Tag: Books

Blogging, Day 366; NaNoWriMo, Day 1

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo2 Comments

I started this blog a year ago today, on November 1st, 2010.  Since then, I have met some amazing people, reconnected with other people I lost touch with years ago, expanded my To-Be-Read list to longer than it’s ever been (it’s a good thing–so many exciting reading possibilities!), had great feedback on my writing, and reviewed over 100 books.

This is Post #184.

Thank you to everyone who has made it so much fun.  🙂  I appreciate your reading and I love your comments–making it a conversation, not just me rattling on!  I look forward to discussing more books, sharing more writing, and analyzing more aspects of literature.

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By pure coincidence, this is also Day 1 of my first attempt at NaNoWriMo.  Read the background here.

So far, I’ve had a good start.  I got out of bed early this morning to write 400 words before work.  Then I had to put the novel aside until the early evening, before I was free to get back to it.  I’ve had something of a rhythm for the last year, of writing and stopping whenever I hit a point that feels like I’m done for the day.  I don’t know immediately (or reasonably quickly) what the next sentence is, so if I’ve written a reasonable amount I table it for a while.  I hit that point today at about 1,200 words, so I encountered already the benefit of daily word goals.  Since I was almost 500 words short, I made myself push on, and got into another stretch of story I knew what to do with.

The question is, will I still have that kind of discipline by day 21?  Or whenever.

But for today, all’s well.  Final count before I hit a second wall was 1,996.  Only 48,004 words to go!

I am fluctuating between excitement about my characters, and a fear that I don’t actually have enough plot.  Considering that, of my last four projects, three have stretched longer than expected and only one turned out plotless (and was subsequently abandoned), I may just be paranoid.  But I guess I’ll find out!

A couple of excerpts, before I give up typing for the night…

Opening paragraph:

There are twelve of us, but everyone thinks of us as one.  We encourage it.  Our anonymity is our strength, and our curse.

And a slight introduction to Lyra, my narrator:

I tell stories.  I read them, I imagine them, I live them and breathe them and can no more imagine my life without them than I can imagine a life without eating.  I try to imagine a life without my sisters, but it’s a bit like imagining life without the sky.  How can you imagine away something that has always been there?

Good luck to everyone else starting a novel today!

2011 Reading Challenges – Three-Quarters There!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

It’s the end of another quarter, which probably means lots of things in the business world, but around here means it’s time for an update on reading challenges!

It’s been a solid quarter on just about every challenge (and I went a little crazy on the retold fairy tales!) Things may slow down in November and December, so I’m glad I got more read now.  I still need to work on First in a Series; it’s the hardest one to go look for somehow, so any suggestions of favorite series are welcome!

Linked titles go to my review of the book.   Asterisks indicate I have a review coming soon.  If you see something you’re curious about that doesn’t have a review or one promised, let me know!  If I don’t feel like I have enough to say for a full post, I’ll at least let you know what I thought in a reply-comment.  Rereads are designated with an R for all but the Library challenge, and aren’t counted.

Here’s what I’ve read so far Continue reading “2011 Reading Challenges – Three-Quarters There!” →

Every Book You Ever Read…

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations4 Comments

This is something in between a book review and a reflection–a reflection prompted by a specific book.  I read The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger, after seeing it reviewed on two different blogs I follow.  It’s a very short graphic novel, almost a picture book for adults–but, despite outer appearance, not appropriate for children, mostly because of the ending.  The story follows Liz, who becomes so obsessed with reading that it takes over her life.  This begins when she encounters the Night Bookmobile, a traveling library that holds every book she has ever read, from childhood to the book she’s reading now.  The Night Bookmobile only appears sporadically, and she’s consumed with the desire to find it again.

