Ready Set GO!

It's appropriate that MotherReader's 48 Hour Book Challenge pulls me out of my protracted blogging slump, since it's that very challenge that got me started in publicly talking about my reading on this blog.

Anyway, the challenge has started, and at 5:15 PM on Friday I shall join in. I've got books piled all around me and the cats on standby, so I'm ready to go! This year I'll track my time read, what books I open, and what books I finish. I'm not going to track my pages -- this is a low math weekend.

I'll read for about 45 minutes, then record what I read, because I have a short attention span.

Time read:
6/19
5:15  PM - 1:00 AM
6/20
7:15 AM - 12:15 PM
1:15 PM - 2:30 PM
2:35 PM - 11:35 PM
6/21
8:30 AM - 5:15
______________________

31 hours 45 minutes (including blogging hours)


Time Blogging & Blog Hopping:
5 minutes
15 minutes
10 minutes
10 minutes
10 minutes
5 minutes
10 minutes
5 minutes
5 minutes
10 minutes
25 minutes
________________________________
1 hour  50 minutes


Books read:
MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood
Forged in Blood 1, Lindsay Buroker
Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, Alexis Coe
Dragon Prince, Melanie Rawn
A Matter For Men, David Gerrold
Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett (audio)
About That Night, Norah McClintock
Gulp, Mary Roach
Yonder Comes the Other End of Time, Suzette Haden Elgin
Bless Her Dead Little Heart, Miranda James

Books Finished:
MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood
Forged in Blood 1, Lindsay Buroker
Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, Alexis Coe
About that Night, Norah McClintock
A Matter For Men, David Gerrold
Gulp, Mary Roach
Yonder Comes the Other End of Time, Suzette Haden Elgin
Bless Her Dear Little Heart, Miranda James

Finish Line!

Ding Ding Ding! My 48 Hours are over! I spent 32 of them reading.

I read 8 books, and snatches of a few others, since I walked into the challenge with ten or so active bookmarks.  I finished:

1. Demon Eyes, by Scott Tracey (gay protagonist)
2. The Summer of May, by Cecelia Galante (cover shows girl of color)
3. Archangel's Legion, Nalini Singh
4. Phantom Eyes, by Scott Tracey (gay protagonist)
5. Heart of Steel, by Meljean Brook (Asian protagonist)
6. The Boy Who Dared, Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Mormon German anti-Nazi protestor)
7. Skin Tight, Ava Gray (Iranian-American protagonist)
8. The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou (African-American memoir)

I haven't reviewed the last one yet, and I need to run out to start all my neglected weekend chores, but I'm happy with my count. I read 6 hours on Friday, 16 1/2 hours on Saturday, and 9 1/2 hours on Sunday for a total of 32 hours, exceeding my private goal of 24. Most of the missing 16 hours were spent sleeping. Which honestly, was probably necessary.

Science Fiction Romance

Even evil scientists cannot stop the path of true love! Or even of wild sex, for that matter. Ava Gray, aka Ann Aguirre, writes science fiction books with strong women and powerful men that don't fear them. Ever since Vaginal Fantasies introduced me to Aguirre, I've been picking up her books, from the space opera style Grimspace to the YA post-apocalyptic Horde (approved by my high schooler) and now into her much racier paranormal type romances written as Ava Gray.

Skin Tight is the 2nd book, following the best friend from the previous book and the complicated villain who intrigued her before that whole kidnapping/hostage thing soured their budding friendship. Now they meet up again and manage to have hot sex while diving deeper into the science that started the whole series. Gray does a good job navigating a relationship that started so poorly, and gives Mia reasons to stick with Søren despite his many many flaws. Not great literature, but good for what it tries to be. I'm moving onto the the next book soon.

Biggest complaints? Having a guy lead with funny letters in his name. As I read it I knew I'd have to waste precious minutes figuring out how to blog it. Also, I have no idea who that guy is on the cover, or why he seems to have lost his shirt.

