Please Send Gumption

A frequent comment to my blog (especially from people here from the comment challenge who need to say SOMETHING even when I'm too dull to give you anything to talk about) is that I sure do read a lot of books at once. Which is true.

But that's partly because there are books I'm reading because I like reading them, and books I'm reading because I want to have read them. If I'm lucky, each book is both, but sometimes this is not the case. And I usually don't like to read too much of a book if I'm not enjoying it, so I try to make sure I've got some books dangling as carrots -- if I read a bit of that book that I want to have read, then I can read some of that book that I want to be reading.

And even in the the books I'm reveling in reading, I sometimes have reasons to try to go slow. For example, I like to read book club selections over a few days so I have time to have a few thoughts about them. I like to spread comfort books out over any time I need comforting in. All of which means that if I'm going to read 200 - 300 pages in a day, often I want to spread those out among the book that I'm not really enjoying (Shadow of the Wind), the book I want to cleverly notice foreshadowing and all the funny bits in (Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict), the book from a good author but with a really annoying premise (The Spanish Wedding), and the book where the author might kill off a bunch of people for an added emotional punch (Faith, Hope and Ivy June). And I'll force myself through a bit of the dull parts of The War With the Newts in between these options. So there's a week in which I'm reading four, maybe five books depending on which is on top.

I'm still on track with C.B.'s TBR Double Dog Dare. My library list is under my age and I have room to pull a few CDs to play in my car.

I'm also up to date with the Comment Challenge. Some days my comments are fairly lame, but I managed to get up a blog post or two for other people to comment on if they get desperate.

I'll go sign in at Book Journey's round-up of what people have read, are reading, and will read. I'm eligible again for Teach Mentor Texts since I read two kidlit books.

This week I read:

• Succubus Blues, Richelle Mead. NOOK. Fun book I got from Felicia Day's book club.
• Tears of the Sun, S.M. Stirling. Worst page:plot ratio I've seen.
• My Year With Eleanor, Noelle Hancock. NOOK. Fun memoir.
• Faith, Hope, and Ivy June, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. RML book that I felt through in a bit too much drama.
• The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, Trenton Stewart. For my family book club.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Hey, I finished this! 

What am I currently reading? Technically I have 23 books open, but really I'm only trying to read about three. Well, five if you count the NOOK books.  Most books are just for browsing, and then there's all the books left over from the summer that I'll get to REAL SOON NOW.

• Dearly, Departed, Lia Habel. NOOK. I think this was a Felicia Day pick that I fell behind on.
• The Spanish Marriage, Madeleine Robins. NOOK. Argh, it's a romance based on stupidly keeping secrets. OK, he just has a misunderstanding that he's too dumb to talk about, but anytime the heroine thinks "oh, I just realized I can't tell him this secret for some goofy reason" I know the book is not going to win me over. 
• Shadow On the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I'm really not enjoying this book, which seems to stop and congratulate itself on its own beauty every few paragraphs. Yes, it's beautiful writing, but the vanity is wearying.
• Fleas, Flies, and Friars, Nicholas Orme. I got another copy from the library, and I won't lose this one!
• Gone, Michael Grant. I've read his humor, now I'll try his drama. Highly recommended by my eighth grader.
• The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater. (audio). I wonder if the boys would notice if I snuck ahead without them...
• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays,  Laurie Lecomer. The importance of early intervention.
• The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Martin Gardner. Dipper. I am also not an aesthetic relativist.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Dipper. Big chase scene.
• Senrid, Sherwood Smith. Dipper. Is the sister nine or sixteen? I'm a bit unsure.
• War With the Newts, Karel Capek. Dipper. Still very slow.
• The Enemy, Charles Hudson. NOOK. I got it back.
• The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt. (NOOK) Another expiration failure.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Paused.

What will I read next week? I now have a sense of this, since I'm regulating my page intake to about 100 pages a day (not counting book club books:

• Among Others, Jo Walton. I have to find this book so I can reread it for Foolscap next weekend.
• Under the Mesquite,  Guadalupe McCall. For Tuesday. From the Best of the Best lists.
• Twenty and Ten, Claire Bishop. For Thursday. I got a copy from Scholastic, but of course I've read it before.
• Every Day, David Levithan. For Friday. For the Cybils finalist list.

