Four book reviews:

Also finished: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown () (I’ll have that review tomorrow), and now [...]]]>
Before I get into the film, here’s what I did last week.

Four book reviews:

1. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu 
2. Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool 
3. Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi 
4. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Also finished: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown () (I’ll have that review tomorrow), and now I’m halfway through Amsterdam by Ian McEwan.

I watched and reviewed an excellent Japanese film, Departures, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009. Loved this film. Loved it.

And, I participated in the Villette read-a-long and made plans to participate in the Atlas Shrugged read-a-long. I’m loving Villette so far and I’m excited for Atlas Shrugged. I’d like to finish it before the movie comes out on April 15.

Amazon info

(Caution, spoilers ahead.) I had $5 in Amazon video-on-demand promotions so I used it last night to see Never Let Me Go. First of all, I could have done without Keira Knightley in the film. I’m not a fan of hers, and the only movie I’ve ever liked her in was the first Pirates of the Caribbean. (And don’t get me started on why the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice is infinitely better than the Knightley version.)

Other than her being in it, I LOVED it. The scenery and the music were so beautiful. Carey Mulligan was fantastic. And the film affected me way more than the book did. Ishiguro is a terrific writer, but at the end of the book I really did question whether they had a soul or not. The way the characters were portrayed on film erased that question in my mind.

I highly recommend this movie, but I would hope that you’d read the book first.

Grade: A+

Book info | DVD info

This week was a really good reading week. Being able to do nothing but lie and down and watch TV or read helped. I finished up On Beauty, read Crooked Letter Crooked Letter in one sitting and then read How to Live Safely [...]]]> I sooooooo want a lampost…. (Neil Gaiman’s post ‘Once you’ve got a lampost‘)

This week was a really good reading week. Being able to do nothing but lie and down and watch TV or read helped. I finished up On Beauty, read Crooked Letter Crooked Letter in one sitting and then read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (which I loved) in just two days. It really feels good to be reading again. I don’t know if any of you noticed, since I didn’t really come out and say it, but I didn’t read (I should say complete) anything for the last 6 months of last year. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. I picked up several books and read a few chapters or maybe halfway through, and one book even 3/4 of the way through. Just couldn’t finish anything. Like I said, it was a bad year. But I’m off to the races now and it feels good to be back in the saddle reading again.

Today I decided to participate in The Big Game’s On Readathon, hosted by Jenn of Jenn’s Bookshelves. I’m actually a football girl. I love it. But this year I didn’t really watch it at all, mostly because the Denver Broncos were out of it so early. Sooo, while I’ll probably watch it and have it on mute, I am going to be reading during the game (and before and after it as well).

Here’s my lineup (hee hee) for today:

• Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool (this year’s Newbery winner)
• Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (this year’s Printz winner)

Hopefully there will be a couple of touchdowns. (I couldn’t resist.)

Happy reading to all the other readathoners today!

This week I finished up Larry’s Party and Heaven is for Real, started on a A Small Island, and worked on my blog during Bloggiesta. I’m also beginning to watch some Oscar winners for Best Picture in anticipation of the Oscars next month. On Friday I was watching The Last [...]]]> Hope everyone had a good weekend!

This week I finished up Larry’s Party and Heaven is for Real, started on a A Small Island, and worked on my blog during Bloggiesta. I’m also beginning to watch some Oscar winners for Best Picture in anticipation of the Oscars next month. On Friday I was watching The Last Emperor on Netflix because it was the last day it was available. Wouldn’t you know it, I had about 30 minutes to go and my internet went out for the night. Checked to see if I could still watch it in the morning, but no. At least my library has it so I put it on hold along with some other Oscar winners. I’ve also started watching The Big Bang Theory series, and I’m nearing the end of the second season. Sooooo hilarious, especially for a geek like me.

For the Bloggiesta, yesterday I put in dedicated ‘facebook like’ and retweet features on every post. Even though I already had an all-in-one social plugin for this, it seems you score better on some SEO ratings if you have dedicated facebook and twitter buttons.

Then today, I mostly just tried to figure out why my page was taking so long to load. I used Pingdom and some other sites to try to alleviate some of the bottlenecks on my blog. I don’t have it where I want it, but my site is quite a bit faster than it was at least.  I’m also attempting to back up my blog so I can update to the newest wordpress installation. Always a scary scenario as I lost seven months of posts awhile back, which was a trying time, to say the least.

This coming week I’m having surgery on Wednesday, so I may be absent for a few days. Nothing serious, just a partial hysterectomy. I probably should have had this done years ago, so I’m happy it’s getting taken care of. At least when I’m recovering I’ll have no excuses not to read!

Have a great week, and happy reading, everyone!

Anyway, I finished a long audio of The Swan Thieves [...]]]> I was out of town this past weekend, and I’ve been thinking that when I miss posting a Sunday Salon I might do a “Midweek Musings” post instead. If someone else is using that phrase, sorry, it’s just the best name I could come up with.

