciate a good book! Second, I enjoy learning about history. Reading books that were written in a certain historical period is a fantastic way to help me learn about that time period. Third, I enjoy picking up on allusions to classics in popular culture (and other books). It is fascinating how certain ideas stay with us forever…how some of them morph with time and become new ideas. I enjoy following this process because it helps me understand what is important to us psychologically. 

Update: So far, I have read and reviewed 3 of 50 on my classics club list.

For those of you who are not members of the classics club (and therefore don’t have your own blog post on the topic) please feel free to answer this month’s question in my comments! 🙂


Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor

2012 Book 143: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
Reason for Reading: This is my fourth and final book for Book Journey’s blog tour for Banned Books Week. This year, I read only YA books that I happened to have lying around in my TBR pile…it was fun! 🙂

My Review

In this Newbery Medal-winner, fourth grader Cassie Logan learns that African Americans are treated as second class citizens in Depression-era Mississippi. She and her family rebel the nasty Wallace brothers by arranging a boycott of their store. Wallace-brothers-and-friends respond with horrifying violence. This was an amazing book. The narrative was engaging, the characters were lovable, and suspense was high–I sincerely worried about what the ugly white-folk were going to do. While reading, I was struck by how similar in theme this book was to all the unoriginal dystopias that are being cranked out by the YA market these days. It was about a young girl realizing that her society was not as wonderful as she had grown up thinking…it was about fighting for your rights against a seemingly hopeless situation. But, wait! This book was actually meaningful because it was describing a REAL situation! Something tragic that people actually suffered! That makes Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry a much more powerful book than any of those dystopias can ever hope to be. I think an intelligent fourth grader who loves dystopias couldn’t help but love this book as well. 


(Oh, wait, sorry, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry IS missing the cheesy cliche love triangle that YA dystopias all seem to have these days. Sorry girls!)


This book was banned because of racism, violence, and language (including the use of the infamous n-word). There is no doubt at all–This book HAD racism, violence, and the n-word. However, the purpose of the book was to show young readers the horrors of racism–so that they could learn a bit of history AND learn to be better people themselves. This book is not going to make children into racists. The bad influence of parents, role models, and friends lead to racism. This book, with the right discussion, will be a good influence on our children. Yes, the book has scary scenes in it, but nothing most fourth graders couldn’t handle. We can’t protect our children from the real world indefinitely, and as far as I’m concerned it’s better for them to know what it’s like than to enter it in compete innocence and immediately have their fresh young spirits crushed. My philosophy–breed them tough, because sheltering only hurts them later!



Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling

2012 Book 142: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone


Written by J. K. Rowling, Narrated by Jim Dale






Reason for Reading: This is my third book for Book Journey‘s blog tour for Banned Books Week, and this time I decided to try something familiar. Since Lostgenerationreader is having a Harry Potter readalong, I decided to join in and read the first HP book for Banned Books week. 🙂 This is probably my third time reading this particular book, but it will be my first time reading the series “in one go.”


My Review:
Harry Potter has been living with his neglectful and emotionally abusive parents ever since his parents died when he was a baby. But on his 11th birthday, everything changes. He finds out that his parents were a witch and a wizard and that he, himself, has been accepted to Hogwarts, a school for witchcraft and wizardry. He is thrilled to feel comfortable and welcome for the first time in his life, but he soon discovers that not all the teachers at Hogwarts are looking after his best interest. Can Harry and his adventurous friends save the Sorcerer’s Stone from being stolen and used for nefarious purposes?

Of course, you all know the answer to that question. If you don’t, then you probably aren’t interested in the answer and I’m surprised you’ve gotten this far into my review. Any comments I make about my appreciation for this book will fade in the wake of the raving of others. Therefore, I’ll only comment on the Jim Dale narration (which was the narration released in the US, but which is apparently no longer for purchase–I’m not sure if they intend on putting out a different narration? Releasing the Stephen Fry narration in the US would be a kind, generous, and profitable move!) Jim Dale did a pretty good job on the narration–If I didn’t already have a very set impression of what all the characters should sound like, then I’d have been much more happy with this rendition. Unfortunately for Dale, however, most anybody who would listen to this audiobook today already has a very set impression of how a centaur should sound and how to pronounce “Voldemort.” This isn’t Dale’s fault, but I suspect his reading has been taken off the market because of these issues. However, I was quite able to ignore this rather amusing issue and enjoy the audiobook. 🙂 I will continue with the rest of the Dale narrations.


