MML

I'm thinking of making Elegance of the Hedgehog part of the MML...in the hopes that doing so will make me finish reading it. Thoughts?

The other book I wanted in there is Franny and Zooey (which I'm in the middle of right now).

MML

My second submission to the MML category: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. Lots of highly mature themes, but just so amazing. The main character is absolutely wonderful. (It's short, too--Mike read it in one night, and I read it in two days at work.) I hope you love it as much as I do!

Easily Distracted

I feel like maybe I won't make it to 100...but I will definitely make it over 50 easy. I just keep getting distracted by things like Doctor Who and Veronica Mars and beach trips and getting a job (eeek!).

Also, The Hunger Games was added to my list months ago (recommended by my friend, Rebecca) and I found it on sale at Wal-mart last month so I bought it. Then I noticed everyone getting all excited about Mockingjay and thought, "Huh. Guess I could start reading The Hunger Games now." So I did. Like four days ago. And I just finished Catching Fire. And now I'm waiting (rather impatiently) for Rebecca to bring me Mockingjay so I can finish that and avoid more precious sleep. I didn't expect to get so sucked in, but am thoroughly enjoying the read. I love it when I do get sucked into books and I'm happy I've came across so many this year where that has happened.

The problem with getting sucked in is that the next book I read always seems to fall a little short and then I see something shiny and forget all about reading and it takes a month and a half to read 100 pages. Still, I'm doing better than I thought I would so that's something, right?

thirty-eight

I slacked off during the month of July because I spent two weeks watching Doctor Who. I don't feel bad about that, but that's the reason all the same.

So, since my last update, I've read the following:

Stardust (Neil Gaiman - great, but loved the movie more)
A Little Bit Wicked (Kristin Chenoweth - LOVED it, especially since it was audio and she was reading it.)
Georgia Nicolson #10 (Funny, as always, loved the ending)
Little Children (meh. not worth it)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (recommendation actually, funny and quick)
Me Talk Pretty One Day (Good one, again, probably liked it more since it was audio and read by David Sedaris)
Peter and the Shadow Thieves (liked the first one better, but this one is still good.)

That covers June and July. Considering I read 20 books in April and May (man, I was on a roll!) I really did slack off. But whatever. I have a pile of books to finish for August and I'm sure I'll add to it - including Franny and Zooey, which is one of the books I picked for our joint category. Also, maybe The Simeon Solution which might be another choice from me for that category.

Aw, Crap.

I just discovered that what I thought was the last book in a series I'm reading is, in fact, not. There are two more coming out in the next two years, which means that I won't be able to finish the series for my 10/10/10 challenge. Boo. 

Progress! ...Sort Of.

books I own but haven't read
1984--George Orwell


[Main Street--Sinclair Lewis]
[The Three Musketeers--Alexander Dumas]
[Villette--Charlotte Bronte]
[Jude the Obscure or The Return of the Native--Thomas Hardy]
[Billy Budd, Sailor--Herman Melville]
[The Bonesetter's Daughter--Amy Tan]
[Jane Eyre--Charlotte Bronte]


recommended by others
Abarat--Clive Barker (Joseph)
Running with the Demon--Terry Brooks (Mike)
The Alchemyst--Michael Scott (Nathalie)
Wicked--Gregory Maguire (Talia)

[Same Kind of Different as Me--Ron Hall and Denver Moore] (Lori)
[Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--Jonathan Safran Foer] (Megan)
[A Thousand Splendid Suns--Khaled Hosseini] (Meredith)
[Mistborn--Brandon Sanderson] (Mike)
[The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake--Aimee Bender] (Lori)


adult fiction
The Gathering Storm--Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson
The Lacuna--Barbara Kingsolver
Prodigal Summer--Barbara Kingsolver
City of Dragons--Kelli Stanley
Shanghai Girls--Lisa See


[Bel Canto--Ann Patchett]
[The Elegance of the Hedgehog--Muriel Barbery]

books adapted to movies 
(this category is allowed to overlap other categories)
[V for Vendetta--Alan Moore]
[Jane Eyre--Charlotte Bronte]

foreign
Say You're One of Them--Uwem Akpan
Pandora in the Congo--Albert Sanchez Pinol


