Back to Books With a Sigh of Relief

SO...

...let's talk about books and reading and similar, enjoyable topics, shall we? We've had enough of sobering topics for one week, God knows.

Tonight, while meandering about the blogosphere, reading other people's posts and commenting here and there, I found a book list that fascinated me. Thanks to a post by Kristen M of The Estella Society, I discovered "Top 100 Chapter Books," composed through a survey by Elizabeth Bird from the School Library Journal. When I saw that the book that dominated my childhood, Charlotte's Web, tops this list, I knew I had to write about it. There are several lists for other categories of children's and YA books available on the SLJ site, as well, so you can pick your favorite type to design a reading challenge for yourself if you'd like.

I'm sure I don't have to tell my regular readers that I'm in no position to take on this list as a reading challenge right now--though I hope to do both it and the Nobel Prize-winners for literature when I regain some normalcy--so I will content myself for now with noting how many of the top 100 I have already finished. Those I've read are listed in red type. I will try to come back periodically and update it if I manage to complete any more of them.

Total read (as of 2/15/2014)=34

100. Love That Dog--Sharon Creech
99. The Boxcar Children--Gertrude Chandler Warner (My 2nd-grade teacher read this one to the class.)
98. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--J.K. Rowling
97. The Diamond in the Window--Jane Langton
96. The Horse and His Boy--C.S. Lewis
95. The Little Prince--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
94. Ramona and Her Father--Beverly Cleary
93. Journey to the River Sea--Eva Ibbotson
92. Flipped--Wendelin Van Draanen
91. Pippi Longstocking--Astrid Lindgren
90. The Children of Green Knowe--L.M. Boston
89. The Mouse and the Motorcycle--Beverly Cleary (My mom read it to my brother and I.)
88. The BFG--Roald Dahl
87. The Strange Case of Origami Yoda--Tom Angleberger
86. Peter Pan--J.M. Barrie
85. Ella Enchanted--Gail Carson Levine
84. The Long Winter--Laura Ingalls Wilder
83. Ozma of Oz--L. Frank Baum
82. The Cricket in Times Square--George Selden
81. The Witches--Roald Dahl
80. The Four-Story Mistake--Elizabeth Enright
79. The Egypt Game--Zilpha Keatley Snyder
78. Ballet Shoes--Noel Streatfield
77. My Side of the Mountain--Jean Craighead George
76. Diary of a Wimpy Kid--Jeff Kinney
75. The Saturdays--Elizabeth Enright
74. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret--Judy Blume
73. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever--Barbara Robinson
72. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon--Grace Lin
71. Each Little Bird That Sings--Deborah Wiles
70. Walk Two Moons--Sharon Creech
69. The Ruins of Gorlan--John Flanagan
68. The High King--Lloyd Alexander
67. A Long Way From Chicago--Richard Peck
66. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--Jacqueline Kelly
65. Wonder--R.J. Palacio
64. The Twenty-One Balloons--William Pene du Bois
63. The Great Gilly Hopkins--Katherine Paterson
62. Clementine--Sara Pennypacker
61. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--Roald Dahl
60. Bud, Not Buddy--Christopher Paul Curtis
59. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane--Kate DiCamillo
58. Swallows and Amazons--Arthur Ransome
57. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase--Joan Aiken
56. A Little Princess--Frances Hodgson Burnett
55. All-of-a-Kind Family--Sydney Taylor
54. Half Magic--Edward Eager
53. The Graveyard Book--Neil Gaiman
52. Betsy-Tacy--Maud Hart Lovelace
51. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread--Kate DiCamillo
50. Number the Stars--Lois Lowry
49. My Father's Dragon--Ruth Stiles Gannett
48. The Bad Beginning--Lemony Snicket
47. Little Women--Louisa May Alcott
46. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle--Avi
45. Island of the Blue Dolphins--Scott O'Dell
44. Okay for Now--Gary D. Schmidt
43. Jacob Have I Loved--Katherine Paterson
42. Gone-Away Lake--Elizabeth Enright
41. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz--L. Frank Baum
40. Maniac Magee--Jerry Spinelli
39. The Invention of Hugo Cabret--Brian Selznick
38. Frindle--Andrew Clements
37. The Wednesday Wars--Gary D. Schmidt
36. The Witch of Blackbird Pond--Elizabeth George Speare
35. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing--Judy Blume
34. Where the Red Fern Grows--Wilson Rawls
33. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH--Robert C. O'Brien
32. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry-- Mildred Taylor
31. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--Lewis Carroll
30. Matilda--Roald Dahl
29. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy--Jeanne Birdsall
28. The Golden Compass--Philip Pullman
27. Little House on the Prairie--Laura Ingalls Wilder
26. Winnie-the-Pooh--A.A. Milne
25. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963--Christopher Paul Curtis
24. Ramona the Pest--Beverly Cleary
23. Hatchet--Gary Paulsen
22. The Dark is Rising--Susan Cooper
21. The Phantom Tollbooth--Norton Juster
20. Because of Winn-Dixie--Kate DiCamillo
19. Little House in the Big Woods--Laura Ingalls Wilder
18. The Book of Three--Lloyd Alexander
17. Harriet the Spy--Louise Fitzhugh
16. Tuck Everlasting--Natalie Babbitt
15. The Secret Garden--Frances Hodgson Burnett
14. The Hobbit--J.R.R. Tolkien
13. The Thief--Megan Whalen Turner
12. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--J.K. Rowling
11. When You Reach Me--Rebecca Stead
10. Bridge to Teribithia--Katherine Paterson
9. The Westing Game--Ellen Raskin
8. Anne of Green Gables--L.M. Montgomery
7. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler--E.L. Konigsburg
6. Holes--Louis Sachar
5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--C.S. Lewis
4. The Giver--Lois Lowry
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--J.K. Rowling
2. A Wrinkle in Time--Madeleine L'Engle
1. Charlotte's Web--E.B. White

