Sunday Salon: Reading events

It’s amazing that May is almost over with. It’s been a forgettable month. I can barely remember what I’ve accomplished. Book-wise I didn’t accomplish much, reading only three adult, four young adult, and fourteen children’s books.

I couldn’t give you just one book as my favorite this month, so I’m going to give you my top two. Sarah Stewart’s The Friend, a children’s book about unconditional love and the short story collection/graphic novel Tales of Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. Both books are amazing and highly recommended.

Shauna at Reading and Ruminations has been in a reading funk and came up with a great personal challenge. called the Summer Reading Blitz. She wants to read 30 books in 30 days for the month of June. I think it’s such a great idea that I’m joining her. I have a stack of books lined up, ready and waiting.

Also joining the challenge are fellow bloggers

Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews

Brittanie at A Book Lover

Ruth at BookishRuth

Shauna and Brittanie will be hosting giveaways throughout June. Make sure you’re subscribed to their blogs so you don’t miss out.

June is also the start of

a young adult reading tournament that is the brainchild of the bold Renay. From June 1st through August 2nd, twenty bloggers will be judging sixteen young adult novels, published in 2008, that should’ve received more attention. If you click on the above icon, you can see the books that are being judged.

The judges are:

Valentina, Valentina’s Room
Jodie, Book Gazing
Natasha, Maw Books Blog
Ali, Worducopia and Lenore, Presenting Lenore
Mary Ann, Libr*fiti
Trish, Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’ and Vasilly, 1330v
Kelly, YAnnabe
Becky, Becky’s Book Reviews, and Kailana, The Written World
Heather, A High and Hidden Place
Amy, My Friend Amy
Laza, Gimme More Books!
Stephanie, Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-a-Holic
Nicole, Linus’s Blanket
Renay, YA Fabulous and Susan, She’s Too Fond Of Books And It’s Turned Her Brain
Chris, Stuff As Dreams Are Made On and Nymeth, Things Mean A Lot

Look out for reviews and updates on the tournament from the judges. Nerdsheartya is also on Twitter. I’m so excited, I’m hoping to read all the shortlisted books.

If you didn’t know already, next weekend is the start of Mother Reader’s 48 Hour Challenge. For 48 hours bloggers all over the blogisphere will be reading as much as they can. You don’t have to read for 48 hours straight, but within a 48 hour period of time. Of course I’m in.

Posts from this week:

500 Great Books by Women
10 Fiction Books for Summer

What are you reading this week? Have you signed up for the 48 hour challenge?

Books Stuff

I was too late to join the BEA Twitter party but I still wanted to host a giveaway. Two lucky winners will each win a box of books. Here’s what’s included in the first box:

The Bookaholics’ Guide to Book Blogs compiled by Rebecca Gilleron and Catheryn Kilgarriff

Any Place I Lay My Hat by Susan Issacs

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

In box 2:

The Best American Mystery Stories 2008 edited by George Pelecanos. Included in the collection are stories by Elizabeth Strout, Michael Connelly, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, and more.

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami.

Book #3: a surprise

To enter, leave a comment. I’ll select a winner using random.org

Good luck.

Contest is over. The Winners are Jennifer and Jill! Congratulations!

10 fiction books for the summer

When summer hits the only thing about my reading that changes is the amount of books I actually read. Like most readers I read more during the summer. This summer I signed up for Molly’s Summer Vacation Reading Challenge, joined Andi for her personal challenge, Reading In Order, and also joined Shauna for her June challenge, 30 books in 30 days. Callapidder Days challenge, Spring Reading Thing, ends June 20th and I want to complete the books I signed up for. Between reading and keeping the kids busy, my summer is packed.

Here are ten books of fiction I’m looking forward to reading this summer:

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun. Mun’s debut novel takes place in 1980’s New York. The main character, Joon-Mee, is twelve years old when she runs away from home and lives the life of a runaway teen. The book gives the reader six years in Joon-Mee’s life.

Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff. Andi at Estella’s Revenge recommended that I read Lucky Chow Fun, the first story in this collection of short stories. I read it and loved it.

