April = The Worst Month on the Calendar

It's like a gravestone on my reading.

You might have once been told that April brings showers and paves the way for May’s beautiful flowers.  You might have been told that April is a time to celebrate life!  And joy!  And Easter!  And family!  And baby animals!

But you’ve been lied to your whole life.  April is, instead, the time when all of your professors look at you and say “I’ve been going too easy on you!  I’ve been too nice to you!  Really, I want to see you suffer.” April is the month when students get the look of Perpetual Exhaustion on their faces.  It’s the month when if you so much as sigh too loudly in the library, you’ll hear the collective tensing up of a crowd of caffeine-strung out seniors in the stacks.  So much as think about forgetting to put your phone on silence and you’ll hear pencils crack around the room.  April has come early.

That is why, fellow book bloggers, I am taking a self-imposed break from blogging.  I will still post the March and Women’s History Month wrap up, and maybe I’ll give you a Sunday Salon or two, just to catch up, but I hardly have any time to read, let alone blog about what I’ve read.  Don’t worry, May will be the month of catching up, because I won’t be doing anything but recovering, and recovering involves reading lots and lots of books (and then reviewing them for you).

Here’s a list of the things I need to do, so we can both have the satisfaction of crossing them off the list when I’m done:

25 pages: Thesis
3 pages: Paper on Viaje al Alcarria, Nada, and Ciudad de los perros
Exam in Spanish 317
10-15 pages: Final paper in Spanish 483 – watch 10 episodes of Cuéntame and analyze the use of gender in situations of power
I think there might be a final presentation in this class too…
2-8 pages: Any reaction papers still left
5-8 pages: Final paper in Spanish 481 – still no topic…
2 pages: 481 lit paper
at least 10 pages: Final poetry portfolio
Publish Spring 2009 edition of Aubade
Read and Review two more books of poetry (to be cross-posted here!)
Finish applying to grad school by 4/14!

Wish me luck!  I’ll see you when I see you!

Sunday Salon

You should be shaking your head in my general direction, because instead of writing my thesis like I’m supposed to be , I’m writing a Sunday Salon post.  My thesis is due on Wednesday, so I promise I’m not going to be spending too much time here talking about my week.  Also because I didn’t get very much reading done.  It comes with the territory.  I’m in the middle of Spook and I’m really loving it.  Check out my post here for my reactions to the big questions that Mary Roach brings up.  I’ve missed out on the Sunday Salon the past couple of weekends for various excuses, but my reading hasn’t been very interesting or very frequent.  I’m just reading when I get the chance, slowly.  It’s not too bad, just not ideal.  I’m really looking forward to the time (ONLY ONE MONTH AWAY) when all I’ll have to do is go to work and read and travel.  It will really be a relief.  The weather is absolutely beautiful today and I plan on doing my work by an open window so I can enjoy the beautiful sunshine (and 75 degree weather!).

Have a wonderful week!

The Big Questions

I’m currently reading Spook (no matter what my sidebar says) and it has gotten me thinking about The Big Questions.  Along with a couple recent conversations and recent events, I feel like the afterlife is on my mind.  Which I don’t mean to sound morbid, I promise.  Then I realized, I have the perfect forum to get tons of different opinions on something, so I’m asking you, fellow bloggers:  What does the afterlife mean to you?  What do you think happens when we die?  Bring out the religion, bring out the skepticism!  I’m interested in it all.  I think it will be fascinating and I would love to include it in my review of the book.  Blog about it, comment here about it, whatever you like.  I’d just love to hear your opinions!

If you do blog about it, be sure to leave a link to your blog in the comments.

Booking Through Thursday

I’ve been slacking on the BTT lately, but I really liked last week’s question and this week’s, so I thought I would combine them into one fantabulous post.  The two questions were “The Worst Best Book You Ever Read” and “The Best Worst Book you Ever Read.”  The first one is the slightly easier question.  But my answer might make me lose some readers, I’m just warning you.

That’s right.  Life of Pi. I know, I know.  You’re thinking… WHAT?  That was the best book of the early 2000s.  It just did not do it for me.  I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that every single time I sat down to read, someone would tell me how amazing it was.  I never got a chance to decide if I thought it was amazing.  I finished the book.  And I hated the ending.  I KNOW, it was the best ending of the early 2000s!  But it made me feel cheated and like the author did not trust me to think of that possibility on my own.  It felt like it was tacked on at the end because the editor decided that we readers were too stupid to get that it might have been an allegory.  I was ready to forgive all your hype, Mr. Martel.  I was ready to forgive you for your slightly boring sections and give you a decent 80%, 3 stars if you will.  But then there was that ending, the ending everyone else loved, and it made me angry.  This and The Sea put me off the Man Booker Prize for a long time.  Please find me a Man Booker Prize winner I will like.  Thanks in advance.  Also, the idea wasn’t even his own.  I know the original Brazilian author who wrote Max and the Cats didn’t pursue his case, but still. I’ll stop ranting now. 