2013 Challenges:

1. TBR Double Dare: Eight books from my shelves. And I've turned in more library books than I check out.
2. Cybils: 4/74. I'll start one this week.
3. Where Am I Reading?: I've signed up, and read seven states already.
4. Science Book Challenge: Need to re-sign up.
5. Reading My Library: Another one down! (Faith, Hope and Ivy June, by Naylor.)
6. Best of the Best 2012: 36/25. We're currently enjoying Scorpio Races. I start Under the Mesquite soon.
7. Summer Reading Goal: The next one is working its way up the stack.

Where Am I Reading in 2013?

I've done BookJourney's Where Are You Reading? challenge for two years now, and I really like the way it pushes me to read outside my comfort zone. When the days grow short and I'm missing a Rhode Island or a Kentucky book, I'll grab anything I can find and then suddenly I'm immersed in the world of giant pumpkins or wild environmental thriller off the coast of South Carolina. I liked the idea of planning to get at least five books a month, although I'll probably be falling behind by the end of the year again.

I'm also going to try to track all my books here, but I'm a sloppy record keeper so no promises. And I'm adding in the global stuff at the bottom so I have one post for all my settings.

Alabama: Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, Darkroom, Looking For Alaska, Fourmile
Alaska: The Shameless Diary of an Explorer: A Story of Failure on Mount McKinley
Arizona: Impulse, Blood on the Verde River
Arkansas: Grave Sight, Shakespeare's Landlord
California: Sammy Keys and the Power of Justice Jack, Lucky Breaks, Gone, The Con Job, High Voltage Danger Lab, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, The Native Star
Colorado:  The Prairie Thief, How to Save a Life
Connecticut: Bride Quartet
Delaware: Unspoken Fear
Florida: How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, Freak Show, Chomp
Georgia: Three Bedrooms, One Corpse; A Bone to Pick, Real Murders, The Julius House, Last Scene Alive, Poppy Done to Death, One More Theory About Happiness,
Hawaii: Night of the Howling Dogs
Idaho: The Mountain Valley War
Illinois: Will Greyson, Will Greyson; Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, Almost Home
Indiana: Seed No Evil
Iowa: Blue Jasmine
Kansas: May B, The Adventures of Beanboy
Kentucky: Faith, Hope, and Ivy June
Louisiana: Dead Ever After, The Iron King, Poison Princess
Maine: The Young Man and the Sea
Maryland: Every Day
Massachusetts: My Stroke of Insight, Summer of the Gypsy Moths, Music Was It, Clementine and the Spring Trip
Michigan: Platypus Police Squad: The Frog that Croaked, Libriomancer, Dark Currents, Big Girl Small
Minnesota: Sparrow Road
Mississippi: Blood Trade
Missouri: The Shape of Desire, Still Life With Shapeshifter
Montana: Cry Wolf
Nebraska: Standing Bear of the Ponca
Nevada: The Showdown in Sin City
New Hampshire: Temple Grandin
New Jersey: Cold Cereal
New Mexico: Bomb: The Race to Build -- and steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
New York: My Year with Eleanor, Celebrity In Death, Wild Girl, Naked in Death, Glory in Death, The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Olivia Kidney and the Secret Beneath the City, Tessie, Delusion in Death, Rapture, PS Be Eleven, Enclave, Bestseller Job, Liar & Spy, Wonder, The Theory of Everything, Calculated in Death
North Carolina: Blackwood, Paranormal Properties, An Ice Cold Grave, Shine, Four Corners of the Sky, Listen!, The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes, 
North Dakota: The Round House
Ohio: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
Oklahoma: Coyote Autumn
Oregon: Tears of the Sun
Pennsylvania: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Bossypants, Elfhome, Boy21
Rhode Island: Outside Providence
South Carolina: Hidden in Plain View
South Dakota: Ascension
Tennessee: A Dog's Way Home, Grave Surprise 
Texas: Holes, Under the Mesquite, Redskin and Cowboy, Grave Secret
Utah: World's Strongest Librarian
Vermont: Bread and Roses, Too; Soup's Hoop
Virginia: Stink the Incredibly Shrinking Kid
Washington: Succubus Blues, Lottery, Succubus On Top, Moon Called (GN) I & II, 
West Virginia: Snow in Summer
Wisconsin: I'm With Stupid
Wyoming: Wyoming Bold

Washington, D.C.: All the Possibilities
*******

51/51

North America (non US): 2
Canada: The Curse of the Wendigo, A Rule Against Murder, Half Brother, Ted of the Mounties, Smokescreen, Friends With Boys, Outpost
Mexico: Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise

