wallpaper It's Monday, What Are You Reading? #23

wallpaper The baby afghan is still taking most of my time and attention and so that I can work on it four to six hours per day, I've been getting most of my story fixes from videos this whole month but in spite of that and the bug I've been fighting for over a week now I have managed to spend some significant time with books this past week.

Though they were all either on their way back to the library or just coming home from the library.


In the first category:

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The Case for God by Karen Armstrong

It's hardly surprising when I don't finish a nearly 800 page NF book even when the subject matter is one of highest fascination for me and the author one I gravitate to and trust the most on the subject. I'll be sending for this one again soon. Would like to own it.

It is no longer surprising but still very annoying and frustrating when a novel I've already started or am about to start or discover I really want to start, won't renew. I tend to torture myself in the last day or two it is in my possession by thumbing through and snatching a paragraph or two or three form random pages. That happened three times this past week:


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The Wishing Trees by John Shors

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Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

I sent for this after watching the DVD over a month ago and actually read the first chapter the day it came home. It is a re-read for me of course and so was too easy to set aside. But that didn't make it any easier to let go of it when it came due this week. I really need to own my own copy again.

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The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight by Gina Ochsner

And this is the second time I've had this out for more than a month! Not only am I fascinated by anything Russian since my love of Russian literature began in high school but the author is Oregonian.

Two of the books in the second category, coming home with me for the first time, are the NF:

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Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardner and Shiane Birley

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Getting Things Done by David Allen

Both are books with lots of useful information and tips and tricks immediately applicable. With the help of these two books I've continued to fiddle with my blog template and other technical blogging issues since Bloggiesta ended over a week ago and I've begun to tackle other neglected projects with the help of Allen's advice on organizing and planning.

wallpaper 2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge

wallpaper I'm joining my first 2011 reading challenge. I waited so long because I was trying to make myself get the 2010 reading challenge wrap-up post done first. But I'm going to miss out on this one if I don't jump in by the 31st.

The challenge is to read one book set in or about each of the 50 American states and for bonus points as many locals outside the states as you can. This challenge is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. There are prizes involved.

You don't have to have a blog to participate but you do need to create a Google Map to display the locals.

My 2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge map.

I haven't recorded any reads on it yet. I just created it so I could link to it in this post

wallpaper Library Loot: January 26 to February 2

wallpaper Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

wallpaper Marg has Mr Linky this week


I've currently got 32 items checked out on my card and another 15 on my husband's card. I'm going to show screenshots of our account pages instead of typing it all out or spending time selecting which get mentioned.

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My most recent trip to the library was Monday from which I lugged home another large bag. This after having just suffered the drawn out agonies of sending a couple dozen back over the last two weeks which I'd barely glanced at since a few days after their arrival in late fall.

From the moment NaNo started November 1st to New Years I was over committed without the huge bundles of books I kept sending for.

Yet I kept sending for them.

For several weeks now the final due dates of books renewed twice for a total of 63 days or nine weeks have been implacably arriving and I've been frantically perusing the pages of the batch due next. This might give me three days with twelve books or seven days with three books.

I did manage to advance my bookmarks in several of the NF books so I don't feel their stay with me was completely unproductive. I'd just hoped to get farther in more and possibly actually finish more. I make a habit of creeping my bookmarks through the NF but I truly hate when I've miscalculated and start a novel only to discover I haven't the time to finish. This has happened a dozen times or so in the last six months. I usually have to begin the novels again once I get them back.

I was stressed to the snapping point over the last two weeks as those due dates approached and passed and I tried to get as much as I could out of the batch going back next while maintain a good pace on the baby afghan and continuing to post daily and ... and ...

And yet I brought home another large batch Monday. There was another one on the 10th.

Here are some of the mostly first timers that have come home in the last month which I'm the most excited by:

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I'm in dire need of advice that works regarding stress, time-management, productivity, organization as my sister well knew when she practically jump out at me via facebook and shook me by the shoulders to tell me I had to read this. I immediately checked the library and got in queue.

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I am endlessly fascinated by the competing theories regarding the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Have had this out before but didn't get much further than scanning the chapter titles and dipping into a paragraph or page here and there. My typical pre-read for a NF.

Update: I was informed by a reader that the controversies discussed in this book have nothing to do with the authorship controversies. I guess my radar for the authorship controversy caused me to make a hugely unwarranted assumption based on the word 'controversy'. I blush.

Ah well. This doesn't lessen my interest in the book as its still about Shakespeare and his work.

I should clarify that my interest in the authorship theories is just that, interest. I'm not qualified myself to judge the validity of the arguments but I find it quite fascinating that they exist at all.

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This was one of the surprises I found on the large print shelves Monday. I saw on the cover the author was born in Jakarta to Chinese parents and then studied at Stanford. I love stories influenced by multiple cultures. Then spotting the word 'fable' on the inside flap sealed the deal for me.

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Actually I sent for this one several weeks ago after watching the movie on DVD. It will be a re-read for me if I get to it. This is one of the few books I've already read more than twice. Once in Junior High again in high school and yet again shortly after I was married.

And of course when this one came up during my search for Gone With the Wind I had to have it too. A re-examination of the Gone With the Wind story both book and film in light of the modern consensus of the role of women.