My comments on book banning

Harry Potter is #1 Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009 AND #48 on 100 most frequently challenged books: 1990–1999.  As several people commented, Harry Potter was banned for similar reasons as The Headless Cupid, which was my first Banned Books Week review. Parents are concerned that their (apparently not-very-bright and way-too-malleable) children will be driven to the darkside of the occult and Satan worship by this book. I’m afraid I have to disagree and say “that is hogwash.” Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone had a very clear good vs. evil message. Loyalty, bravery, and camaraderie are emphasized as important traits in the characters of Harry Potter. Love stands out as pretty much THE most powerful force of good available to humanity. That seems to be a pretty healthy message, even to a fundamentalist Christian. On the other hand, “doing ANYTHING to succeed in life” is portrayed as an undesirable characteristic. Killing or taking advantage of the innocent is touted as the most sinful act possible. People whose views of good and evil have faded away to “there’s-only-the-weak-and-the-powerful” are portrayed as demented. Again, the views of “evil” that are communicated in this book are in fitting with Christian views. This is NOT a morally ambiguous book! So why are the fundamentalists so worried? Just because their kids might use their imaginations a little bit? 




Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause

2012 Book 141: Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause

Reason for Reading: This is my second post for Book Journey’s Banned Books Week 2012 blog tour. By reading banned books, I feel that I’m expressing my freedom of speech (or in this case, the author’s freedom of speech), but I’m also interested in learning more about WHY people ban books. I don’t approve of banning most of the books on ALA’s top banned books lists, though for some of them I can empathize with the objections. In the case of this particular book, I understand the objections, though I think banning it only gives the book added attention. Blood and Chocolate is #57 on the ALA’s list of Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books 2000-2009.

My Review 

Vivian is a 15-year-old werewolf living happily with her pack in the country when a murder destroys the world she loves. In tragic disarray, her pack moves to the suburbs and tries to get reorganized. In the midst of this chaos, Vivian has an identity crisis and falls for a human “meat-boy.” Her experiences trying to fit in with meat-people teaches her a lot about herself. Meanwhile, the grisly murders continue, and the pack must hunt down the killers before they, themselves, become hunted. This book was very engaging. It was interesting and suspenseful enough that I really wanted to know how it ended, despite the fact that I disliked all the characters. Vivian was manipulative and conceited. Her mother had little character other than expressing concern for her daughter and being obsessed with sex. Vivian’s meat-boy boyfriend seemed likable enough at first (though not particularly alluring), but then his qualities took a nose-dive towards the end of the book. Honestly, I’m not sure why this book gets such good reviews, but I suppose it’s simply because the narrative is so engaging. 


My feelings about why this book was banned

I had the feeling while reading Blood and Chocolate that Klause intended this book to be a slap in the face to prudish book-banners. For me, that took a lot of the enjoyment out of the book because I felt like I was being beat over the head with a Message. Even if I agree with the Message, I think a novel’s MAIN objective should be to tell a story. If the story is told well, the message comes through in a smooth allegory. This book seemed like Klause was going for shock-value to pump up her sales. The reason I believe that this slap-in-the-face was purposeful and not simply part of the story is because Klause included a conversation between Vivian and her boyfriend about adults that objected to certain types of behavior and wanted to burn his books. 


Klause included almost all of the qualities that our book-banners of America hate: explicit sexualization of everything, the occult, disrespect for religious symbols, obscenties, violence, age-inappropriate relationships, and an entire page musing about different ways to commit suicide. None of this was bad enough to scar a child or young teen. However, I feel she REALLY overdid it with the sexualization. You’d think from this book that the defining characteristic of werewolves is that they were unabashedly and continuously horny. This seems to be the defining trait of teen-aged boys and middle-aged men as well ;). It was a bit obnoxious. The randiness of every character was SO overdone that it distracted from the story. So in the end, no, I don’t think this is subversive literature. But I have no respect for Klause’s ability to portray a message with finesse.