Lesson 3

Invincible Summer
by Hannah Moskowitz
Simon Pulse, 2011
269 pages

So many times, this book carried me right to the brink of LOVING it, but never quite managed it, and I'm sad to say that by the time I finished, it had failed to even make me like it.  I really wanted to do so, too, because there were aspects of the story that I thought were awesome, and a couple of characters that I really liked, but in the end, this novel just set my teeth on edge, like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. *sigh*

It is the story of two families who own adjacent summer beach houses and spend their summer vacations there together each year. Though we get little hints and reminiscences of summers when the older children of each family were small and the younger ones hadn't even been thought of yet, the story doesn't begin until just before the narrator-protagonist's 15th birthday. The entire book consists solely of the stories of that and the following three summers, the interactions of various family members and between several members of the two different families.

It's difficult to fully explain my disappointment with this book without striking out into the treacherous waters of SPOILERS, so I will simply say that [A] I thought one of my favorite characters deserved a MUCH better outcome than they got, and [B] I felt that this book conveys some VERY disturbing messages to and about women, especially those who are high-school and college-aged. While I absolutely do not believe in censorship or banning books, I really think that any teens who read this book really need some extensive parental guidance and discussion while they do so.

One thing that I really DID love about the book was the way that three of the characters bonded over the writings of one author whose works have now become classics. If you've ever had that kind of experience, you'll know for yourself how it can happen and what an extraordinary feeling it engenders. When something truly inspires, the reader can spend months or even years engrossed in a single author's oeuvre and worldview. Even when you finally outgrow it, or your first passion for it cools a bit because new pieces constantly extend your horizons still further, there is always a certain attachment, a certain frisson of the old excitment and ardor whenever the book, poem, essay, or author is mentioned.

This bibliomaniac obsession with a newly-discovered author was the part of the book that I most enjoyed and with which I could be identify and empathize BY FAR, and it is one of the strongest and longest-running themes in the novel (hence my hopes throughout that I would end up liking the work much more than I ultimately did). Invincible Summer actually made me WILDLY curious to investigate the writings of the narrator's muse, and that in itself makes reading this book time well-spent, in my opinion. Unfortunately, however, I cannot in all honesty actually recommend this book.

Lesson 2

Yes, she's back, o few but loyal gang of readers!  And I feel so much better that I'd swear I've had a complete body transplant, except that if I had, and I were still this overweight, I'd be REALLY pissed!  What I have acquired instead is a personal trainer/nutritionist, and the drive to get up and change things every day.  Thank God for recovery in all its forms. When HE decides to get you well, He doesn't mess around!

The next logical question should now be, "How's the Re-Education Reading Challenge going?", especially since those of you who contributed to the reading list put a fair bit of time and thought into which books to add.  The answer is, slow but steady. According to my Goodreads challenge widget, I am woefully behind, as you might imagine, but after a month of post-surgical fog, my keen reading appetite returned to me, and so I have been faithfully plunging ahead throughout the end of March and all of April so far. I may not finish in this calendar year, but I'm not ready to concede yet--we've got a lot of year left!--and if I don't finish in 2013, I've decided to extend the project until I HAVE read them all. I feel I owe that much to the list's contributors, and to myself.  Meanwhile, I can use my laptop again, so let the reviews commence!

Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Square Fish, 2011
198 pages

Another book that is certainly not light reading, Speak is the year-long journey of one girl learning to value herself, to defend herself no matter what it costs her, and to find herself sufficient company when she and the "cliques" in her high school discover they have absolutely no interest in each other.

Once again, we are dealing with the aftermath of an assault, of physical and emotional abuse, but in this book, the author rips away the facade of safety and respectability of the American education system as it currently exists.  All the million tiny opportunities afforded to abusive personalities in all-too-frequently unsupervised moments are portrayed with such poignant accuracy that it's clear the author still remembers her own high school experience with startling (and no doubt, often painful!) clarity.  Her descriptions of bullying, verbal abuse, and especially, of learning ways to hide in plain sight in large group situations such as the cafeteria, certainly resonated with me. Based on the book's brief introduction, this novel has obviously done the same for many, MANY others in the decade since it was first published, particularly for people who suffered far worse things in public school than I ever did.

