Reading Against the Clock

 
I'm not quite managing a book a day, but I am keeping a few steps ahead of the library guillotine. Next month I'll also be reading a heap of library books, since I have to finish all my sadly lagging challenges.

I also managed to get in a few jogs with my nephew, once with nephew and sons, and we rewarded ourselves with a a trip to see Despicable Me II, where we consumed about three times our caloric output in popcorn. Yum! Also I signed up for a 5K run in December, even though I can barely make it through our 2K jogs. It's the K9 Candy Cane run, so I'm hoping for lots of big scary dogs to propel me along.

I'll sign in at Book Journey or Teach Mentor Texts since I finished both adult and kidlit books this week.

This week I managed to finish:

• Kris Longknife: Training Daze, Mike Shepherd. NOOK. I actually meant to read Shepherd's other novella, but I didn't realize there were two and the library had this one.

• Bomb: The Race to Build -- and Steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, Steve Sheinkin. YA. A Cybils finalist that my high schooler enjoyed so much that he now is reading Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb. The middle schooler picked it up but then put it back down. I liked it.

• The Round House, Louise Erdrich. NOOK. This book felt less authentic than Erdrich's usual; maybe I don't emphasize with her male characters as much? 

• The Native Star, M.K. Hobson. A Vaginal Fantasy pick from months back. I found it hard to get started but then enjoyed the ride after it got traction. Now that I think of it, there wasn't any sex, which is odd for that book club.

• Listen!, Stephanie S. Tolan. kidlit. I chose this Reading-My-Library book in the hopes that, as a dog story, it had a good chance of taking place in West Virginia. Sadly it was another North Carolina story. Also, the magical way the girl knew what the dog was doing weakened the realistic power of the girl-meets-dog story.

What am I currently reading?  My book bag has a library book from the 2012 Best of the Best list, a book I cannot renew (and that works for my Colors challenge), a nonfiction book from my shelves, and my NOOK.

• Chime, Franny Billingsley. Audio YA. All is revealed!
• The Shameless Diary of an Explorer, Robert Dunn. They are finally on the mountain, stumbling around and arguing about which way to the top. Even the wimpiest camper is far tougher than me, of course.
• Blood on the Verde River, Dusty Richards. I grabbed this months ago from the Quick Pick library shelf because I'm pretty sure Verde means Green.
• Big Girl Small, Rachel DeWoskin. This is from the 2012 Alex Awards, which are adult books good for teens. It feels like a YA book that adults can slog through to me. I don't find the voice at all believable -- it's written as a rather jaded adult who runs around doing idiotic teenage things.
• Etiquette and Espionage, Gail Carriger. NOOK. Set in her comfortable steam-punky England, but with a younger protagonist who has an enterprising way with mechanicals.
• Conspiracy, Lindsay Burokers. NOOK. Still not making progress, although it's almost time to execute their grand plan. The library picks always push in front of this poor purchased book.
• Developing Standards-Based Report Cards, Thomas R. Guskey & Jane M. Bailey. I'm reading this as homework since I'm a parent representative on our district report card revision committee.
• Radio Fifth Grade, Gordon Korman. My kidlit inch-worm book, that I will read at the pace of about 25 pages a week for the next few months.
• Out to Canaan, Jan Karon. Another book I'll inch through over the next few months. The parson's garden party was a success!
• Keep Me Forever, Rosemary Laurey. Incher. Now all of the vampire's girlfriends know she has a wolf for a boyfriend.
• A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis. More about our limbic system.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Courtroom losses. Yawn. Least favorite Dickens so far.
• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays, Laurie Lecomer. Summary about how to cherish our special snowflakes.

What's up next? I'm hoping to get to Ann Aguirre's Outpost before the library calls it home, and then probably Tamora Pierce's Battle Magic. I'll replace Big Girl Small with the next book on my TBR list, The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes. The Alaska story came from my shelves, and when it's done I'll read something else from my shelf that works for a challenge; probably Toni Morrison's Paradise, which looks like it takes place in Oklahoma. This makes me sad, because I have the next Sarah Rees Brennan calling my name, only rather faintly since my son grabbed it to read and has left it at his father's house.  Unspoken, come back to me! Chime is on the final disk, so I've ordered Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? from the library.

2013 Challenges:

1. Cybils: 59/74.  Bomb was good fun, and inspired further reading in two of us. Good show.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 40/51. Got North Dakota and a surprise New Mexico. Almost finished with my Alaska book.
3. Crazy Quilt Colors: 6/9. Reading a green book. Need brown and patterns.
4. Reading My Library:  Finished the Tolan book.
5. Best of the Best 2012: 57/25.  Still slogging through CHIME. Have one waiting to start.