South America:
Bolivia (?): Dearly Departed
Costa Rica: Hide and Seek
Chile: The Dreamer
Peru: Crucible of Gold
Argentina: Moonbird


Europe:
Britain: The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie, Ways to Live Forever, The Borrowers Afield, The Enemy, Bloody Jack, Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch, Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, Bob Son of Battle, Dr. Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures, The Duchess War, Lord Peter Views the Body, Fire Lord's Lover, Biggles of the Special Air Patrol, The Black Hawk, Sometimes a Rogue, My Name is Mina, The Queen's Pawn, Spellbinder, Beswitched, Chime, Etiquette & Espionage, The Last Dragonslayer, The Peculiar, Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?
Spain: The Shadow of the Wind, The Spanish Marriage, 
France: Twenty and Ten, The Avion My Uncle Flew, Code Name Verity, The Cabinet of Earths
Greece: Marathon
Czech Republic: War With the Newts
Albania: The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax
Turkey: Amazing Mrs Pollifax
Bulgaria: Elusive Mrs Pollifax
Switzerland: Palm for Mrs. Pollifax
Germany: The Storyteller

Asia:
Thailand: Nexus
Myanmar: Elephant Run
China: Little White Duck
Iraq: Mirage
Japan: Eight Million Gods, Ichiro
Mongolia: Warrior
VietNam: Last Airlift

Australia/Oceanea:
New Zealand: The Tricksters
Australia: And All the Stars
Papua New Guinea: Four Corners
Tiny Island: Limbo Lodge
Open Sea: The Wake of the Lorelei Lee

Africa: 3
Egypt: The Serpent's Shadow
(Imaginary West Coast country): The Zoo Job
South Africa: The White Giraffe
Congo: Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo: Endangered

Antartica: 0

Outer Space: Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, Invincible (The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier), The Moon Maze Game, Killbox, Tarnished Knight, The Ninth Circle, Shards of Honor, Kris Longknife: Furious, Aftermath, Ghost Planet, Song of Scarabaeus, Necessity's Child, Barrayar, Living Hell, Redshirts, A Rising Thunder, Shadows in Flight,  The Guardian, Endgame, Dragon Tide, Children of Scarabaeus, Intruder, Spy to Die For, When Diplomacy Fails, Born of Night, Assassins In Love, Training Daze
Fantasy World: Princess Academy: Palace of Stone, Grave Memory, Ecstasia, Toads and Diamonds, The Song of the Lioness Quartet, The Emperor's Edge, Dark Currents, Vessel, Wild Magic, Seraphina, Deadly Games, Throne of the Crescent Moon, Shadow's Claim, The Eye of the Warlock, Ordinary Magic, Limits of Power, Banner of the Damned, False Prince, The Last Dragon, Boy Princess 1,
Other: Steel's Edge, Runaway King, Senrid, Battle Magic

I'm putting states I'm currently reading but haven't reviewed yet in italics, which will matter during the end game when I'm frantically searching for the last few.

≈

P.S.  World 66 has a nifty map that tracks where you've been.  I'm tracking where my books have been:
create your own personalized map of the USA

Here are the counties I read in this year:  
create your own visited country map or write about it on the open travel guide

Two Long Running Series

I've read some books in long running SF series recently, and it's made me think about how to handle that sort of story. The big problem is how unwieldy things get -- after five or ten books it's hard to summarize what when on before, either for new readers or fans who didn't want to reread a few thousand pages before starting the new tome. Unfortunately the two books I look at here don't do this will amazing skill; both suffer from slow pacing. Cherryh's book kept me interested, but I wanted to worry about the individuals a bit more. Stirling's book is hamstrung by his need to stop every few pages and remind readers what happened to his world, his characters, and his plot. He's got about fifty pages of plot tucked in among six hundred pages of back story.

Betrayers, by C.J. Cherryh. It was easy to turn the pages of this installment of the Foreigner series, and I enjoyed meeting up with Bren and his atevi friends. I think I've skipped at least one and possibly more, and the thought of rereading the whole series is daunting, but I'll probably try to keep current (the next one is out already, so I'll keep an eye out in the library).

I do think Cherryh is at her best at setting up new situations, so an endless series doesn't showcase her skills that well.  For a while she varied things up for Bren by shooting him into space or dropping him back out, but this book just advances the complicated political setup of the world by a few days, moving the political situation forward and showing a bit of growing maturity by the atevi boy Cejari, but Bren himself doesn't seem to be changing much.  The world building is solid enough that I'm interested in knowing what happens next, but a better draw would be in wanting to know what happens to Bren next, and lately the answer seems to be that he moves around a bit.

