reading challenge

TTT: My Fall To Read List

allison burris, , , , , 3 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Anyone else absurdly motivated by arbitrary reading challenges other people have set?

I started subscribing to Book of the Month when I bought a 6 month subscription for my friend for Christmas. It’s now her annual gift. We don’t coordinate our choices–sometimes we choose the same book sometimes we choose different ones and share our thoughts. It’s a lot of fun, but I have to admit that this year I have fallen quite behind on my reading.

In order to finish this year’s badges (and unlock the super hidden secret one that I really, really want to unlock for reasons that remain mysterious), I need to finish 9 more books, but since there are 10 on my bookshelf (stashed around our new condo), I thought I could talk about them today and possibly conjecture as to why it’s taken me so long to read through them! Some of these I had to fish out of their boxes. Although we’re mostly unpacked, my new bookshelves won’t arrive for a while, so the book boxes are the last boxes.

I wish that Book of the Month chose poetry books too–that would make it way easier to read through my list.

Here they are, in order of how long I’ve had them:

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I’m actually listening to this one as an audiobook, having given away my copy of the hardcover to another friend. I think she’ll really enjoy it. I’m about 1/3 of the way into the book so far and while I’m not a huge fan of books told in first person from multiple perspectives–it’s way easier to switch between perspectives while listening because the voice acting is well done. It bounces between an apothecary in the 1790s who helps women….dispense of the men in their lives and the woman in the modern era who is beginning to research the apothecary based on a bottle she found while mudlarking. The story is interesting enough for me to look past the sort of blah writing style.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

I think this memoir is going to be one of those ones that takes your heart and rips it out. But whether it’ll be the kind that gives it back for you to hold onto or the kind that throws it to the ground is anyone’s guess. It seems sad so I’ve been avoiding it. I haven’t really been in the mood for a really emotional book for a while. But I’m sure the mood will strike at some point. Fall is kind of the season for that.

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

So I have a feeling this book is going to be good, but pretty dang dark. It’s a fairy tale type book, but the darker, twisted, creepier side of fairy tales (which I freely admit to loving). This is probably a book I’ll read while it’s light out. And probably it won’t be as creepy as I think. Hopefully.

Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

The only excuse I have for not reading this one is that it’s been buried in a box for months. My friend told me that it’s really interesting and that she really enjoyed it so I need to get cracking on it.

True Biz by Sara Novic

I think I talked a little about this book in a previous TTT post because of the hand on the cover (entirely appropriate to a book about sign language). One of the reasons I love reading is because it allows me a way of understanding and empathizing with someone else’s perspective and experience even, and perhaps especially, when it’s so far from my own.

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

Retellings and adaptations of fairy tales are some of my favorite things, so I cannot wait to read this adaption of Peter Pan. Holly is Wendy’s granddaughter who has to save her daughter from Pan’s clutches.

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

I’m a sucker for a fantasy novel not set in western Europe, but I have to admit, I’m going to have to push myself a little to get through this book, despite the presence of jinn and ancient magics. I’ve only read a chapter or two, but the writing is a little disappointing.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I loved Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fiskry so I was eagerly looking forward to her new book, and when it was one of the choices for Book of the Month, I chose it with no hesitation. It’s about video game designers and the story of two friends and the way their lives converge and diverge over time. I’m about 30 pages in and already it’s very good. Other books–namely poetry and library books–have just taken precedent.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford

I’m very excited to read this book–a multi-generational family saga and the protagonist is a poet?! Sign me up!

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

This one just arrived last week! So I don’t feel as bad for not getting to it yet, except for the fact that it’s just adding to this pile of books…. this is a romance of the enemies to lovers variety (one of my favorite tropes).

Have you read any of these books? Do any interest you? How do you feel about your reading challenges this year? Let me know in the comments.

New Series: Reading Through the Stacks: Possibly the Most Boring Thing Written about Shakespeare?

allison burris, , , Leave a comment

This series is being born out of a dangerous whim, which I can only attribute to the temporary giddiness of a new library card.

Upon seeing the (truthfully rather average sized) poetry collection at the main branch, I was seized by an impulse to read from one end of the poetry section to the other. From A to Z (if, in fact, it ends in Z).

I don’t think I’ll like everything. In fact, I know I won’t. I started with 3 books, and I only enjoyed one. But I do have some (snarky?) things to say about them, and I thought if I’m taking myself on this (admittedly arbitrary) journey, you might enjoy coming along for the ride.

