Thursday Thirteen #5

Thirteen Things About Me.

1. I love books (duh). Obviously, I love to read them, but I also love to read about them, collect them, think about them, make lists about them, and, in general, just be surrounded by them.
2. I love purses. Last spring I bought a large, bright orange, canvas purse. It was the most perfect purse I'd ever had. The straps were long enough, it had exactly the right pockets and it held everything I wanted it to hold. Then the monkey spilled a cup of milk into it. It was not washable and I had to replace it. Every time I went to the store it came from I looked for it's replacement, but they were never there. I could not find it on Ebay. Then, on Sunday, I was in that store and THERE IT WAS. It has one small design change, and I had to get a different color (green), but once again I have the perfect purse.
3. I am currently obsessed with eating at Khoury's Mediterranean Cuisine. In particular, the falafel.
4. When I get to a very suspenseful part of a book I have to stop reading and calm myself. Sometimes for seconds, sometimes for days. It can be any kind of suspense, it doesn't have to be life threatening. Romantic moments count. This helps explain why I read more than one book at a time.
5. I no longer enjoy the taste of Pepsi. This will be shocking to people who went to school with me.
6. I hate returning phone calls (at work).
7. I have had the same robe since I went to college. It was an outrageous splurge at the time ($84!!) and has definately been worth the money.
8. I have kept a log of everything I've read since 1993.
9. I think Anthony Wiggle is the hot one.
10. I am from Alabama, but I don't usually find the snow to be unbearable. I do, however, find the length of winter to be a bit much. I want flowers and green stuff way before it shows up here in South Dakota.
11. I have a $25 gift card from Victoria's Secret and I can't seem to spend it. Help!
12. I have an overabundance of pickles of all varieties in my fridge. Also, pickled okra, pickled banana peppers, pickled cherry peppers, and some olives (black).
    
13. I am about to go vote for Jordan on American Idol.

I'm so glad that Thursday Thirteen continues on, thanks to Carol and Beth. You can find more lists here.

But, Who's Counting?

Booking Through Thursday

1. How many books would you say you read in an average month? 3 or4, but my goal is 4 or 5.
2. In a year? In 2006 I read 43, but I usually read a few more than that. My goal this year is 52.
   
3. Over the last five years? 195, not counting 2007.
   
4. The last 10? 685, and yes, I have a list.
   

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Last night I stayed up late (ok, I stayed up until almost 10!) to finish reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I have, of course, already read the first six books, but I want to reread the last few in preparation of the grand finale in July. It has already been decided that we will be buying two copies of book seven, and will be finding an all day babysitter so that we can read interrupted.

Two things that I noticed in book 4 that I didn't remember (but that I'm sure other fans have already discussed to death):

Fleur already has the hots for Bill.

Dumbledore tells Harry that death is final. You can not come back from the dead.

I had forgotten about Mad Eye Moody and so it was a surprise at the end.

Anyone else reading them again?

I am not the only one.

Today while reading through my blogs I read a post by Lazy Cow that ended with the following sentence-

I really think I would go crazy if I didn't read/think about books and
reading/visit any shops which sell books, every day.

The rest of the post is nice, as are the pictures of the books talked about, but that sentence is what makes the post perfect. I think that my spouse, for one, and several of my good friends think I might be a bit obsessive. It's nice to be able to point them to others who also share the love.

Weekend Reading and Monday's Math

I did a lot of reading this weekend, but it was spread between three different books so I didn't actually FINISH anything. I'm in the midst of Sufficient Grace (half done), Harry Potter 4 (almost done) and A Fistful of Charms (no where near done.) I'm hoping that I'll finish at least two of them before Thursday. Today I am stuck at work for lunch, and brought Fistful with me, so that should help tremendously. I have a few more months before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out, so plenty of time to finish my reading there.

This week I got one more book in from Paperbackswap bringing my total to 21 books in. I've read 9. This leave me behind 12 books, which is exactly where I was last week, so that's good. However, I have a lot (like 10) books coming in from PBS this week, so I better read faster!

Thursday Thirteen #4

Things I Could Have Given Up for Lent.. If I Were Catholic...