[Rooftops of Tehran--Mahbod Seraji]
[Absurdistan--Gary Shteyngart]
[Mendelssohn is on the Roof--Jiri Weil]



authors I've never read
The Road--Cormac McCarthy
The Handmaid's Tale--Margaret Atwood
Mrs. Dalloway--Virginia Woolf


[The Naked and the Dead--Norman Mailer]
[The Catcher in the Rye--J.D. Salinger]
[After Dark--Haruki Murakami

award-winners
March--Geraldine Brooks
The Good Earth--Pearl S. Buck
The Bridge of San Luis Rey--Thornton Wilder


[Interpreter of Maladies--Jhumpa Lahiri]
[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay--Michael Chabon]

Megan/Lindsey/Miri
The Enchantress of Florence--Salman Rushdie
The Book Borrower--Alice Mattison (Miri)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower--Stephen Chbosky (Miri)


[Franny and Zooey--J.D. Salinger] (Lindsey)

nonfiction
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle--Barbara Kingsolver
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children--Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Dreams from My Father--Barack Obama
Going Rogue--Sarah Palin
Fast Food Nation--Eric Schlosser 
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Ranch Culture--Ariel Levy
The Omnivore's Dilemma--Michael Pollan


[Lies My Teacher Told Me--James W. Loewen]
[Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions--Gloria Steinem]

miscellaneous
Mockingjay--Suzanne Collins
Inferior--Peadar O Guilin




As you can see, I still have quite a ways to go. I've been getting a teensy bit carried away with "extras"... as in, I've read 70 books so far this year and only 22 of them were for the challenge. Yeah... It's time to buckle down. 


I'm in the middle of three books right now, one that will finish up the Michael Scott series, one Nonfiction, and one for the Recommended section. Once I finish one of these three I'll be picking up The Road, and then I think I'll get started on the Books as Movies category with The Mists of Avalon... which is, of course, really long. Hoo boy.


Okay, also, one more thing. Any more thoughts about the MML category? So far I've picked one... That leaves three for Lindsey and Megan to choose, and two for me. Plus we have to actually read them. :) Let's find some good ones to pick!

Three More

I finished The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Lovely Bones and The Actor and The Housewife. Go me!

The point of this post, though, is mostly to talk about The Lovely Bones. I held out reading it because I knew it was about the rape and murder of a teenage girl and I felt like I had to read it at the right time. Considering my stress levels this week, I don't know what possessed me to read it now, but I did and I loved it. It's a new top ten favorite. I love the characters and the story and the writing and everything. It could have gone to weird places, but it didn't really. There were a few overly supernatural parts, but I actually liked having them there because it tied up loose ends I desperately wanted to be tied up and thought would be left undone. It was heartbreaking and beautiful and even though I've been reading a lot of emotionally heavy books lately (The Book Thief, The Wednesday Letters, even The Glass Castle and, surprisingly, The Actor and The Housewife), this one just seemed to speak to me more than the others. I love the Salmon family and how broken they are. I guess the best word for it is that it's honest. It's a terrible story to tell, but everyone reacts the way real people do.

The strangest part about the book, though, was definitely the fact that the two sisters are named Susie and Lindsey, both names that belong to me. Haha. It just took a little bit more work to look past.

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.

Miri's Update

Finished so far:

nonfiction
Going Rogue--Sarah Palin
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle--Barbara Kingsolver
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children--Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Dreams from My Father--Barack Obama

recommended
Running with the Demon--Terry Brooks
The Alchemyst--Michael Scott
Abarat--Clive Barker

foreign
Say You're One of Them--Uwem Akpan

award-winners
March-- Geraldine Brooks

adult fiction
Prodigal Summer--Barbara Kingsolver
The Lacuna--Barbara Kingsolver
The Gathering Storm--Robert Jordan

MML
The Enchantress of Florence--Salman Rushdie
The Book Borrower--Alice Mattison

series
The Chronicles of Narnia--C.S. Lewis

self-improvement
Forced to be Family--Cheryl Dellasega

15 from my 1o/10/10 challenge, plus 15 extras (17 with the two that I'm reading now)

Some of them have taken a long time (AVM, Sarah Palin) but hopefully I'll be able to pick up the pace a bit now. I'm starting to question that self-improvement category, by the way... It's a good one and I probably should make myself do it, but I'm envisioning a November/December cram to fit them all in because I neglected them the whole year because they're boring... So we'll see. :)