Reviewers of this book often mention Laurie Halse Anderson's dry, caustic humor, with which she infuses her protagonist here, and it's a good thing she does; otherwise, this book would be so depressing that it might be impossible to finish! It's a seminal work that helped shine light on a cultural evil from which this country suffers--none of which makes it COMFORTABLE reading by any means. Just as it should be.

No More Spoons!

My dear friends, after keeping you waiting for FAR too long, I am back with the big announcement! I am NOT a Spoonie anymore! In other words, I did NOT have a mysterious, undiagnosable illness that will be with me permanently--I had a giant lump of scar tissue, surrounding the mesh my body had rejected from the previous FAILED hernia repair! It had pulled my digestive organs all different directions out of their proper places, not enough to damage them but enough to create the past 10 months' worth of mounting nausea and pain. The surgery has finally been successfully carried out, I am several weeks into recovery, and I am SO grateful to God and my surgeons that it's finished. I am also VERY grateful to my friends and family for helping me survive and finally escape this nightmare. And for those of you who may be wondering, I AM still progressing with my Re-Education Reading Challenge, and am nearly finished with "To Kill a Mockingbird." I see what all the fuss was about on this one. Reviews coming as soon as I can comfortably use my laptop again!

Surgery Announcement & Reading Update

First off, I have wonderful news--my surgery has been moved up a full two weeks, to January 30!!!!! Thus proving once again that there IS indeed a God, & He hasn't given up caring about me.

In other news, I have begun the second book on THE LIST, & may I say that you guys certainly didn't give me a bunch of fluff to read, did you? :D "Speak", by Laurie Halse Anderson, is profoundly serious from its very first lines. If it has been as influential in YA in the 12 years since it was published as I'm hearing, then it certainly is high time that I read it. All I can say is, I'm glad that I've had enough time for my horrible memories of public school to have stopped giving me nightmares before I started reading this!

Lesson 1

Hurray! I've officially finished my first book for My Re-Education Challenge! (Please note that links to all my reviews for this challenge will be available on the Challenge homepage. Reviews of any other books I read for the year will be linked on my "Reviews" tab, as usual.)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky
MTV Books/Gallery Books 2012
213 pages

Well! We're certainly starting off the year with a bang! This book is definitely NOT a fluffy, light-hearted read. For most of my way through it, all I could think was that it reminded me of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy in its unrelenting sobriety and human tragedies, only on a smaller, less cynical scale, because this book's protagonist and first-person narrator, Charlie, is very sweet and certainly an innocent.

But Stephen Chbosky is a very talented, subtle, even sly author. I immediately felt that Charlie was a sympathetic character; before long, however, Chbosky had me truly caring about many of his characters, through the vehicle of Charlie's deep and sincere love for them. Charlie is a beginning freshman in high school, and scared about this big change in his life. He has problems the full nature of which are slowly revealed over the course of the novel, and this is another element of similarity between this book and The Casual Vacancy, touching as it does on issues of mental health.

By the time I was 2/3 of the way through this book, I could barely put it down to deal with little trifles like eating and sleeping!  It may have many of the typical hallmarks, even cliches, of an average YA "coming-of-age" tale, but it's very intelligently constructed, and is simply an interesting, well-crafted story, though NOT for the faint of heart.

On a personal note, I identified very clearly with the mental health problems Chbosky adresses, though mine began for very different reasons than those named in the book.  It was very interesting to me, even though it was also saddening, to see from the inside how things develop as a result of abuse, rather than from fear for terminally ill parents and surviving a natural disaster, which were my particular triggers for 20+ years of emotional ill health. I sincerely hope, now that this book has been made into a major Hollywood film, that it will greatly help to raise awareness concerning mental health problems in adults and especially in teenagers and children. In all their mental romanticizations about the supposed "carefree innocence of children," too many adults never realize that traumatic events have as great an effect on children as on anyone else. Worst of all, the child's suffering often goes unnoticed and therefore undiagnosed; kids may not comprehend what is happening to them, don't know how to ask for help, and frequently act out in ways and for reasons that even they don't understand. It is vital that both adults and children receive treatment as soon as physically possible after a traumatic event, because the longer the emotional wound festers, the greater the chance of serious, even irreparable repercussions.

Moreover, the stigma that our society still attaches to emotional and mental health problems--in the 21st century, for God's sake!--has got to stop. It makes it much more difficult for people to get the help they need, or to lead a normal life. Some employers are too nervous to take the "risk" of giving them a job. Mental health professionals actually have to advise their clients NEVER to mention their illness at work, for fear that an applicant might be denied or an employee fired on those grounds, even if the company would invent some other, less harsh-sounding reason for their action. As I said, I sincerely hope that this powerful book, and the very popular film adaptation of it which has now been released, will go some way toward changing the status quo.

