Book a Week in 2010 - Week 19

[Robin M]

Today is the start of book week 19 and the quest to read 52 books in 52 weeks. Have you started Book # 19 yet? Mr. Linky is all set up on the 52 books blog and ready for you to link to your reviews.

 

This weeks theme: S is for Sawyer. Robert Sawyer is a science fiction author and one of his books http://www.wake has been nominated for a 2010 hugo award. I recently joined Aussiecon so I can vote on the hugo nominees this year. If you are interested or looking to expand your reading repertoire, I am posing a mini challenge of reading the nominees by the end of the year. We'll compare notes.

 

I finally finished Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. It took a long time to read because it is full of conversations and debates between characters about socialism, humanism, religion, etc. Now I get to analyze it for my class. I have no idea what I'm going to read next, except that it's going to be fluffy twaddle.

 

I am also having a giveaway on My Two Blessings as part of the John Sandford Days of Prey blog tour. Check it out and enter to win.

 

Happy Mother's Day to you all. Hope you have a great, relaxing, day.

 

What are you reading today?

[Amira]

I finished (finally) Middlemarch and Understanding the Book of Mormon. Now I'm reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Cutting for Stone.

[prairiegirl]

I read Mockingbird (biography of Harper Lee) by Charles Shields. I'm not big fans of bios but I did like this one.

 

I am now reading 4 books at a time: Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges, The Six Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler, The Man Who Loved Jane Austen (can't remember the author's name) and Treasure Island.

[Daisy]

I finally finished Three Cups of Tea. I loved it! It took longer to read though because daughter and I turned it into a mini book club. We had a lot of fun. http://bit.ly/bJTCmi

 

I'm reading COLD: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places by Bill Streever this week.

Edited May 9, 2010 by Daisy

[Ali in OR]

I read The Sisters Grimm book 2 and I'm counting it. I know it's a kids' book, but it's been a rough week.

[eaglei]

Here is what I read:

 

#27 - Animal Farm, by George Orwell - my fourth classic of twelve for this year

#28 - The Telling (Series: Seasons of Grace, v. 3), by Beverly Lewis

 

Am currently reading:

 

#29 - Power to Heal: Receiving God's Everyday Miracles, by Joan Hunter

 

Fighting horrible allergies the past couple weeks so I am pleased that I concluded some reading!

[dangermom]

I read One Amazing Thing and Mendoza in Hollywood (same post). Now I'm tackling Hayek's Road to Serfdom and the Aeneid.

[Rosie_0801]

I read a book called Timbuktu which wasn't about Timbuktu at all. It was written from the perspective of a dog who thought heaven was called Timbuktu. I enjoyed is surprisingly well considering it wasn't a very happy book.

 

I'm also reading Credo, by Melvin Bragg and have similar feelings about it.

 

Rosie

[Mommyfaithe]

I finished Outliers and began Certain Women by Madeliene L'Engle. It is not hitting the spot....I just can't relate to ANY of the characters..AT ALL...so, I started reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (book 2). I am also reading Everyday Sacred and Stretching Lessons by Sue Bender. I think I am beginning my Mid-life crisis and am feeling the need to define the meaning of my life. Outliers kind of depressed me...as I know I am certainly NOT an Outlier and I am probably not equipping any of my kids to be Outliers...homeschooling or not...we are just simply not OUTliers...I guess I would settle for happyliers or contendedliers....but mostly, I think I am a frustratedlier.....

 

Faithe

[Rosie_0801]

Outliers kind of depressed me...as I know I am certainly NOT an Outlier and I am probably not equipping any of my kids to be Outliers...homeschooling or not...we are just simply not OUTliers...I guess I would settle for happyliers or contendedliers....but mostly, I think I am a frustratedlier.....

 

 

To be an Outlier, you have to be an uber-specialist, so uberly specialist, you don't do much of anything else. It's not wrong to think you don't really want that for your kids. Remember the section about the music students? Those with 10,000 hours became soloists, those with 8,000 hours joined orchestras and those with 4000 became music teachers? It is good that orchestras exist. It is good that music teachers exist. It is good that there are people capable of being world class soloists, but we don't really need too many of them. I don't know about your mates, but I would not devote very many hours of my life to attending a concert like that, even if I could afford the tickets. I would like to attend such concerts, but even if I was a millionaire, I'd still only go to see a concert pianist once or twice a year. There are other things to do, like reading books and eating tasty food.

 

4,000 hours of essay writing is a perfectly good good aim for our kids for now ;) No need for depression!

 

:grouphug:

Rosie

[PollyOR]

I've been reading ALL day, and I'm blind as a bat. Anyone else have trouble focusing after reading for long periods?

 

I finished The Woman in White. I LOVED it! :thumbup1:

[Stacia]

I'm still reading "Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide". I'm also re-reading "Eat for Life".