I’m going to cheat a little bit on this one, because The House on Mango Street is not considered a “bad” book, nor does it have many negative reviews at all.  It’s a wonderful book, and I know that and you know that, but my 9th grade freshman English class did not know that.  This book brings back lots of memories – we had to read it the summer before we started high school.  I loved this book, I remember reading it at the bus stop before I got picked up for my first day of school, all jittery and nervous.  The House on Mango Street calmed me down.  It is so beautiful and poetic.  So I was disappointed when I got to my English class that first week and everyone was complaining about how boring and confusing it was.  It is still one of my favorite required reading books to this day.

Review – Neon Vernacular by Yusef Komunyakaa

“Is it her, will she know
What I’ve seen & done,
How my boots leave little grave-stone
shapes in the wet dirt,”

pg 4

Review – Kindred by Octavia Butler

“The trouble began long before June 9, 1976, when I became aware of it, but June 9 is the day I remember.  It was my twenty-sixth birthday.  It was also the day I met Rufus – the day he called me to him for the first time.”

- page 12

Library Loot!

Hosted by Eva and Alessandra:

I have a problem.  It’s called Library Addiction and the symptoms include, but are not limited to: 1) checking out way more books than you could ever read.  2) requesting every single book that sounds interesting. 3) looking through the stacks even though you know that you have more books than you can possibly carry back home in your bike basket.  Yeah, I have a bike basket.

The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb:  I never read She’s Come Undone, because my grandmother and aunt both hated it and I usually agree with them on things.  But the premise of The Hour I First Believed sounds so dang interesting.  And I read a review, though I can’t remember where now, where the author said that they too didn’t like She’s Come Undone for similar reasons but they loved The Hour I First Believed, so I couldn’t resist.

Perdido Street Station – China Miéville: This is one of those books that is totally out of my comfort zone, so to speak.  But now that I actually have the book in my hand, I’m really excited to start reading it.  The jacket does an excellent job of describing the book than the other description of it I read.  (Once Upon A Time III Challenge)

The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields:  I’m hoping to be able to squeeze this one in for the WHM challenge! (A-Z Challenge, WHM Challenge)

Stand the Storm – Breena Clarke: Pretty cover, interesting story.  I was helpless, I tell you.  Plus, I want to read more books that were published in the last year or two, because my reading mostly focuses on books published in the 20th century.

The Romonov Bride – Robert Alexander: I don’t know about this one.  I’m going to give it a shot.  I picked it up because I used to be obsessed with Anastasia.   I didn’t read the jacket in the library, and now that I’ve read it, I’m just not sure it’s what I thought it was.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu – Susanna Clarke: I never could get into Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, so we’ll see if I like this collection of short stories better. (Once Upon a Time III)

Sabriel – Garth Nix: I tried to read this a long time ago, but never could get through it.  I have a feeling I’ll appreciate it more this time.  (Once Upon a Time III)

The Hobbit – JRR Tolkein: This is another one I started but never finished.  (Once Upon a Time III)

Ahh!  I’m excited to get started on this list.  My TBR list is getting out of hand, but that’s ok.  It comes with the territory.

Review – Beneath My Mother’s Feet by Amjed Qamar

” ‘I’ll always do whatever you want, Amma.  You know that.’ Nazia pressed her face in the crook of Amma’s neck, breathing in the scent of jasmine, tangy sweat and mustard oil.

Amma pulled away and looked at Nazia worriedly.  ‘Sometimes I wonder.  You are the perfect daughter, but your will is strong.  Sometimes, I think, straonger than mine.’

‘Amma, stop worrying.  You know I will always do whatever mus be done.’

‘That is what I love about you, beta.  But that is also what I’m afraid of.’”
- From Beneath my Mother’s Feet

Once Upon a Time III

Carl V of this blog is someone I have heard of ever since I started book blogging.  I’ve yet to be acquainted with him, but most of the blogs on my reader were ridiculously excited, jumping for joy etc, for the Once Upon a Time III challenge.  You can’t ignore such excitement!  I know I can’t.  I trust all those folks, so I decided that I had to finally check this blog out.  I’ve certainly been missing out!  And now, I can’t wait to sink my teeth in to this challenge.   I’m already reading Kindred, which will be the first on my list!

I will be joining Quest the First, because I have no idea what I’m going to be reading or what category it will fall under.

Some possible books:

The Mystery of Grace by Charles De Lint
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Nation by Terry Pratchett
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susannah Clarke

More to be added, I’m sure!

OMG, excitement.

Two things I am ridiculously excited about right now:

Hunger games audiobook!

Everyone and their mom has read this.  Except me.  So I got the audiobook because I need to work out more and this will give me something to listen to.  And because the book version had 32 or so folks waiting for it before me.  So excited!  I don’t mind the narrator, but Weremonkey says she sounds like a computer.  We’ll see if she starts to get on my nerves.  Carolyn McCormick the narrator, not Weremonkey.

KINDRED!

I’m so excited about this book!  I became introduced to Octavia Butler when I was looking at all the class I couldn’t take next semester.  There is an English seminar on her and I would love to take it.  Even though I’m not an English major, or going to be in college at all in the fall.  I think it will be jumping to the top of my TBR pile, perfect for Women’s History month reading.