Readin' Books and Feelin' Foolish

(with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Oh, my dear friends, it meant so much to me to open my Blogger dashboard today and see so many votes of confidence and promises of prayers for me! It also made me feel like even more of an idiot to have to admit that *drumroll*

my damn surgery got postponed until February 14th!

And to my utter chagrin, it was all my fault.  I was supposed to discontinue one of my regular medications several days before the surgery, and just simply forgot all about those instructions until about 36 hours before I was supposed to check in to the hospital!  It has taken me this long to get over wanting to kick myself and throw things, to work up the courage to admit my utter foolishness here, especially after all your kind words in support of me.  But, I have those encouraging notes now to carry with me next month when I do finally check into the hospital, and to keep my courage up when I get nervous about the whole thing.  So thank you to ALL of you, my knights in shining armour!

The upshot of all of this is that I'm still living with all the symptoms I've been dealing with for almost a year now, and therefore not really feeling up to blogging much. NEVER FEAR, however, because I am already plugging away at the Master List you all generously helped me compile for my 2013 Re-Education Challenge.  I'm nearly finished with the first book, already!  I'm reading them in the order in which you sent the recommendations in to me, which seemed only fair, but I also have the list available on Goodreads in a format which allows you to sort them by title or author.  I will try to put up a post when I start each book, to let you know how I'm progressing on the list, and will definitely be posting a review for each one unless some calamity strikes.  Thank you for your faith in me, and your support.  Hope you're having a wonderful 2013 so far!

Currently Reading:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Radio Silence

Beloved friends and readers, provided that my dumb mistake in forgetting one of my pre-op instructions doesn't throw everything off schedule, I'll be going into major surgery tomorrow, & thus will be absent from the internet for a few days. Never fear, however, for as soon as I am able, I am eagerly looking forward to beginning "My Re-Education Reading Challenge," attacking the Master List that you compiled for me with all my energy and gusto. Happy New Year, & be praying for me/wish me luck, please!

2012 Reading Challenge Crunch Time

Friends, I don't know about you, but now that the weather is turning crisp and my daughter keeps telling me she wants a pumpkin costume for Hallowe'en, I'm suddenly lifting my head up as if I'd fallen asleep with my head on my desk at work, looking sleepily around me, and noticing that 2012 begins to grow old.  It's nearly November, for heaven's sake, and how far along have YOU gotten in all of your reading challenges?  Yes, it's a bewildering thought, isn't it?  For those 5 of you who have already finished and read 30 more books than you estimated on your Goodreads goal, Hermione would be proud.  For everyone else, you can cheer yourself up by checking out the following list of books that I'm supposed to finished between now and December 31st.  Even better, I have predictably left all the hardest ones until last.  Wish me luck, she said sardonically...

• The Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo
• The Life of St. Columba by St. Adamnan of Iona
• Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede
• History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours
• Beowulf
• History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• Pastoral Care by Pope St. Gregory the Great
• The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
• Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
• The Alexiad of Anna Comnena
• The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan

By Agatha Christie:

• The Sittaford Mystery
• The Golden Ball and Other Stories
• Destination Unknown
• Ordeal by Innocence

• Arabella by Georgette Heyer
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

By Debbie Macomber

• 311 Pelican Court
• 44 Cranberry Point
• 50 Harbor Street
• 6 Rainier Drive
• 74 Seaside Avenue
• 8 Sandpiper Way
• 92 Pacific Boulevard
• 1022 Evergreen Place
• 1105 Yakima Street
• 1225 Christmas Tree Lane

• King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by H.G. Wells
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• The Odyssey by Homer
• Angel Time by Anne Rice
• The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

So, that's all.  In two months.  Right.  It'll be the coldest day Hell's ever seen if I manage to finish it all in that amount of time.  But, I am still busily reading away on the list, believe it or not, and I mean to get through as much of it as I can.  Also, I've already bumped a couple of the items onto 2013's My Re-Education Challenge (they are written in purple in the list above).  I'll get them next year, if not this.  Of course, it was just the old story, wasn't it?  "The best laid plans"...  When I signed on to read all of this, I wasn't expecting to lose basically an entire year of my life to a mystery illness which we still have yet to diagnose.  The search goes on.  But I think I actually made a respectable showing, considering the actual percentage of 2012 I spent in hospital and emergency rooms!  On to 2013.