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I just finished The Book Thief. Not one of those books that I would ever want to read again, but definitely a page turner.

 

Still reading my way through Patricia Wentworth and having a good time.

 

Also read Figgs and Phantom's by Ellen Raskin.

[Jane in NC]

As I was reading Mark Kurlansky's The Food of a Younger Land (WPA writers on regional foods), what should arrive but a book mentioned by Tutor in another thread on this board: Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes. Hayes' book is resonating with me as one who has made a conscious choice to walk away from work-for-pay in order for my family to have what I view as a higher quality life. Thanks Tutor for turning me on to this book!

[Mom-ninja.]

I have picked Northanger Abby back up to finish now that I'm done with my dog book.

 

Didn't get in as much reading as I'd have liked this past week.

[JennW in SoCal]

My ds and I both just read Whatever You Do, Don't Run. Very fun and interesting read.

 

I also read Elizabeth George's newest mystery, This Body of Death. One of the blurbs on the dust cover describes her work as good novels that just happen to be murder mysteries, and I agree with that. I love her books, and really took my time reading this one, savoring it instead of hurrying up to figure out "who done it".

 

I'm listening to Naomi Novak's Her Majesty's Dragon. I had read it a couple of years ago to preview it before handing it to my ds, and really like the narrator in the audio version. It's surprisingly good -- historical fiction of the Napoleonic Wars but with a corp of Dragon aviators.

[laughing lioness]

I finished Outliers and began Certain Women by Madeliene L'Engle. It is not hitting the spot....I just can't relate to ANY of the characters..AT ALL...so, I started reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (book 2). I am also reading Everyday Sacred and Stretching Lessons by Sue Bender. I think I am beginning my Mid-life crisis and am feeling the need to define the meaning of my life. Outliers kind of depressed me...as I know I am certainly NOT an Outlier and I am probably not equipping any of my kids to be Outliers...homeschooling or not...we are just simply not OUTliers...I guess I would settle for happyliers or contendedliers....but mostly, I think I am a frustratedlier.....

 

Faithe

 

Oh, I can so relate to this! I feel so bored, bored, bored. Undirected and directionless and really wondering if I should just go get my MFT license and make money so that we can do something in life besides pay bills and let my younger kids go to school and just be plain old boring normal.

I am reading Little Bee, which, no doubt, is NOT good for my mood. It is crude and sad, with trauma thrown in.

I'll be checking out Sacred and Stretching Lessons, next. How do you like it, Faithe?

[Storm Bay]

I read Escape by Carolyn Jessop and today will finish the sequel, Triumph. She's the former wife of one of the most powerful men of the polygamous group that now lives in Texas (the one where they did a raid in 2008.) I read an article on that group in National Geographic while at the dentist last week, and that's how I heard about her writing. Guess that makes a tiny trend into abusive marriages since last week I read I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced. I'm looking forward to doing some reading that doesn't involve the abuse and suppression of women, although both Carolyn & Nujood managed to escape their abusive husbands and husbands' abusive households.

[Storm Bay]

Here's a link to week 19. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174199

[PollyOR]

This week - Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen

 

There were parts that made me laugh. There were things I couldn't really understand and didn't feel like putting forth the effort to. I should have used a dictionary. I still want to read the appendix, A Mennonite History Primer.

[Storm Bay]

This week - Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen

 

There were parts that made me laugh. There were things I couldn't really understand and didn't feel like putting forth the effort to. I should have used a dictionary. I still want to read the appendix, A Mennonite History Primer.

 

 

Where is the novel set? Is this a Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonite or a Russian Mennonite (also in the US or Canada)? I'm guessing it's not in South America.

[PollyOR]

Where is the novel set? Is this a Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonite or a Russian Mennonite (also in the US or Canada)? I'm guessing it's not in South America.

 

It's a memoir. Her husband leaves her for another guy and the same week she's in a head on collision. She takes a sabbatical and stays with her Mennonite parents in California(?). I think they are Russian Mennonite. She mentions that her dad was once the head of the North American Mennonite Conference for Canada and North America.

 

Edited to add a link from Mennonite Weekly Review. "Memoir of Going Home Is Acclaimed, Critiqued"

Edited May 16, 2010 by PollyOR

[Storm Bay]

It's a memoir. Her husband leaves her for another guy and the same week she's in a head on collision. She takes a sabbatical and stays with her Mennonite parents in California(?). I think they are Russian Mennonite. She mentions that her dad was once the head of the North American Mennonite Conference for Canada and North America.

 

Edited to add a link from Mennonite Weekly Review. "Memoir of Going Home Is Acclaimed, Critiqued"

 

 

Thanks! I ought to read this. My dad grew up Russian Mennonite, although he spoke German, not Russian. His parents were trilingual, though. There was only one intermarriage with a Slavic person in either of my family trees, so I'm not sure what to call them.