Dewey’s Books February Mini-Challenge #1

There’s not much about Dewey that I can say that has not been said already. Dewey, with her eclectic taste in books, was the ultimate book blogger. Almost daily on her site there was a new post: a discussion about an article or book, a meme, or a funny video to watch. Dewey wrote about books who subjects range from politics to feminism. She read graphic novels and award-winning books, young adult reads and poetry. Reading The Hidden Side of a Leaf left the reader with an even larger TBR pile then before you clicked on to her site.

Just the other day I visited her site for a quick couple of books to read for her challenge and left with pages of book titles. Her posts were honest, funny, and made writing look so easy.

Dewey embodied the spirit of blogging and helped bring our community closer together. She started Weekly’s Geeks, the 24-Hour Read-a-thon, and the Bookworms Carnival. She always had something nice to say. encouraging comments that helped many of us continue blogging.

Dewey wasn’t one to hoard books. (Unlike myself.) Usually when she finished reading a book, if it didn’t belong to someone or she wasn’t going to read it again, she held a giveaway. The frequency of her giveaways amazed me. She was so generous and winning a book from her made my day several times.

In the spirit of Dewey’s generosity I’ve decided to give away eight books throughout the month of February. Two books every weekend starting on the 7Th. To be eligible read a book that Dewey reviewed. After reading it and writing a post, leave a link at the challenge’s review site and on my mini-challenge posts. Remember to let me know your first and second preferences. Every Saturday I will use random.org to pick the two winners and every Sunday I will let you know the winners and the next two books. Remember only books read in February count.

This week’s books are:

How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. You can read my review here. It’s a pretty good book for journal writers, about how to find more ways to be present in your life and at the same time give you ideas to fill your journal up with. This book is a paperback that’s been read only once.

Away by Amy Bloom. To be honest I haven’t had the time to read this epic story but everywhere I’ve looked there has not been a bad or mediocre review to be found. I know many bloggers have read this book and loved it. So I would rather give this book to a blogger who can give it a chance then let it sit any longer on my bookshelves. Away is a hardcover that’s gently used.

One Book Meme

Taken from Eva.

One book you’re currently reading: Farewell Navigator by Leni Zumas

One book that changed you life: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? by Peter Hedges. An honest portrayal of what depression looks like.

One book that you’ll want on a deserted island: I’m going to have to think about this for a while

One book you’ve read more than once: East of Eden by John Steinbeck

One book you’ve never been able to finish: The World According to Garp by John Irving

One book that made you laugh: God Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

One book that made you cry: The Geography of Love by Glenda Burgess. I have never cried so hard because of a book ever in my life.

One book you keep rereading: any book from the Harry Potter series

One book you’ve been meaning to read: A Language Older than Words by Derrick Jensen

One book you believe everyone should read: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Finally,
Grab the nearest book. Open it to page 56. Find the fifth sentence.

“Eleanor had run into the convent thinking to fetch help, but once there, an overwhelming urge to write down what had happened overtook her.”

from Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

Not enough books

“Wear the old coat and buy the new book.”
-Austin Phelps, (1881)

What I’m lusting for right now:

A book for journal writers

How to be an explorer of the world (2008)
Keri Smith
208 pages

When I was eleven years old my mother gave me a diary to write my thoughts in. It was small, white, and one of those diaries you’re supposed to write in every day. I remember being in sixth grade and writing in that small book often about crushes, school, and family life. I don’t know what made my mother give me a diary but I’m glad she did.

Since then I’ve kept diaries. Over the years those diaries have changed in size, shape, and purpose. Currently I write in large sketchbooks that can handle glue, paint, different kinds of pens, and whatever else I feel like using. My journal is more than just an account of my everyday life; it’s a commonplace book filled with quotes, prayers, collages, blog entries, book reviews, lists, pictures, newspaper clippings, recipes. . . I’ve always thought of my journal as a field guide to my life. You can pick up any of the many journals I have and know who I was at that time.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out about Keri Smith’s latest book, How to Be An Explorer of the World. Keri, if you don’t know, is the genius behind Wreck this Journal, a book that is suppose to help readers start or finish their journals with creative prompts. I bought How to be an explorer and decided to test it out. The goal of the book is to get you to notice your surroundings, savor the moment, and to focus on who you are.

Two of my favorite prompts were to describe in detail my favorite street and the library exploration prompt:

Choose a subject, theme, or item. Go to a library. Conduct research on your chosen item. Collect as many different materials as you can to display later, such as sketches, notes, drawings, and photos. . .

My problem with the book is that I didn’t realize it’s for beginners. A lot of the prompts are great but are things I’ve done many times before like the consumer prompt which asks for you to keep track of all the things you consume for a week. It’s a great prompt for someone who hasn’t used it before. Overall it’s a great read and perfect for anyone who wishes to start journaling.