My Re-Education Reading Challenge

Faithful few readers, I'd like to tell you a little story, and ask you how you all think it should end.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was raised as the daughter of a fundamentalist Southern Indiana Pentecostal preacher, who spent at least as much time in scary little fundamentalist schools as she did in public school--actually, a fair bit more, come to add it up.  She was assigned lots of readings describing an Earth that is only 6,000 years old, "proving" that dinosaurs and human beings once co-existed, and discussing how Noah's Ark is still stranded on a mountain in Turkey, but the mean Turkish government won't let a bunch of Americans climb around all over their mountain and prove it.  Curiously absent from the girl's reading were books written for children throughout the history of the English-speaking world, as well as classics not written for children that are usually assigned in school to teach students to stretch their minds and their critical thinking skills.  Not a single Shakespearean play, narry a mention of modern authors like Kafka or Virginia Woolf, none of the childhood favorites by Frances Hodgson Burnett managed to slip through the net of censorship cast around the girl's plastic young mind.

Some of these gaps were filled in when the young woman finally decided to attend a state-sponsored, liberal arts university.  By the time she finished her BA and three MAs, she'd read more Poe, more "Norton Anthologies," more about Yellow Wallpaper than she ever wanted to, really.  Nevertheless, the now 35-year-old book blogger is still finding books all the time about which her peers say, "Oh, yeah, I read that in high school!"  And in this season when a book blogger's fancy turns to thoughts of next year's reading challenges, this particular blogger is hoping to form a cooperative challenge with the help of her loyal readers.  Are you willing to help me in a "Re-Education Challenge"?

You guys are basically the bosses on this challenge, but I think we should set out a few basic ground rules, just to keep things running well and make sure I live up to the spirit of the thing.  So, here we go:

1.  You don't have to have a blog to challenge me; you just need to visit this blog and leave comments relating to my "Re-Education."

2.  Since this is supposed to be about exposing me to ideas that I should have encountered a long time ago, let's please restrict this to books that any well-educated American should have read before graduating high school.  In other words, if you cannot imagine HOW I've survived this long without reading 50 Shades of Grey, I'm sorry, but you still can't recommend it.  Any teacher who required his or her students to read a book about S&M would get quickly fired, and we all know it.  Still, I think this leaves you with a lot of leeway, anything from standard YA to Dickensian favorites.

3.  If by some miracle I already managed to read the book you suggest somewhere along the way, I won't be adding it to the challenge, because that would basically be me cheating, now wouldn't it?

4.  Limit 5 suggestions per contributor, please.  I'm setting the cut-off at 100 books, as I know I could never get through more than that in 2013.

5.  I reserve the right to reject anything that would simply give me too many nightmares, like Stephen King's It, which I have always known myself too well to ever try to read.  (Surely that wouldn't really fit the qualifications, anyway.)

So, come help out a poor, deprived, recovering fundamentalist and add your suggestions.  The suggestion box is open through December 31, 2012, after which I will gather the titles, weed through duplicates and ones I've already read, and announce the master list in a post.  You're welcome to read along, if you like, and leave us links to your own posts!  Meanwhile, I will update the list periodically, with reviews, as I plow my way through.

A Review of "At Home in Mitford"

Another review from the files for you today, and one that was particularly satisfying when I was finally able to bury it in my Victory Garden.  Why, you may ask, was I so especially thrilled with myself when I actually finished this book?  First of all, it was the first (and thus far only) book I'd read for Book Dragon's Lair's Getting Lost in a Comfortable Book challenge.  But more importantly, this was my FOURTH ATTEMPT to get into and all the way through this book.  I don't know what stopped me the first three times; I'm just pleased that I finally managed it.

March 8, 2012

At Home in Mitford

by Jan Karon

I really LOVED this book.  I sort of have to laugh at myself for loving it, considering that it's a little meandering, that one of the main characters is a little annoying, and that the whole "town that time forgot" theme is MORE than a little improbable.  But I loved it all the same.  It's just so comfy and cozy and wholesome.  Reading it is kind of like spending an evening soaking in a bubble-laden bath, snuggling up in flannels and hand-knitted socks before a lovely fire, and then slipping away to sleep between cool, clean sheets.  In other words, it doesn't get much snugglier than this book.

Fr. Timothy is an Episcopal priest, the rector of Lord's Chapel in the hills of Mitford, North Carolina.  The tiny southern town has its requisite share of odd and quirky "characters," beautiful gardens and small shops.  "Where everybody knows your name" kind of thing.  There's a bit more Evangelicalism in the book than I would prefer, but I still enjoyed the discussions of liturgical Episcopalianism.  Like so many other things in Mitford, a visit to Lord's Chapel is like using a time machine, with its portrait of the Madonna and Child and its regular application of incense.  Really, that's one of the nicest things about the whole experience.

On a personal note, I found Fr. Tim's struggles to adjust to his diagnosis of diabetes heartening, as I'm still battling with that same adjustment myself.  He gave me some hope to keep trying.

Review of "Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas"

Another of my seriously back-dated reviews, this one for the "Just Contemporary" YA challenge that I've undertaken this year (because my Twitter friend, Basically Amazing Books, is hosting it, and she's several colors of awesome). Hope you enjoy it!