She does a good job of only telling about what is important now, and not stopping things to remind me of past resonances that I'll either get or miss depending on how much I remember. And she limits the viewpoint characters to ones that are important to the story (mostly Bren), so I don't need a notepad to keep track. I still like seeing new books from her, although I still prefer racing along with her trying to figure out a brand new world and situation.

The Tears of the Sun, S.M. Stirling. OK, this is getting silly. I've been loyally reading all the books of the Change because the concept was fun (technology stops working!) and the first few books did interesting things with that concept (Renaissance Faire rulers and Tolkien fanatic troops!). But it was not a good sign when one book ended with the fierce cliffhanger of the princess getting kidnapped by the Evilest Villains Ever and my response was "oh well, there will probably be another book in a year or two; I wonder if I should put it on hold or just wait until I see it at the library??". And indeed by now I just wait for the paperback to show up at the library. But this book is a new low in lack of tension. Let me summarize the plot: The bad guy's army approaches, so the good guys delay things a bit so they can start the fighting where they want it. People reminisce about their pasts a bit. That's it!

OK, during one bit that takes place mostly off stage there's a daring rescue of some family of the bad guy, during which somebody dies, and two mainish characters get extended flashbacks to something that happened a year or so ago, just in case the dizzying pace of the glacial plot was causing nose bleeds or something. In the final pages, there's a battle and the conflict has begun! Wait for the next book (which I believe is out, but I'll wait for the library to put the paperback out for me). But there are far too many characters who spend far too much time thinking about things they already know ("Hmm, these houses are building using an innovative technique that I will quickly detail here. How strange it is that twenty years ago, when I was using electricity, this was unusual! Kids today don't even know what electricity is, golly gee.")

At this point I'm not picking up Stirling's new books, and I'm wondering if I have the patience to finish this series. But I know I will, because I'm a completest that way, and anyway it looks like stuff might happen in another few hundred pages or so.

Reading In the New Year

I'm trying to control my reading by rationing the books that go into my reading bag. I figure I read about 100 paper pages a day, so I check the page count and wait that many days to put a new book in. The result is that I only read a few books at a time, plus all the extras that I scatter about. Of course, book club books don't count, and neither do books that the library wants NOW.

It also sadly means that I can't start a new book until Tuesday, unless I finish the three books currently in my bag.

I'm also scrupulously following C.B.'s TBR Double Dog Dare, and I haven't checked out any frivolous books and any new books I buy go into a special closed box. I hope that by April I'll have my library books down to a small buffer size.

I'm having fun with the Comment Challenge and have added a few blogs to my reader list. I haven't had trouble making at least five comments a day, and often a few more although I stop counting at five.

I'll go sign in at Book Journey's round-up of what people have read, are reading, and will read. I'll skip Teach Mentor Texts since I didn't actually finish any kidlit, and I haven't written up the picture books.

This week I read:

• The Moon Maze Game, Steven Barnes & Larry Niven. Good old high-ideas and plot oriented science fiction.
• Killbox, Ann Aguirre. NOOK. 

What am I currently reading? Technically I have 23 books open, but really I'm only trying to read about three. Well, four if you count the NOOK book.  I guess that doesn't make me sound much saner, does it?

• Shadow On the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I bought this last year but didn't get around to it yet. I'm annoyed with the whiny kid for giving his book away. (in my bag)
• The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, Trenton Steward. I'm enjoying this family book club selection; several laugh out loud moments already. (in my bag)
• Tears of the Sun, S.M. Stirling. Boy is the back story cumbersome! Every character has to pause to reminisce before getting out of a chair. (in my bag)
• Succubus Blues, Richelle Meade. NOOK. I'm enjoying this more than I expected.
• Fleas, Flies, and Friars, Nicholas Orme. Wow, it was expensive. Now I've ordered it back up.
• The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater. (audio). Still popular, but slow going now that we aren't driving that much.
• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays,  Laurie Lecomer. Reassuring start about trusting your instincts.
• The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Martin Gardner. Dipper. I like the negative chapter approach: Why I'm Not a ______ .
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Dipper. Now I get all the jokes from Little Women.
• Senrid, Sherwood Smith. Dipper. I find the voices very jarring.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Dipper. The perils of tipsiness. 
• War With the Newts, Karel Capek. Dipper. Still very slow.
• The Enemy, Charles Hudson. NOOK. This was almost our December family book club pick, but no longer. I guess I'll finish it anyway, after I get it back from the library. It expired on me.
• The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt. (NOOK) Another expiration failure.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Paused.