Sunday Salon: The Too Many Books Post

Good morning! The sun is just starting to come up here in Southern California. While the rest of the country was expecting Arctic weather, in SoCal the weather was in the late 80s. Then last week the rain came and it felt so good! Now it’s the right atmosphere for winter reading.

My week has been really hectic. My oldest son’s asthma has been acting up so his father, my mother, and I have been going back and forth, staying at home to take care of him this week. I got very little studying done, but I got some great reading in.

I read:
1. The Shiniest Jewel -Marian Henley. In their shoes & Graphic Novel challenges
2. Tuesday – David Weisner. Young readers challenge
3. How to be an explorer of the world – Keri Smith
4. Don’t let the pigeon stay up late – Mo Willems. Young readers
5. A River of words - Jen Bryant. Young readers
6. The Man in the Picture – Susan Hill. NaJuReMoNoMo
7. The Book That Changed my Life. Dewey and Essay Reading Challenge
8. The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle – Jim Butcher. Graphic Novels Challenge

My favorite reads were The Shiniest Jewel, the suspenseful The Man in the Picture, and Welcome to the Jungle. If you’re participating in my memoir challenge, In Their Shoes, I’m giving away The Shiniest Jewel. So enter to win it.

This post is entitled “Too many books” because I received some great books this week and bought too many. One of my book-related resolutions this year was to only buy a certain amount of books. I already went way over that, so to compromise I gave a lot of my unread books to my local library and giving more away by hosting a mini-challenge all of February for everyone participating in the Dewey’s Books challenge.

With school and a lot of homework to catch up on this week, I plan to read only short stories and poetry for the next two weeks.

What are you reading this week?

Weekly Geeks 2009-03: Classics

It feels so good to be back participating in Dewey’s Weekly Geeks! This week’s assignment:

1) How do you feel about classic literature? Are you intimidated by it? Love it? Not sure because you never actually tried it? Don’t get why anyone reads anything else? Which classics, if any, have you truly loved? Which would you recommend for someone who has very little experience reading older books? Go all out, sell us on it!

3) Let’s say you’re vacationing with your dear cousin Myrtle, and she forgot to bring a book. The two of you venture into the hip independent bookstore around the corner, where she primly announces that she only reads classic literature. If you don’t find her a book, she’ll never let you get any reading done! What contemporary book/s with classic appeal would you pull off the shelf for her?

I have to admit that it’s rare for me to read a classic for fun. Being an English major I get assigned to read them often and I usually hate assigned reading. Not because of the material but because it’s assigned, there’s a deadline and a several-hundred word required essay involved. . .

There are classics I love like To Kill A Mockingbird, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, The Bluest Eye, and The Tempest. I have little experience reading classics but being a blogger, you can’t help but want to read them after reading the great reviews of your blogging friends. So I have books by Austen, Bronte, Wells, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Eliot, and others on my TBR list and shelves.

My cousin wouldn’t be named Myrtle but probably something starting with a “T” because my mother and many aunts were going through a “T” phase in the 1970s and ’80s, so all seven or eight of us girls have names that sound alike. . . That’s another story I’ll tell you guys one day. But if my cousin wanted me to find her a book that I think have classical appeal it would be The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I read it two years ago and it is still the only book that had me talking to myself about the plot and characters when I wasn’t reading it.

Friday Fill-Ins

This is my first time participating in Friday Fill-ins!

1. Oh, I am so behind in studying.

2. I need changes, big and little.

3. During today, I will try to squeeze in studying and homework with being a mom to a sick kid.

4. You poured out my coffee? Are you kidding me?

5. Right now I’ll like to be invisible and on my couch, reading.

6. My coffee pot is my favorite gadget.

7. And as for this weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to doing my homework so I can have some free time. Tomorrow my plans include reading and homework, and Sunday I want to just read.

Booking Through Thursday

Since “Inspiration” is (or should) the theme this week … what is your reading inspired by?

I think my reading is inspired by the need to know about the lives of others, about what is going on in the world, and about human nature. I’m also inspired by the need to become better in expressing myself through words. I take in so much of what I read but with more important needs to address, kids, school, and life, I don’t have the time to reflect as well as I can. Though I want to know more about the world, I rarely read non-fiction. I don’t have the time.

Some of my favorite authors have helped me to look at familiar things in a different way; Steinbeck’s East of Eden on the issue of free will and his Of Mice and Men on the importance of dreaming, the works of Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Lamott on being a mother, and others when it comes to things sacred and divine.

Currently my reading is also inspired by the need to earn good grades. Being a college student and taking classes ranging from anthropology to literature, library science to human sexuality, my reading includes the works of classic poets, manuals on how to serve difficult people in library settings, and also various religions.

I’m also inspired by book challenges, book reviews, and the many unread books on my bursting shelves.