March 8, 2012

Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas

by Louise Rennison

Another of my complete fluff YA books.  (Not all YA books are complete fluff by ANY means, let me point out; THIS series, however, certainly is.)  Thankfully, Rennison went back to what this series does best on this one, cutting WAY back on the "things that have never happened to an average person in the history of the world" scale, so I enjoyed book #3 much more than I did its predecessor.

There were some truly, wonderfully funny moments in this one.  As always, Georgia Nicholson's toddler sister Libby stole the show, leaving me laughing so hard at one point that I was afraid I would either wake up MY sleeping toddler or pass out from trying to keep quiet!

In books like these, I'm not accustomed to the author TRYING to make you dislike the boyfriend that the girl has spent three books trying to land, leaving you HOPING that the girl will break up with him and go for the other guy, instead, but that seems to be where we're headed here.  Georgia's "Sex God" (Robbie) is an indecisive, wishy-washy, annoying "wet weed" (as Georgia's calls his ex, Lindsey), and she really needs to dump him and go out with Dave the Laugh, in my opinion.  The Sex God is too old for her, anyway, so she really doesn't have any fun hanging out with him and his college-aged Bohemian friends. 

Ah, the trials of being 14--much more fun to read about than they were to endure.

Review Archaeology

Now that I'm slowly returning to blogging--and to life in general--I'm looking back over my Book Lover's Journal, and finding that I have about a trillion reviews that were recorded there months ago, but never made it onto the blog!  There seems no time like the present to rectify that, especially since I need to link those reviews over to various reading challenges that I do still hope to finish before this year is out.  Anyway, let's give it the old college try, yeah?  I'll keep posting these archived reviews periodically, with the date that I initially finished the book, until hopefully we'll be caught up.

March 6, 2012

Despite my initial hesitation about Lord Peter Wimsey, by the time I was a few pages into this novel, he had made a life-long fan of me.  Dorothy L. Sayers Wimsey books are just so comfortable; never boring, just...comfortable, somehow.  (Hence the term "cozy mystery," right?)  The main characters are the kind of people with whom you could hang out happily in a pub on a long winter evening, so despite the loony circumstances that whirl all around them, they're the bastions of sanity at the center.

In this case, Wimsey's own brother, the Duke of Denver (who is as thick as two short planks and one of the dullest men alive) is accused of murder.  I don't know if the bit about a peer of the realm having to be tried by the entire House of Lords in order to be assured of getting "a jury of his peers" was true--it may STILL be, for all I know!--but it certainly made for great mental pomp and spectacle to read about!  It certainly SOUNDS like something that would true of British law.

The title of this book is hilariously apt, because Lord Peter and his sidekick, Inspector Parker, took forever to find out what actually happened, thanks to the myriad dead-end "leads" provided by an enormous collection of completely useless "witnesses".  Frustrating for our heroes, no doubt, but quite fun to read!

Review of "They Came to Baghdad"

They Came to Baghdad

by Agatha Christie

Accustomed as I am to thinking of all of Agatha Christie's novels being set in the Gilded Age or the Roaring '20s, I was astonished at first to find out that this one takes place in the thoroughly war-weary Europe of 1951.  (Indeed, I had no idea until I read the blurb at the end that Agatha Christie and I only missed being in the world at the same time by one year.  Elvis and I only missed each other by TWO WEEKS, and I've always felt rather cheated about it, even though he does annoy me mightily.  Sorry--I digress.)

The basic idea here is that a large, disparate cast of characters--primarily, a rather silly young woman--find themselves entangled in international intrigues.  Although this is only the second Agatha Christie book I've ever read, I have to say that I don't think this one is typical Christie fare, so devoted fans might be disappointed in it.  It focuses so heavily on the evil, pointless futility of war that it almost turns into a sermon near the end.

That said, however, I have to admit that I liked this book, though I really didn't expect to at first, because the heroine got on my nerves.  I've never had much use for people who habitually lie just to liven up their everyday, hum-drum lives, and Victoria Jones is the queen of the recreational liars.  However, the author quickly taught me how useful that character "flaw" can be to a woman who accidentally finds herself embroiled in espionage!

I did manage to figure out who was "behind it all" before Victoria did, which is always my main criterion for whether or not I "succeeded" in reading a mystery novel, but I think I really should have figured it out even before I did.  This book was a fascinating glimpse into Agatha Christie's mind, into the view of the Cold War world.  I'd be interested in reading her diaries or letters from the time, to find out what she was thinking as she crafted the plot.  Either way, I enjoyed it, and at least the heroine didn't do many of the stupid things that so annoy me in a lot of other books.  She's bright and very quick at thinking on her feet, even if she isn't fond of veracity.

Review of "Farmer Boy"

Farmer Boy

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 Honestly, it has taken me 25 years and several failed attempts to finally finish reading this book, and now that I have, I really have no idea why, because it is just simply DELIGHTFUL!  I was taken aback a couple of times by how much social mores and attitudes have changed, but that's always to be expected when you're reading about events that happened in the 1860s.  I must admit that I did not envy or appreciate the role of women in the book, no matter how nostalgic I may get for by-gone days, but then, some of the characters in the book commented on that same issue themselves.