The list of the books I started but didn't finish is now a leetle bit shorter. The TBR Dare is a good time to attack these:

• The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes. Was getting dull.
• 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.

2013 Challenges:

1. TBR Double Dare: Seven books from my shelves.
2. Cybils: 4/74. My kids stole all my Cybils books. I have to wait in line.
3. Where Am I Reading?: I have to re-sign up.
4. Science Book Challenge: Need to re-sign up.
5. Reading My Library: Maybe next week.
6. Best of the Best 2012: 36/25. Wendigo is done, and we're currently enjoying Scorpio Races.
7. Summer Reading Goal: The next one is working its way up the stack.

Reading My Library Progress, Past Tense

As I clean up my reading piles from last year, I'll be tossing out a bunch of mini-reviews so that I can remember these books in years to come. For example, here are some more Reading My Library picks, back from the L-M shelves:

Alvin Ho, Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters, by Lenore Look, followed the same pattern as the earlier books about Alvin, but less time was spent at school and more time with his loving and tolerant family. I found some of the tall tales too tall for my taste (Alvin and his toddler sister really rig a trap that leaves his father dangling head-down from a tree?), but over all it was a funny story about a timid boy.

I grabbed Starfields as soon as I read the blurb on the back, and it had several things going for it. First, the author, Carolyn Marsden, had the same name as another author that I like (John Marsden), and second, it's set in Mexico, making it eligible for my Global Reading challenge as well.


Unfortunately, I felt that it didn't really work on its own respect. The three strands didn't really come together -- the daughter of white scientists studying frog extinctions, the Mayan girl secure in her culture, and the mystical long-ago Mayan seer who magically communicates with the modern Mayan girl. It's wasn't hard to read, but I never felt a real connection with the kids, and I wasn't sure why the scientist's daughter was in the story at all.


I scored a jackpot with Wendy Mass's 11 Birthdays. It was a fresh voice, although I occasionally wished the book were narrated by the boy, since he was a lot more active and creative, leaving the girl to follow in his footsteps. But all was forgiven when my niece sounded interested in the story, and then she READ the book, and has requested the sequels (which I have duly ordered from the library. Go Mass!

The next shelf was entirely filled with Megan McDonald's books about Judy Moody and her brother Stink. Since I'll be doing one of Stink's books with my elementary school book club, I grabbed one of those and had a fairly good time. Stink is a little too precious for my taste, a smart kid who doesn't resent his big sister's teasing nearly enough, but I like his general competence and ability to clean.

Reading My Library Status

I've continued working my way around the beautiful Renton river library, ignoring the prospect of the library's move, which is supposed to happen sometime in the future. There is a group organized to save the library, but all their literature is about how beautiful the library is, which no one disagrees with, and doesn't address the structural or environmental issues that made the city decide not to upgrade the current site. So who knows?

Meanwhile I'll keep going and peeking at the fish through the windows.

I've rounded the M's in children's literature, and continue through the second half of the alphabet. I'm trying to average about a book a week, but not promising anything to myself. It's fun how sometimes there's a dozen books I'd like to read and sometimes I'm choosing among the least of evils. And I get a fuzzy warm feeling of double accomplishment when I find a book on my to-read list or that fits one of my other challenges -- set in a hard to find American state or even better, a South American country.

Recent reads were:

A Friendship For Today, Patricia McKissack. School integration from a black girl's point of view, in contrast to the The Lions of Little Rock (another RML book). An author's note says that McKissack used some of her own memories to guide the story, which is cool. In standard kid-lit expectations, the girl whose parents are openly against integration is the one who becomes our protagonist's friend.

Milagros: Girl From Away, Meg Medina. Nifty magic realism in a kidlit, with imagery reminiscent of Like Water For Chocolate. It was hard for me to read about the violent events, as well as the young girl consumed by selfishness and meanness.

War Horse, Michael Morpugo. If this is a true story, great. If not, then the author killed off a girl in a sentimental trick, which is annoying, especially in a Black Beauty knock-off. I haven't seen the movie, but at least now I have the option (I hate seeing movies if I haven't read the book).

