What Am I Reading?

Ah, it's nice to be settling back into a routine of reading a bag full of books at once, letting myself either move from one to another at intervals or zooming ahead with one if it's particularly gripping. In a few weeks the library list will come tumbling down on me, but in the meantime I'm enjoying the calm that a brief spell of sanity at the end of the summer granted me.

So, I'm reading a book to satisfy my book challenges, a book from my shelves, a book I grabbed for fun from the library, a reread, and a leftover book from this summer's reading fun. Oh, on my NOOK I'm reading one book from my library, a reread, and a new one that I bought. And there's an audio book in the car for the rare occasions that we're all in there together.

I'll go check in with Book Journey's weekly round-up of what everyone has read, is reading, and will read, and then, since most of my selections are children's books, I'll also check in with the kidlit version at Teach Mentor Texts. I haven't really gotten back in the swing of reviewing these books, so I'm afraid I'm a rather dull entry to both these lists, but I'm trying to jump back on the horse. In a mixed-metaphor kind of way, of course.

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• Ghost Dog Secrets, Peg Kehret. For the elementary book club.
• Dragon Ship, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. I really enjoy their books.
• Chronicles of the Red King: The Secret Kingdom, Jenny Nimmo. For the elementary book club.
• Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, Sarah MacLean. Fun in spots, but too inconsistent to really enjoy.
• Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller. A classic of the comic book world.
• Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters, Lenore Look. For Reading My Library, and because I like Alvin.
• Two-Minute Drill (Comeback Kids), Mike Lupica. For the elementary book club.
• Masters of Disaster, Gary Paulsen. Last book for the book club!
• Rufus M., Eleanor Estes. Catch-up for the summer book club. Lots of fun.
• The Code Book, Simon Singh. For my evening book club. 
• I Am Not a Serial Killer, Dan Wells. I read it as a companion to I Hunt Killers, and it was interesting in a very different way.

What am I currently reading? I left some in-progress books at home during my gallivanting, and I cherry picked from my options to things I thought I'd enjoy.

• The Azalea Assault, Alyse Carlson. For my Where Am I Reading challenge. I find the motivations occasionally baffling; it feels almost like a mid-series book.
• The Curse of the Wendigo, Richard Yancy. (audio) We think the action will start any minute now.
• Dark Destiny, M.J. Putney. Fun book about time-traveling psychic teens who find true love while fighting to save Britain.
• Team Human, Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier. Rats in the school! Ick!
• Tales From Silver Lands, Charles Finger. Leftover from this summer.
• Phoenix In Flight, Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge. (NOOK) . At page 100, and I think I've got most of the characters sorted. It helped that a lot of them just died.
• Unclaimed, Courtney Milan. (NOOK) The male virgin romance that helped me discover Milan.
• Elfhome, Wen Spencer. (NOOK, reread) Time to uncover the conspiracy.
• Fire, Kristen Cashore. (reread) Archer is the jealous type.
• Close Range, Annie Proulx. Dipping book. I'm finding the stories very depressing.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Another dipping book. The plot is about to start.
• The Catholic Church in the Modern World, E.E.Y. Hales. Now to read about the heresy of Modernism.
• Honored Enemy, Raymond Feist. Yes, the badder guys just showed up, in time to save the alliance of good guys and bad guys.
• Smart But Scattered, Peggy Dawson. Currently on building emotional regulation. Good stuff.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Paused.

I abandoned one book, Knight of a Trillion Stars by Dara Joy. When a romance book has a sex scene, it should not include the line "If you touch me it will be rape" before the characters get it on. That's a bit too Alpha male for me. It didn't help that she was still upset about the brain surgery he had forced on her after she declined it.

I've also got a pile of unfinished summer reading books, which I'll probably work through in the next few months:

• Pinky Pye, Eleanor Estes. I bought a bunch of Estes at one time. I'm not sure I've read this one before.
• The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes. See above.
• Ecstasia, Francesca Lia Block. I find her mythic stories harder going than her Weezie Bat books.
• Bob, Son of Battle, Alfred Ollivant. I'm not liking the dialect, and I think the guy I hate is supposed to be the hero. Oops.
• Tricksters, Margaret Mahy. I have no excuse for not finishing this yet.
• Tessie, Jesse Jackson. The author makes me giggle.
• Puddleby Adventures, Hugh Lofting. I had too many Dolittle books back-to-back.
• The Avion My Uncle Flew, Cyrus Fisher. I lost this while reading it, but now I know where it is.
• The Eye of the Warlock, P.W. Catanese. Mixed-up fairy tale.
• Redskin and Cowboy, G. A. Henty. Waiting for the boy to run away from home.

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 66/73. No change. I've got two graphic novels waiting for me.
2. Global Reading Challenge: 15/21. At least Tales From Silver Lands is set in South America. Where would I count a book in Puerto Rico?
3. Where Am I Reading?:  34/50.  Still reading a Virginia book.
4. Science Book Challenge: 3.1415/3.14159. The code book is science!
5. Reading My Library:  Another one down, and the next batch stacked up at home.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 10/12. I think it would be cheating to count Bat Man as a classic.
7. Best of the Best: 31/25. No change.
8. Summer Reading Goal: All over but the cleanup. My bare shelf is filled up again, but two boxes have disappeared from my living room.