Keep on Keeping on

So, I'm pretty sure Miri is so far ahead of me, but that's okay. I read 28 books in Jan-Apr! I'm pretty impressed with myself actually. haha.

So, to add to my list, here's what I've read since my last update:

All You Need to Be Impossibly French
Percy Jackson 1-5
Dead and Gone (A Sookie Stackhouse novel. Don't judge. haha)
The Book Thief
The Wednesday Letters
Nine Stories
Jane Eyre
The Glass Castle
The Outsiders

So I bawled during The Book Thief and The Wednesday Letters - probably didn't help that I read them together. J.D. Salinger's short stories were kind of heavy, but that was expected. Jane Eyre was actually not terrible. I listened to it mostly driving to and from Indiana and I was very happy with the ending. When I started it, I had a hard time getting Wuthering Heights out of my head. I kept expecting the worst, but then was pleasantly surprised when things would turn out okay. The Glass Castle was also kind of heavy, but a great book and The Outsiders made me cry as well. I didn't bawl like with Book Thief and Wed. Letters, but it had it's moments.

So I don't know what to read next. Probably The Elegance of the Hedgehog, maybe A Lion Among Men (3rd in the Wicked series). I may have to look around and try to find something a little more light hearted.

You Couldn’t Ignore Me if You Tried

I just finished reading You Couldn't Ignore Me if You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes and Their Impact on a Generation. I read it because Pioneer Woman read it and because I love all of those movies.

I loved getting some of the background info about the movies and the actors and about John Hughes. There were a lot of interesting little pieces of information that I was fine not knowing, but love that I know it now. It talked about the music of the movies (which I love just as much) and the impact of the name "The Brat Pack" on the careers of the actors who were unlucky enough to have it hoisted upon them.

Anyway, I really liked it and now I have to go make a John Hughes inspired iTunes playlist and maybe also have a movie marathon.

On a roll...

I finished six more books! Go me! It helps that four of them are technically children's books, but they were all at least 200 pages so that's got to count for something. They were:

Duty and Desire
These Three Remain
Coraline
The Book of Three
The Black Cauldron
The Castle of Llyr

The first two went with An Assembly Such as This to finish up the Fitzwilliam Darcy novels. They were actually pretty good. Duty and Desire was my least favorite since it's mostly made up, new stuff filling in the time when Darcy isn't around in Pride and Prejudice. It's not terrible, I enjoyed it, just not my favorite of the three books.

Coraline is a great little book that scared the dickens out of me even though I have already seen the movie and knew the whole story. Something about the way Neil Gaiman writes just gets to you. I had freaky dreams while reading this book, and my dreams are rarely effected by things I read or watch. I loved the book, though. Coraline is a great character and I want to name something after her. A child or a puppy or a kitten or something. And now I am going to watch the movie again so I can get the full effect. We'll see if the creepy dreams come back.

The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron and The Castle of Llyr (all by Lloyd Alexander) were all good, I enjoyed them each for different reasons. I am looking forward to watching The Black Cauldron even though I hear it's crap. I've never seen it, and I want to see how they butcher a good book. That has always interested me. haha. I really love the characters in the books. They are simple and sweet and heroic and brave for all kinds of different reasons. All three books are quick and easy to read, they capture your attention and hold on to it, and they each offer a great little adventure that could stand individually.

And now I'm up to 15 or 16 books, I think. Still so far behind, but doing much better than I thought I would be. I'm about to start on Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thieves, then I'm on to a biography about the Brat Pack that I'm reading because The Pioneer Woman read it and because I love the Brat Pack.

Category Update

I'm thinking we should say the end of January is the cutoff for changing categories or else this could go on forever and ever. haha.

I changed my last category to fit miscellaneous books I come across. Maybe that goes against "the rules" but I like being a rebel.

Mostly, as I look for the books I have decided to read or as I read the books on my list, I come across others that look good. Some of them fit into a category and some of them probably won't. Since J.D. Salinger didn't write 10 books, I'm combining the last category. It's basically books I want to read that won't or can't fit in a category. The Narnia books will be in that category since they are books I've read several times before but I just wanted to read some of them again.

Also, J.D. Salinger died. That is sad. I love Franny and Zooey and Catcher in the Rye (Franny and Zooey first) but I didn't read them till I was in the middle of college so maybe that made a difference. I have been wanting to read his other stuff since I finished Franny and Zooey but I just haven't gotten to it. No better time than the present I guess.

I wrote this in a comment, but I'm thinking maybe Franny and Zooey as a MML book? Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

Three!!!

My count is up to three (almost four) completed books!