Along the way I hope we will discover some fantastic poetry from throughout the ages. Most of it will probably be bad. But that’s where the thrill of the hunt comes in!

Why read bad poetry? You may ask. My answer to this is that as a relative new comer to this genre I want to read as much and as widely as I can to really get a feel for what’s out there, who came before, who’s writing now, and what I actually like. And since I don’t have to shell out for volumes I don’t like, I’m hoping to build my library with only poetry volumes I can’t wait to reread.

Even if you don’t like poetry, I hope this series inspires you to delve into something you’re interested with new eyes. Maybe you’ll find a book here that intrigues you, or maybe you’ll start your own challenge for yourself!

Or maybe you’ll just have fun reading while I complain about terrible books. There’s something for everyone on this journey.

So we might as well get to it.

This book still has its old library checkout card. I may be one of the only people to have checked out this book since the late 1950s.

Book 1: By Avon River by H.D. Hilda Doolittle Aldington (1949)

H.D. (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was a modernist poet known for free verse and imagist style associated with poets like Ezra Pound. She married a poet named Aldington, which is why she was cataloged at the beginning of this alphabetical journey. There’s a clarification of that written in pencil on the title page. It seems off to me that she’s cataloged under her married name instead of her pen name, especially since her career was already well underway by the time she was married.

Read more about H.D. on the Poetry Foundation site

Themes: Shakespeare and Renaissance poetry

Published for Shakespeare day 1945, this book has a short section of verse inspired by Shakespeare. Like 25 pages. Most of it is centered on The Tempest and even more squarely focused on one offstage character, Claribel, who sets the plot in motion but never gets a real voice in the play. Her poetry delves into the relationship between the poet and Claribel and her relationship to the rest of the play and its characters. She becomes kind of a haunting, distant presence, but one who has a lasting impact even though the mention of her is fleeting. I really enjoyed the second poem, “Rosemary” the best, which alternates form, points of view, and theme in the different sections.

Read through again, Dramatis Personae;

She is not there at all, but Claribel,

Claribel, the birds shrill, Claribel,

Claribel echoes from this rainbow-shell,

I stooped just now to gather from the sand

“The Tempest” by H.D., from section IV

While the verse gives voice to Claribel, the remainder of the book (about 70 pages) is an essay discussing Shakespeare’s contemporaries and their writing. It’s a lot of names and dates and quotes, which I (mostly) skimmed, but some of the discussion of themes especially mortality were interesting. Mostly it was a total snooze, especially since H.D. really never bothers to make an argument or get into why it’s important to look at Shakespeare in this context. It reads more as an associative catalog with some interesting quotes.

She never had a word to say,

An emblem, a mere marriage token,

Nor even trod a rondelay

Or watched a play within a play

With other ladies–and yet–

I wonder when the time was short,

And he had said farewell to court,

And pondered, fingering the script

Can this then, really be the last?

If he remembered Claribel.

“Rosemary” by H.D., from section IX

Ultimately, not the most promising start even with the rather interesting verses about Clairbel, but the next book will make up for it. Stay tuned.

Have a favorite Shakespeare play/line/character? Have you read H.D. before? Let me know in the comments!

A Friend’s Reading Challenge: 10 Books in a Week

allison burris, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

One of my best friends is an avid reader and often reads voraciously in a very short period. She took a few days off of work with the goal to read 10 books. This sounded like fun, so I thought I’d join her in trying to read 10 books before my classes started a few weeks ago. Well, I failed the challenge by only making it to 9 books. But that’s still enough to merit a blog post, so onward!

Stats:

  • Books read: 9
  • Fiction: 7
  • Nonfiction: 2
  • Genres: Historical fiction, fantasy, biography, classic, contemporary fiction, literary fiction, memoir, romance
  • Total number of pages: 2,889
  • Audiobooks: 3
  • Ebooks: 1
  • Actual books: 4

Here are the books I read for this challenge, in the order I read them.