Bringing the Boy Home, N.A. Nelson. Cunningly constructed tale of two boys from an imaginary Amazonian tribe, both old enough to face their manhood ceremonies, but one boy has been adopted by an American. Tribal beliefs and religion are treated as true, but the adoptive mother isn't as ready to let her twelve year old son risk his life on a dangerous quest (I can emphasize with that). Good read. And set in Brazil -- bonus!

Ways to Live Forever, Sally Nichols.  My kids are too close in age to the protagonist for me to enjoy this book about a young boy's hospice months as he dies in leukemia. Tears kept leaking out as Sam's live shrunk around him even as he worked his way through his juvenile bucket list. I doubt my kids would go for this, but I'll try it on them. (No joy.)

Heading Out of the Holidays

Luckily I didn't make any New Years Resolutions about my blog, because I would have broken them already. This status post is already several weeks late, but I am actually still reading.

The big news this year is that I have a new book bag. Two, actually, one small for elegant evening carrying, and one larger to accommodate the stuff I'm actually reading concurrently. One was a present from my kids' stepmom, and one was a gift from someone in my book club (well, she asked if anyone wanted it, and I threw myself ahead of all the rest). It has Thomas Jefferson's quote "I cannot live without books" which is very true. The small one is a beautiful print of paintings from Madrid.

I finished most of my challenges from last year and I'm setting up for this year's reading. I want to read all the Cybils again, I'm really enjoying my 50 States, although I'll combine that with my countries tracking. And I'll probably do another What's In a Name.

And I'm doing C.B.'s TBR Double Dog Dare, which means I'm restricting new books. This year I'm letting myself buy them but putting all new books is a designated box, because it's not fair to the schools that have scheduled their reading fare's during the Dare. But I'm not reading them! Nothing new! Except that stuff that fits in my zillions of exceptions, of course.

One last event -- I'm doing the Comment Challenge and so far I'm on track with at least five comments a day. (I stop counting then, so I don't roll over. This will make me ineligible for many prizes, but will keep me sane.)

I'll go sign in at Book Journey's round-up of what people have read, are reading, and will read. And since almost all of my reading this week was middle grade, I'll also check in with Teach Mentor Texts, which specializes in books for the non-voting crowd.

This week I read:

• Toads and Diamonds, Heather Tomlinson (from my online TBR list). YA.
• Holes, Louis Sachar. A re-read, from my stacks. Kidlit.
• The Curse of the Wendigo, Rick Yancey. My whole family found this audio book far too gruesome for enjoyment, but I finished it. YA.
• Using the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics With Gifted and Advanced Learners,  Susan Johnsen. It's nice to see I was doing it right when I was homeschooling.
• Smart but Scattered, Peg Dawson. I need to reread the parts about how to help your kids when your own executive skills are weak.
• Ecstasia, Francesca Lia Block. From my stacks, but not to my taste. YA
• The Prairie Thief, Melissa Wiley. Fun. Kidlit.
• The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie,  Jennifer Ashley. Historical romance with a hero who reads as functioning autistic. NOOK.

Earlier this year I read: 

• Ways To Live Forever,  Sally Nicholls
• Princess Academy: Palace of Stone, Shannon Hale
• Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, Ben Hatke
• Grave Memory, Kalayna Price
• The Catholic Church in the Modern World, E.E.Y. Hales
• The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Incincible, Jack Campbell
• Sunshine, Robin McKinley
• Stink the Incredible Shrinking Kid, Megan McDonald

The following books were all read before the New Year:

• Leverage, Joshua C. Cohen
• Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware,  M.T. Anderson
• How to Rig an Election, Allen Raymond
• The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost
• Buried Alive!, Elaine Scott
• Fever Crumb, Philip Reeve (audio)
• Elfhome, Wen Spencer
• Fair Game, Patricia Briggs
• The King Commands, Meg Burden
• Ten Miles Past Normal, Frances O'Roark Dowell
• Moon Over Manifest, Clare Vanderpool
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
• Bringing the Boy Home,  N. A. Nelson
• King of the Mild Frontier, Chris Crutcher
• Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King
• Sheltured From the Swastika, Peter Kory
• Frost, Marianna Baer
• Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman
• The Phoenix in Flight, Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge

What am I currently reading? Technically I have 23 books open, but really I'm only trying to read about five. I guess that doesn't make me sound much saner, does it?