Being a Bookaholic

Jessi at Casual Dread gave me another Premios Dardo award. I cannot say thank you enough. To receive it once is great, to receive the award twice in the same week is just awesome.This time instead of naming fifteen more blogs that I love, I want to just say thank you to everyone who visits this blog, whether you lurk or not.

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I think the anxiety of school has caused me to drastically slow down my personal reading. So far this year I’ve read nineteen books, only one is an adult read. The rest are children’s books, no young adult, no middle school books. *sigh* I have to learn how to better manage my time.

When I’m not studying for school or on twitter, I’m buying tons of books. So many that the only way I’m going to read all of them this year is if I don’t check out any books from the library, receive any from Paperbackswap, and stop buying them. That’s not going to happen. As of today I’m trying to read as many books as I can in time for my big giveaway starting Febuary 1st as part of my mini-challenge for the Dewey’s Books Challenge. So if you haven’t signed up already, I suggest you do so.

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Carrie’s Essay Reading Challenge is the first challenge I finished this year. My goal was to read twenty essays this year and I surpassed that. Here are the first twenty essays that I read:

From Tin House Magazine
1. On Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley – Tom Grimes
2. On Elain Dundy’s The Dud Avocado – Elisa Albert
3. On Knut Hamusun’s Hunger - Don Waters

From Powells Books Original Essays Feature
4. Mysteries in Plain Sight – Dara Horn
5. Still Knitting – Ann Hood
6. Taming the Wilderness – Ingrid Law

From The book that changed my life – Roxanne J. Cody
(I’m just giving you the name of the writer of the essay)

7. Dorothy Allison
8. Kate Atkinson
9. James Atlas
10. Robert Ballard
11. Gina Barreca
12 Nicholas A Bashanes
13. Graeme Base
14. Jeff Benedict
15. Elizabeth Berg
16. Amy Bloom
17. Harold Bloom
18. Lary Bloom
19. Chris Bohjalian
20. Da Chen

Thanks to Carrie for hosting this challenge.

Mailbox Monday

I totally forgot today was Monday! Last week I didn’t receive any reading materials in the mail but this week makes up for it thanks to Paperbackswap and Amazon.

The books are Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book; Lullabies for little Criminals, which I found out about from Kimbofo months ago and it was on the 2008 shortlist for the Orange Prize; Tigerheart by Peter David, a retelling of Peter Pan; the latest issue of Tin House; Gods Behaving Badly from BookThirty (thanks!); This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund; Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass, a young adult read that sounds very promising; How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith; and Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock, which is a collection of short stories that’s been getting rave reviews.

Happy Readings!

Library Loot January 14-20

How did I forget about Eva and Alessandra’s great meme? After waiting a long five days I went to my local library and picked up all the books on hold for my middle baby and myself. Never mind that I still haven’t cracked open even one book from last weeks’ Library Loot.

Since school started this week and a required reading of at least 200 pages a week, my personal reading has slowed to almost a complete stop. I’m trying though. If I can get in one hour a day to myself, I will be a very happy girl.

Don’t you just love the Trina Schart Hyman’s cover for Little Red Riding Hood? I discovered this version of the fairy tale last year and fell in love with it. Little Red is beautiful. Happy readings!

Premio Darios Award

The great J. Kaye awarded me the Primo Darios Award! How cool is that? The Primo Award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.

The rules to follow are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to other 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Here are a few of my favorites. If I could list all of the blogs I love (and stalk) this post would be pages long.

1. The Well-Read Child
2. In Search of Giants
3. Things Mean A Lot
4. People Reading
5. Christine Kane
6. A Feminist Wife
7. A Striped Armchair
8. Jackets and Covers
9. 37 Days
10. Sophisticated Dorkiness
11. Maggie Reads
12. Stuff as Dreams are Made On
13. Noses in Books
14. Book:Thirty
15. Becky’s Book Reviews

Library Loot!

Eva at A Striped Armchair came up with this great idea for bloggers to post what we checked out from the library every week. I think today’s visit is the third one of the year and so far the best one.

After finishing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yesterday, I practically ran today back to the library to check out the second book in the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I had several lovely surprises waiting for me on the holds shelf.

The Homeschooling Book of Lists (for my kids), The Dresden Files #1: Welcome to the Jungle graphic series (I’ll find a challenge for it), One year to an organized life (part of my resolutions), Garden Spells (possible Well-Read Ladies February selection), Berlin: #1 City of Stones, Man’s Search of Meaning (just in a weird mood), and plenty of books from the Babymouse series.

More Challenges!!!

So you know that conversation we had a couple of days ago about me not joining any more challenges and if I did you would remind me? Well I just had to join one more challenge. It’s just a small challenge really with not that many requirements. What? What’s the challenge? Well, I joined Becky’s year-long 42 Challenge.