Grim History

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti is a recent addition to one of my childhood's favorite genres -- WWII history. This is a fiction account of the true story of a German teenager put to death for listening to foreign radio broadcasts and writing leaflets about what he heard. It starts with his life in prison waiting for execution and tells the story of his life in short flashbacks.

I was actually hoping for more about a childhood in the Hitler Youth as I've read other books about German executions. Helmuth's religion was a bit of a novelty -- I haven't read many books about German Mormons. His friendships through the church and his struggle between conflicting religious commandments gave him depth -- his Church both demanded he respect the truth and that he obey the law. It was a very deep view, however, as the book is aimed at young readers. Bartoletti has actually written a book about the Hitler Youth, which I may have remembered and messed up my expectations. I'll leave it out for the seventh grader.

Pirates and Zombies! Also Nanotech and War Machines

Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy book club introduced me to Meljean Brook's Iron Seas series, which is a fun steam punk romance with really cool stuff and interesting characters. The women are capable, competent, and ambitious (see how I broke free from alliteration?) and the men are interesting and not usually annoying. That seems like faint praise to anyone who hasn't read a lot of romances, but it's really not.

Heart of Steel spends most of its time on the cool ships and zombie-fighting techniques, with excusions into nifty snatches of backstory for the adventurer hero and the pirate heroine, and gives just enough romance (and sex) to hold its head up in its marketing category. It was a fun read.

Yasmeen, the main character, is Asian, and the cast is very multicultural, so I think it qualifies as a Diverse Book for the Challenge.

Boy Saves Town

Phantom Eyes by Scott Tracey completes the trilogy about Braden, the magical boy who comes home to Belle Dam to reconcile a century-long feud, rid the town of demons, repulse the evil witch who started it all, and oh yes, get the cute boy. As my ninth grader assured me, it's more fun than the middle book because Braden stops being so silly and starts throwing his weight around.

I don't really recommend it to adults, because a lot of the writing tics bothered me; a bit too much show rather than tell, especially when the tell and the show are accidentally off. Or the use of poorly chosen speech words -- ' "Yes" he quipped' is not an example of funny repartee. Also, Braden is very much an emotional seventeen year old, and spending an entire trilogy in his first person is exhausting for me, while my fifteen year old just accepts it as natural. But, despite my incredibly slow pace of reading this afternoon, it was a fast and fun read, and I especially liked the side characters of Drew and Jade. And it was cute to read about a shy gay boy throwing tantrums about his boyfriend trying to rescue him all the time (I'm not a princess!) or about their first dance and Braden's dreams of a romantic first date, which they'll try to have a few chapters after the end of the book since none of their previous encounters (even the Winter Dance!) seem to count.

Seriously, it's good to see a book where the character is gay but that's not a problem at all. It's acknowledged, but his friends and family have no issues about it, and it's not part of the plot at all. It's just there because that's how things are in this world.

Fun In the Sky

Nalini Singh's Archangel's Legion  is the latest in her fun series about Archangels ruling the world, in particular Manhatten, and the sassy lady who marries one of the top ones. Singh is more famous for her Psy books, but for some reason I can't get into those. I do enjoy the Angel books, however.

Some of the angel book follow the paranormal romance pattern of romance, with the developing relationship of two new characters being the mainstay of the plot. My favorite ones however continue the political adventures of Elena and her boss-man beau, even though they are already married and devoted to each other. Instead the books focus on the power politics among the supernatural creatures, with this one finishing in a battle to the death of the world between our heroes and some really bad guys. Meanwhile Elena also figures out her marriage, her relationships with her still-human friends, and her connections to her half-sisters and estranged father. Lots of action, some sex, and an author who respects her characters but doesn't take herself too seriously.

Grab My Hanky

My elementary bookclub recommended The Summer of May by Cecelia Galante to me last month, but the cover showed a dark-skinned girl looking at the sky, so I saved it for my 48 Hour Book Challenge, as the theme this year is Diverse books. It turns out that this was a case of reverse white-washing -- the main character is described as freckled with green eyes, and her grandmother comes from Ireland. Oops.