1. Chocolate
2. Coffee
3. Meat
4. Fast Food
5. Shopping
6. Magazines
7. Soda
8. Potato Chips
9. The Internet
10. TV
11. XM radio
12. Smoking. (Oh wait, I don't smoke)
13. Thursday Thirteens

As it turns out, this will be the last week for an official Thursday Thirteen. If you are curious as to why you can read about it here. You can also go visit other thirteens at that link. I was just getting started with this and was having fun making the lists so I might have to find a way to continue a regular list on my own.

More Lists and Monday's Math

Have you heard of the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die? I'm not sure how the author compiled the list, but some bored soul bought the book and typed out the list of all 1001 books. I have read 37 of them. It's interesting, the more I see classics talked about the more I want to read them. I think I might have to quit my job so I can read.

Shortly after finding that link, I found this link to the Publisher's Weekly best books of 2006. I have read none of those. I haven't even heard of most of those.

I've gotten 4 more books from Paperbackswap, 2 books from a book exchange, and bought one (Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs) since my last count. This takes me to 20 books in, 8 books read- I'm behind by 12 books! Today starts the 8th week of the year, I've read 8 books, so on track for my goal of 52 books this year. This blog is really helping me to get things read- I have to have things to talk about!

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand, and the next thing that happened was we kissed each other, and I found I knew how, and I felt happy and sad in equal parts, because I knew that I was falling in love, but it wasn't with him.
---From A History of Love, page 202.

For Christmas, my friend Shawna gave me A History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I am embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to read it. I was nervous, she had loved the book so much and I was worried that I wouldn't love it. I was wrong. It's hard to summarize what this book is really about, so here's the text from the back cover:

Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to find a cure for her mother's loneliness. Believing that she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search of it's author. Across New York an old man named Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer. He spends his days dreaming of the lost love who, sixty years ago in Poland, inspired him to write a book. And although he doesn't know it yet, that book also survived: crossing oceans and generations, and changing lives . . . .

This does not begin to describe the book. It's very good. It's written so well, from the perspective of a half dozen people. The clues to how it will all end are evenly paced and well written. Nothing is given away too soon and nothing is left out. This isn't a light fluffy book, the parts that are the book within the book are completely different in style and tone from the rest of the book. It's so well thought out and written that I wish I had written it. I should not have worried, this book will end up on my personal best of 2007 list.

The Big List of Lists

I think this is the most perfect post ever. It's got books, lists, humor- what more could I want? If you haven't yet clicked on the link (and why haven't you?) it's a list of possible book lists. Not content with the standard "10 Best Books of All Time" or "10 Best Books of 2006", this is the mother of all lists. Some examples:

• Books I Will Never Read But Have a Great Title
• Books My Friends Should Give Back: It Was Just a Loan
• Books I Keep Re-reading, but Only After Enough Time Has Passed That I've Forgotten the Ending (Which Means I Must Not Like Them THAT Much and Should Therefore Not Even Bother)
• Books You Put Off Reading Because You Were Afraid They Weren't Going to Live Up to Your Expectations

It's from the blog 50 Books, which I am on my way to add to the sidebar now! The author of the blog plans to actually make lists of books to go with each topic, so if this is your kind of thing bookmark it and check back.

I wish I had thought of it first. (And might steal the idea on occasion, giving credit to her, of course.)

How many of these quizes could there possibly be?

I first found this over at Bookmark My Heart. I'm sure the results are not interesting to anyone other than myself, and possibly my husband, who likes to make comments on the books I have NOT read. I'm not really sure what the point to this one is, but it's popped up in a half-dozen places in the last day or two so I might as well play along.

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. +Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. +Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. +Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. +A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. +The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. +East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. +Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. +The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. +The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. +The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. +The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. +The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. +Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. +The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. +The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57.+ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. +The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. +War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. +Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. +Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

NYT's Notable Books of the Year- 2006

I'm not sure how long this link will be available, but I don't want to copy and paste the entire list here. Bear in mind, this is the New York Times, and their tastes are a little more refined than mine, but I have to admit, I have only read one of these- Eat, Pray, Love- which was my favorite book of 2006. Unlike Time's Top 10, I don't feel a need to have read them all. I post the list for your enjoyment, because I love lists.

Time's Top 10 Books of All Time

As I was reading some other Thursday Thirteen's this morning, I found a post over at 3M Chat about Time's recent (ok, a month ago) top ten books of all time.

