Ch-ch-ch-changes

David Bowie would be proud.

The point is that this blog has changed significantly since the project began.  I'm realizing that it's not logical anymore for the 52 books in a year goal when my day-to-day life is somewhat spontaneous.  I tried to stick to a goal, and I don't think I'm going to make it.  Strangely enough, I'm okay with this.  Really, this was partially a study in perseverance and finishing what I start, and although I haven't finished it, and really doubt I will, I still feel like I've stuck it out.  I went through phases where I wasn't blogging often enough, wasn't reading enough, but I feel like I'm really starting to see what this blog can/should/will be.

I'm still sticking to my list of 52 from the start of the project last fall, don't doubt that.  There are too many books on that list that still feel like must-reads, but I will be less structured on my timing.  I start my first La Salle graduate class tomorrow and I just got my reading list for that, and I realized I should feel okay with changing my list.  New books are published all the time, and I shouldn't feel like I need to put something off just to accomplish the arbitrary list I originally started with.  Instead, I'll be adding to the 52 with more 'must-reads' as suggested by my lovely readers, as well as my own personal must-reads.  Not everything I read or have to read will make that list, but I'm looking at it as a literary bucket list.  And there's no way a literary bucket list could be limited to 52.

So send me more suggestions.  I'll be adding a few over the next couple of days, including some from my grad class list, but I'd love to see what's suggested the second time around.

Here's my reading list for class:
- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Bender)
- The Art of Racing in the Rain (Stein)
- Hunger Games (Collins)
- Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)
- Gossamer (Lowry)
- Heat (Lupica)
- Swallows of Kabul (Khadra)

I've already read The Art of Racing the Rain and Of Mice and Men, but I'll obviously have to read them again to make sure I remember everything.  Because my masters program is in English, but the focus is on education, we are reading a lot of middle and high school level books.  I'm okay with that.  Once I have my first class, I'll have a better idea of the direction she's planning on having us take.

And as a side note, I was reading my book list to Anthony and his response to Of Mice and Men was "oh, I really liked that book."  I just about died.  My non-reading boyfriend likes Steinbeck?  Who knew!

Me, Myself, and Irene (and Sophie)

Sophie's Choice is going to give me an aneurism (which is a difficult word to spell, so thank you, Spell-Check).  I am STILL reading that book, and it's continued to be a difficult read.  It's frustrating because I'm normally a fast reader -- I was blessed with the ability to read a book quickly and retain pretty much everything I've needed for classes, essays, or simple memory.  That's right, Harry Potter 7 in 3.5 hours.

Sophie's Choice, however, has taken me quite some time, and it isn't that I'm lacking in effort.  I've been logging hours and pages into it, but for some reason, it's just not happening.  It's an interesting book, albeit a depressing one, but it's KILLING me.  And it's really bumming me out, so to alleviate my pain, I decided to break for a bit and read another book.  This isn't something that is annoying or difficult for me; being an English major teaches you to multitask novels.  One semester could carry multiple literature courses, so you get pretty good at balancing it out.  I decided to read Uglies as my self-esteem booster because it was a YA book (that's young adult, for those of you not in the know).

YA books are solid choices for a situation like this; if it's award winning or on several book lists -- Uglies is a summer reading for some school district around here, and it's on several ALA and YALSA lists -- it's generally going to be a good read, both topic and style wise.  Uglies was no different. Obviously, there's a message in the plot -- Uglies is about a future 'utopian' society that turns people 'pretty' at 16 with cosmetic surgery so no one can be judged on looks, but some people disagree with this and run away to another society.  Blah blah blah, moral is that you can be beautiful and awesome without looking 'pretty' but it was actually a really engaging book.  The best part? I read the entire thing in one day; part of it sitting on the couch at home, and the other part at work on a boring, rainy night with no real traffic in town.

Then it was back to Sophie's Choice.  The past few days have been hurricane central.  The storm hit Saturday and knocked out the power until this afternoon.  I planned on reading, because there wasn't much else to do, but honestly, reading by flashlight isn't fun after the age of 8 when you were supposed to be sleeping but you were reading under your covers instead.  Unless that was just weird, nerdy, 8 year old Leah... it hurts my eyes, and reading by candle light is even worse.  I thought I'd make good headway into the second half of the book, but instead I played cards and took walks.  I read about half a chapter yesterday, and I'm still not sure what Sophie has to choose.  You'd think by now I'd have an idea, but I'm still stuck.

I refuse to give up, though.  I WILL finish the book if it kills me... and it'll be done before it has to be back at the library by the 7th of September.  I've already renewed it once, and I do not want to be the person renewing books for a third time.  I'm sure there's a big wait for Sophie's Choice, and I don't want to ruin anyone else's good time.  I also have Bastard out of Carolina out right now, so if I need another break from Lady Sophie, I may pick that up.