The Enchantress of Florence (Salman Rushdie)
Through the Wardrobe (an interesting collection of essays about The Chronicles of Narnia)
The Magician's Nephew (C.S. Lewis)

I have one CD left on The Silver Chair so that will soon be finished as well.

Another thing I started doing is keeping a journal dedicated to this year of reading. There was a paragraph in Enchantress that stuck out to me enough that I typed a note on my cell phone with the page number. I figured if I would do that, why not keep track of things like that so as to actually retain something from each book, whether I like the book or not. I also had some thoughts with the essays I read, some of which pertained to the religious symbols and whatnot in the Narnia books and a note about why I read (listened) to The Magician's Nephew again and what I thought of it this go round.

I also started my own rating system (1-10) so as I get more into books and genres I don't actually read as much, I can look back and quickly see what I thought of things in case I want to go with something similar or something completely different.

Current Progress

I was planning on this post mostly just to make myself feel better. Then Megan posted hers and I feel like I'm way behind. haha. Here we are anyway.

I'm 3/4 of the way through Through the Wardrobe (which is a collection of essays about The Chronicles of Narnia). Unfortunately, it's mostly making me want to just re-read Chronicles. We'll see about that.

I started reading Alice in Wonderland out loud to my nephew and figure I'll just go through that one over the course of the year with him for the most part. It will be slow going, but why not introduce him to reading bigger books out loud? It should certainly help his vocabulary and he seems to be enjoying it so far.

Forest Born. I read one page. It's the next one I'll get to when I'm finished with Through the Wardrobe.

I'm about 1/4 of the way through The Actor and The Housewife. Hopefully I will finish it up after Forest Born.

I'm jumping on the comic bandwagon and will be reading the Buffy season 8 comic as well as the Dr. Horrible comic. Not sure what category they will fit into.

I'm heading down to visit my parents this weekend and plan on renewing my library card and trying to get a bunch of books to last me through till Valentines day (the next time I'll get down to MD to return them). Or, you know, one or two books since I'm already so far behind.

Lin: Reading List

Here's what I have as possibilities so far:

Books I own but haven't read
Through the Wardrobe (A collection of writings from different authors about the Chronicles of Narnia)
The Wednesday Letters
The Glass Castle
Mansfield Park
Sense and Sensibility
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters
Madame Bovary
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Cranford

The above list is mostly coming from the set of beautiful Penguin classics I got last year for my birthday. I hadn't read most of them (hence the reason for buying them) so now I'm going to do it. This list may change, although it's the most set in stone due to the nature of the category.

Books with movie adaptations
The Road
Stardust
The Black Cauldron
The Outsiders Jane Eyre The Lovely Bones
Derby Girl
The Princess Bride
The Thin Man
The Iron Giant

That's what I've tentatively settled on for the movie/book category. I took most of these from lists found over at the A.V. Club, although the three in bold are on there because I also already own them. The Black Cauldron is the one I'm most excited about because I always thought that movie was so strange and the A.V. Club tells me the source material is much better than the movie. The Princess Bride is on there because I have never read it and I somehow feel like less of a girl for not having done so before this point.

Lindsey's Challenge Categories

When Miri mentioned doing this on her own blog and then later asked Megan for category suggestions, it got me interested. Granted, it doesn't take much to get me interested in anything these days. Also, I hardly read any books in 2009 - in fact, I think the grand total is like 15 or something. I haven't read that little since I was in college. Mostly I was all depressed and retreated into a world of TV and movies, which wasn't bad, but I'm ready for my brain to get some more exercise.

So here we go. 100 books. 10 categories. The categories I have chosen are as follows:

• Books I own but haven't read
• Recommended by others
• Young Adult/Children's Lit
  
• Adult Fiction
• Biographies
• Authors I have never read
• Megan/Lindsey/Miri (a predetermined list of 10 book we will all read)
• Books with movie adaptations
• Books for the blogject (self-improvement)
• 10 things written by J.D. Salinger
  

That last one is a little bit of a cheat because I will probably count his Nine Stories as 9 actual books...mostly, it's been on my list of things I would like to read and I think this is a good way to finally cross that one off. Also, I'd like to re-read Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey. But it's all in the spirit of accomplishment and I'm sure there will be other things that will balance it all out.

The first book that I will finish will fall under the Megan/Lindsey/Miri category as we have all been reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie since this summer. I've got 30 pages left and will be moving on to read Forest Born by Shannon Hale which will either count as a YA book or a book I own but haven't read.

I really hope I can stick to this and get it done. I'm excited about branching out and also getting through the books I already own but haven't had the time or patience to read.