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Sadly, I have only read ONE of these. I will not tell you which one, and no, it's not Hamlet. We have six of them ( I think) on our shelves at home. I get one of them in my email every day from www.dailylit.com. Clearly, I need to read even more. I should make this another challenge!

...Maybe for 2008. There'll be more hours in the day then, right?

Thursday Thirteen #3

.... Thirteen Books I Already Own That I'd Really Like to Find Time to Read....
(You had to know I couldn't resist making a book list for very long.)

1. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss so Shawna doesn't disown me. I've started this one.


2. Sufficient Grace by Darnell Arnoult, also started.


3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer


4. A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison, which would catch me up completely on the series.


5. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield


6. Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson


7. Something by Marian Keyes (I have two, or maybe it's three, in the TBR)


8. The Pact by Jodi Picoult who I keep seeing everywhere


9. Heat Stroke by Rachel Caine, book two of the Weather Warden series.


10. The next Anita Blake book by Laurell K. Hamilton, but first I have to figure out which one that is. I've been told this book is the turning point between the old Anita and the new.


11. 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan


12. Death at the Rose Paperworks by M.J. Zellnik


13. Pug Hill by Alison Pace, cause how can you resist a pug???

You can find more Thursday Thirteens here.

Valentine's Day Song for my Boy

Ordinary Day by Vanessa Carlton

Just a day,
Just an ordinary day.
Just tryin to get by.
Just a boy,
Just an ordinary boy.
But he was looking to the sky.
And as he asked if I would come along
I started to realize-
That everyday you find
Just what he's looking for,
Like a shooting star he shines.

He said take my hand,
Live while you can
Don't you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand.

And as he spoke, he said ordinary words
Although they did not feel
For I had felt what I had not felt before
You'd swear those words could heal.
And as I looked up into those eyes
His visiion borrows mine.
And to know he's no stranger,
For I feel I've held him for all of time.

And he said take my hand,
Live while you can
Don't you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand
In the palm of your hand.

Please come with me,
See what I see.
Touch the stars for time will not flee.
Time will not flee.
Can you see?

Just a dream, just an ordinary dream.
as I wake in bed
And the boy, that boy, that ordinary boy.
Or was it all in my head?
Did he ask if I would come along
It all seemed so real.
But as I looked to the door,
I saw that boy standing there with a deal.

And he said take my hand,
Live while you can
Don't you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand
Right in the palm of your hand,
Right in the palm of your hand.

Just a day, just an ordinary day
Just tryin to get by.

Just a boy, just an ordinary boy.
But he was looking to the sky.

Every Boy's Got One

Every Boy's Got One is the story of Jane and Cal who are in Italy to witness the elopement of their best friends. Jane is a cartoonist and Cal is a foreign journalist, and they have nothing in common. Dislike is instant, before they even know each other's names. Jane thinks the elopement is incredibly romantic, and Cal thinks love doesn't exist. Due to an unfortunate turn of events (of course) they are thrown together to save the wedding. The plot is predictable, you KNOW how it ends from page one. There aren't really any surprises along the way.

This was a very fast book to read. It's written entirely as email and journal/diary entries between the main characters. It took me about 3 hours to read. I think if it had been any longer that element of the book would have gotten tiresome, but it did make the pages speed by. I liked the story, and loved the setting, but if it weren't for the unusual way it was written I think it would be pretty forgettable. This was my second Meg Cabot and I'll certainly read more of them, but I won't be buying up her backlist just yet.

What I'm Reading Now, and What I'm Not Reading.

I have a ton of books that I feel like I have to read. There are several reasons for this- the book was a gift (Hi, Shawna!) or written by someone I know, or part of a series. As I've mentioned several times, I'm a member at Paperbackswap, and the way it works is that you add your name to the list of people wishing for a particular book. As the books are posted into the system, the first person on the list is offered it and everyone else moves down. You "buy" the books with credits that you earn from posting your own books into the system and mailing them off. It's a fair system, but what it means is- I often read books that aren't the ones I most want to read. For example, if I hear of a Great! Awesome! Wonderful! series, I go add the first few books to my list. The first one comes in, and I feel the need to read it quick, before I get offered the next one. If it sucks, I don't want to waste a credit on the next, see? If the books rocks, then it's safe to leave the rest of the series on the list.