Anyway, I finished a long audio of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova and should have a review of it in the next few days. I really liked The Historian so I thought I would give this one a shot. I definitely liked that the audio had different narrators, and I do love Kostova’s writing style, but this one seemed to just fizzle out in the end a little bit. I’d definitely read another novel of hers, though.

I also finished up Larry’s Party by Carol Shields yesterday. This one was probably my least favorite book of hers that I’ve read, but the final chapter made up for a lot. It probably took the book from a 3.5 star to a 4 star book for me. We’ll see, I’m still waffling on the rating.

Now I’m on to Small Island by Andrea Levy, another Orange book, and I’m enjoying it so far. With the emphasis on Orange books this month, I’m thinking that I might do my reading in themes for the entire year. Next month I’m considering Canadian fiction or dystopias, and in March I’d like to do some Pulitzer reading in anticipation of the new prize being announced in April. I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now and I just think that if I focus my reading during this time, I might have better results than I did last year. Other monthly themes might be young adult, books in translation, Booker prize winners, etc. I’m also thinking of expanding that into movies I want to see, such as Oscar winning films in February.

Any other suggestions for themes? I’d love them!

I finally have some space to put out nearly [...]]]> Today I spent all afternoon unpacking book boxes. Talk about a late Chistmas gift! I only unpacked about 25 out of 65 boxes or so, but some of those books I hadn’t seen for 2 or 3 years, and seeing them was like seeing long lost friends!

I finally have some space to put out nearly all my books, and I’m really excited about it.  I even weeded out a few (which is always hard to do) that I’ll be taking to Goodwill or a used bookstore. And please don’t ask how many doubles I found. Hey, when I could pick books up at library sales for 25 or 50 cents, I could afford to make a few mistakes just to make sure I had the book. Now it seems the libraries are charging more and more so it’s not quite as affordable as it once was.

I’ll be taking pictures of my stacks when they’re all set up, and I can’t wait to show you all. I know I always love looking at the way others display their books. I really never get tired of it. I found a great site the other day that is nothing but photos of books and bookshelves. Some of you may already know about it, but if you don’t, you can find it here. Enjoy, and have a great week!

Since I didn’t have a Sunday Salon last week, I’ll go ahead and tell you what I’ve read so far this [...]]]> How is it the middle of November already? It doesn’t seem possible. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, though. I’m probably going to Colorado to see my side of the family so that’s always exciting.

Since I didn’t have a Sunday Salon last week, I’ll go ahead and tell you what I’ve read so far this month instead of just this week. I’ve listened to quite a few audios lately because I’ve been feeling under the weather (hence the lack of posts). These included Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith, The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland, and The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti. And then I also read The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist. All of them were 4 or 4.5 stars. Just great books so far for the month of November.

I was most surprised by how much I appreciated The Forest Lover. I had seen mixed reviews on it, but I heartily recommend this fictional biographical look at one of Canada’s foremost female artists. I knew I would probably like The Unit because I’m fascinated by dystopian fiction, and I did. Dystopians always scare me but in a good way. Afterward I’m so appreciative of living under our own government (though, of course it has its flaws). And I always take great delight in Smith’s books, this one was the last (so far) of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective series, and I’m not at all getting tired of them yet. The Good Thief was entertaining as well — it was sort of a mix of Dickens and Twain. I will definitely be reading more of Tinti’s works.

I’m not sure what I’m going to take up next, perhaps something for the Women Unbound challenge.  By the way, The Forest Lover would definitely qualify for the challenge, and you could make an argument for The Unit to count as well.

Have a great reading week!

I read The Time Traveler’s Wife in 2006, and though I didn’t like some of the bad language in it, I absolutely LOVED the story.  I think the movie was supposed to come out last fall, but it kept being pushed later and later, so I was a little worried about how it was going [...]]]>

I read The Time Traveler’s Wife in 2006, and though I didn’t like some of the bad language in it, I absolutely LOVED the story.  I think the movie was supposed to come out last fall, but it kept being pushed later and later, so I was a little worried about how it was going to turn out. But with Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana as the lead roles (two of my very favorite actors), I thought it couldn’t be too awful.

I really liked but didn’t quite love the movie.  It was very emotional for me, just as the book was.  Of course they changed some elements of the story (Gomez is all good in the film), but most of the movie was as good as I expected.  The problem for me was that the beginning of it didn’t quite work for me.  I’m not sure why, but I think they could have set up the storyline a little better than they did.  Also, while Erica Bana was great,I didn’t like Rachel McAdam’s acting in parts — it was as if I could “see” her acting.  I loved loved loved her in The Notebook, so I was surprised and disappointed in this.  But, it was only in parts.  In other sections of the movie I thought she was as fantastic as Bana.