It hit me right in the sweet spot -- May is a girl who channels her grief into huge anger-management problems, and manages to mess up her life quite thoroughly while driving away all her friends, family, and acquantences. There is a happy ending, but she dives pretty deep on her way there.

YA All the Way

Demon Eyes by Scott Tracey is the second book in the Witch Eyes series. Its main character Braden is about as YA as you can get -- he's very defensive towards any authority figure, all mushy about his crush, and incredibly self-centered even when he means to be a good friend.


Of course, he also has super-magic eyeballs that could kill him at any time, as we learn in a rather hilarious opening scene that has Braden throwing a huge temper tantrum at the doctor who shows up at his house. Braden refuses to see any more counselors, is sure that his "father" only cares that he is broken, and is offended that more doctors are being brought in to talk about his feelings. At this point the poor man reveals that he's an opthamologist. So he has to wear sunglasses all the time, even when doing magic.

My high school son described this book as "a good story, although Braden spends most of his time being stupid." I have to agree, although probably most seventeen years olds are in the same boat, what with school bullies, uncertain boyfriends, and of course, the evil magicians dueling each other through the town who happen to be your father and your boyfriend's mother. I like the magic system and the friendships, and it's a bit relaxing to have a protagonist who is clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed. I'll have fun reading the last book, probably tomorrow, and X assures me that Braden gets smarter in that one.

(Fits under Diversity because Braden is gay)

48 Hour Book Challenge!

I started blogging with The 48 Hour Book Challenge of many years past, not that they would be proud of my very lackadaisical schedule and attention span. But I hope this year's event invigorates me once more to start sharing my many insights and feelings with the interwebz. Also, maybe I'll win something -- it's happened before!

Hosted once more by the estimable Mother Reader, the Ninth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge started this morning. I'm jumping in now, at 5:30 on Friday night, so I can make it back to Family Dinner on Sunday evening.

I'll probably keep updating this post with book starts and finishes or switches all through the weekend.

First Book: 5:30 PM Friday:  Demon Eyes, Scott Tracey (gay protagonist)
2nd Book: 9:00 PM Friday: The Summer of May, Cecelia Galante (cover shows girl of color, although she's Irish-American in text)
(short break: Perdition, Ann Aguirre)
3rd Book: 11:00 PM Archangel's Legion, Nalini Singh (5 hours) (PoC author)

I've started taking 15 minute breaks and reading a book from my currently-reading bag while doing the online stuff, since my laptop is so slow I have a lot of down time. I figure I get 10 minutes tops of social time that way.

(Sleep, Midnight - 6:00 AM Saturday) (6 hours)
(short breaks: Mrs Pollifax and the Golden Triangle, Dorothy Gilman, The Human Division, John Scalzi, The World Outside, Eva Wiseman, The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater, Inkheart, Cornelia Funke)

4th Book: 1:45 PM Saturday (12 hours): Phantom Eyes, Scott Tracey (gay protagonist)

(short breaks: The Golden Leopard, Lynn Kerstan, Developing Standards Based Report Cards, Guskey & Bailey, The Dream Thieves)

Oh, and I took a picture of my to-read pile, although since I have other books scattered all over the house I may not limit myself to these.

5th Book: 7:30 PM Saturday (18 hours): Heart of Steel, Meljean Brook (protagonist of color) (starting at page 112)

(short breaks: Human Division, Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle)

6th Book: 11:00 Saturday (21 hours): The Boy Who Dared, Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Mormon in Germany WWII)

(Sleep -- Midnight -- 8:00   22:30 hours)

7th Book:  8:30 AM Sunday (23 hours) Skin Tight, Ava Grey (Iranian protagonist)

Short breaks (The World Outside)

8th Book: 12:30 Sunday (27 hours)The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou (African American)
-- I have officially hit my goal of 24 hours of reading!

End Times: 5:00 PM Sunday: 31:30 hours: With only 30 minutes left I will fritter away my reading time among the short break books in my currently reading bag.  32 hours isn't my best time, but I'm OK with it.

