How To Take a Vacation

Say you decided to take advantage of a school hiatus and retire with your family to an indoor water park for a few days. How many books would you bring with you?

I brought twenty six, plus my NOOK. And my phone. And the audio in the car. OBVIOUSLY I wasn't planning to read them all, but it's nice to have a selection, right? Right? And there was a lovely wide windowsill to serve as my library shelf.

My family seems to think I'm crazy, but I was hoping the internet would understand.

I'm still reading far too many books (24) but I still  have hopes to bring this down by April. (I didn't bring all the books with bookmarks in them, and I wasn't currently reading all the books I brought.)  I'm almost done catching up with my library books, and then I can read down the others and be human normal  sensible again.


So, what did I spend my time on this week?

Monday: Hawk (completed), The Jury, Reading and Learning to Read, Blood and Betrayal
Tuesday: The Jury, The American Heiress, Blood and Betrayal, Rob Roy, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age, Ella Enchanted
Wednesday: Ella Enchanted (completed), The Danger, Spear of Summer Grass (abandoned), The American Heiress (abandoned),
Thursday: The Danger, The Edge - audio (started), Girls Like Us (started), Blood of Tyrants (started), Rob Roy, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age
Friday: The Edge, Girls Like Us (completed), Blood and Betrayal (completed), NERDS, Reading and Learning to Read, 
Saturday: Reading and Learning to Read, NERDS, Possession, Shadows and Dreams (started), Slow Reading in a Hurried Age, Blood of Tyrants
Sunday: Blood of Tyrants, The Danger, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age, Possession, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

So I finished four books, and started another five.  Except that two of those were the same, so really I finished two books from my reading bag and replaced them, and added an audio book.  Also, I abandoned two books because I was only reading them for a book club and I skipped the meeting. One had not hooked me in the first hundred pages, and one only got about ten pages before I decided to bail.

There were three fantasy books, although with extremely different takes on fantasy. Brust's books are witty, dark, and densely imaginative, with the feel of a real society solidly built around the characters. Buroker's books are lighter, with more laugh out loud moments but still with a solidly drawn setting and society around the rebel band we care about. I'm reading my way through both of these series, although I have a few books to go for Buroker and I've caught up with Brust. And finally, the juvenile Ella Enchanted gives a new take on the Cinderella tale, and one that my elementary school book club enjoyed and discussed energetically over cookies and lunch.

I like books that the kids are excited about -- although there wasn't a lot of disagreement, the kids had fun thinking about ways around the curse, or about what it meant to have a happy ending. It's true that this world didn't seem as three dimensional as the adult fare, but no one seemed to mind.

I also finished another Cybils book, Girls Like Us, which was good but I didn't think was great. Maybe because I'm involved with special education kids I'm not the best audience? There wasn't a lot I learned about what being in special education means to kids, and the horrific revelations and plot developments seemed scripted and telegraphed far in advance. I'll put it on my high schooler's shelf, so maybe I can get his opinion as well.

My car rides have been enriched by the audio version of Dick Francis's The Edge, which is my next friendly book club pick. Since I've read it before, I can relax into the British accent of the narrative. To confuse myself, I'm also rereading The Danger (optional book club extra: read all of Dick Francis's books), so I have to remember which protagonist is the rich spy for the horse racing world and which is the anti-terrorist expert helping a ransom victim.

I'm slowly reading through Slow Reading in a Hurried Age (appropriately) but I can't go too slowly because the library wants it back soon. But it's a good reminder of the human rewards of reading, and how it can refresh your soul and mind. And then in a spirit of rebellion I pick up Possession, which honestly doesn't benefit from any introspection or deeper thought at all.

But I suspect Tell the Wolves I'm Home will. I'm hoping the next dragons-in-Napoleon-wars book will start grabbing me, but so far I keep putting it down. And the lesbian private eye with vampires book is disappointing shallow. Perhaps it's just as well I brought twenty spare books along, since I may be putting things down as quickly as I pick them up.



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

2015 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2014: 3/81. Need to get some new ones from the library.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 11/51. Girls Like Us gave me Texas.
3. Award Winning Book Challenge: Can I count this page as a review? If so I have three.
4. Alphabetically Inclined:  I J X Y Z still missing. Ella Enchanted gave me an E.
5. TBR Challenge: 5 books, 17 library books.
6. Best of the Best 2012: 52/25.  I am stalled.
7. Reading My Library: Library temporarily closed, so on hiatus.

2014 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2013: 76/77.  One more to go! I'm still on it: Out of the Easy. Josie is about to do some dumb stuff so I've been avoiding her.