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. Last year when I read Ann Hood’s memoir, Comfort, about the death of her young daughter, I feel in love with author’s voice. The Knitting Circle is a book about grief and trying to live after tragedy.

In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefield. I found out about this book while on Twitter from fellow blogger, Wendy at Caribousmom.

The Angel of Forgetfulness by Steve Stern. This book has been sitting on my shelf for much too long. A fallen angel, his half-human son, a young woman named Keni, and a long-forgotten manuscript make up this story about love and memory.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Chris would probably seriously harm me if I don’t read one of his all-time favorite books soon. (Just kidding, Chris!)

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. You can never go wrong with a Pulitzer winner.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. Meghan at Medieval Bookworm told me about this debut novel. A talented 12 year old hitchhikes across America. It’s more complicated than that, but still. . .

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors of all time and I figured summer is the best time to Steinbeck.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

500 Great Books by Women

500 Great Books by Women (1994)
edited by Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen, and Holly Smith
426 pages

I don’t review reference books here on 1330v, but I love this book and wanted fellow bookworms to know about. If you liked Book Lust by Nancy Pearl, you will love 500 Great Books by Women.

Edited by Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen, and Holly Smith and compiled with the help of thirty contributors, 500 Great Books gives the reader a collection of short reviews of lesser-known books of all genres written by women writers from different races, ages, sexual orientations, and countries. Many of the featured books were first published in a language other than English.

The reviews are divided by theme such as Growing Old, Choices, Families, Ethics, Observations, and many more. I used post-its to mark all the books I wanted to read and I ran out of post-its! My book now looks like a rainbow.

Many of the books featured here I have not heard of and less than twenty of them I’ve read. The editors included many well-known writers like Angela Carter, Louise Erdrich, Alice Walker, and Barbara Kingsolver but you are not going to find every book they wrote in this collection. Instead every writer only gets one book featured to leave room for other writers. I thought the idea was thoughtful and fair.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book is that there’s no table of contents though you can find out what books is featured by going to a theme’s page. Included in the back of the book are many indexes such as by title, subject, country, and others.

I loved the beginning of the book’s preface,

We read to learn, to feel, to stretch beyond our own lives, to escape, and to understand. A book has the power to reach back toward us and let us know we are not alone. Up from a flat page of type comes joy or anger or sadness, a sentence that soars, or an image that surprised like a photograph long forgotten. For a few hundred pages we can feel new rhythms, see new images, learn about ourselves, and become someone else.

The contributors and editors did an amazing job with this book. With so many books published every year in the United States let alone other countries, 500 Great Books is not meant to be comprehensive but to recommend to the reader some of great books the editors have read. Highly recommended.

Reading Journal: Currently Reading

Yesterday I started reading Marilynne Robinson’s debut novel, Housekeeping. The novel is the story of Ruth and her sister, Lucille, as they’re raised first by their grandmother, then her sister-in-laws, then by Sylvie, their eccentric aunt. According to the back cover,

Ruth and Lucille’s struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.

While reading Housekeeping I’ve learned that this is a book to read slowly. This book is lyrical, so well-written. I’ve been keeping a pencil with me every time I continue the story because of the beautiful passages I want to go back to later on. Like this passage,

If heaven was to be this world plunged of disaster and nuisance, if immortality was to be this life held in poise and arrest, and if this world purged and this life unconsuming could be thought of as world and life restored to their proper natures, it is no wonder that five serene, eventless years lulled my grandmother into forgetting what she should never have forgotten.

Originally published in 1980, Housekeeping was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. It didn’t win though Robinson later won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for her second novel, Gilead.

Library Loot

My library loot has been piling up lately. I have less than 36 hours until the end of the semester and I’ve started placing large amounts of books on hold. If I’m lucky I can cut the stack in half in a month. If I’m lucky.

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. I’ve seen great reviews for this book all over the blogisphere so I had to pick it up. It’s this year’s Printz award winner. I can’t wait to sit down with this book.

The Knife of Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Renay has been pumping this book up, so I had to check it out.