When I was younger and first tried to read this but just couldn't get interested, my mom postulated that it might have been because the protagonist was a boy, and I think she was definitely on to something.  After all, I hadn't often stumbled upon many girls in books with whom I could identify as strongly as I did with little Laura Ingalls, who was as big a tomboy as I was and yet still knew how to be feminine at times.  Having finally found her, why would I want to take a break from HER exciting adventures to read about some boy?!

Many literature classes and quite a few life lessons later, however, I've since gotten over any such reservations, and it was fascinating to me to read about what Almonzo was up to when he and Laura were both children and hadn't yet met, to see the same general time period from the point of view of a more established and prosperous family than Laura's.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and recommend it to children of both genders and any age.

Too Much Book, Not Enough Blog, or Review of "Whose Body?"

Have you ever found yourself so engrossed in books that it was difficult for you to take a break from READING them long enough to BLOG about them?  That's the state of distraction I've been in the past few weeks.  I've just been DEVOURING books like a starving man who has stumbled upon a smorgasbord.  Huge, non-fiction tomes, tiny little novels, all have been gobbled up lately into the swirling vortex that is my new-found reading appetite.  I'm already over 30% finished with my Goodreads goal for the year, despite the fact that it's only March, and my Goodreads "currently reading" shelf is displaying four books at the moment.  Don't ask me what happened; I've always been an avid reader, but suddenly, I simply cannot get enough of the written word.

ANYWAY, the fact that I've been reading a non-fiction trilogy lately, the last two volumes of which are each over 900 pages long, has slowed me down enough that I can breathe for a minute and continue chipping away at my reviewing backlog.  Thus, on with a review, what, what?

Whose Body?

by Dorothy L. Sayers

 I really enjoyed this mystery novel, the first in the "Lord Peter Wimsey" series, though the jury was out for most of it on whether I liked Lord Peter himself (and therefore the whole book) or not.  He's one of the first of what became a very familiar pattern--the rich young English nobleman who makes a hobby of investigating crime and gets away with it because of who he is and how powerful his family is.  His mother gets into the act as often as possible to keep her life from getting dull, and his older brother, the responsible one who inherited the family titles and estate, thoroughly disapproves of the whole business, to no avail whatsoever.

In this first novel, the case in hand quickly blossoms into two cases, one a missing business magnate and the other the random appearance of a naked corpse in someone's bathtub.  As usual, the police officer assigned to the corpse case is a complete imbecile, but unlike in all the Sherlock Holmes books, the cop's idiocy gets exposed before the end.  Meanwhile, another police officer, a friend of Lord Peter's, actually has a brain, and Lord Peter uses him as his side-kick/lackey/Watson.

Wimsey himself is very aptly named, if his conversation is anything to go by.  He's so full of random quotations that he's barely intelligible at times, speaks with a rather annoying drawl, and really did not make a favorable impression on me at all until he started demonstrating post-World War I "shell shock" (PTSD).  That factor humanized him in a very dramatic and effective way.  It didn't occur until about 2/3 of the way through the book, and it wasn't until then that I was truly hooked.  Fortunately, I got invested in the next in the series much more quickly (as future reviews will demonstrate).

February Medieval Summary

"And God bless us, every one."

Giving whole new meaning to the phrase "better LATE than never," I am finally posting the February update for the 2012 Medieval Challenge.  My apologies, gang.  If I can ever manage to get all three members of this household healthy at the same time, and keep it that way for more than two weeks, these kinds of delays will hopefully become a thing of the past.

Anyway, on with the show.  I DID actually manage to read a medieval volume in the month of February, that fascinating (if bizarre), rip-roaring Arthurian adventure, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (click for my review).  Of course, this means that I have eliminated the tiniest little work on my medieval TO DO list first, and only that one so far, while I've been rapidly whittling away at most of my other reading challenges.  This sort of behavior cannot be allowed to continue, because we all know where it would lead--all other challenges finished by June and six months of unrelieved medievalism stretching out before me.  So, I must tackle one of the weightier tomes in May.  I think I'll make it The Alexiad, a book I've owned for years and never yet attempted.

In the meantime, keep us up to date on how your medieval triumphs are mounting!  Did you surpass your own expectations?  Are you sinking in the slough of Despond?  We want to hear all about it.

January Medieval Summary

Where did I go?  Has anybody seen me?  I'm sure I was here just a second ago!

No, seriously, I've been a bit absent this week, and a little less active in blogging for a while now than I had been before the New Year.  There's a reason for that, which I now feel prepared to divulge.  I've been taking on a new challenge--over a year after being diagnosed with diabetes, I'm attending diabetic education classes and beginning the long slog toward getting my disease tightly under control, in order to live as long and healthily as I can. 