Finish Line -- 48 Hour Reading Challenge

We made it! It's the end of our  48 Hour Book Challenge, and everyone made their goal! And boy are my eyes tired.

I spent almost all my time reading, with occasional short breaks to check other blogs; no reviewing at all this year. My currently reading pile is a much more reasonable 11 now, so I knocked out a lot of the books I've been carrying around for weeks.

Finals numbers, possibly right:

Beth, aka Mom, aka me:

• Time: 26 hours 30 minutes
• 15 books finished - an asterix means I started them before the weekend: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter*,  Axe Cop, The Notorious Benedict Arnold, Young Fredle (audio)*, Galacterian Legacy*, Scorpio Races*, Angelfall*, Wheels of Change, The Zodiac Killer, Bunheads*, The Same Stuff as Stars*, The Returning, A View of the Ocean, Drama City, The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, 
• Books still incomplete: Infamous Scribblers, Ring of Solomon (audio), The Dark Knight Returns

Alexander, aka Xan, aka 7th grader: 

• Time: 12 hours
• 3 books finished: Twenty Palaces*, Axe Cop, Syren
• Books still incomplete: Ring of Solomon (audio), Return of the Dark Knight, Darke, Angelfall

P, aka 5th grader:

• Time: 5 hours 20 minutes
• 1 book finished: Axe Cop*
• Books still incomplete: The Red Pyramid

I said I'd pledge $1/hr, plus $5/book finished, plus $1/comment. I got nine comments (actually quite a lot for me), we read 44 hours (slight round up), and finished 19 books. That finished count makes me a bit glad I put a cap on my donation, so I'm sending $100 to RIF and the elementary school library. I was trying to encourage myself to actually finish some books, but it sure pushed up my meter quickly.

Thanks to MotherReader for organizing the fun weekend, thanks to the people who dropped by my blog to support me, thanks to my kids for reading along and also not asking too much of me during this weekend, and especially thanks to my sister who made dinner for us on Saturday and Sunday and also provided general parenting support while I was buried under piles of books. (I still have about twenty books lying around in case I wanted to read them.)

Last Day of the Challenge

Day 3 on the 48 Hour Book Challenge - I have until 9:00 PM to read as much as I can.  It's been a solid 4.5 hours of sleep for me, more for P and Alexander, so we'll see who makes their goal.

I'll update this post throughout the day. Our current stats are:

• 8:00:
• Beth: 18 hours 20 minutes
• Xan: 6 hours
• P: 3 hours 10 minutes
• 9:00 My loud reading has woken everyone up. Especially if they stole the book I wanted to read.
• Beth: 19 hours 20 minutes (A View of the Ocean, COMPLETE) Brief blogging.
• Xan: 7 hours. He claims an hour in bed last night, which seems believable. (book he stole)
• P: 4 hours, 40 minutes. The Red Pyramid
• 3:30. I went off to check out places for my dad.
• Beth: 22: hours (Drama City, The Dark Knight Returns)
• Xan: 10 hours (Angelfall, Syrens
• P: 4 hours 40 minutes.
• 4:30. I love reading with my family.
• Beth: 23 hours (Drama City)
• Xan: 10 hours
• P: 5 hours! Goal Achieved! At which he second he tossed aside his book and headed for the Wii.
• 9:00: We made it!
• Beth 26 hours 30 minutes! Goal Achieved! (Drama City COMPLETE, The Great Wall of Lucy Wu COMPLETE, The Dark Knight Returns)
• Xan: 12 hours -- Goal Achieved! Syren COMPLETE, Darke

48 Hour Book Challenge: Saturday

Day 2 (of 3) on the  48 Hour Book Challenge.  Since I started Friday evening, we'll finish on Sunday evening. It's been a solid seven hours of sleep for me, more for P, and Alexander, despite setting the alarm that woke up P, is still snoozing.