Che: A biography by Spain Rodriguez. I picked this one up because I love the cover.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. It’s a thriller and from what I’ve read a great book. If it’s it as good as bloggers have been saying, I won’t have to wait long for the release of the seqeul, The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney.I’ve read the first two in the series and couldn’t pass this one up. This is one of the hottest series to hit my library’s system since Harry Potter.

What’s waiting for me to pick up:

Follow Me by Joanna Scott. I’m blaming this on every blogger that read this book and wrote a review.

Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Bard Gooch. I’m reading as much as I can right now, so I can start on this book next week.

The rest of my library loot was featured in this week’s Sunday Salon post: Book Coveting.

What did you check out this week from the library?

Wild Magic by Cat Weatherill

Wild Magic (2007)
Cat Weatherill
280 pages
Middle School Fiction

What led you to pick up this book?

When I heard this was a re-telling of the Pied Piper fairy tale, I wanted to read it badly. I’ve been on a fairy tale kick for a while now. It took about six months for me to get this book from the library so when it finally arrived I was surprised.

From the jacket flap

The Pied Piper had his reasons for enchanting the children of Hamelin and stealing them away—ones rooted in a deep history of wild magic. Mari and her brother Jakob are among the children who followed the piper’s song, and they are now trapped in a beautiful but cruel world inhabited by a horrid Beast.

What I liked most

Everything. Mari and Jakob are great characters to follow. The book’s summary is actually wrong. Mari followed the Pied Piper but Jakob couldn’t because he had a bad leg. Jakob was so determined to get to his sister that he sat at the magical door of a mountain every night for days, waiting for it to open. The effects of Elvendale, the magical city inside the mountain on Jakob almost had me in tears, it was so touching.

In Wild Magic readers find out what happened to the children of Hamelin Hill and also get the background story on the Pied Piper.

Though this book stayed on my shelf for weeks once I opened it, I read it in a matter of hours. I was drawn into this story of three great characters, a beast, and a deadly forest. Even the minor characters were interesting. I definitely recommend this book.

Here’s a description of the children leaving Hamelin Town with the Pied Piper,

He dared to be different. Into a sad, drab world of gray and black he had come, burning bright in turquoise and jade. Dazzling as a dragonfly. He had played a pipe and the rats had followed, dancing till they drowned in the quick brown water of the river. They had to follow him. They couldn’t resist his music. And Marianna couldn’t resist it now. It was glorious. She wanted to dance. She wanted to dream. She wanted to follow the Piper.

And Marianna wasn’t alone. The streets were packed with children. Every boy, every girl in Hamelin Town seemed to be there, and they were all dancing.

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Bones of Faerie (2009)
Janni Lee Simner
247 pages
Young adult/Dystopian fiction
Well-Read Ladies pick for May

Summary

A devastating war between human and Faerie leaves both sides changed forever. Liza, a young girl, has only heard of the Before which is so different from the aftermath. Humans live in small villages instead of cities. Modern technology is a thing of the past. Even nature is now an enemy where trees can attack at will and plants are not to be trusted. The one lesson that Liza has learned from her cruel father is to never let anything magical in. Your life depends on it.

But when Liza’s mother gives birth one night, the child is different. Born with hair as clear as glass, Liza’s father knows the baby is part Faerie and abandons it on a hillside to die. Soon after Liza’s mother disappears and Liza is left alone with her father to fend for herself. When Liza realizes that she has the power to see into the past and future, she too flees in search of her mother and a safe place to live.

My thoughts

I think Bones of Faerie is a pretty good book. The aftermath of the war between the two races was believable. Teh author constantly illustrated the effects of the war: people had to pump their water and grow plants that could possibly kill them if they wanted to live. Liza’s display of strength and her relationship with Matthew, a boy from her neighborhood, was also entertaining.

What I didn’t like was that readers were never given a reason for the war, just a quick explanation that the two sides didn’t get along. I wanted to know the details behind the war and what lead up to it. I wanted a feel for both sides like you do with Hunger Games.

I still think it’s a good read. The story captures your attention and doesn’t let you go until the end.

