Confessions of a Pagan Nun was very good. Much, much, much better than Black Elk in Paris.
A woman who became a Druid scribe who became a Nun scribe who was drowned in a well as a pagan. Cool stuff. Lots of women’s wisdom there.
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Or maybe I should have titled this “The Legacy of The Moonstone” since I read Robinson Crusoe simply because I loved Betteridge and Betteridge worshipped RC.
Upon reflection and upon finishing RC, I think I was duped once again by The Moonstone. I believe I would have been happier with my simple childhood memories of RC. I do not remember the section in the middle, where RC was so damn fixated on “the Savages” from my childhood. (Please don’t suggest I read an abridged copy, I didn’t. I hate abridged copies and have always refused to read them.) I think I simply skimmed over that tedious bit as a child and moved along to the good part – since I was sorely tempted to do so last night.
Also upon reflection, I did appreciate picking up RC again and reading it with an eye for what Betteridge found so appealing and helpful. I wish Wilkie Collins had written a book of short stories about Betteridge’s life with the answers from RC included in each story – the moral of the story, according to RC or some such thing. That would have been interesting.
Enough with The Moonstone, sorry it has sort of taken over my life. I can usually keep it in check, but sometimes it just slips out!
Robinson Crusoe – long and tedious in the middle. The lack of “chapters” didn’t help it any. The end, back to civilization, it was all rushed and not worth reading and should have been a book of its own rather than a jumble of 10 pages.
I don’t think I can quite convince myself to read The Further Adventures of… or anything Selkirk – though if Skeeter insists, I will obey. After all, she read The Moonstone with me.
I finally finished Misquoting Jesus and I learned something very important. Two things actually.
First, reading a book that feels like a sixth grade text book can be incredibly boring. And no matter how interested you are in the subject, a book like that is almost impossible to keep focused on.
Second, The New Testament – it’s not accurate. No kidding, right? Right. I’m not sure what I expected to find in this book, but whatever it was I did not find it. Obviously The New Testament isn’t accurate. We don’t have the original writings or anything close to the original writings. All versions have flaws. No kidding.
I didn’t hate the book, don’t get me wrong. It was ok. It was just sixth grade textbook like, boring and unenlightening. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I’d been reading it with a bunch of sixth graders and we could have discussed each section or something. But I don’t have any sixth graders around who would indulge me in such painful textbook-like reading. So, I was bored.
Onto Robinson Crusoe!
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Amanda is running a Summer Reading Challenge and it’s interesting. I’m not sure what such a challenge would be, for me. 28 books is not all that many, probably about what I’d read when it wasn’t summer, ya know? The other problem is that while some people have more time to read in the summer, I tend to have less. Maybe what I should do is create a list of a certain type of book? That doesn’t seem like it would work well either though because of how I choose books in general – and because almost all of my books come from the library so my reading is based on the speed at which others return books that I’ve reserved.
Updated on May 23rd: I’ve decided what my challenge is – only 20 19 books but these will definitely be a challenge for me since I’ll also be trying to keep up with the “normal” reading we’ll be doing aka keeping up with TW’s normal reading:
Updated June 26: Only 2 down, I’ll never make it!
Updated July 2: Cloud Atlas, Crucible and the Mark Twain – done!
Updated July 15: Kindred, The Ancient Child – 7 finished, just 7! Ack!
Updated: July 21: Vanity Fair – DONE! Taking a break for something GOOD! Heh.
Updated July 23: The Shadow of the Wind – Done! From the “meme section”. 10 down and starting the scarey stuff now…
Updated August 2: Kristin Lavransdatter – finished. 10 down, more scarey stuff on tap!
Updated August 6: 2 more finished, 175 pages of Gravity’s Rainbow but I’ve given up, for now. I might make it after all… maybe… 12 0f 19 finished.
Updated August 13: 16 of 19 finished (plus 1/3 of Gravity’s Rainbow, which I’ve given up on in favor of another Pynchon novel…)
Updated August 19: 17 down, finished The Crying of Lot 49 which I substituted for Gravity’s Rainbow. I have Possession on audio and am ordering Odd Women now, hopefully it will arrive quickly and I can finish before the end of the month. I’m almost impressed with myself!
Updated August 31: Yea! I’m done, I did it! Well, sort of. I am listening to the last book right now, on audio. I’m on cassette 5 (there are 16 cassettes). So I won’t really finish by midnight tonight but I will finish it in a week or so. I’m pretty pleased that I managed to complete this challenge. It was much harder than I thought it would be, too.