I'll update this post throughout the day. Our current stats are:

• 7:30:
• Beth 3 hours (Axe Cop)
• Xan: 2 hours 20 minutes (Twenty Palaces)
• P: 60 minutes
• 8:45 Leaving for Bofferwars, so interruption (some audio reading)
• Beth: 3 hours, 45 minutes (Axe Cop COMPLETE)
• The Notoroious Benedict Arnold
• Xan: 2 hours 20 minutes
• P: 60 minutes
• 1:30 Returning from Bofferwars, 100 minutes of audio en route
• Beth: 5 hours 15 minutes (Young Fredle COMPLETE, Ring of Solomon)
• Xan: 4 hours (Ring of Solomon, Axe Cop)
• P: 2 hours 40 minutes (Young Fredle COMPLETE, Ring of Solomon)
• 3:30 Lazing around the house
• Beth: 7 hours 15 minutes (Notorious Benedict Arnold COMPLETE), a little blogging
• Xan: 4 hours (computer games, napping)
• P: 2 hours 40 minutes (dragged out shopping)
• 6:00 Reading, one brief nap
• Beth: 9 hours 20 minutes (Galacterian Legacy COMPLETE, not from start)
• Scorpio Races, not from start
• Angelfall  COMPLETE, last third
• 20 minute nap
• Xan: 4 hours 20 minutes
• P: 2 hours, 40 minutes (he's the only one on target for his goal, actually)
• 9:00 First day is OVER. Starting the last 24 hours for the family.
• Beth: 12 hours, 20 minutes (Scorpio Races). More reading, even through dinner. I'm a bad influence. My sister is a saint. I'm 30 minutes behind pace for my goal, but can stay up late tonight.
• Wheels of Change COMPLETE
• The Zodiac Killer COMPLETE
• Bunheads (I'm in the middle of this one)
• Xan: 4 hours, 20 minutes. I swear that boy reads less on the challenge weekend than any other time. Probably because I'm too busy to kick him off the computer.
• P: 2 hours, 40 minutes.
• Sunday 3:00. Oops, I forgot the midnight check-in.
• Beth: 18 hours, 20 minutes. Bunheads COMPLETE
• The Returning COMPLETE
• The Scorpio Races, COMPLETE
• Xan: 6 hours, maybe more. I'm not sure when his light went off.
• P: 3 hours 10 minutes. The Red Pyramid.

48 Hour Book Challenge -- GO!

It's time to start this year's 48 Hour Book Challenge.  I will start by reading from Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter on my NOOK, a book I already have in progress.

Alexander is starting with Twenty Palaces, a book I accidentally put on his NOOK along with all the other Harry Connolly stories; he is devouring the series enthusiastically.

P has a Best of the Best selection (Axe Cop) as his initial pick.

• 21:00 on Friday, 6/8 --  Start Reading!

• 22:00 : 
• Beth: 60 minutes (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, p 132  
• Alexander: 60 minutes, Twenty Palaces
• P: 60 minutes, Axe Cop -- COMPLETE

• 23:00: 
• Beth: 2 hours (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, COMPLETE
• Infamous Scribblers, p 168 - 226 (finished part II)
• Axe Cop
• Alexander: 80 minutes, Twenty Palaces
• P: 60 minutes (bedtime arrived)
• Midnight Fri/Sat:
• Beth 3 hours (Axe Cop)
• Xan: 2 hours 20 minutes (Twenty Palaces)
• P: 60 minutes

48 Hour Book Challenge Rapidly Approaching

This weekend is MotherReader's 7th Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge.  We'll go from Friday night (starting as close to 9 pm as I can manage, because it depends on when my book club ends) through Sunday night.  X has signed up, and I think I'll drag P along for the fun as well.

This year they are hosting an official charity, Reading Is Fundamental through Book People Unite. This poses me a bit of a problem, because I traditionally pledge money to our school library, so I feel like my donation money is already bespoke (no one else tends to sponsor me). I guess the best thing to do is double pledge, so I'll give both the school library and the book people $1 per hour, $5 per book finished, and $1 per comment, up to a limit of $100 dollars each.