Other reviews:
Becky

Emily’s Piano by Charlotte Gingras

Emily’s Piano (2005)
By Charlotte Gingras
Translated from the French by Susan Ouriou
Illustrations by Stephane Jorisch
60 pages

Middle school fiction

Grown-ups think I don’t understand anything. They’re wrong. I watch soap operas just like everyone else. What’s more, I have hypersensitive ears and piercing eyes. Even my sense of smell is much better than most people’s. I’d make a great bloodhound.

Summary

Emily’s family life is not the best. Her father rarely comes home at night and her mother spends her days crying. One day the family has to move from their grand house to a much smaller apartment. Most of their things are sold including the family’s old black piano.

Emily thinks that if she can just get her mother’s piano back, it would make her mother feel so much better. She goes  on walks all around the city, looking for the piano. Will she find it and bring her mother happiness?

Thoughts

I enjoyed reading this book. The author never tells you Emily’s age but I imagine her to be a  tween, ten or eleven years old. Everyone from her parents to her much older sisters are too busy with their own lives to pay her any attention.

As an adult and a parent it was sad to see that no one in that family was focused on Emily. Though Emily herself is a little sad about her parents’ divorce, she’s still going on with her life, taking care of herself while understanding her mother’s grief.

Here’s two more great quotes from the book,

There’s no hope of a truce in this family now. We criticize each other, we tell each other’s secrets. Sometimes we scream insults.

Emily’s conversation with her father,

He says children can’t know how complicated and strange grown-ups’ lives are, even to them. How sometimes life is like a canoe trip down a dangerous river when the canoe tips down and sinks. How sometimes a person has to run away, or how . . .

What about me? Do grown-ups know what they’re doing to me?

Though this  is a short book, readers travel with Emily on a journey through sadness and emotional maturing that has a beautiful ending.

Congratulations to Sarah for winning the Karma Wilson giveaway!

Sunday Salon:Book Coveting

This week has been a great week for books though horrible for reading. I was assigned Moby Dick to read this week and it nearly did me in. It’s a great book to read aloud from but with only a little bit more than a week to read it, I had to set aside other books to read it. Thankfully this week’s required reading is only a few poems by Emily Dickinson.

For this week’s Book Coveting post, I’m going to show you the books I’m most excited about, got my hands on, and in most cases was unable to start reading. I’m so excited to read them this week.

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. I’ve been wanting to read this for so long and Maggie’s Southern Reading Challenge gave me the perfect excuse to pick it up.

The Music Teacher by Barbara Hall. Hall is the creator of Joan of Arcadia, one of my favorite series. When I found out she was publishing a novel, I had to put it on hold at the library. Here’s the first paragraph:

I am the mean music teacher. I am that cranky woman you remember from your youth, the one whose face you dreaded seeing, whose breath you dreaded smelling as I leaned over you, tugging at your fingers. You made jokes about me, drew caricatures of me in your notebooks, made puns out of my name, swore never to be me.

Well, listen. I swore never to be me, too.

Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni. Earlier this month Frances at Nonsuchbook wrote a great post about a reading she attended for Giovanni’s newest book, Bicycles: Love Poems. It’s such a great post for a few days afterwards, I kept going back to read it.

The fantastic Renay, from YA Fabulous, asked for volunteer judges for her upcoming young adult book tournament, Nerds Heart YA. I signed up and Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers is one of two books I need to read and judge within the next couple of weeks. I’m so excited!

The Song is You by Arthur Phillips. I first heard about this book from Michele at Read and Breathe. Michele recommended Kate Christensen’s The Epicure’s Lament, which I had a chance to read a little of and enjoyed before having to return it to the library. Christensen wrote a review for The Song is You. The first sentences of the review:

If novelists were labeled zoologically, Arthur Phillips would fall naturally into the dolphin family: his writing is playful, cerebral, likable, wide-ranging and inventive.

Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter by Seth Lerer. This book combines two of my favorite reading subjects: children’s literature and books about reading. Lerer won the 2008 National Book Critics Award for Criticism for this book, so it’s the perfect book for the end of the Book Awards Challenge 2.