All of this to say, I seem to never get to everything. I still have one of Kim Harrison's books here, a series I know I love, and haven't read it. I have Suffient Grace, sent to me by Sharon last fall and haven't read it. I have The History of Love, given to me by Shawna for Christmas, and only just started it. I have Twilight, which has been mentioned pretty much EVERYWHERE this month, and haven't started it. I have so many books! Which typically isn't a problem, until I want to read them all now!

Today I finished up Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green. This is the second Nightside novel. If you've been reading along you know I was hesitant about reading more of them. This one had a nicely finished plot, but a few other teeny flaws. I am still on the fence about the series. Mike is actually reading the first one (a fiction book not about baseball!) and I'll probably take his lead on the rest of them. I am ambivilant, and with so many books around here there's always something else. They are very quick, easy to read books, so that's a plus. I give this one a 3/5.

I've gotten one more book in the house since my last count (from PBS), bringing me to 13 books in, 7 books read. Holding steady at a 6 book surplus.

Comments!

Comments went missing, but now they're back. Feel free!

Thursday Thirteen #2

. . .Thirteen things I enjoy other than books. . .

1. Knitting, even though I am slow and barely know the basics.
2. Quilting.
3. Vanilla lattes.
4. Shopping, in particular, shoe and purse shopping
5. Playing a tourist in the Black Hills.
6. American Idol, the shame.
7. Snuggling with the monkey boy.
8. Going to bed ridiculously early on Friday nights.
9. Eating out, by myself or with others.
10. Watching the snow.
11. Really hot showers.
12. Spending time with my husband.
13. Posting on this blog.

For more Thursday Thirteens, click here.

A little math

11 books in from PBS
+1 book bought (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer)
=12 new books into the house (so far) in 2007.

12 new books
-6 books read
=6 book surplus

Unfortunately, I think this is the closest to breaking even I can expect to be all year. And that doesn't mean I traded away all 6 of those that I read, so the net number of books is still increasing.

I will refrain from mentioning how many books are on their way at this moment. Let's just say that I'm coming to the front of the line on a lot of books. Gulp.

Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green

John Taylor has an extraordinary gift. He can find things, anything. John is from the Nightside, a place where it's always 3 am, and everything is real. Myths are alive in the Nightside, ghosts are real, legends exist. He has been hired to find a runaway and since he's down on his luck, he takes the case.

I love the idea of the book. I like the Nightside. This seems a lot like a man's version of the worlds that Laurell Hamilton, Charlaine Harris and Kim Harrison have created. It's harsher, blunter, less forgiving. I can see myself reading more of them. It was quick and very easy. However, this was the first book in the series, and without spoiling it for the next guy I have to say- he could really do with a better plot idea. It was kinda like he got to the end and then was stumped on how to end it, and threw this crazy idea into the book. It all worked so very well, until that point. I will read the next one (I already have it) but will hold off on ordering more until I see if he has more (or should it be less?) imagination next time. I'd give it a 4, but the ending brings it down. I'll let you know if you should seek them out.

Thursday Thirteen #1

IF YOU CAME HERE FROM THURSDAYTHIRTEEN.COM PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT MY CURRENT TT, SOMEHOW THE LINK TAKES YOU HERE INSTEAD.

One of the websites that's been on the edges of my blog-conciousness is Thursday Thirteen. The idea is that each Thursday you post a list of 13 things about yourself that others might not know, and then add a link at the T13 website so other participants can find you. They have tons of cool tools to use if you want to get all fancy. It's all about lists, and reading other people's lists. Right up my alley! Since I only just decided to do this and Thursday is mostly over, I'm starting with something easy. So here's my first...

... Thirteen Things that are in my purse ...

1. My book (currently Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green)
2. Purell hand sanitizer
3. A small screwdriver (Phillips)
4. Two Sharpies (silver and dark pink)
5. Bills
6. Tide-To-Go stick
7. Two checkbooks, both without any actual checks
8. A book of Kakuro puzzles
9. Two small notebooks (one for permanant notes, one for temporary)
10. Cell phone
11. A small Big Bird
12. A small tape measure
13. A Cadbury egg (shhhh...)

You can find a lot more Thursday Thirteen participants here.