Library Reopens! River Runs Under It Is Back!

My favorite downtown Renton library has finally reopened! Now the river flows under the stacks of books once again!

I'm not sure how I feel about all the changes. My instinct is to resist all change, so it takes me a while to get used to anything new. So I'm still sniffing around, deciding if I like the new reading area (lots of magazines, but maybe not enough Quick Picks?), children's section (good view of the river, but maybe too open for larger families with many kids to chase after), and shelves (are there enough of them? Would there ever be enough?). But at least I can restart my Library Quest -- to read a book from every shelf.  I've got a bunch of Large Print books ready to go, and I'm even grabbing the audio books which are the first section after the children's area.

It's actually been a few weeks, so I'm back to my more usual pattern of book picking. This week I got a small haul, the books from the hold shelf and then some music to houseclean to:

1. The Sackett Brand, Louis L'Amour, for my Tuesday night book club.
2. The Way Into Chaos, Harry Connolly. He's one of my favorite authors and I own this on NOOK but I prefer paper copies sometimes.
3. She Looks So Perfect
4. Les Miserables 
5. The Very Best of Harry Belafonte

I've currently got 41 things out from the library, including ebooks, music, books for me, and books for the kids. That's not too bad, right? Only one unfinished book is due next week, so maybe I'll keep on top of things...

I'll go sign in to Library Loot which is at The Captive Reader  this week to see what everyone else is getting.  Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. 

Summer Reading List (Backwards, of course)

Well, the good news is that I got a lot of reading done this summer. The bad news is that I never went near this blog. I'm sure you all were bereft without hearing what books I've paged through. Fear not -- I kept a summer reading log!

My summer goal of reading a book each day ends tomorrow. I made it, but I counted everything I read, which included picture books. I've starred children's books, and double starred books I think of as picture books (which range from actual picture books to easy chapter books) because I don't count those in my reading totals for the year.

This week I read a pile of easy reads:

• Book Clubbed, Lorna Barrett. Cosy murder mystery set in New Hampshire. I really liked the relationship between the two sisters.
• Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones. A reread for family book club. I love this book.
• The Meaning of Maggie, Megan Jean Sovern. Cybils middle grade fiction.
• The Family Fortune, Laure Horowitz. For my Friday book club -- an interesting take on Jane Austin's Persuasion, but felt rather distant.
• A Bride's Story Vol 3, Kaoru Mori. Now my older son is also into these.
• The Perfect Match, Kristan Higgins. Contemporary romance with arranged marriage, which is a trope I find I enjoy. The baby-hunger was annoying portrayed through chattering ovaries.
• The Freedom Summer Murders, Don Mitchell. Cybils nonfiction about murders and racism.
• The Port Chicago 50, Steve Sheinkin. Cybils nonfiction about negligence and racism.
• Obsession in Death, J.D. Robb. Solid entry in the Eve & Roarke saga.

Bookjourney's "It's Monday" posts are still on hiatus (although she's back to reading and blogging, hooray to her!) but I'll check in with Teach Mentor Texts since I have a pile of kidlit books.

2015 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2014: 76/81. I'm waiting on the hot books of the year to appear on my hold shelf, and there's one book my libraries don't have. Hmm.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 34/51.  Knocked off New Hampshire, am reading a South Carolina, and have requested what I hope is a Delaware book.
3. Award Winning Book Challenge: I have apparently stopped reviewing books. But I've ticked off many awards. 
4. Book Riot Read Harder: 22/24. I still need an African author and a book of short stories.
5. Alphabetically Inclined:  I V X  Z still missing. 22/26
6. Best of the Best 2012: 52/25.  I am stalled. Maybe time to go back?
7. Reading My Library: Woot -- my library reopened! I'm currently reading an audio book, since with the new construction that's the first thing after children's books. I think I'll pick up the next text book, although I'm trying to decide if I can skip Big Print books, since I find them unpleasant to read.

Summer Reading:

June:

19: Hunt For the Hydra *
20: MaddAddam
21: Forged in Blood 1
22: About that Night
23: A Matter for Men
24: Yonder Comes the Other End of Time
25: Bless Her Dead Little Heart
26: Chasing Cheetahs **
27: Feathers: Not Just for Flying **
28: When Lunch Fights Back **
29: The Case of the Vanishing Little Brown Bats: A Scientific Mystery **
30: Angel Island: Gateway to Gold Mountain **