My goal is 25 hours, which leaves me time to actually interact with people.  I may be able to exceed this, of course.  On the other hand, both Saturday and Sunday have activites scheduled that I can't miss, so not only will that eat up some of my time, but it means that on Sunday afternoon I have to be awake enough to drive, which means no all-nighters on Saturday night. So this will be a real challenge to me. (If I bring a note from the Challenge, can I read through part of a piano recital?)

X (the seventh grader) has a goal of twelve hours .  I need to make sure he has enough reading material to last him. In a move reminiscent of last year, he has gulped down several thousand pages in the past week, using up all the books I meant for him to read this weekend (the complete Bartemeus trilogy by Jonathan Strouss, for example). Maybe I should buy him Bitterblue. I have to think of the children, right?

I think I'll assign P the lowly goal of five hours, because pressure makes him panic. A has a goal of five hours as well; if Saturday the clouds turn to rain she has a chance at it. I need to revisit my meal plans to make sure they don't require any effort on my part; it may behoove me to stock up on frozen lasagna or something.

This will be my chance to get through as many of the Best of the Best books as I can, as well as to knock of some more Cybils books and in general catch up on all partly finished books I've got. I'll also try to get ahead on the various online book clubs I've been following and reread our selection for July.

Finish Line!

We made it!   Our final numbers for the Finish Line:

me: 32 hours!  (80 minutes online included)

X: 6.5 hours

P:  4 hours 15 minutes

I only tracked time, not pages this year, and didn't even match up time to books.  Many of my books were lying around half-read when I started, so claiming that I finished ten books doesn't say that much.  I felt I was reading slowly.  I really enjoyed the book I read on my NOOK; next year I plan to get a lot more ready there.  This year I concentrated on catching up on my library catastrophe and also lowering the pile of currently-reading books on my table.  Of course, I started a few books that I now have to finish, but no one's perfect.

Both boys participated, but they treated it more as a 24 hour challenge -- Saturday was our first really nice spring day and P enjoyed it to the limit at the pool.  X checked out the Lord of the Rings for the challenge, but read them all during the week and spent Saturday watching the movies, knowing that with me reading he'd get away with so much screen time.  But Sunday both boys lounged on comfy couches with me for companionable hours.  I asked them for quick summaries of all the books they read;  I provided quick opinions about the books I didn't review because I haven't finished them yet.

Books Touched (Me) (a * means I finished it):

1. The Commoner *
2. The Interior Life *
3. A Kiss in Time *
4. Feng Shui Roleplaying I'm actually getting a bit inspired to play a bit, but first I want to watch some movies.
5. Curse of the Wolf Girl I used this as a refresher between books; the tiny chapters and sharp comments are fun in small doses.
6. Baking Cakes in Kigali *
7. The Hob's Bargain *
8. Peter and the Starcatchers *
9. The Whistling Season I think I'm going to like this book, but I wasn't in the mood for it last night.
10. Life At the Edge *
11. Hammered *
12. Dark Angel *
13. Treachery in Death *
14. Ender's Shadow.  This is a reread for our family book club; I like Bean's genius but get cranky when he gets credit for stuff Ender did in the first book.
15. The Whale Rider (audio).  I only had to drive for 20 minutes or so, meaning we didn't get far. I'm enjoying the accents.

Books Touched (X):

1. Omnivore's Dilemna.  It was interesting but sometimes boring; it was hard to read it all at once.
2. Fray * This was futuristically weird.
3. Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary book They are great; the comments make it better.
4. Shadow Puppets Still too early to make an opinion.

Books Touched (P):

1. Ender's Shadow *  This was a good book because I could see someone thinking as Bean thought in the book and I like that.
2. Ender's Game.  I haven't read much but so far I think it is interesting to see how the teachers at the Battle School think and how Ender thinks.
3. Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sundays. They are great.
4. The Whale Rider (twenty minutes of audio).  I think I have to hear more to have an opinion.

Totals for charity: 10 + 32 (me) + 1+ 6.5 (X) + 4.25 + 1 (P) + 5 (comments) = $60.  I'll throw in an extra $5 for the ten books we read but didn't finish, and send the school library a check for $65.  I was planning on giving it all to the elementary school because I know the librarian, but I might split it with the middle school since the older boy does cause a lot more wear and tear on the library books.