  1. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride I love historical fiction that encounters important people and events almost by happenstance, and that’s what happens when young Henry is freed from slavery to (forcibly) join John Brown’s fight for abolition. As a girl. Along the way he meets Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. The book is irreverent, and its satire is complex. But it is often moving and hopeful as it deals with powerful themes of identity, faith, survival, and race.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

2. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly When fantasy novels feature young protagonists, that often means that they’re using the fantasy world to process some kind of trauma that they’re experiencing in real life. That’s definitely what happens here as David mourns his mother and finds another world that is even darker than he could have imagined. This book sort of reminded me of a cross between Labyrinth and Narnia. I wish the book hadn’t been quite so human-centric though and been more interested in the other side of monsters. I felt some of the conclusions it drew were a little easy, but I think it has really interesting themes of sacrifice and a fun, slightly gruesome quest. Side note: The cover of this book is so gorgeous.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

3. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster I saw the film version with Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith before I read the book. I have to confess I thought the movie was rather stale (and I hate the way they did the hair and costuming), but the book was so much fun. I found it to be quite funny and eager to make fun of all the ridiculous characters. Plus the protagonist actually learns something. And gets the guy.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

4. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh When someone writes a memoir about their experience, there’s less suspense about the outcome because even though they engaged in risky behavior x they lived long enough to tell about it. The author is not a likable person, but she’s kind of deliciously terrible and her standards for her own behavior are so far removed from mine that I found her fascinating. Her journey to sleep (as much as possible) for a year is bizarre and privileged, but ultimately I think she does learn about why it’s worth being awake.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

5. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman Before I read this book, the previous book I had read that was set in Los Angeles was Patrisse Khan Cullor’s book, When They Call You a Terrorist. It’s hard to imagine that these two different versions of LA exist side by side every day–the white, middle-class privilege on the one hand and the poor, Black experience of racism could not be more different. It was a startling contrast that really resonated with me as I read this otherwise kind of fluffy book. It’s protagonist, Nina, is so similar to me in her love of organization and reading and her anxiety… she’s kind of an amplified but eerily familiar version of myself. Sometimes you just need more romance in your life.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

6. The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne Though I’m not sure I loved everything about this biography, I did love the way it was organized around objects in Austen’s life and the significance that they had to her and as objects that can be used to describe the time period and give more insight to the way she would have lived.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

7. The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi This book was so good. It was my Book of the Month choice from the five that were available in August, and I really loved the way it dealt with identity, family, and love. It was sad of course, following the investigation of Vivek Oji’s death in order to explain what was so extraordinary about their life.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

8. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik Female driven fantasy? Yes, please. On the surface this is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, but beneath that it follows three strong women making their way in very different classes and life situations as they use their wit to protect their families, further their fortunes, and generally kick ass and save the day.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

9. A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler It’s been a long time since a book made me cry, but this one did. I won’t give away the ending, but this story about race in a neighborhood that considers itself to be colorblind will move you. It is tragic and feels all too familiar for the times we’re in.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Have you read any of these books? Did any catch your eye? Let me know in the comments.

Top Ten Tuesday: 11 Books I Need to Read By the End of Year

allison burris, , , , 1 Comment

IMG_2962Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.

The period between Thanksgiving and the end of the year is typically a good time to wind down, but if you’ve got a big reading challenge to finish up it doesn’t alway feel that way.

My grandma and I are going on a cruise next week, and, not unusually, my suitcase is packed with more books than bathing suits.

For most of the challenge, I just sort of picked books up and looked to see if they fit any category on the list, but as the year draws to a close, I decided to pick out all the books so that I knew what I was going to get myself into.

This is the list of books I’m trying to finish by the end of the year to complete the advanced Popsugar reading challenge:

The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare

For the category of “book with a season in the title.” I haven’t read this late Shakespeare play, and it’s one of the few digital books I’m bringing on my trip.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

I’ve been saving this book for the “book about food” category all year, and now it’s finally time to read it.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Everyone in my book club loved this book that they read the year before I joined. Since it was made into a movie this year, it seemed like the perfect choice for that particular category.

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe 

The category of “books mentioned in other books” was a really interesting category, but it was kind of difficult to pick a book for it. Shakespeare would have been a no-brainer, but I really wanted to choose a novel. Jane Austen’s heroine in Northanger Abbey is a self-proclaimed connoisseur of gothic literature and mentions this book.

Unnatural Creatures edited by Neil Gaiman

I don’t have a lot of books with cats on the cover, so I chose to interpret this cat as any animal in the cat family. My edition of this book has a lion on the cover.

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood 

It’s probably no secret that I love Margaret Atwood and really admire her ability to write well in a number of different ways—across genres. This book will be fulfilling the category of “a book written by someone you admire.”

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

This classic is “a book recommended by an author I love.” I wanted to finish this book I started reading aloud with Paul, and pretty much every fantasy writer was influenced by Tolkien. I picked George RR Martin as the particular author I love, in case anyone is interested.