Tales of Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. I have been waiting months for this book from my local library. Tales of Outer Suburbia is a collection of short stories that as Heather said a few days ago, is the “perfect marriage between words and illustrations.” I have to agree with her. At 94 pages, this is a short read but one that will have you rereading it to catch everything you might have missed the first time you read it.

Last but not least is Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory. While I’ve waited months for Tan’s book, I’ve waited years for Gregory’s from paperbackswap. Everyday Matters is a illustrated memoir about Gregory and his family’s life after his wife is paralyzed from the waist down. Another short read that I cannot wait to dig into.

So that’s this week’s list. What books are you coveting?

Booking Through Thursday: Gluttony

Mariel suggested this week’s question

Book Gluttony! Are your eyes bigger than your book belly? Do you have a habit of buying up books far quicker than you could possibly read them? Have you had to curb your book buying habits until you can catch up with yourself? Or are you a controlled buyer, only purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?

I was thinking about this while I was on my blogging break. Though I have a habit of buying more books than I can read at one time ,I do have a system to my buying.

If my library has a book  I want to read, I’ll always  check it  out first instead of buying it. If I love it, then I’ll buy it. I only buy new books that my library doesn’t have or that I’ve read and know that I will re-read. A lot of the books I buy come from used bookstores and thrift stores, so I usually end up getting a lot of books at low cost. I buy books and if I love them, they will stay on my shelves for years to come. If not, I donate them to my library or local thrift store that supports veterans.

I had put myself on a book-buying ban a couple of months ago because I went a little crazy with my buying and had a ton of new books I hadn’t cracked open. During this past week I’ve realized that it’s okay to buy books. I’ve lost the anxiety I once had over my double-stacked shelves and realized that with my system of buying and giving away, I’m doing great. It’s all about moderation.

So I’m taking myself off my ban. I did great not buying, but there’s nothing like the great feeling you get when you receive a book in the mail or bring new books home.

To offset the incoming books, I joined the Spring Reading Thing challenge. My plan is to read at least eighteen of my unread books by June 20th. If I read less than eighteen, I plan on giving away the difference.

We’ll see what happens. . .

Sunday Salon: Mother’s Day Giveaway

Mama Always Comes Home
Karma Wilson(2005)
Illustrated by Brooke Dyer

Mama Always Comes Home is the story of Mama Cat, Mama Mole, and other mamas who have to briefly leave their little ones to take care of home but promises their children they will always be back soon. I had to pry a copy of this book out of my mother’s hands, she loved it that much. It’s a great book for mothers and mothers-to-be and perfect to help reassure children with separation anxiety that at the end of the day, Mama always come back.

Animal Strike at the Zoo. It’s True! (2006)
Karma Wilson
Illustrated by Margaret Spengler

The animals at the zoo go on strike. They’re tired of working for peanuts and make all sorts of demands to the zookeeper. He tries to keep them happy by meeting them but it’s little Sue on her very first trip to the zoo who show the animals how great their job really is. My children loved this book and we all laughed as we read it aloud.

There’s an animal strike at the zoo. It’s true!
The headlines are telling it all.
The animals quit. “That’s it!” “We’re through!”
Say all critters from biggest to small.

The author, Karma Wilson, kindly sent me a signed copy of both books to give away to my readers. To enter, leave me a comment including your email address. One winner will be randomly chosen this Thursday, May 14th. Good luck.

More on the author

Karma Wilson is the author of more than 30 books including Bear Snores On, How to Bake an American Pie, and Moose Tracks. You can visit her on her website, www.KarmaWilson.com

Blogging Break

Right now with so much going on in my life I need to take a blogging break. It’s the end of the spring semester and I have so many projects due within the next week, that I need to focus on school and family right now. I’ll be back on Sunday with a giveaway of children’s books but other than that, I’ll only be online to check email and reply to comments.

When I come back next Thursday I should be more relaxed, mostly free from school obligations, and will hopefully have reviews of some of the great books on my shelves.

Until then, take care.