• The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, Trenton Steward. For my family book club.
• Tears of the Sun, S.M. Stirling. The next one is already out, so I'm behind on these Changes books.
• Succubus Blues, Richelle Meade. NOOK. Old Vaginal Fantasies book club pick.
• Killbox, Anne Aguirre. NOOK. The library doesn't own this one, although they have the earlier and later books in the series. So now I own it.
• Fleas, Flies, and Friars, Nicholas Orme. I've lost this one! It's almost time to confess to the library and pay my fine.
• The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater. (audio). Still popular, but slow going now that we aren't driving that much.
• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays,  Laurie Lecomer. My sister gave this to me five years ago when I had some concerns. Now I'm starting it. I have some delays of my own.
• The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Martin Gardner. Dipper from my nonfiction shelf.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Dipper. Now I get all the jokes from Little Women.
• Senrid, Sherwood Smith. Dipper. From my kidlit shelf.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Dipper. Winter is coming.
• War With the Newts, Karel Capek. Dipper. The slow build of menace is a bit slow.
• The Enemy, Charles Hudson. NOOK. This was almost our December family book club pick, but no longer. I guess I'll finish it anyway, after I get it back from the library. It expired on me.
• The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt. (NOOK) Another expiration failure.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Paused.

The list of the books I started but didn't finish is now a leetle bit shorter. The TBR Dare is a good time to attack these:

• The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes. Was getting dull.
• 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.

2013 Challenges:

1. TBR Double Dare: Six books down so far. (I don't count library books.)
2. Cybils: 4/74. I spend so much time reading last years books that I've read very few of this years.
3. Where Am I Reading?: I have to re-sign up.
4. Science Book Challenge: Need to re-sign up.
5. Reading My Library:  Finished two more, by Nelson and Nicholls. Got the next six, some of which fit into the other challenges.
6. Best of the Best 2012: 36/25. Wendigo is almost done, and several Cybils books pushed this along.
7. Summer Reading Goal: I finished Ecstacy, and the next one is waiting its turn.

Most Challenging of All

And it's not even a challenge -- it's a DARE. Worse than that, a TBR Double-Dog Dare, hosted by Ready When You Are, C.B. This year I'm going to make it! Not like last year, when I fell in the last week or something.  I learned about this incredibly tough event from Teacher Ninja, and this year I'm pumped, I'm psyched, I'm hoping to finish the twenty books I started last August and somehow never finished.

The gist of the Dare is to not acquire new books. I shall read from my shelves. Everything on hold at the library or in the mail counts as in my possession, btw.

I'm also going to allow myself any book club books (from my evening club, my elementary school club, my family club, or Vaginal Fantasies). And of course I can get books for the Cybils challenge, although I will limit myself to two of those at a time (and any picture books I can get my hands on). It goes without saying that I can continue to work through my Goodreads TBR list, again two at a time (one in the bag, one on the waiting shelf).

Needless to say, if I  run out of unread books on my NOOK, then it's open season because obviously you win the DARE if you read all your books, right? And library books that I started on my NOOK but which expired don't count either.

One result of this challenge is that I should manage to tame my library account, which is starting to spiral up a bit. Oh, that reminds me of another exception -- I'll still check out books for my kids. I just won't sneak over and read them. OK, that's all the exceptions I can think of for now.

To cheer me on, I'll list here the books I finish that come from my shelves (no library books).

1. The Catholic Church In the Modern World, E. Haley
2. Princess Academy: Palace of Stone, Shannon Hale
3. Ecstasia, Francesca Lia Block
4. Smart But Scattered, Peg Dawson
5. Using the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics With Gifted and Advanced Learners, Susan Johnson
6. Holes, Louis Sachar
7. Killbox, Ann Aguirre (NOOK)
8. The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton
9. Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
10. Twenty and Ten, Clare Bishop
11. Gone, Michael Grant  (and here I cheated)
12. Steel's Edge, Ilona Andrews
13. King of Attolia, Megan Whelan Turner (reread)
14. Soup's Hoop, Robert Peck
15. Alanna, Tamora Pierce (reread)
16. In the Hands of the Goddess, Tamora Pierce (reread)
17. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Tamora Pierce (reread)
18. Lioness Rampant, Tamora Pierce (reread)
19. Bloody Jack, L.A. Meyer
20. The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes
21. The Serpent's Shadow, Rick Riordan

Cybils 2012 Shortlist Challenge!

It's time for the 2012 Cybils Challenge -- reading all the finalists chosen, from every book category. This means that I try not to know about the winners until next year's books are chosen, so don't spoil me after February! I finished last years challenge on New Years Eve, but this year I think I'm starting from a smaller base so we'll see how it goes.