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

I try to fit in the books in this Naomi Novik series wherever I can, but “a book involving a mythical creature” seemed too perfect to pass up.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

I buy books on pretty much all of my trips, so that category was a no brainer, but I wanted to save it for a book purchased on the ultimate trip—our honeymoon. This is one of the (probably too many) books I bought. I couldn’t help it—I didn’t find anything much in the used bookstores, but the new ones were filled with beautiful covers. Books are probably the cheapest souvenir you can bring back from London.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

I’ve had this book on my shelf for a while, and reading the back made me think it might work for a book about an immigrant/refugee, which was one of the categories I hadn’t filled yet.

Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie

For a book that follows a character’s life span, I decided to pick a biography instead of a novel. I haven’t read a lot of nonfiction this year, so I wanted to read at least one more before December comes to a close.

 

Over to you—is there a book you’re dying to read by the end of the year? Do you pick out your reading list in advance or do you prefer to play it by ear? Let me know in the comments.

Reading Challenge #30: A Book with Pictures

allison burris, , , , , , Leave a comment

17316488

Title: Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air

Author: Richard Holmes

How it fulfills the challenge: Besides the normal strategic inserts of color photographs, the text of the book is studded with black and white pictures of hot air balloons, portraits of the balloonists who flew them, and various documents and drawings.

Genre: Nonfiction

Quick Description: A detailed look at the rise of hot air ballooning, with less emphasis on its early history and more on the height of the ballooning craze and time of exploration and exhibition. (1700-1800s mostly). It also deals with the characters and histories of particular balloonists, trying to get at what made them take to the air in the first place.

Highlights: If you’ve ever wanted to get into the head of a historical balloonist, this book will take you there. It’s really great at explaining the time period and the lives of different balloonists. It’s set up for a fairly casual reader but still offers a lot of depth and covers a wide range of time periods and subtopics. The writing, for a book of this type, is fairly engaging–you can tell the author is very passionate about the subject. This could be a problem in a standard biography, but the range of subjects seems to help him keep his objectivity. He regards ballooning itself with something almost like reverence towards something greater or magical, and it’s really interesting to read what balloonists themselves thought about flying.

Low Points: Like many nonfiction books, there were sections that seemed to drag, but that could be because I was reading the book as research. Anything that resembles required reading is just automatically less fun for me.

Goodreads rating: 4 stars. The bottom line is it’s a well-researched book on a very specific, sort of obscure topic.

Reading Challenge #27: A Book with a Title that’s a Character’s Name

allison burris, , , , , , Leave a comment

Title: Ethan Frome

Author: Edith Wharton

How it fulfills the challenge: This is sort of self-explanatory, but it seems like this kind of title was far more common in days of olde. There are a ton of classics that are named after their protagonists, but there are far fewer that are published now, or at least that’s what a stroll down my library’s bookshelves told me.

Genre: Classic

Quick Description: The story of one New Englander’s tragic life as told from the perspective of an outsider.

Opening line: I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

In another moment she would step forth into the night, and his eyes, accustomed to the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as though she stood in daylight.

Highlights: Edith Wharton is a master of tragedy and manners. if Jane Austen was a pessimist, she and Wharton would get along very well. Wharton’s writing is immersive and intelligent, as well as remarkably quick-paced for a classic. I also love her introductory statement where she talks about why she chose to write this book and why she wanted it to take this form, which she says is the only thing of value an author* can say in an introduction–a statement about primary aims.

*She refers to “an author” as male rather than female, and I found this very interesting. Either she sees most authors as male, or she aimed this little introduction to be a contrast to men’s (or a certain man’s) statements, which possibly didn’t achieve the things she thought they ought to be doing.

Low Points: Well the whole story is kind of a bummer, really.

Goodreads rating: 4 stars. Probably deserves 5 on the strength of the writing, but it was just too depressing for me to love it enough to give it that rating.

Reading Challenge #5: A Book By a Person of Color

allison burris, , , , , , Leave a comment

11346

Title:  Sula

Author: Toni Morrison

How it fulfills the challenge: Toni Morrison is a person of color, and many of her books center on what it is like to be a black woman in America. Sula was nominated for the National Book Award, and her 1987 novel, Beloved, won the Pulitzer prize.

Genre: Fiction

Quick Description: Morrison’s book is a study on the nature of friendship and womanhood. The novel follows Sula and Nel through their lives starting in the 1920s.

Opening line: In that place, where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood.

She had clung to Nel as the closest thing to both an other and a self, only to discover that she and Nel were not one and the same thing.