Weekly Geeks: Reviews

This week’s Weekly Geeks assignment is on reviews and is hosted by Care.

1. Explain your review format-if you have one. Or maybe your rating system?

My review format always includes:

• a picture of the cover of the book I read
• the title, author’s name, number of pages, and the year the book was published
• a summary of the book
• my thoughts
• a few of my favorite passages

I used to have a rating system but I dropped it. Having a rating system can be a tricky thing. I want readers to know what I liked about a book, what I didn’t like, and why. Sometimes a reviewer gushes about a book but only give the book three stars without saying why or giving enough detail. When a reviewer gives the reason for the rating, I can better tell whether or not I would like the book myself.

2. Highlight another book-blogger’s review format by linking to a favorite example- don’t forget to tell us why they’re a fave.

There are so many bloggers I look up to as blogging role models. These are bloggers who have been blogging longer than me and usually add new reads to my bookshelves. Their reviews make you want to go out and buy every book they loved or don’t give another glance to a book they didn’t care for. Their reviews are detailed, their tone is light, and I always end up wishing  I could write like them.

1. Nymeth’s review of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee.
2. Nymeth’s review of Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. When Nymeth loves a book you can tell in her reviews. She makes you want to go out and buy the book while you’re still reading the review. Both Tender Morsels and The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop are on my shelves now because of her.
3. Carl’s review of Exlibris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. I love Carl’s reviews. Carl has a passion for the sci-fi and fantasy books that have made me explore both genres. He’s also the host of two of my favorite reading challenges: Once Upon a Time and R.I.P.
4. Dewey’s review of East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This is one of my favorite reviews because a) I pressured asked Dewey to read it. It’s one of my favorite books. b) It’s a great book. c) Dewey had bloggers ask her questions about the book and she answered them. It wasn’t until Dewey that I had thought to have bloggers to ask questions about the books I read. Go to Dewey’s blog and check out any random review. You’ll leave her site with a long list of new books to read.
5. Emily’s review of Locomotion and Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson. Emily writes her reviews in haiku format. She uses just a few words to make you want to read a book. My hero.

3. Do a review in another book-blogger’s format of your latest read.

Will do later.

4. Highlight a past review that you’re particularly fond of and why the format and structure may have something to do with it.

The latest review that I’m really fond of is the one I wrote for The Hunger Games. I had a hard time writing this review because so many bloggers have read this book and reviewed it. I was trying to figure out if I had anything to add to the conversation. It turned out I did have something to add. I ended up really loving the way the review came out.

It’s Monday, here’s some memes

I started reading so many books last week that I ony finished one. This week is starting out great since I read and finished a book yesterday.

Last week I read: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I finally gave in to all the hype on the blogisphere and read it. What a great book!

So far this week I read: Bones of Faerie by Janni Simner.

This week’s reads are:

1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I’ve already started reading it and so far I’m enjoying it.
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Scaffer  Annie Barrows. This is a book filled with great characters.
3. One short story collection. I found out that it’s unofficially National Short Story Month so I’m going to start on one of the many collections that’s been collecting dust on my shelves.

Hopefully I’ll read more than this pitiful amount this week.

Musing Monday

How many books (roughly) are in your tbr pile? Is this in increasing number or does it stay stable? Do you ever experience tbr anxiety in the face of this pile? (question courtesy of Wendy)

At last count a couple of months ago, I had close to 200 unread books on my shelves. I know it’s a small number compared to others but it feels so huge to me. Since I put myself on a book-buying ban two months ago, I’m glad to say the only books that have come into my home have been gifts, won from giveaways, or I’ve used my paperbackswap credits to get.

Do I experience anxiety? Yes. I try not to feel too bad because I have a rule when it comes to buying books. I only buy books if the library doesn’t have it or I’ve read it already and know I’m going to reread it. My library has a great selection of books but since book bloggers get a lot of books around the time of publication, well my shelf space has gotten a lot smaller.

I’ve joined several challenges in hopes of reading from my TBR shelves. So far this year I’ve only read about seven books from my shelves and my goal is thirty. If I don’t reach my goal, I’m happy to give away the difference.

