Shiver. It’s pretty cold here in Florida right about now but not nearly as cold as it was in Sanctaphrax in The Edge Chronicles 8: The Winter Knights. Good thing that old Hall Master passed on his knowledge in time for the young knights to warm things up.
I liked this one better than some of the others ahead of it. I wonder what #9 will bring. Hopefully Quint and Maris are still young and primary characters.
The Winter Knights Read More »
The first book I finished in 2008 is Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen. Woohoo. A sign of the year ahead? A year of non-fiction accounts of women behaving strongly but being treated badly for it? Ha.
The book wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. Too bad since Jezebel was great, even if she wasn’t the type of harlot people think she was.
Alrighty, I wandered around the bookshelves and selected a few from each color (well only one from the white books ’cause those I don’t really like the white books, for some reason.) I’m not reading these in any particular order but am listing them by color so I can find them on my shelves when the time comes to read them, heh.
Red
The Lady, The Chef & The Courtesan – 1/14/8
Bleeding Out – 1/5/8
Orange
Things Fall Apart – 9/1/8
Flame Trees of Thika – 7/27/8
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba – 2/19/8
Queer – 8/4/8
The Magic Shop – 8/23/8
Chloe & Olivia – 11/27/8
Green
Hood – 8/27/8
Queenmaker – 9/7/8
Blue
Here There Be Dragons – 9/19/8
Dancing with Elvis – 8/6/8
Cinnamon Gardens (though upon closer look, maybe this is white and should be moved?) – 10/11/8
Quatrocento (oops, I’ve already read this!)
Purple
Murder Most Crafty – 8/21/8
Beware the Kiss – 10/18/8
Rosemary & Juliet – 9/5/8
Wicked Witch & Curse – 11/12/8
Black
Nasty Bits – 8/10/8
Coffee Trader – 9/21/8
Women in Their Beds – 10/2/8
Silver
First Among Sequels – 8/19/8
From the Stacks Challenge – 2008 Read More »
The Printz Award Challenge suggests you read six of the Printz Award winners or honors. Six isn’t very many so I’m going to read them all (a few, I have already read) before the end of 2008.
2007
American Born Chinese (10/11/8)
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; v. 1: The Pox Party (10/1/8)
An Abundance of Katherines (I’ve already read this one)
Surrender (10/12/8)
The Book Thief (I’ve alrady read this one)
2006
Looking for Alaska (10/11/8)
Black Juice (10/23/8)
I Am the Messenger (10/27/8)
John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth, a Photographic Biography (7/4/8)
A Wreath for Emmett Till (10/29/8)
2005
how i live now (6/8/8)
Airborn (11/27/8)
Chanda’s Secrets (10/18/8)
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (11/6/8)
2004
The First Part Last (11/9/8)
A Northern Light (11/17/8)
Keesha’s House (11/8/8)
Fat Kid Rules the World (11/8/8)
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things (9/28/8)
2003
Postcards from No Man’s Land (6/1/8)
The House of the Scorpion (6/15/8)
My Heartbeat (5/16/8)
Hole in My Life (5/27/8)
2002
A Step From Heaven (4/24/8)
The Ropemaker (5/7/8)
Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art (4/9/8)
Freewill (4/9/8)
True Believer (4/18/8)
2001
Kit’s Wilderness (3/23/8)
Many Stones (3/27/8)
The Body of Christopher Creed (3/27/8)
Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson (3/25/8)
Stuck in Neutral (2/3/8)
2000
Monster (1/29/8)
Skellig (1/5/8)
Speak (I’ve read this one)
Hard Love (1/10/8)
My Printz Award Challenge for 2008 Read More »
I haven’t done this in awhile, and now seems like a good time to introduce you to some blogs that aren’t really new to me but they haven’t been on my every day reads for very long. They were blogs I’d stumble into from somewhere else or when doing a blog search for a piece I was writing (or someone else was writing, which is more often the case.)
They’re now on my every day reads…
Updating the Blog Roll Read More »
Slow month, but December is like that – right?
– I just finished cleaning both my feed reader and my bookmarks. Seriously deep cleaning on both.
– We saved money this month, odd but it happened.
– That weekend at Isle of Palms thing, I’m hanging onto it because the four days at Folly Beach was not quite what I had in mind for the Isle of Palms weekend. It was close… but I think we can do IoP.
– I’m considering registering for SXSW this week. If I register, I’ll go. The question is… who else is going? That’s really the only thing that has stopped me from registering.
So. Yea. Slow Month.
147 books in 2007.
55 were dropped into the “Favorites” category.
7 were dropped into the “Don’t read this” category.
23 were YA or children’s lit (seemed like more).
27 were non-fiction (hmm, I thought that number would be higher).
17 were sequels or books in a series I’ve read in the past.
A look at the books I read in 2007 Read More »
I said recently, in a blog post elsewhere, that I don’t DO resolutions. And that’s true, I don’t. I also said that I love lists and I love a good list meme. And that’s also true, I do. And since I’ve been saying off and on that I would love to do a whole year of YA reading but know that I just cannot do that, I’m going to do a mini YA challenge.
Sassymonkey recommended the Printz Award Challenge but it’s too easy. Six YA books is not a challenge, ya know? So – how about I read all of the Prince Award winners and honor books (that I haven’t already read)? That doesn’t make it a hard challenge but it does make it more interesting. That’s 34 YA books.
I’ll also be combining that with my own “From the Stacks” challenge. 24 books that I own but have not read – two a month.
I’ll create new posts for both of these 2008 reading challenges later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll need to peruse my bookshelves for good candidates for my “From the Stacks” challenge.
No resolutions for me, but… Read More »
Aye yi yi. I was so desperate for a book with an X in the title for the A to Z challenge that I immediately jumped at the suggestion by Framed and Booked to read Asimov’s X Stands for Unknown. I should have known this was not a great choice when I couldn’t get it from my library and it never appeared from my inter-library loan request. I should have really known this was not going to be my kind of book when I couldn’t even get a used copy on Amazon. But still, I was desperate to finish so I tracked down a used copy somewhere else and I started reading it a few days ago.
Or if I’m honest, I started skimming it a few days ago and just finished skimming it.
It’s non-fiction and not science fiction. It’s full of math and science. It’s boring as hell. Except for the introductory essays of each chapter – those, I liked. I also enjoyed a few of the chapters on The Bible indicating the earth is flat, ungilding gold, and one about comets. Otherwise… bored stiff.
But, this leaves me with just two books from my A to Z challenge, one we’re halfway through on audio and the other is also on audio, just waiting for us to listen to it.
X Stands for Unknown Read More »