Oh, I have to skip all the BookApps since I don't have a smart phone. I'll put a background color on the ones I've read, which right now is very few. Also, I seem to have copied over the Amazon links with the book titles, which is nice, and I hope they are still set up to benefit the Cybils committee and pay for all the bookmarks and prizes they give out.

Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books - DONE!~
Easy Readers

1. A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse (Toon)  by Frank Viva
2. Bink and Gollie, Two for One by Kate DiCamillo 
3. Penny and Her Doll by Kevin Henkes
4. Penny and Her Song by Kevin Henkes
5. Pinch and Dash Make Soup (Pinch & Dash by Michael J. Daley

Early Chapter Books - DONE!

1. Ivy and Bean Make the Rules (Book 9) by Annie Barrows
2. Marty McGuire Digs Worms! by Kate Messner
3. Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover by Cece Bell
4. Sadie and Ratz by Sonya Hartnett
5. Violet Mackerel's Brilliant Plot by Anna Branford

Fantasy & Science Fiction (Middle Grade)

1. Beswitched by Kate Saunders
2. Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities by Mike Jung
3. The Cabinet of Earths by Anne Nesbet
4. The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer A. Nielsen
5. The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam) by Jasper Fforde
6. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
7. The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann

Fantasy & Science Fiction (Young Adult) DONE!

1. And All the Stars by Andrea K Höst
2. Every Day by David Levithan
3. Planesrunner (Everness, Book One) by Ian McDonald
4. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
5. The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories by Brenna Yovanoff, Tessa Gratton,  and Maggie Stiefvater
6. The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
7. Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

Fiction Picture Books DONE

1. Black Dog by Levi Pinfold
2. Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex
3. Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Peter Brown
4. Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen. Cute.
5. Home for Bird, A by Philip C. Stead
6. Infinity and Me by Kate Hosford, illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska
7. One Special Day by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrated by Jessica Meserve

Graphic Novels
Elementary/Middle Grade

1. Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller (Center for Cartoon Studies Presents) by Joseph Lambert
2. Giants Beware! by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado
3. Hilda and the Midnight Giant byLuke Pearson
4. Little White Duck: A Childhood in China (Single Titles) by Na Liu
5. Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad! by Nathan Hale

Young Adult   DONE!

1. Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver
2. Drama by Raina Telgemeier
3. Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
4. Ichiro by Ryan Inzana
5. Marathon by Boaz Yakin. 

Middle Grade Fiction

1. Almost Home by Joan Bauer
2. Chomp by Carl Hiaasen
3. Fourmile by Watt Key
4. Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead
5. The Adventures of Beanboy by Lisa Harkrader
6. The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine. I read this on my way around the library.  A good sense of history, if from a well-worn perspective.
7. Wonder by R. J. Palacio

Nonfiction for Tweens & Teens DONE

1. Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
2. Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan's Rescue from War by Marsha Skrypuch
3. Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose
4. Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery
5. Titanic: Voices From the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson

Nonfiction Picture Books DONE 

1. Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet
2. Dolphin Baby! by Nicola Davies
3. Eggs 1, 2, 3: Who Will the Babies Be? by Janet Halfmann
4. Island: A Story of the Galapagos by Jason Chin
5. Looking at Lincoln by Maira Kalman
6. Mrs. Harkness and the Panda by Alicia Potter
7. Nic Bishop Snakes by Nic Bishop

Poetry DONE

1. BookSpeak! Poems About Books by Laura Purdie Salas
2. In the Sea by David Elliott
3. Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs by J. Patrick Lewis
4. Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge
5. National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar! by National Geographic Children's Books
6. UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian
7. Water Sings Blue by Kate Coombs

Young Adult Fiction

1. Boy21 by Matthew Quick
2. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
3. Endangered by Eliot Schrefer
4. I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
5. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
6. Storyteller, The by Antonia Michaelis
7. Theory of Everything, The by J.J. Johnson

Book Apps

1. Bats! Furry Fliers of the Night written by Mary Kay Carson
2. Dragon Brush created by John Solimine and Andy Hullinger
3. Rounds: Franklin Frog written by Emma Tranter illustrated by Barry Tranter
4. The Voyage of Ulysses developed by Elastico Srl
5. Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery written by Jamie Lee Curtis illustrated by Laura Cornell

74/74