Sunday Salon: I have no idea what to call this post

Right now it is late afternoon and there is little noise in my house. The kids are all drawing or reading and I am getting on the computer for the second time today. Usually I’m on all day but I needed a break. Earlier I was at the library researching books for one of my classes. I was only suppose to check out two books for the project but instead went overboard and brought home an armful  of books. Oh well.

I just finished Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner. I started it this morning and spent most of the day reading it for this month’s  Well-Read Ladies book club selection.  Every month we read books from different genres and write notes on our group blog for discussion. This month was young adult and next month for our classics pick is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. I cannot wait! It’s on plenty of my challenges lists.

Speaking of reading challenges, I’ve noticed that I’m not paying much attention to the challenges I signed up for. I’ve only finished two challenges this year, the Essay Reading Challenge and Young Readers Challenge. I am paying attention to the Spring Reading Thing Challenge though. When I signed up I swore I would read at least eighteen of my unread books or give the difference away. I can change the list anytime I want to but not the number. The challenge ends June 20th so I’m still hopefully I can hit eighteen. Since Bones of Faerie is one of my own books, it’s the first book I finished for the challenge. 17 to go. . .

Just when I was thinking of giving up most of my challenges, I found of that the brilliant  Maggie over at MaggieReads is hosting her annual Southern Reading Challenge. When I think of summer I think of this challenge. The challenge is from May 15th to August 15th and you only have to read three books. I had to join one more challenge! As usual I went overboard, picking more than three books but I am going to read at least three. Here’s a list of the books I’m interested in reading:

1. Mudbound by Hilary Jordan.
2. One Writer’s Beginnings byEudora Welty
3. A  Death in the Family by James Agee
4. Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
5. All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
6. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
7. A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
8. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
9. The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

Now it’s time for me to get off and get the kids ready for school tomorrow. After that I plan on curling up with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and finishing it before tomorrow.

Have a great week.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games (2008)
Suzanne Collins
374 pages

I thought about not writing a review of The Hunger Games since this book has swept the blogging community since its publication. I have read so many great reviews and thought one more wasn’t really needed.  What changed my mind was laying in bed two o’clock this morning and feeling my heart beat faster as I thought of Katniss and Peeta, Rue and Thresh, and wondered what will book 2, Catching Fire, have in store for the main characters and District 12.

Summary from the jacket flap:

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Tha Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to patricipate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in teh Hames. But Jatness has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

No matter how much you read about Hunger Games you are never prepared when you finally read it. One of the first things that stood out for me was how much information Collins gives on what’s life is like after the rebellion within the first  few chapters. As the reader you take how granted how gifted Collins is as making us feel what it’s like to live in District 12. It’s the poorest of all the districts, except District 13 which has been obliterated in the rebellion and used as a reminder of the Capitol’s power.

The Hunger Games is sci-fi, a romance, and social commentary rolled up in a young adult novel. Many have talked about how honestly reality television and violence have been portrayed but what echoes for me was the social commentary on the lifestyle differences between the poor who live in the farther districts and the rich who live at Capitol which was shown through Katniss’s perspective of the residents of the Capitol and her physical hunger.

What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?

Compare that with this:

Starvation’s not an uncommon fate in Distict 12. Who hasn’t seen the victims? Older people who can’t work. Children from a family with too many to feed.  Those injuried in the mines. Straggling through the streets. And one day, you come upon them sitting motionless against a wall or lying in the Meadow, you hear the wails from a house, and the Peacekeeprs are called in to retrieve the body. Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It’s always the flu, or exposure, or pneumonia. But that fools no one.

I enjoyed reading this book so much that I stayed up until the early morning to finish reading it. The ending, though short, was what I expected. I have so many questions I want answers to including what is going to happen to the “bodies” of the contestants who lost at the Hunger Games. I cannot wait until September 1st to buy the next book in this trilogy. Until then,  I think I will start reading Collins’ Underland Chronicles series.

Challenges Read for: Young Adult; 100+ books; April’s pick for The Year of Reading Dangerously; A Novel’s Group; and  Once Upon a Time