July

1: Handle With Care: An Unusual Butterfly Journey **
2: Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation **
3: Wyrd Sisters
4: Dragon Prince
5: Hex Hall
6: Big Nate Strikes Again **
7: The Return of Santa Paws *
8: Santa Paws to the Rescue *
9: Mouse Called Wolf  *
10: Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood *
11: Avatar: The Last Airbender: 6 **
12: Bird Lake Moon *
13: The Winner's Curse
14: Avatar: The Lost Scrolls: Earth **
15: Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights
16: Bone 1: Out From Boneville *
17: The Last Holiday Concert *
18: Code Talker
19: Sea Without a Shore
20: Curtsies and Conspiracies
21: All Four Stars *
22: His At Night
23: Popular
24: Half a Life
25: Strange Fruit
26: Castle Hangnail *
27: In Real Life 
28: Rapunzel's Revenge *
29: Codex Born
30: LumberJanes 
31: The Luck Uglies *

August

1: Beyond Magenta
2: To This Day **
3: End of Days
4: Peacemaker
5: Brimsby's Hats **
6: Shh! We have a Plan **
7: The Easter Cat **
8: Royal Airs 
9: Girl and the Bicycle **
10: Knight-napped *
11: Shadow Hero 
12: Through the Woods
13: Over Sea Under Stone *
14: Waistcoats and Weaponry
15: Bride's Story Vol 2 
16: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
17: Too Dangerous For a Lady
18: The Harlem Hellfighters
19: Bird and Squirrel On Ice **
20: Hidden **
21: Gaijin: American Prisoner of War **
22: Nickel Bay Nick *
23: Ballad **
24: Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales From Interfaith Homes
25: My Friend Dahmer
26: Being Mortal
27: Paddington At Large *
28: Wrong Way Around Magic *
29: Big Nate on a Roll *
30: Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist
31: Jinx's Fire *

September
1: Dumbest Idea Ever
2: The Just City
3: Ice Dogs *
4: The Martian
5: Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door **
6:  Violet Mackerel's Possible Friend **
7: Extraordinary Warren: A Superchicken **
8: Okay, Andy! **

Extras: Lulu's Mysterious Mission **, Clara and Clem Under the Sea **, Pigsticks and Harold and the Incredible Journey**, My New Friend Is So Fun**, Inch and Roly and the Sunny Day Scare **, The Chicken Squad: The First Misadventure**, Shadowshaper, Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake **, The Lion Who Stole My Arm**, Family Romanov, Obsession in Death, Port Chicago 50, Freedom Summer Murders, Perfect Match, Bride's Story 3, The Family Fortune, The Meaning of Maggie *, Howl's Moving Castle, Book Clubbed, Mrs Pollifax Unveiled, Penric's Demon, Year of Reading Dangerously, El Deafo*

Back From Summer Vacation!

Well, the good news is that I got a lot of reading done this summer. The bad news is that I never went near this blog. I'm sure you all were bereft without hearing what books I've paged through. Fear not -- I kept a summer reading log!

The highlights (books that were five stars for me) were:

The Just City, Jo Walton
Jinx's Fire, Sage Blackwood
Being Mortal, Atul Gawande
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Sydney Padua
Through the Woods, Emily Carroll
The Shadow Hero, Gene Luen Yang
Uprooted, Naomi Novak
Lumberjanes Vol 1, Noelle Stevenson
Castle Hangnail, Ursula Vernon
Strange Fruit, Joel Christian Gill
Popular, Maya Van Wagenen
Curtsies and Conspiracies, Gail Carriger

Looking over this list, I see a large percentage of graphic books, which is not really representative of my reading. I'm not sure whether this is because I only read the best (most of my reading is either huge recommendations by my sons, or from the Cybils award list) or because I read so little that it is easy to impress me.

I'm also in another book club -- my weekly gaming group is now a movie/book club, which so far seems fun. We pick a book to read, and meet weekly via SKYPE to discuss it while simultaneously watching a movie linked somehow to the book. So we saw several cheesy Mars movies while reading The Martian, during which I discovered that no one else had ever read a romance novel, so now we are reading Agnes and the Hitman and I'm looking forward to some good cheesy hitman movies.

