Pumpkin Carving

This week showed a definite move away from summer -- the rains came down and the sun hid away. Luckily most of the weekend plans were weather independent -- volleyball class is in a gym, chess is not really an outdoor sport, and D&D only has imaginary storms. Even the pumpkin carving party was safely indoors, with enough natural and electric light for me to create my usual masterpieces.

My sister hosts this every year, and she has a nice collection of specialty carving knives and saws and shapes as well as a collection of design suggestions that almost everyone else uses to create vegetable artwork. Me, I'm a jack-o-lantern traditionalist. My boys were trapped in some of the above activities, so I carved two pumpkins and then decided that the gourd-like object was spooky enough intact. Also, it looked like it might hurt me if I tried to cut it.

I had an good time reading this week. From Monday to Wednesday I concentrated on the books due back at the library, and then I just meandered through my still quite hefty currently reading sack. That looks to be my policy for the next month or so, at which point I will switch from frantically reading whatever is due to frantically finishing off my challenges.

I'm off to sign up to see what everyone else is reading lately at bookjourney's and Teach Mentor Texts lists.

• The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander. A truly depression description of what America's evil drug policy has done to its minority underclass, and how hard it will be to change it.
• Touch Blue, Cynthia Lord. Simple tale of a family reforming -- I thought it would be much more preachy than it is. Left me hungry for a lobster dinner, though.
• Drink, Slay, Love, Sarah Beth Durst. This story of vampires, unicorns, and prom deserves the high honor of being shelved next to Team Human. I have recommended it to my high schooler. Also, Connecticut!
• Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell. College kids struggle through their first year. And they do it in Nebraska! Score!

What am I currently reading? Only 20 books! Which means it fits on one page of my screen, which is the definition of restrained.  My currently reading list is now on up-to-date on GOODREADS.

• Uzumaki, Junji Ito. For the Cybils. The official finalist is the compilation of volumes 1-3, but my library has them seperately. I assume it is because my awesome library know about them before they were cool.
• The Heiress Effect, Courtney Milan. NOOK. Fun yet emotionally true romance mixing English voting reform with the legal helplessness of women, and of course humor and true love.
• Pleasure Unbound, Larissa Ione. Very old Vaginal Fantasy pick. I think. I thought it was endless BDSM porn, but it mixes the sex with funny dialogue. I think it is supposed to be funny.
• Thorn Fall, Lindsay Buroker. NOOK. I have to say that Buroker does urban fantasy just as well as she does her steam-punk stuff set in a different world.
• Codex Born, Jim C. Hines. Second book in a series where magicians get their power from books, so it's hard to see how it can possibly go wrong. I liked the first one, so I bought this one.
• Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean. From my shelves.
• A Matter for Men, David Gerrold. No change.
• Anna of Byzantium, Tracy Barett. No change.
• Magic City: Recent Spells, Paula Guran, ed. I liked the Elizabeth Bear story about the tall werewolf drag queen.
• About That Night, Norah McClintock.  No change. 
• Rogue, Michael Z. Williamson. 
• Wildflower, Alecia Whitaker. 
• Tell the Wolves I'm Home, Carol Rifka Brunt. No change.
• Yonder Comes the Other End of Time, Suzette Elgin. No change. 
• Shards of Time, Lynn Flewelling.  They get to the island and take a bath.
• Tinker, Wen Spencer. I do enjoy this book. Windwolf saves her from a bad date. 
• Inkheart, Cornelia Funke. No change.

Reading intermittently, and deliberately slowly. These never change much:

• The Jury, Stephen Adler. Why intelligent people are tossed off juries. 
• Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vacca. Different approaches to reading. 
• Nerds, Michael Buckley. What strange organization is this?
• Out to Canaan, Jan Karon. Time to welcome home the traveler.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. 

What's up next?  Still starting a book every other day, until I get this library backlog under control. I think my the New Year I will have this under control, just in time for three month drought where I try to get no new books.  I picked a book for it's location, a book recommended by my elementary school book club, a Cybils finalist, and the Sword & Laser October pick.

Monday: The Summer Girls
Tuesday:
Wednesday: I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You
Thursday:
Friday: The Boy in the Wooden Box
Saturday:
Sunday: Alif the Unseen

For my NOOK, I have Kiss of Steel waiting, and Dark Triumph when I finish that.

NOOK books:

2014 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils: 62/77. Although I'm most of the way through the last Graphic Novel.
2. Where Am I Reading? 36/51. Connecticut and Nebraska down. Now I need an Arkansas book. And Maryland. Will start South Carolina this week.
3. Alphabetically Inclined: 19/26. Only books from my shelves count, and all my library books are due! Still need EIJ V XYZ.
4. What's In a Name?: 7/7. Still have to review everything. Ha!
5. Book Bingo: Fifteen boxes into square 2.
6. Gentle Spectrum Challenge complete!.
7. Small Fry Safari: 8/8. All done! Except for the reviewing...
8. PoC Speculative Fiction: 22/5: Son of Neptune has to PoC main characters.
9. Best of the Best 2012: 52/25.  I am stalled.
10. Reading My Library: Library temporarily closed, so on hiatus.