Highlights: A quick moving, and sometimes shocking portrait of friendship. The drawing of life that it renders is as moving as it is unflinching.

Low Points: More melancholy than uplifting–this isn’t really a low point (just something to keep in mind before reading this book). It’s powerful, but not exactly fun to read.

Goodreads rating: 4 stars. Probably deserves 4.5 because the writing is so good.

Reading Challenge #52: A Book Based on Mythology

allison burris, , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

12268679

Title: Ragnarok

Author: A.S. Byatt

How it fulfills the challenge: This book is an adaptation of the Norse end of the world myth (Ragnarok)

Genre: Fiction (maybe could be considered fantasy? Literary Fantasy…)

Quick Description: A detailed and almost poetic interpretation of a Norse myth with amazing imagery and a complex look at good and evil, power and weakness, as seen through the eyes of a child obsessed with the story.

Opening line: The thin child thought less (or so it now seems) of where she herself came from, and more about that old question, why is there something rather than nothing?

It began slowly. There were flurries of sharp snow over the fields where the oats and barley were ready to be harvested. There was ice on the desponds at night, when the harvest moon, huge and red, was still in the sky. There was ice on water jugs and an increasing thin, bitter wind that did not let up, so that they became used to keeping their heads hooded and down.

Highlights: Beautifully descriptive and evocative retelling of an ancient myth. My favorite section is on Yggdrasil, the great tree that contains so much life and death.

Low Points: I’m not super familiar with this myth, and Byatt does little to familiarize it. Instead she delights in the strangeness and otherness. It’s a more faithful retelling than other adaptations (or so I’ve read), and it feels older and darker, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not exactly what I was expecting and it was very different from Byatt’s Possession.

Goodreads rating: 4 stars.

Reading Challenge #28: A Novel Set During Wartime

allison burris, , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

891593

Title: Victory of Eagles

Author: Naomi Novik

How it fulfills the challenge: This book takes place during the Napoleonic wars, though the battles that are depicted never actually happened.

Genre: Fantasy

Quick Description: In the 5th book of the Temeraire series, the dragon’s captain, Laurence, has been branded a traitor and Temeraire has been sent to the breeding grounds, no longer in active duty. But as the war comes closer, the reluctant Aerial Corps will have no choice but to call them both back to the front.

Opening Line: The breeding grounds were called Pen Y Fan, after the hard, jagged slash of mountain at their heart, like an ax-blade, rimed with ice along its edge and rising barren over the moorlands: a cold, wet Welsh autumn already, coming on towards winter, and the other dragons were sleep and remote, uninterested in anything but their meals.

We will be our own army, and we will work out tactics for ourselves, not stuff men have invented without bothering to ask us…

Highlights: The Temeraire series is a great choice for anyone who thinks that history is all well and good, but it would be better with dragons in it. Novik does a really good job of capturing the period through both her setting and through her characters. This book in particular was interesting because for the first time we see the story through Temeraire’s perspective as well.

Low Points: Book #5 wasn’t my favorite out of the series so far (I think the 1st and 2nd ones get that honor). The tone was a little more melancholy, bordering on the despondent in some places, and this book in particular was more concerned with battles and troop movements and strategy, which aren’t my favorite things. Still, I’m eager to read the next one.

Goodreads rating: 4 stars. The fifth book is consistent with the rest of the series and was fun to read.

Reading Challenge #20: A Book with Career Advice

allison burris, , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

20588698

Title: Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”

Author: Lena Dunham

How it fulfills the challenge: This book doesn’t actually give all that much advice in the traditional sense, but the essays are written in such a way that you discover the career lessons for yourself. Namely, listening to your heart and going after the things you want even when it’s uncomfortable.

Genre: Memoir/essays

Quick Description: A book of essays about growing up, discovering who you are, and not being (too) afraid of who you turn out to be.

But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps up on you when you least expect if and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put. I missed making things, the meaning it gave this long march we call life.

Highlights: Dunham’s writing style is warm and chatty. I’m pretty familiar with it because I’m a Lenny newsletter subscriber, and so I already knew I would like her informal writing style. Her stories are interesting and easy to relate to, even though I haven’t experienced a lot of the same things.

Low Points: Non-fiction tends to be aimed at a very specific audience, given that it’s usually written on a pretty narrow topic. You probably won’t like Dunham’s book if you like a more cohesive narrative style, if you don’t identify as a feminist, or if you don’t have an interest in the arts or media.

Goodreads Rating: 4 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though in parts I wish the writing had been a little closer. A quick, interesting read.