Last week I read what looks like an impressive list of books, until you realize how many of them I count as picture books:

Obsession in Death, J.D. Robb
The Lion Who Stole My Arm, Nicola Davies (Cybils early chapter book)
The Family Romanov, Candace Fleming (Cybils nonfiction)
Shadowshaper, Daniel Jose Older
Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake, Julie Sternberg (Cybils early chapter book)
Extraordinary Warren, Sarah Dillard (Cybils easy reader)
Okay, Andy!, Maxwell Eaton III (Cybils easy reader)
Inch and Roly and the Sunny Day Scare, Melissa Wiley (Cybils easy reader)
Pigsticks and Harold and the Incredible Journey, Alex Milway (Cybils easy reader)
Violet Mackerel's Possible Friend, Anna Branford (Cybils early chapter book)
Lulu's Mysterious Mission, Judith Viorst (Cybils early chapter book)
The Chicken Squad: The First Misadventure, Doreen Cronin (Cybils early chapter book)
Clara and Clem Under the Sea, Ethan Long (Cybils easy reader)
Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door, Hilary McKay (Cybils early chapter book)
Ice Dogs, Terry Lynn Johnson  (Cybils middle grade fiction)
The Martian, Andy Weir (reread, book club)


This weekend gave me a comfortable lead, enough to cover the two days of driving. Bookjourney's "It's Monday" posts are still on hiatus (although she's back to reading and blogging, hooray to her!) but I'll check in with Teach Mentor Texts since I have a pile of kidlit books.

No reading diary, since I was so scattershot at reading that I couldn't keep up. Picture dozens of books picked up, paged through, put down, and you have a sense of how focused I was for most of the week. Well, month.

2015 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2014: 73/81. I need two more nonfictions, some middle grade books that I'm waiting for, and the other hot books with long library waits. Definitely in much better shape than last year!
2. Where Am I Reading?: 33/51.  I did not make good progress this summer, but I hope to concentrate on this when I finish the Cybils.
3. Award Winning Book Challenge: I have apparently stopped reviewing books. But I've ticked off many awards. 
4. Book Riot Read Harder: 2/24. I still need an African author and a book of short stories.
5. Alphabetically Inclined:  I V X  Z still missing. 22/26
6. Best of the Best 2012: 52/25.  I am stalled.
7. Reading My Library: Woot -- my library reopened! I'm currently reading an audio book, since with the new construction that's the first thing after children's books.

Summer Reading Kick-Off!

Now that the 48 Hour Book Challenge has pulled me out of my reading slump (and blogging hiatus) I am ready to throw myself into Summer Reading! First I'll start reading, and then I'll find some appropriate icon for this year.

Again, the goal is to start a book every day, from last Friday on. The side goal is to not have as many books left over as I did last year (I don't think I've finished them all). So I'm counting picture books! I'll count pamphlets if I have to! Maybe I'll count fortunes from fortune cookies...

This weekend gave me a comfortable lead, enough to cover the two days of driving. Bookjourney's It's Monday posts are still on hiatus (although she's back to reading and blogging, hooray to her!) but I'll check in with Teach Mentor Texts since I read a few kidlit books.

I miss my reading diary; I think I'll start that up again.

Finished this week:

• Bless Her Dead Little Heart, Miranda James. This had a high body count.
• Yonder Comes the Other End of Time, Suzette Haden Elgin. Cute as a banjo. I don't much like banjos, unfortunately.
• A Matter For Men, David Gerrold. Very Heinlein-esq.
• About that Night, Norah McClintock. Grim tale of murder and teens.
• Forged in Blood 1, Lindsay Buroker. Lots of fun here.
• MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood. This was was fun to read, but didn't pull me in.
• The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra, Jason Fry. Only book I read that wasn't part of the read-a-thon. It's a Cybils finalist.

Bookmarks Moved this Week:

• Dragon Prince, Melanie Rawn
• The Winner's Curse, Marie Rutkoski

2015 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2014: 27/81. Still behind on completion ratio, but probably ahead on page count.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 30/51.  On track for the year. Looking for Delaware, wouldn't mind a Hawaii or Indiania.
3. Award Winning Book Challenge: I have apparently stopped reviewing books. But I've ticked off seven different awards. 
4. Full House Challenge: 25/25. Not sure whether to find a new box or redo this one.
5. Book Riot Read Harder: 18/24. I've done the easy ones. Need a young author, a translated text, and to understand what an indie press is. Lindsay Buroker self-publishes -- is she an indie press?
6. Alphabetically Inclined:  I V X  Z still missing. 22/26
7. Best of the Best 2012: 52/25.  I am stalled.
8. Reading My Library: Library temporarily closed, so on hiatus.

Ready! Set! Stop!

This is my official end post for the 48 Hour Book Challenge. I turned down a movie and a dinner out. (My kids made a delicious lasagna on Friday when they realized I would be providing NOTHING, so I did not suffer. Lasagna leftovers are even better than the first night). I'm not sure what movie I passed up, but I'm OK with that.

I spent 31 hours 45 minutes (including blogging hours). I think I spent almost two hours (1 hour 50 minutes) online, and I hopped about leaving comments on people's blogs so I felt all social. I almost took a look at twitter, but I decided social media could be taken too far.