A few quick comments on my thoughts on the book: I hated the ending, which I probably should have expected since I hated the ending (really the second half) of Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife too.  I couldn’t figure out the point–I think this was a warning about letting books consume your life, so I kept waiting for Liz to have a revelation…and instead it kind of worked out for her.  In a twisted way.  And despite her consuming obsession with the Night Bookmobile, I didn’t think she was really utilizing it to its potential; all she does when she finds it is vaguely wander the shelves and think how nice it is to see books she remembers reading.  You can do that at a library or a bookstore; you don’t need a magical bookmobile.

So much for the review part.  As to the reflection–I love the premise.  Not anything about Liz, but the idea of a magical library, mobile or otherwise, that holds everything you ever read…I want one of those!  But I wouldn’t waste time smiling at old editions of L. M. Montgomery books.  I can walk over to my own bookcase right now and do that.  I’d want to find the books I’ve forgotten about.  Or not exactly the ones I’ve forgotten–the ones I just barely remember.  The ones I read when I was six or nine or fourteen, and I remember a character or an incident or a little snatch of the plot, but not the title or the author or a character’s name.  In other words, nothing that will help me find it now.

Once a teacher read us a book aloud–it was about kids who went through a tunnel and ended up in this valley where there were cave people and dinosaurs.  They were hailed as gods and fought a T-Rex.  My family went on vacation (it was a summer program) just as we were getting to the end of the book, and the class finished it while we were gone.  So I never heard the ending, and I haven’t the faintest idea of the title.  I’ve tried a bit of Google searching, but I’ve never been able to find it.  I’d be searching the bookmobile for that one.

And I’d be in there with a pen and paper so I could write titles down.  I started keeping a  book journal my senior year of high school, and I wish I’d started a dozen or so years earlier.  The bookmobile would help me fill in a lot of gaps.

The bookmobile also has a librarian.  I’m not sure how I’d feel about that, about someone metaphorically peering over my shoulder to look at everything I read.  I’m not reading anything particularly embarrassing, but I wonder if it would make me self-conscious?  If I’d feel more of an impetus to read “impressive” things like Hardy and Dickens.  In a way I suppose it’s not unlike a book review blog–but this blog doesn’t record everything I’m reading.  I follow other bloggers who do review everything they read, so perhaps they’d know more what it would be like.

As to the theme of reading taking over your life, I’m sure it can happen, but I think it’s equally possible to be an enthusiastic reader without losing touch with the rest of the world.  I think I resent a bit the implication that reading cuts you off from the world.  I’ve bonded with and even met friends because of shared interest in books.  And reading doesn’t have to stop you from living.

I always think of reading as a way to live a thousand lives instead of just one.  Why stay only in this world when you can go to so many others?  Maybe it’s particularly apt for me because I read so much fiction, and so much of it fantasy, or otherwise very different from the world around me.  But having a rich inner book-life doesn’t mean I’m not living my outer life too.

So I didn’t particularly like The Night Bookmobile.  But it did prompt a lot of thoughts about reading.

Favorites Friday – Closing Lines

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday6 Comments

To bookend my last Favorites Friday, Opening Lines, why not follow-up with favorite closing lines?  I won’t share any that are undue spoilers!

“And he kissed her as they rode away down the high road, where pilgrims traveled, and gleemen, where the king’s lords journeyed amidst minstrels and knights and herbalists and gypsy caravans to all the reaches of Gies and beyond, to Brugest and Apulia and Calabria and to countries so small one had never heard of them.”
—Silver Woven in My Hair by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Charming and whimsical and magical.  And it makes me want to ride away on the high road in search of magical places and new adventures.

“If it’s any of my business, how the devil did you ever get into that bally jungle?”
“I was born there,” said Tarzan, quietly.  “My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn’t tell me much about it.  I never knew who my father was.”
—Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I wonder how many people have been absolutely baffled to reach the end of Tarzan and watch him throw away his birthright and his chance at the beautiful Jane in a single noble effort.  Not what anyone expects, right?  But don’t worry–there’s a sequel.