The Headless Cupid, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

2012 Book 140: The Headless Cupid, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 


Reason for Reading: This is my first post for Book Journey’s Banned Books Week 2012 blog tour. By reading banned books, I feel that I’m expressing my freedom of speech, but I’m also interested in learning more about WHY people ban books. I don’t approve of banning most of the books on ALA’s top banned books lists, though for some of them I can empathize with the objections.  For the most part, I think the people who are objecting to these books need to give their children more credit for non-gullibility. All parents should watch what their children are reading, watching on TV, playing on the computer, etc. I believe that the best way to raise children is through a lot of communication. Banning books isn’t going to save our children from the real world. 


My Review
David, the eldest of the Stanley kids has had to take care of his three younger siblings ever since his mother died. When his father gets remarried, David has to adjust not only to the new mother, but to a new teen-aged sister. And what a strange sister she is! Amanda dresses in dark flowy clothing, has a triangle in the center of her forehead, and wears an upside-down smile. Amanda begins to teach the Stanley kids about the occult, but soon things get out of hand when they awaken a poltergeist! This book is appropriate for 3rd-5th grade range.


The Headless Cupid is 98th on on the ALA’s list of the top 100 books banned between 1990-2000. The complaints about the book were that kids might become interested in the occult (or even learn to practice the occult) from this book. Of course, this is preposterous. This is not a story about an evil little teen-aged witch–it’s a book about an angry girl who wants to get revenge on her mother for getting remarried. This is a book about the very real emotions children feel when their parents make life-changing decisions. It’s about coping with that anger. It’s about love and forgiveness. Any child reading the book will end on a note of acceptance and forgiveness (unless they don’t finish the book). I think people who fear a book about kids playing let’s-pretend probably ought to lock their doors and hide away…because the real world is a lot scarier than this book.




Sunday Salon: September Update

September was a good month for my blog. I finished up my Coursera MOOC in Fantasy and Science fiction…it was a wonderful experience, but it was exhausting! I posted reviews for many of the books required for this course: 









I was going to take the Greek / Mythology Coursera course,  but have decided that it covers the materials way too quickly…I don’t think I can do justice to so much amazing literature in just 10 weeks. Therefore, I’m going to return to my focused study of Paradise Lost. Expect more posts soon! 🙂

The last 11 days of September, I led an email discussion of Sandi Rog’s new book Walks Alone for the ACFW Bookclub. I have loved every Sandi Rog book I’ve ever read. Walks Alone is a christian fiction historical romance about a young woman in post-Civil War era who travels alone from New York to Denver and is kidnapped along the way by a band of Native Americans. Although she is filled with dread and fear, she soon discovers that they have a side to their story too…and she begins to fall in love with her kidnapper. I admit that when I read the description I thought it to be a bit trite, but I gave the book a try anyway because of my love for Sandi Rog’s books. I’m so glad I did. 🙂 It wasn’t trite at all. It was a really cute book.  My review of the book is here. 




On my blog, the last week of September was dedicated to Aarti’s A More Diverse Universe blog tour. She did an amazing job, and I really appreciate the effort she put in to the tour. For this tour, I reviewed:









And, of course, I reviewed books that fit into none of these categories:

Sadly, I only had time to post one opinion article–it was about the creationism / evolution debate. 

In an attempt to become more active in the blogosphere, I also joined a few other blog activities such as R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VII, The Classics Club, The Orange Prize Project, and The Complete Booker.
I will be starting out October with posts for Banned Books Week. Book Journey has organized a blog tour in honor of the week. I will be blogging about 4 banned children’s/YA books during that week. From October 20 – 31, I’ll be leading an email book discussion of The Embittered Ruby, by Nicole O’Dell for the ACFW Bookclub. You’re all welcome to read the book and join in the discussion! This month is dedicated to Christian YA literature, and as you can see on the ACFW Bookclub website, we discuss two books a month, and you’re welcome to choose either one of them. Besides my hope of getting farther into my study of Paradise Lost, here’s a list of books I hope to read in October: 





Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis (IN PROGRESS)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling 
Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor (IN PROGRESS)
The Magician’s Nephew, by C. S. Lewis
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
Interview with a Vampire, by Anne Rice
The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson
Pride and Prejudice: A Norton Critical Edition, by Jane Austen (IN PROGRESS)
Blood and Other Cravings, ed. Ellen Datlow 
A Book of Horrors, ed. Stephen Jones
House of Wisdom, by Jim Al-Khalili