I managed to finish a bunch of books that have been languishing in my currently-reading bag for almost a year! Honestly, I think I started some of them last summer. I also read the next Lindsay Buroker, who always writes fun books, and am in good shape to finish my audio book this week so I can get it back to the library.

Honestly, I was amazed at my ability to stick with books until the end. Usually I'm much more flibberty-jibbert like in my reading.

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

Mini-Reviews: 48 Hour Book Challenge

.

I don't know how many books I'll finish (I'll probably start start twenty five books or so) but just in case, I'll start out putting my reactions here:

1. MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood. This is the final book in the trilogy, and I enjoyed much more than I did the second. I'm getting old, so I've mostly forgotten the details of her world. This means I probably missed some jokes -- Atwood has a great sense of humor. The pages were easy to sink into, although the book itself never urged me to pick it up. I think this is because the book is about the world, and the characters, although clearly drawn, weren't all that interesting to me. The main character, Toby, spends so much of the time in jealous worry over her lover, and I keep wanting her to look around her -- the world was a fascinating place, no matter where Zeb was waving his penis. Once I realized my issues, it was easier to just look past Toby at the world around them, which was just as well, because that's where Atwood's attention was as well.
2. Forged in Blood, Lindsay Buroker. My book club helped me discover this self-published author a few years ago, and I've been working my way through her work ever since. Her characters are quirky but real, and in this series she juggles her ensemble well, keeping us interested in each character while adding some to keep things changing. She does a great job with action sequences, and isn't afraid to have her characters make mistakes. This book is told from the perspective of the grim assassin that is half of the main love interest, and at first I thought that was a mistake -- his mysterious motives were a large part of the fun of the book. Buroker pulls it off, and I'm definitely looking forward to the final book in the series.
3. Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, Alexis Coe. This 2014 Cybils finalist covers some history I don't know much about -- a murder in 1892, where a teenager attacked her girlfriend with a straight razor. Coe uses this to talk about the current ideas about gender roles, race, and homosexuality while also trying to give a sense of Alice's personality and motives. I think she did a better job with the former than the latter, but overall it seemed superficial to me. I hope that's because I'm an adult and the book is aimed at teen agers
4. About that Night. Norah McClintock is one of my favorite realistic YA authors. Her teens are modern but strong willed, with a sense of morals that they may struggle to live up to. I especially like her reluctance to tie things up with a bow -- in this mystery, no one has all the answers, even at the end. The reader gets to see more than the characters, because we check in with all the main characters, but even we have to figure out some things on our own. Young love is respected but not idealized, and death is very real.
5. A Matter For Men, David Gerrold. I started this last summer, but it got very little traction and I barely made it past page fifty. But I'd like to clear out all my currently-readings, so I gave it another try, and it managed to keep me interested enough to see the end. Most of my interest came from seeing how close to Starship Troopers it could come -- clueless young man, women soldiers, very odd women (all the females who have an interest in sex), strange required military class at school, passive protagonist, giant invertebrate alien bad guys, long lectures on government and individual responsibility, and probably others that I'm skipping. I can't think of anyone I'd recommend it to, but it serves as a solid historical piece of science fiction, as much about the time it was published (early eighties) as the future it predicts. 
6. Gulp, Mary Roach. A fun book about how we digest, with an emphasis on the odd or amusing. It was rather slow reading, as the "ick" factor was rather high, but I like her preoccupation with appropriate names (and she's not afraid to go really juvenile, sniggering at a "Dr Brown" proctologist) and her willingness to ask silly questions and interview anyone (life-sentence convict known for smuggling goods up his bum). Did you know that the support ribbons for colon cancer used to be brown, but people objected and now they are blue? Appendix cancer ribbons are still amber.
7. Yonder Comes the Other End Of Time, Suzette Haden Elgin. I never got over the disappointment of finding that this book was set on a planet based on the West Virginia mountains, not actually in those mountains, and so of no use to me for my 50 States Challenge. It also had a lot of super-gendered stereotypes that tried my patience. Setting myself down, I managed to finish it, but I'm not inclined to seek out the other books about Coyote Jones (or about the Ozark planet, if there are any).
8. Bless Her Dead Little Heart, Miranda James. I grabbed this book from the library because it is set in Mississippi. It seemed of the murder-mystery-with-cats genre, but fell a bit short in both categories. No one solved the murder mystery; instead the murdered killed off all the other suspects before getting offed by her last intended victim. The cute cat, despite all its intelligence and door-opening skills, contributed nothing to the mystery. And the new pets featured on the cover never even got into the house! Unless I'm desperate for a Mississippi book next year I probably won't see out another Southern Ladies mystery. 

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