Bathtub Reading > Bathtub Gin

Honestly, have you ever had bathtub gin? I haven't, but I imagine it's not so great.  The idea of it actually makes me quite uncomfortable.  Bathtub reading, on the other hand, is one of my favorite ways to relax.  How many of us take a bath to actually get clean after the age of 6?  A shower is much easier.  After a bath, I generally turn the shower on to wash my hair and my body; at most, I'll use a bath to shave my legs, but to actually clean myself? No, thank you, but I think I'm good.

I like to use time in the bathtub to relax; some bubble bath, hot water, maybe a face mask to help with the insane break-outs I've been experiencing (adult acne is no myth -- and my stress levels over trying to find a job and pay for school and look for a place to live aren't helping, I'm sure), but my favorite bath-time activity has always been reading a book.  Sure, it's dangerous, but when I'm in the tub, it's generally because I want to relax and reading is -- depending on how hectic my life is -- a relaxing activity.  Reading in water is a relaxing activity, and I really wish they made (you heard it here first) waterproof e-reader covers, so I could lay on a raft in the ocean or pool and read a book.  The tub is nice, but being outside in the sun would make it so much better.

Side-note: I googled 'waterproof kindle covers' and found many.  

I guess I'm not all that original... and if you're looking for a gift to give me

(ANTHONY) that's something to look into.  I'm just saying...

This is the bathtub where I do my reading... the yellow color is not at ALL relaxing!

I find that the places I enjoy reading most are pretty standard; laying in bed before going to sleep, in a comfortable chair, on the beach, in the tub, really anywhere I can get comfortable for a lengthy period of time.  I also like to read during certain activities; traveling, especially in a car (I'm lucky I can read for a while without feeling car-sick), eating.  I also admit -- sorry, any family member reading... and sorry, boyfriend... and sorry, Fernando, who thinks girls don't poop or sweat -- that I'm guilty of reading in the bathroom.

Now before anyone gets grossed out or upset that they just read the above statement, let's think this through; how many people keep magazines/books/newspapers in the bathroom right next to the toilet?  Isn't that encouragement?  How many jokes do people make about doing 'quality reading' time in the bathroom?  As a society, it's almost a joke, but it's turning into something different.  Sure, bathroom reading is still acceptable, but now it's more about cell phones.  Honestly.  People bring a cell phone in the bathroom; just a few weeks ago I went to dinner with a friend (hi, Colleen) and inside the bathroom stall was an ad with a website link and a scan-box.  I honestly don't know what those things are called -- I'm obviously not up on my tech terms -- but it was clearly expecting people to be sitting on the toilet with phone in hand. What an interesting shift!

I'm still reading Sophie's Choice.  It's been slow so far, and it's not because I'm uninterested in the book.  The plot is interesting, but the style is just not for me.  I barely got through one chapter in the tub the other day, and last night only read about 25 pages.  I find it difficult to become engrossed in the story.  I'm not sure what it is about his style that makes it tricky, but it's not a book I can sit and read for hours and hours.  It's due back to the library on Wednesday, and I haven't even touched the other 3 books I checked out, so renewal is on my horizon.  I'm almost ashamed at how slow the process is going.

Once Sophie's Choice is finished, I'm going to watch the movie (my mother loves it) and then move on to Uglies, which is a Young Adult novel.  That should move quickly, and I'll feel a little better about my life.

Leah goes to Alaska; the Watsons go to Birmingham!

And another month passes; where does the time go? I'm getting to the end of the wire for my little experiment, but I did finish a few more books since my last update.  Our entire family (and I mean entire family... grammie and her sister took all the kids and grandkids on a cruise) went to Alaska last week.  It was fantastic, but I didn't read on the plane like I thought I would.  I don't travel well, and instead of passing the time with a book, I found watching a movie and TV was more distracting from the plane.  I did get through a few books on the boat; I read on the bus that took up to Anchorage at the end of the trip, and I spent some time reading on our balcony.  I finished Grendel and Waiting for Godot, and in the time before the trip, I spent 2 days down the shore and reading Nineteen Minutes.
Let me begin by saying I have a freakish obsession with Beowulf.  It's odd, really.  The Seamus Heaney translation is stellar, and I actually audited a class in college called Beowulf to Mallory (audited... you know, where you take a class but not for a grade.  Yeah, I was that loser who took too many credits that semester but couldn't stand to NOT read Beowulf again).  I loved the perspective of the monster, and I'm glad I read Beowulf just 3 years ago [recently enough] -- and talked to my co-worker about his teaching the novel -- to remember small plot details that make their way into the story-line.  Think Wicked, told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch, but a million times better. Grendel isn't completely innocent; instead he seems very human, aside from him actually being a monster and eating people, and longs for a life away from his mother.  I read it on my kindle, which I'm still not completely sold on, and I think it would have been even better to read it alongside Beowulf.  I have Wide Sargasso Sea on my reading list as well, which is a complementary tale to Jane Eyre, and having read that again just a year ago, I'm hoping it will be even more interesting.
Waiting for Godot took about 2 hours, while I was waiting (hahaha see what I did there?) for the time to arrive to go on a dog-sledding tour of a glacier.  I sat in a deck chair on the covered part of the pool (hey, it's cold and rainy in Alaska and you have to swim inside!) and ate some ice cream while I read.  It was nice, although there was an Asian family playing ping-pong who kept looking at me and pointing.  I'm not sure why.  It may have been my polka-dotted rainboots worn indoors, but who knows!
Waiting for Godot is absurd and meant to be absurd, and although I enjoyed it, I don't see it as an important part of my personal literary canon.  I brought it up in conversation recently and a shall-remain-nameless-person critiqued my not loving the play and 'told' me (I already knew, thank you) that it was absurdest comedy and that's why it was so odd.

