Now that is a little boy!

"I NOT a baby!"

Notes of what I'm reading

Rather than cross post every review to both blogs, I have decided to post little notes here and the actual reviews over there.

This begs the question, what AM I reading?

Last weekend I read all of Storm Front by Jim Butcher and really enjoyed it. I finally got my review of it up tonight. Then on Monday night I picked up Perfectly Plum and started it. I got about two essays in before deciding that perhaps I wasn't in the mood for it. It's a much more technical style than the last few books of essays I read, and I wasn't enjoying it at all. The only other book on my end table (and heaven forbid I get up) was Literacy and Longing in L.A. by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. I've read about 80 pages and so far I am underwhelmed. Bloggers are loving it all over the place, but I can not relate to the lead character at all and the writing style doesn't grab me either. I finally picked up Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs and, as expected, sank right in. I should finish it up in the next day or two.

I've spent a lot of time this weekend moving books around (still making room for a baby in our house!) and have found tons of books that I Really! Want! to! Read! so hopefully I can make more time for reading in the next few months.

What are you reading? What are you looking forward to?

The "You Make My Day" Award

A week or so ago Suey at It's All About Books was generous enough to give me the "You Make My Day"Award. I was a bit shocked to find that there are actually people out there still reading my blog, seeing as I never actually post to it any more. (Or so it seems!) This little award has been going around for a couple of weeks and my Google Reader subscriptions have increased a lot because of it. This means, however, that I'm having a hard time figuring out who *I* want to give it to. I'm worried that I'll leave someone I love out! I don't have a blogroll on my blog (mainly cause I'm too dang lazy to do it) and I realize this means that no one knows who I read and love!

I am subscribed to 286 blogs on Google Reader. Now, some of those are defunct, and some of those I just glance at the topic title and skim, but there's still a good number of them that I read every day. How'm I supposed to narrow that down?? So instead of giving out the award, here's what I'm gonna do- Over there to the right, a little ways down, there is a section of shared items (Great posts from other bloggers!) I'm sometimes a bit lax about marking items shared, but I promise to be more generous in the future. If you click on the little "read more" at the bottom, you can even subscribe to a feed of them! I know, this is a bit of a cheat, but I'd rather send you off to see ALL my favorites than just the first few that pop into my head.

Thanks again, Suey, for the award. I love knowing that I do have a FEW readers left! Real content is coming soon! I hope!

In the meantime, check out my newest blogging endeavor We'd Rather Read. This one is a joint blog with some friends that promises to be a lot of fun- once we get it off the ground. If you're interested in blogging with us drop me a line, we could use one or two more readers... bookslistslifeATgmail works fine.

Randomness

Lots of things to post about here today. The monkey and I are both off today and had big plans for shopping and lunch, but woke up to being snowed in. So I guess we'll hang out at home instead!

I blogged about my two most recent reads over on We'd Rather Read, be sure to stop by and check it out. I'm currently reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher. It's a really fast book and with this snow I'll probably finish it today. I'm not sure what's up next. I have the next Dresden book, but I also have Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs. And several hundred other possibilities.

We've started the huge task of turning our guest room into the new baby's nursery. My husband built some shelving in the closet that is custom sized to accommodate those square cloth boxes. We'll be using those instead of a dresser. The closet is 54 inches wide and he built a waist high shelf all the way across that we'll be using as a changing table. I need to find a cream or tan shower curtain to use as a door. I started removing all our books from the two floor to ceiling shelves and dispersing them to other parts of the house. I decided to leave all the "classics" in there on the theory that kids eventually need to read the classics. Right? I also left all the kid books, even the ones that are way too old for either child (Little House on the Prairie, Harry Potter, Inkheart, etc.) If we end up buying another set of shelves I'll probably move the classics out.

We bought one large set of shelves to put in the living room, but it only holds part of the books. I like to mix framed pictures and stuff in with my books so part of the shelves aren't books, but I like the way it looks. I've dealt with most of the non-fiction, but still need to address fiction. As it turns out, my husband is resistant to getting rid of any book he's ever read, so while most of the books are mine, most of the already-read books are his. The shelves in the living room have five shelves. Because this is a bookish blog, I will bore you with what made it out here-
Top Shelf: religion, books and authors, current event stuff like The Tipping Point
Second Shelf: Travel books- Bill Bryson, my growing collection of Italy books, a statue of Don Quixote, a picture from our Mexico trip
Middle Shelf: History, largely WWII and Stephen Ambrose
Fourth Shelf: Baseball
Bottom Shelf: Random mix of large hardcovers

There will eventually be more odds and ends mixed in, I'm getting the books here first. We have shelves in the basement for overflow.

I bought fabric for the new baby's quilt this weekend, so that will be underway soon. We have the curtains ready to be hung once the giant desk is moved out of the way. Then it's largely a matter of moving the daybed across the room and clearing out the rest of the odds and ends. It's so much more real this time than with the Monkey. This time we KNOW what's coming. Two kids. Yikes.

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

Talk to anyone who has known me for more than a couple of years and they'll be surprised to learn that I read a book about a politician (not counting long dead ones.) In the last few years I find myself caring more and more, and becoming more interested in what is going on around me. I've written letters to my local representatives- something I wouldn't have even considered 6 years ago. I am still woefully lacking in a political education. I don't understand a lot of the political process. But I'm trying and, for me, that's huge.

I started The Audacity of Hope several weeks ago. The beginning was pretty hard for me because it referenced a lot of political history that I just didn't know about. Once of the side effects of pregnancy is that I'm tired all the time, and staying awake to read about political history (however lightly written) was tough. After this section Obama breaks down his feelings on various aspects of our country: education, race, family, and religion among others. It's not heavy handed, in fact, it's very conversational. I found that the book was making me depressed, not because I didn't agree, but rather because I DID. It was very hard to ignore the things I've been ignoring when someone is pointing them out to you. Obama doesn't blatantly blame anyone, but does point out areas where he feels change would be good. It's not a book of his position or his platform on any of the topics. Reading this doesn't tell me what he's going to DO, but it does tell you how he FEELS. This might not be what you're looking for in a book by a politician. Or, if you're me, it's exactly what you're looking for. It was hard to read but I'm glad I read it.

Cross posted at We'd Rather Read.

Mental Floss's 7 of Literature's Most Desireable Leading Men

Today is Valentine's Day, which I happen to love. I'm a bit crabby today because I've run into too many Valentine's Day haters both online and in person. I don't understand the need to make fun of someone else for enjoying the day. I don't ramble on talking about it to every person I know, and I don't make a big deal of it to the people I'm not celebrating it with so why ridicule it? ANYWAY.

I found this nice little list on the Mental_Floss website and feel compelled to share with you. This list is one Mental_Floss blogger's top seven list of leading men. I was able to guess two of them (#1 and #4). I really want to add the ones I haven't read to my list. (For the record, I've read the first four books. I just didn't agree with 2 and 3.) I wish I knew how to hide part of this post, so you could guess the answers before you say them. Instead, you get a picture of something romantic.

Now, on to the list! On the website, they start with number 1, I'm choosing to go backwards from 7.

7. Enjolras (from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo)

6. George Emerson (from A Room with a View by EM Forster)

5. Edmond Dantes (from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas)

4. Mr. Rochester (from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)

3. Almanzo Wilder (from Farmer Boy and other books by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

2. Gilbert Blythe (from the Anne of Green Gables series by LM Montgomery)

1. Mr. Darcy (from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

How many did you guess?