New Year’s Goal Update

Well, here we are five months into 2009. Back in January I posted about my book-related goal for the year. Even though I haven’t been posting here, I have been slowly chipping away at my stash! I’ll be moving again in a few months, and I do NOT want to bring all my unread literary baggage along.

Until a month or so ago, the way I purged books was to read the back, decide if it still sounded appealing, and then keep it or donate it depending on the answer. I recently picked up one of these interesting sounding books and started reading, only to realize that although the premise sounded great, the writing just didn’t hold my attention. Inspired, I went through every one of my books, reading the first few pages. If I enjoyed reading it, it stayed; if not, into the donation box it went. I managed to cut my number of books in half!

I’m still plugging away. I started with the books I knew I wouldn’t want to keep, which has helped. Now I’m working on the advanced reader copies I have from work, so I can stay at least somewhat up to date on the new titles coming out! (Side note: if you haven’t read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins yet, do it soon…the sequel, Catching Fire, comes out in September and it is AWESOME!) The hardest part for me is not bringing new books home. I see so many great titles at work every day that I’m not always able to resist!

I just finished Thrity Umrigar’s newest novel, The Weight of Heaven. Definitely not good as a pick-me-up, but extremely well written. If you liked Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, I think you’d like The Weight of Heaven as well.

Currently I’m working on Thrity Umrigar’s memoir, First Darling of the Morning, and Steven Galloway’s novel The Cellist of Sarajevo. More as I get through them!

Keeping Track

I never kept track of what I read until I signed up for LibraryThing in late summer of 2007. (LibraryThing, for those of you who haven’t discovered it yet, is an organized book person’s dream: something of an online catalog of your own personal library that you can organize and edit as you please!) I quickly found and joined a group called 50 Book Challenge, where members keep a running tally of the books they read during the year. The goal, as you may have guessed, is to reach 50.

Well, I was pretty bad at remembering to log in and record everything I read, but I found I really liked having a record of what I’d read when. I tried keeping track of books in a plain lined journal, but it just wasn’t organized enough for me.

After working at my current bookstore job for a few months, I stumbled upon my perfect solution: Moleskine’s address book. This is not your typical address book! Instead of having boxes with places for name, address, phone number, email, blah blah blah, the Moleskine address book has simply one tab for each letter of the alphabet, followed by pages that contain nothing but those gloriously pale and closely spaced Moleskine lines!

I now list each book under the author’s last name along with the date I finished reading it. I don’t think I’ve missed a book yet, and it’s so cool to be able to look back over what I’ve read over the past year and a half. I haven’t even started a second page in any of the letters, so there’s plenty of space for the books to come!

What about you? Do you keep a record of the books you read?

Thoughts on “The Prophecy of Sisters” by Michelle Zink

Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink (cover)Last week, a coworker asked me if I wanted to read any of the galleys she’d recently been given to review before her upcoming meeting with the company’s sales rep. I pawed through them and took two. I started with Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink.

It’s YA; a historical novel (late 1800s) with a touch of fantasy. Twins Lia and Alice discover they play opposing roles in an ancient prophecy, and each must unravel its meaning and find her place within it on her own. It actually kept me engrossed, and I finished it in a few days. A touch overdramatic in places, but generally a good, quick story with enough history to keep it romantic (big house, sweeping gowns, and the like) and enough fantasy to keep it exciting (a spiritualist, mysterious marks appearing on wrists, and so forth).

My only complaint is that it’s the first book in a series. I’d be complaining less if I’d known that from the start; honestly, I probably would have passed it by. Not that I have anything against series books. It’s just that it’s so darn hard to wait for the next book to come out. Heck, the one I just read won’t even be published until August! I had the same problem with Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (although about 100 times worse…now that’s a sequel worth waiting for!). I’d rather wait and start the series right before the last book comes out.

What about you? How do you feel about books in a series that’s not yet complete?

Thoughts on “Made from Scratch” by Jenna Woginrich

Made from Scratch by Jenna Woginrich (cover)If there’s anyone out there who’s ever considered learning some homesteading skills but didn’t know where to start, I have a book for you.

Have you ever wondered about keeping bees? How about dreamed of eggs fresh from the chicken every morning? Maybe imagined making your own clothes? Jenna Woginrich did. Not sure where to start? Jenna can help. Her new book, Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life is just what you need.

The setting: a farm in Idaho. The cast: two working huskies, a hive of bees, a tiny flock of slug-eating chickens, a couple angora rabbits, an encouraging homesteading mentor, and one girl who longs to farm. The plot: well…you’ll just have to read it!

The book is set up in sections, with one for each of the homesteading skills discussed. First, Jenna tells the story of her own experience of trying her hand at the skill. Immediately following, you’ll find a how-to section so that, if you are inspired by her example (and it’s hard not to be), you can jump right in and give it a go yourself. There’s also a fantastic appendix at the back listing all sorts of further reading on your topic(s?) of choice.

From gardening to sewing, from the kitchen to the barn, if you’re looking for a taste of the simple life and some inspiration, this is the book for you. And there’s no need to wait until spring to get started. There are plenty of projects in the book that you can start in on right away.

If you like the sound of “a handmade life,” check out Made from Scratch by Jenna Woginrich!

Thoughts on “Blonde Roots” by Bernardine Evaristo

Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo (cover)Well, I just finished Blonde Roots, a novel by Bernardine Evaristo. I can’t say much about the plot without giving important twists away.

The novel follows the life of a slave in an alternate retelling of history, where “whytes” are enslaved by “blaks” and history as we have been taught it is turned upside down. I loved that there were enough similarities to actual history to make the story recognizable, but enough clever differences to make it fascinating and imaginable.

Anyone who likes intriguing narratives or unique perspectives on history will enjoy it, and it provides plenty of food for thought as well as infinite details to pick out and mull over for those of us who like to analyze what we read.

I’ve not read anything like it that I can think of. Check it out if the idea appeals to you; it’s well written, absorbingly plotted, and full of very real characters.