Yeah, I'm aware.  But thanks!

Okay, here's the thing.  I'm pretentious and obnoxious and a former English major.  I read, and I read a lot.  I have my likes and my dislikes, and people who don't read really bother me.  But it's people who have only read a few things and act like he -- I do really wish English had a gender neutral pronoun -- is the highest of literary critics that drive me up a wall.  Extra points if the few things he has read are of the pretentious circle.  The conversation goes something like this:

"Oh, Stephen King, he's so overrated.  He simply writes to sell books."
"Well, he's written quite a bit under pseudonyms, and he's dabbled in novels, short stories, poetry, and screenplays, so I'd say he's a well-rounded and accessible author."
"Yes, I suppose, but he's no Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I mean, One Hundred Years of Solitude?  Amazing."
"Uh-huh.  And what did you think of his other books?  Did you enjoy his use of magic realism?"

Generally the conversation ends somewhere in the range, with me doing my best to escape the conversation and the other person realizing they've engaged an English teacher in a book discussion.  That can be scary; we get overly excited about things.  But I digress; do you know why I haven't really read Marquez?  Because I find him difficult and somewhat boring, and that is the beauty of my study of literature.  I read books because I want to be entertained and amazed.  Why else would I read everything Anne Rice has ever written? Although I will argue until the day I die the literary merit of her works.  Don't play.

The point is, I promise I've been reading -- just today I was reading The Watsons go to Birmingham -- 1963 in the bathtub, but that's for another post.

I want to know this: what is the most pretentious book you've ever read?  What book/author do you find most obnoxious people have read and want to tell you they've read?

You can call me the book whisperer

On my to do list for today? Update my blog! And in other exciting news, I've been reading! Because it's the end of the semester, two of my classes are sans seniors, which means I have 3 students in each class. That's right: 3 students. It's been fantastic so far; I've assigned them a film project (the first presentation is tomorrow) and some independent reading.

I decided to make the book requirements minimum, since my students just simply don't read, in order to make them more likely to pick something enjoyable or interesting. The book has to fit in with the themes of our class, and in Multicultural Lit, there are pretty universal themes. Does the book discuss identity? Perseverance? Is it about a cultural group, or people who don't fit in a cultural group? Okay, cool, that book is fine by me. Of my 6, 4 of them asked me for a suggestion, and after hearing their interests and what movies or books they like, I gave out the following selections:
American Born Chinese
Monster
Angus, thongs, and full-frontal snogging
Violet and Claire

Guess what? They all LOVE the book I offered. Mariah and Mark already finished their books, Emmie is almost done with hers, and Tyrell is a story all his own. He's reading 2 books, because he also wanted to read the 7th Harry Potter book. And even more than them liking the books they picked, they really enjoy the reading time in class. Having such a small group lets me discuss with them individually, which is so satisfying as a teacher.

The other part I love is that they wanted me to do independent reading along with them. So here I am, 115 pages into Water for Elephants, doing journal entries and sharing in class. We sit around in the comfy chairs and read, and when I tried to grade some papers the other day, they insisted I read. It's fantastic!

I find that giving book suggestions, like recommending films or music, is tricky ground. You want to offer something worthwhile, taking the other person into consideration, but it's also easy to get caught up in something you just simply love. Most book suggestions I've given have been positively received, so, boom, there you go. I'm the book whisperer.

Water for Elephants, on the other hand, was recommended to me. By everyone I know who reads. Yeah, it took me a while, but I love it so far! (Still in the middle of Memoirs of a Geisha and Grendel).

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8