Read 1 book I own but haven’t read – 5 (thanks Sassymonkey) Here are the 5: The Girls, The Land of Women, Midwives, Mrs Shakespeare, The Effect of Living Backwards Done 8/13/6
Read The doggone Moonstone – Done 6/6/6
Read The doggone Dragonriders of Pern – Done 6/20/6
Read a classic that I haven’t read before 5. Here are the 5 I’m going to read (thanks to Jules and Sassymonkey for assisting in the creation of this list!) : Odd Women Vanity Fair, The Diaries of Adam & Eve, The Crucible, Kindred –Done 8/30/6
Read the books on this meme that I haven’t read (3) (2) (1)- problem, it appears I have read all three of the books in His Dark Materials. I reserved the one I don’t own/thought I hadn’t read and it turns out, I have read it after all!
Read books from the Teachers First’s Lifetime Reading List that I have not read 5 (the list: The Woman Warrior, The Ancient Child, Gravity’s Rainbow (substituted The Crying of Lot 49, Kristin Lavrandsdatter)
Technorati Tags: summerreadingchallenge, readinglists, summer
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I did it! I finished The Odd Women! For awhile, I thought life was going to conspire against me and prevent me from finishing before the month ended. I’m so glad I read it.
I was afraid I was going to hate it and end my Summer Reading Challenge on a sour note. Gissing, well he’s an odd duck and I can’t decide how I feel about him in general. But I didn’t. It drove me nuts in places, silly women making silly choices and all of those ridiculous men reigning over the women, or expecting to be able to reign over women. Bah. Down with the patriarchy! Heh.
I wasn’t thrilled with how Monica’s story ended. I was very pleasantly surprised by what happened with Rhoda and Everaud, I think that worked well – from the feminist perspective.
The only question I’m left with is why was it so hard to acquire this book? It isn’t available at my library or at the SFCC library (I never had time to check at UF). I checked two used bookstores in town and it wasn’t there. I called Barnes & Noble and it wasn’t in stock. Weird. I don’t understand it.
The Bullet Trick has clinched it. Louise Welsh is awesome. I’ve now read all of her books and loved every single one of them.
This one is about a magician or a conjurer, if you prefer. How about an illusionist, I like that better. He’s also got a way of landing himself into difficult situations.
The Bullet Trick had a wee bit less sex but the book was still sexy. Rather than primary gay characters there were secondary gay characters and some gay jokes.
Loved the book. Love Louise Welsh.
When Michelle was little, little, little she fell in love with a book at the school library. The book was called A Pony For Linda and it looked just like this.
She would check it out from the library and pretend to “lose it” so she wouldn’t have to take it back to the library. When that didn’t work because I would always “find it”, she started just renewing it every week.
At the end of the school year, the librarian called me upstairs and asked me if Michelle would like to keep A Pony For Linda and just bring us a brand new book to take its place on the shelf. Michelle was thrilled. The librarian was also thrilled since she was getting a brand new book and Michelle always had that old book checked out so nobody could read it if they wanted to. I can’t remember which book Michelle picked out to exchange for her much loved green covered pony book.
We still have A Pony for Linda. And it still makes Michelle smile.
I really thought I had reserved The Stolen Child on audio but apparently not. I wonder what it is like on audio. Has anyone listened to this one, rather than read it?
Not that I didn’t enjoy reading it. I did enjoy it. I had heard so many good reviews about it, I was worried. Particularly in the first few chapters when I found it just a little slow and it wasn’t holding my attention very well. I think by the 4th chapter (which really isn’t very far into the book) I was hooked.
Changelings. Hobgoblins. Faeries. Humans. I think I prefer the changelings, how about you?
I love book blogs. Without book blogs I would not have been introduced to tons of great books. Books like The Sculptress! Awesome. If only I could remember, or easy find, the book blog where I heard about The Sculptress. But it’s hard and I’m tired so I have given up for awhile. Whoever you are, if you are reading this and you blogged about Minette Walters sometime in the last six months – THANK YOU.
Did Olive do it or didn’t she? Does it matter?
Finally! I finally managed to pick up The Year of Magical Thinking and read it. Finally! I’ve only reserved it six times from the library and it’s officially one day overdue as it is. But I read it and I’m glad.
I’ve always been a Didion fan and I was a little bit afraid I would not like this. I was afraid it was going to be too weepy or too whiney, something out of character for Didion. Thank goodness, it wasn’t that at all. It was pure Didion and I hope to goodness I’m a cool customer like her if/when I’m faced with death or a child’s illness or heaven forbid, both at the same time.
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