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Saw this on Sheila's Book Journey and was intrigued. A story in which story itself figures. My favorite kind of story.

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A re-telling of Bram Stoker's Dracula from the point of view of the woman who was pursued by the monster instead of the several men self-appointed as her protectors. Is it possible she resented their protection?

And then there is this which I sooooo wish I'd had last weekend for Bloggiesta:

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wallpaper It's Monday, What Are You Reading? #22

Join the meme at Book Journey.
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We went to the library this afternoon where I had a number of requested items waiting for me and then added to them by raiding the large print books shelves for a stack of novels almost taller than my arm is long. What they mean by armful I guess.

But I can't talk about those tonight. I shouldn't even unpack the bag and spend time fawning over them as I have to prioritize three books not in that bag. Two of which I own and one a library book that was due today and is out on Ed's card but which has a queue that could take four months to come back around to me.

The library book is NF and the other two are novels but one is already a multiple reread for me but is part of a project that is in essence past due and the other is a review copy which I've had for two months and keep restarting and then setting it aside for nearly due or overdue library books, the crochet shawl before Xmas and the crochet baby afghan since the day after.

Between last week and today I had to release a couple dozen or so books back to the library most of which I'd barely glanced at between a day or two after their arrival and a week or so before they were due. I guess the sight of room on the shelves must have been raising my anxiety levels though because I came home today with nearly as many items as have gone back in the last two weeks. Not all books. Two movies, Season 2 of House MD, three audio books are in the bag along with maybe ten novels and at least two NF.

One of the NF is on the theme of stress. Is that a bit of irony or what?

Urm irony because much of my stress is due to library due dates and lack of space and time. I know this and yet I keep collecting the books and thread and projects until I am comfortably hyperventilating over deadlines, due dates and crowded shelves, drawers, bed and mind.

The other NF in that bag I so wish I'd had this weekend for Bloggiesta. Blogging for Dummies. Can't give you the author as I'm not allowing myself to unpack that bag tonight. For because of Bloggiesta and because I tried to stay on pace with the baby afghan as well, I've had less than four hours of sleep in the last 48.

So in spite of the urgency attached to these three books I'll have to sleep before I can tackle them:

wallpaper The River Why, which I'm re-reading as I work on my Book Drum profile for it which I was determined to have ready to publish by the end of the month. Was. Tho, ready or not, I think the time has come to release it from my clutches and let it go public where others can add to it. I can continue to work on it after that but won't have total control anymore.







wallpaper City of Tranquil Light is a review copy for which I still owe a review more than two months after receiving it. Talk about stressing.





wallpaper Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America. The library book due today which I was planning to spend tonight finishing up with so Ed could return it in the morning and still avoid a fine. It is on his card. But Ed has told me to keep it until Thursday as he'd rather see me sleep tonight.

wallpaper Becoming the Books

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Artist : Andre Martins de Barros

Ed and I had just finished eating at 8:30 this evening and all I wanted to do was get my post up--which was going to be my first reading challenge for 2011--but first I had to plug in my clock and find space for the books I'd brought home from the library yesterday. The clock task was supposed to take five minutes or less but it involved excavating for the power strip and that involve some minor clutter patrol so it took twenty minutes.

I had no problem finding space for the books and DVD I checked out yesterday as they just slipped into the slots left behind but the stuff returned. But when it came to the six books I bought of the Friends of the Library shelf.... Well that was a whole other story.

That involved pulling books and other things off the shelf next to my pillows under a ledge that is easy to bump my head on and is dark as a cave unless I move the pillows and shams filled iwth quilts that serve to prop me to sit up in bed. So there I was laying stretched out on the bed reaching back behind my head pulling books and misc out of the cave and piling the behind me until they were toppling and piling them in front of me until they threatened to fall off the bed and then resorting to piling them on myself along my hip and thigh and ribs on my right side as I lay on my left side.

And in the middle of all this Merlin decided he just had to get to his window perch on the ledge above my head and his best path was me. He walked up my right leg to the first small stack of paperbacks and was about to climb it when my startled yelp gave him pause and my stern 'OFF' backed him off.

At that point I had to pause and lay back to completely rest my arms and I became fully cognizant of the sensation of being buried by books or possibly composed of books. Or maybe a bit of both.

And then I made the sad acknowledgment that any books I squirreled away in this cave now would have the same fate as those I'd last put there--the very ones I was now pulling out in order to rearrange and/or redistribute to make room for the newest six--nearly six months ago.

So I've now commenced another round of soul searching and re-evaluation of my relationship to my books.

But it will probably end in the same place it always does.

I am who I am and it is what it is.

BTW it was after 11 when I got the bed cleared and put back together and by then Ed had fallen asleep in the living room recliner while watching Netlix online and I had to keep after him for another half an hour to wake up and get his self and his stuff move back to the room.

And it is now almost 2am as a prepare to click 'publish post' and I haven't even started crocheting on the baby afghan so it is going to be hard to get Tuesday's quota of 4 done by dawn. This morning before I slept I had actually crocheted five rows since waking on Monday but got to count only two towards the quota as I had removed three of them including one of them twice! I am am soooo behind on it now. At least half a week. I'm a few inches into row 43 and by Thursday dawn I should be on row 66. One 36 inch row takes me on average an hour.