My only caution is that if you haven’t read the book, it might be a little hard to follow.  And if you haven’t yet read the book, I highly recommend you do so!

Grade:  B+

Overall, I’m happy with my reading [...]]]> The first half of the year is almost over, and I know I won’t finish any more books this month because I’ll be really busy for the next few days.  So I thought I’d go ahead and post my mid-year report because I’m a kind of a stats and numbers geek.

Overall, I’m happy with my reading for the first half of 2009, but there are some areas that I’d like to work on in the latter half of 2009.  The items in blue are the stats I’m excited about, and the ones in red are the ones I want to work on.

I am happy that I read 55 books, BUT, only 12,489 pages?  I usually like to read about 30,000 pages in a year so that’s way below target.  I read quite a few Newbery winners and other kids’ books so that’s why the total number of pages are low.  The stats I’m happiest with are that 55% of my books were from non-Americans and 25% were originally in other languages.  I like to keep it at least 50/50 American/non-American so I was very happy with 55%. And I won’t be too surprised if my 25% translated works even goes up in the second half.  I have some German and Japanese reading to do soon.

As far as the other figures go, I aim to go no greater than a 40/60 split either way on female/male authors; and although I think 71% is way too high a figure for books published in the 2000′s, the main reason for it is the Countdown Challenge, so I’m allowing myself a little leeway there.

My favorite book of the year so far was The Houskeeper and the Professor, and my least favorite was either X-Kai- Vol. 2 or Yarrow.

At the end of the books read are the challenges I’ve completed.

• 55 books
• 12,489 pages (way short of around 15,000 goal)
• Average:  227 pp per book (kind of pathetic!)
• 23 female authors; 32 male authors (42%/58% split)
• 39 books (71%) were published in 2000-2009; 16 books (29%) were published pre-2000
• American/non-American author ratio:  25/30 or 45%/55%
• Number of pages in book:
  • under 200: 23 (42%)
  • 200-399: 30 (55%)
  • 400-599: 2 (4%)
• Books in translation 14/55 books for 25%:
  • Japanese (4)
  • Spanish (4)
  • French (2)
  • German (1)
  • Polish (1)
  • Portuguese (1)
  • Yiddish (1)

January (8 books, 1742 pp.)

1. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson (2006, 368 pp.)
2. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker (2009, 341 pp.)
3. The Houskeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (2009, 180 pp.)
4. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda (1924, 1969 for English translation, 80 pp.)
5. Thousand Cranes by Yasanuri Kawabata (1952, 147 pp.)
6. Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb (1999, 2001 for the English translation, 132 pp)
7. X-Kai- Vol. 2 by Asami Tohjoh (2000, English translation 2006; 200 pp.)
8. Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels (1996, 294 pp.)

February (9 books, 1842 pp.)

1. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2006, 352 pp.)
2. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (1988, 1993 for the English translation; 105 pp.)
3. The Reader by Bernard Schlink (1995, 1997 for the English translation; 224 pages)
4. Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith (2001, 227 pp.)
5. So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba (1980-81, 90 pp.)
6. The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith (2002, 191 pp.)
7. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1961, 204 pp.)
8. A Tale of Two Gardens by Octavio Paz (various copyrights, 111 pp.)
9. Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors (2004, 344 pp.)

March (10 books, 1924 pp.)

1. The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith (2004, 198 pp.)
2. The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry (2008, 174 pp.)
3. The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton (2008, 288 pp.)
4. Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary (1983, 133 pp.)
5. A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (2001, 152 pp.)
6. Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (2004, 244 pp.)
7. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho (2006, 205 pp.)
8. The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman (1995, 122 pp.)
9. Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1966, 90 pp.)
10. Q & A by Vikas Swarup (2005, 318 pp.)

April (11 books, 2513 pp.)

1. Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (1970, 144 pp.)
2. Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi (2002, 297 pp.)
3. Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry (1940, 128 pp.)
4. Finn by Jon Clinch (2007, 304 pp.)
5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961, 355 pp.)
6. Petropolis by Anya Ulinich (2007, 324pp.)
7. Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis (2004, 147 pp)
8. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith (2004, 233pp.)
9. All the Living by C.E. Morgan (2009, 208 pp.)
10. Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo (2009, 270 pp.)
11. The House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez (2005 for Eng. trans., 103 pp.)

First Half:  55 books, 12489 pp; average of 227 pages per book (kind of sad, really!)

Challenges Completed

• Canadian Challenge II COMPLETE
• Once Upon a Time III — COMPLETE
• Lost in Translation – COMPLETE
• Library Reading Challenge — COMPLETE
• Audiobooks Challenge — COMPLETE
• Young Adult Challenge — COMPLETE
• Latin American Reading Challenge — COMPLETE
• Jewish Literature Challenge– COMPLETE
• Book Awards II — COMPLETE
• 1% Well-Read Challenge — COMPLETE
• Japanese Literature Challenge — COMPLETE