“Happily ever after?  I don’t think it’s quite what you meant, Alianora,” Cimorene murmured to the empty tunnel, “but one way or another, I rather think I will.”
—Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

I love fairy tale retellings that can make “happily ever after” work.  And she will live happily ever after–just not quite the way fairy tales usually wind up.

“So they went off together.  But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”
—The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

I find the last chapter of this book so heartbreaking–Christopher Robin is growing up (which is not the heartbreaking part) and as a consequence he has to say good-bye to all of his magical playmates, and he asks Winnie the Pooh to promise not to forget about him.  It’s lovely.  And sad.

“I’ll think about it tomorrow, at Tara.  I can stand it then.  Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back.  After all, tomorrow is another day.”
—Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

People tend to like Scarlett, dislike Scarlett, or not know how they feel about her but be fascinated by her either way.  I’m in the third category.  She’s just Scarlett and she’s fascinating, and nothing is ever going to keep her down for long–because she’ll fight and claw her way back no matter what happens.

Anyone else with favorite final lines?  I’d love to hear!

Hilarity Happening at MacDonald Hall

On By cherylmahoneyIn Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

A few months ago I reviewed A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag by Gordon Korman, and I’ve decided it’s time I reviewed some of his other many hilarious books.  A particular favorite is the Macdonald Hall Series.  Macdonald Hall is a boarding school for boys, around middle or high school age–it’s never very specific.  Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies is directly across the road.  With a host of improbable circumstances and wonderfully quirky characters, hilarity constantly ensues.

Korman follows the same pattern he uses in A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag, and gives us one fairly normal main character–Boots (real name Melvin, but don’t call him that).  His best friend and roommate is Bruno, who can always be relied upon to have a big, brilliant and probably ill-advised idea, whether it’s a way to earn money for a swimming pool or a new idea for a prank.  Bruno and Boots are incorrigible pranksters who are also fiercely loyal to their school, and Korman gets plots out of both qualities.

They’re surrounded by even wilder characters.  There’s big Wilbur Hackenschleimer, who thinks only about food, and genius Elmer Drimsdale who has a brilliant scientific mind and limited social skills.  I think my favorite is Sidney Rampulsky, who is endlessly klutzy.  Playing football, he manages to trip over the 30-yard line.  Another time he trips over the headmaster’s chair, while the headmaster is sitting in it.  The headmaster is Mr. Sturgeon, popularly known as The Fish–for his name, and for his cold, fishy stare.  The Fish is stern but fair, and secretly very fond of his students–but secretly.

Across the road, Miss Scrimmage is an enormous and rather terrifying woman, who will defend her precious, defenseless girls until the end–blissfully unaware that her girls are about as defenseless as a SWAT team.  Cathy and Diane are Bruno and Boots’ female counterparts.  Cathy is always up for an adventure, and her roommate Diane is generally dragged along.

There are six books in the series; the first is This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall, which Korman wrote and published when he was twelve.  He wrote most of the others during high school, which frankly boggles the mind a bit–especially because they’re brilliant.  The first one involves Bruno and Boots being split up as roommates because they commit one too many pranks; Bruno, of course, has endless ideas on how they can convince The Fish to put them back together–mostly ideas involving new pranks.

Other books in the series feature Hollywood descending to film a movie on campus; the adventures of a hapless football team (I don’t normally like sports stories, but this one is so funny I enjoy it); and a desperate plot to make Macdonald Hall famous so they won’t be shut down.  This one features a scene with Elmer Dynamicdale and the Original Round-Robin Happy-Go-Lucky Heel-Clicking Foot-Stomping Beat-Swinging Scrim-Band performing Science Rock, which essentially consists of Miss Scrimmage’s girls creating a cacophony of noise while Elmer screams scientific facts (you have to kick him to get him started).  It never fails to make me laugh out loud.  But that happens a lot with these books…

I could probably go on and on just giving funny anecdotes, but where would it end?  Just trust me.  Read them.  They’re hilarious.