International Diabetes Federation

What with frequent blood testing, constant thought about what and when to eat, counting carbs until I see grams and ounces in my sleep, and generally dealing with the emotional repercussions of a serious diagnosis that I've been denying to myself for months, spare mental and emotional resources have been running a bit low.  Even some of my favorite weekly memes have slipped through the cracks recently, and I have decided that something has to give. 

Though it saddens me, I've decided to suspend my monthly "Read Your OWN Library!" Challenge for the time being, so that I can focus on other blogging commitments for a while.  I want to reconnect with friends at some memes, definitely wish to concentrate on my Medieval Reading Challenge for this year, and have a couple of upcoming guest posts I am very excited about.  I want to make sure I don't spread myself too thinly, so that I can keep being fully engaged in everything I am doing.  For all those of you who have been doing the RYOL Challenge with me, thank you so much, and hopefully we will be back in the future.  You're a small group, and people I've come to count as genuine blogging friends.  Thanks for your understanding and support.

Moving on to the Challenge at hand--can you believe that January is over already?!  Those who are joining me in the Medieval Reading Challenge this year, how has the effort gone for you so far? Did you dive in as soon as 2012 began, eager to bring Medieval tomes to life again?  I must admit, with everything that has been happening, my reading life generally got off to a sluggish start this month, and though I'm back in fine form now, the Middle Ages haven't worked their way in yet.  I hope for much better things in February; after all, I've got 12 of them to get through!  I'd better get a move on.  Whether you're reporting triumph or disgrace, however, we still want to hear from each of you.  Give us a post summarizing your first month's efforts, and link here with the linky below.  Good luck to us all as we begin the month of February!

2012 Challenge Omnibus

Happy New Year!

And now that 2012 has begun, we have much challenge business to attend to.  First off, the Read Your OWN Library! Challenge is rolling on, especially since I received books for Christmas and now need to chip away at my backlog of reading material more than ever.  Here, as a refresher, are the outlines of the challenge.  (More details are available at the link above, which will take you to the RYOL headquarters.)

1.  The goal is to read books we've owned for more than 6 months, but still have not read for some reason.
2.  There are three levels to the challenge, but each requires that we read one such book each month, write a post about it, and link up to it here at The Beauty of Eclecticism.
3.  When you have completed the first month of the challenge, you will receive the code for a lovely and talented badge, crafted by yours truly, to place on your blog and announce your achievement to the world.  You only get this badge once, however, unless you switch to a different level for the next month, in which case, you can collect them all!

In the December just past, my chosen book was The Chimes by Charles Dickens, one of his famous Christmas Books.  The link will take you to my full review of the book, which was actually my least favorite of the three Dickensian Christmas Books I read in 2011.  Since it still got three stars from me, that should indicate the high overall quality of the series.  (Because the jury was still out on whether or not Dickens was a skilled writer, yeah?  *pardon my eye-roll*)

My chosen book for January's read-my-own is Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.  It will be the last title in my quest to complete the Regency and Victorian Reading Challenge, so as usual for me, let's here it for double-dipping!

Let us also remember that the 2012 Medieval Challenge has officially begun, and will last throughout the year.  (It also has its own HQ page, if you click the link above.)  This challenge has three levels, as well, and depending on which you choose, you'll be reading as many as twelve works written between the years of 400-1550 CE.  There will be a linky post here on the last day of each month, where those who have finished a medieval book that month can link up their reviews.  At the end, we'll all see how we fared, and whether those legendary and hallowed tomes lived up to their lofty reputations.

Review of "The Cricket on the Hearth"

The Cricket on the Hearth

by Charles Dickens

This is the third and final Dickens Christmas Book that I read this Christmas season, which means I have finished the Christmas Spirit Challenge!  Hurray!  Yes, well, I'll try to compose myself now and write a dignified review of the book.

Those of you who have read my reviews of A Christmas Carol and The Chimes know that Mr. Dickens' Christmas works are kind of a mixed bag, but I enjoyed this one quite a bit.  The stars of our show are a married couple who are a sort of May-December romance.  They are not wealthy, but they have a cozy home, they are very kind, and they have the obligatory adorable baby, and a daft teenaged nursemaid who is definitely the comic relief.  Naturally, the plot develops around the much ado about nothing that always threatens such blissful domestic tranquility in these tales.  Having finally read this, I understand much better the origin of many Christmas cliches, especially the character of the villainous toymaker.  I don't know if that one was already old news in Dickens' time, or if we got that strange archetype from him, but either way, his version is pretty entertaining.

Unlike the other two Christmas Books, the supernatural element, though definitely present, is not quite as strong in this one.  Let's just say that of the three, this is the only one in which the "miraculous" elements could easily have just been the good agency of the hero's own mind.  With a surprise ending that I think must have inspired O'Henry, The Cricket on the Hearth is a sweet enjoyable read that ends on an unexpectedly fun note.