Book 10: Treachery in Death

I'm a bit overdosed on J.D. Robb, having accidentally read the previous book and a short story I found on the library's ebook list very recently. But she goes down quickly, so I grabbed Treachery in Death for one of my final books. It dragged a bit at the end, which made it rather a poor choice, but was also easy to read as kids popped in and out while mowing the lawn or trying to fix art equipment or wanted to know where I hid the frozen pizzas (in the freezer).

Eve and Roarke catch the bad guy, have good sex, quarrel but make up, per usual. Peabody worries about her weight, and Eve's old boyfriend in IAD finds a girlfriend. Oh, baby Bella learns to say "Dallas." Sorry to spoil it!

Book 8: Hammered

I went back to the pile of almost read books on my nightstand and finished off one more -- Elizabeth Bear's Hammered.  Bear is a very poor choice for reading in dribs and drabs, because she writes for an intelligent reader and doesn't signpost every detail, but Hammered never grabbed my throat and clawed its way out of the nightstand pile.  It's about honor and loyalty and patriotism when your country is going to the dogs (the country in this case being Canada), and the family that you love and the family that tries to kill you.  Even dipping into it in twenty five page chunks was immersive, and I'm glad I finished up the last hundred pages in a gulp.

I hated the French, though.  Since I'm not Canadian, I have no smattering of it so even the catchphrases often missed me completely.  It kept switching me from a reader to an intruder, which pulled me out of the story.  This is clearly a problem with me, not the book, but there it was. (Bear's page talks about it a bit; apparently reading it aloud would have helped but I think I'm just a lousy translator.) I'll still read the next one, since I'm very interested in what happens next to Casey, Razerface (although there's no guarantee we'll find out), Richard, and the Montreal.

Book 7: Life at the Edge and Beyond

Book 7 is an Aspergers book that I found, although now I forget whether it was recommended or just showed up in the library catalog under Subject: Asperger's Syndrome.  I've been reading different books about this kind of autism to give myself some perspective on my son, and Jan Greenman's memoir, Life at the Edge and Beyond: Living with ADHD and Asperger Syndrome gives that by describing her own experience with a boy dealing with his own bundle of labels.  Her son had a much more challenging time of it, having a more difficult time dealing with affection and also having is own set of anxiety disorders to complicate matters, but I could see a lot of similarities between her Luke and my X.

 I read out a few anecdotes to him, and he found them interesting, especially the scene where the mom invites the younger sister to hit Luke back with a hammer, so Luke can learn what it feels like.  Definitely an effective teaching moment was our consensus, although authorities might frown on the resultant concussion. I'm proud of Greenman for including some scenes that show the roughness of their lives.

Book 6: Peter and the Starcatchers

ABCABC -- I have detected a pattern! I read a real adult book, then a SF book, and then a kids book.  Since I've repeated this twice, it is now a tradition, so it will be painful to change.  Hmm.  This may help me pick my next book.

I just finished Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.  They wrote this as a prequel to Peter Pan, so it explains how he gets his powers and his fairy and his peers the pirate, the savages, and the mermaids.  Which is all fine and a decent standard boy adventure story, complete with lack of mortality (I prefer the corpse littered stories of Joan Aiken, but I understand some men are squeamish about such things), but the unexamined misogyny really disturbed me.  Females are few and far between in this book; there is the useless and fat governess, the intrepid girl heroine who credits Peter with saving the day, and the mermaid.  Which stuck out like a sore thumb was the instant hatred the girl and the mermaid have for each other, supposedly because of their jealousy over Peter.  Because of course the only thing that matters for females is their connection with the alpha male; tiny issues like saving the world pale behind such primal instincts.  By the way, it never occurs to any of the other boys to even consider resenting Peter's special relationship with the girl; after all, the boys are friends and it's impossible to imagine them squabbling over a girl.  They barely even mention her, in fact.  Humph.