The requirements? Here’s what Becky said:

Your mission–if you choose to accept it–is to read, watch, listen, and review 42 sci-fi related items. (Items isn’t the best word, but how else would you define all that this challenge could involve). What’s acceptable? Practically everything: short stories, poetry (???), novellas, novels, episodes of TV shows, episodes of radio shows, movies, comic books, graphic novels, audio books, essays or articles about science fiction or science fiction writers, biographies of science fiction authors. This isn’t quite as intimidating as it sounds. This is much more than a reading challenge. It would be intimidating (in all likelihood) to try to read that many books. But when you make each short story, each TV show episode count as individual items, then it is much more manageable I hope! (This challenge could be as easy as watching Season 1 and Season 2 of Stargate SG-1, for example.)

No lists are needed. Really. If you want to post about the challenge and talk about what you hope to get to that’s fine, of course, but no one will hold you to it!

What’s not to love about this challenge? I don’t usually read science fiction but I still signed up. With kids, a full-time load starting in six days, and 23 other challenges, how hard can it be? I have the whole year and I just finished reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for my first read. I’ll post my review later this week. Until then, wish me luck!

"I Suck At Challenges" Challenge!

I love this challenge already! As Chris stated,

I always wanted to host a reading challenge but never had a topic in mind. Of course, I realized that my track record with challenges is less than stellar. What a really need is a challenge to complete my challenges! So I invented The I Suck at Challenges Challenge. It’s rather tongue in cheek but it might keep some of you challenges on the path to actually completing one or two. Lord knows there’s enough challenges starting up now to tempt you all.

My category:

The 12 Steppers
(Aka “I can stop whenever I want.”)

There’s a challenge. You see it. Your palms start to sweat. Mr Linky mocks you. You try to stop yourself but it’s too late. You’ve committed yourself to Books That Start With Q Challenge and you know you’ll do it again when the next challenge comes along. The only thing is, how are you ever going to complete them all? Sound like you? Then you are a 12 Stepper. No program is going to help you though; you’re addicted.

The rules are to list every challenge that you’ve signed up for. Chris will periodically call on participants to tell her their progress. She’s also going to have giveaways.

My challenges:

1. The A to Z Challenge
2. A Novel Group’s Mini-Challenge
3. Young Adult Challenge
4. Year of Reading Dangerously
5. Read Your Own Books
6. Book Awards
7. Diversity Rocks
8. In Their Shoes
9. Jewish Literature (I don’t think I officially signed up for this.)
10. John Steinbeck Mini-Challenge
11. Lambda Challenge
12. Unshelved Reading Challenge
13. 9 Books for 2009
14 Childhood Favourites
15. Graphic Novel Challenge
16. Dewey’s Books
17. Lost in Translation
18. World Citizen
19. Essay Reading
20. Year of Readers
21. 100 shots of short story reading
22. Dream King
23. Martel-Harper
24. 42 Challenge

Okay I think that’s it but if you know I signed up for a challenge and it’s not here, please let me know.

A-Z Challenge

Okay, this is my last reading challenge I swear! If you even think I’m contemplating signing up for another one, I want you to twitter me or leave a comment reminding me “no more challenges.” Please. It’s your fault that I’m signing up for this challenge anyway. Yes, you. I can’t see you but I know you’re there. I’ve seen so many of my fellow bloggers sign up for the A-to-Z Challenge that I had to join! It was the wise J. Kaye who said “We only live once. Why not go out with a mess of book challenges?” The perfect advice.

So I signed up for the A to Z Challenge hosted by Becky. My plan is to do options A and E. Option A is to read authors A to Z while option E is to read 26 alphabet books. I’m going to be as flexible as possible with this challenge but below is my default list.

Auslander, Shaolam
Bondoux, Anne Laure
Carroll, Jonathon
Dickinson, Emily
Exupery, Antoine de
Ferrante, Elena
Green, John
Hill, Susan
Irving, John
July, Miranda
Knox, Elizabeth
Larsson, Steig
Monzo, Quin
Niffenegger, Audrey
Olafsson, Olaf
Packer, ZZ
Queen, Carol
Rushdie, Salman
Saramago, Jose
Tademy, Lalita
Umrigan, Thrity N.
Venneman, Kevin
Willingham, Bill
X, Malcolm
Yenne, Bill
Zambra, Alejandro

Booking Through Thursday – Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!

So . . . any Reading Resolutions? Say, specific books to read? A plan to read more _ _ _? Anything at all?

Yesterday afternoon I went to the library and found so many wonderful books waiting for me. This morning I plan on starting Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain. After that I have:

Tithe by Holly Black
The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill
Death with Interruptions – Jose Saramago
Looking for Alaska by John Green
An exact replica of a figment of my imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

My reading resolution is to read more books by minority authors and others from foreign countries. Happy New Year!