Discover New Blogs

The Hidden Side of the a Leaf has started a Weekly Geek blog challenge. This week's challenge was to visit some of the blogs of the participants, find five that are new to you, leave them a comment and then post on your blog what you have discovered. Since there are currently 115 participants listed there are lots of blogs that are new to me but as I am more of a lurker I don't normally leave comments so it will be a good exercise. This is what I found.

Laura at Reading Reflections is also a new book blogger and I really enjoyed her review of the Book Thief. I have read alot of reviews of that book and Laura's was the first that actually made me want to read the book. I look forward to reading her future reviews.

J at Thinking About ... has a very funny blog that made me laugh out loud and I totally identified with her comments about Yaz!

Misa at This Redhead Reads has a lovely blog and I really enjoyed the post Memories About A Sixth Grade Readathon which stirred up my own reading memories from my childhood.

Naida at the bookworm has a very pretty blog and I enjoyed her review of Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

I enjoyed the attitude of Bibiloatry who states that"reading is essential to living a good life" and contains interesting book reviews.

Spring

Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?

Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?

While I live in the tropics there still is a distinctive change to the season. Spring means an end to the dry season and its brush fires, the mahogany trees lose all their leaves and then promptly releaf, the peacocks become noisy with their mating calls and the days become warmer - you can just feel that summer is coming. While I don't read different types of books as the weather becomes warmer and "keeping cool" becomes an actual activity I do tend to read more. In the winter there are always projects to get done but the hot weather brings with it a sense of justified indolence. No need to clean out that closet, its best to keep cool and read by the pool.

Memes

Being new to bloging I am also new to memes. According to the dictionary a meme is “A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Dictionary.com. In the blogging world this apparently is usually a question or series of questions that other bloggers can then answer on their own blog. See here for more information. Some of them are posed by bloggers randomly, some are posted upon a regular basis and some seem to circulate through something akin to a blogger’s chain letter. Not being fond of chain letters I am going to try a weekly one by Booking Through Thursday which is book related.

March/April Bookmarks

Here are the books that looked interesting from the March/April edition of Bookmarks Magazine.

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski - audio
Signed, Mata Hari by Yannick Murphy - ebook
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips - ebook, audio
Stephen King, Duma Key - ebook, audio
Halting State by Charles Stross - ebook
Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee - S
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan -S
Postsingular by Rudy Rucker
Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

Once Upon a Time II Challenge

I have been debating whether or not to join Carl V.'s Once Upon a Time II challenge. I have never done a challenge before and my first reaction to this one was that I don't read fantasy. After much reflection however I realized that I do read books that would fit into this challenge which includes some of my favorite reads, books on my to be read pile or my wish list - I just don't happen to think of them as fantasy! I have also never attempted to write a review that someone else might read but I am willing to give it a shot.

So in the spirit of trying something new I am going to do Quest the Third (Quest One with Midsummer Nights Dream which I just adore!).

While I reserve the right to change my selections at any time I believe I will be choosing among these books:

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Harsh Cry of the Heron by Lian Hearn
The Bestiary by Nicholas Christopher
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S. Byatt
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

What's the appeal of reading challenges?

In the last six months my lunch time surfing has revealed the world of literary blogs. I find them astonishing on two counts: 1) the sheer volume of books these people read each year and 2) the popularity of reading challenges. In my world I am considered a voracious reader but last year I only read 20 books and the year before only 20 books. The people I know think I am odd because I actually keep a reading diary and know exactly what I read. But compared with the bookish blogosphere I barely read at all. On the one hand it is comforting to know that there are far more book obsessed people out in the world than me. On the other hand it makes me feel like I better step up my performance before I can even begin to consider myself a real reader.

This brings me to challenges - I simply do not understand the appeal. On my bookshelves at home are hundreds of unread books that I really want to read. Moreover I acquire books at a far more rapid pace then I can read them and accumulate lists of books that I want far more rapidly then I could ever obtain them. So why would I want to conform my limited reading time to comply with a reading challenge? I understand wanting to share your thoughts on books through blogging and I can see that exploring a new genre through a challenge might broaden your perspective but why put aside books that I know I want to read to read ones that begin with the letter A or have an animal in the title? And these bibliophile bloggers don't seem to join but one challenge at a time but numerous ones!! How in the world do that they do that and still have real lives - which they seem to have from their posts? Maybe I am just jealous of these bloggers' apparent ability to fit so much reading into their already full lives.

How can I condemn something that I have never tried? I admit that makes me uncomfortable and so I need to do something about it. I have been wrestling with this thought ever since Carl V. started his Once Upon a Time II Challenge. I should try it - no way I don't have time - but it could be fun - but that means I won't read these books here on my bedside table! Uncle - I give up. In the spirit of research I am going to try the challenge to see what it is like.

Libraries and Borges

I found this book while browsing at B&N in Seattle.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. I just love reading about Libraries!

I have a copy of this author's A History of Reading - which I haven't gotten to yet.

Another book of his that I would like to read is With Borges.
Apparently Alberto read to Borges as a teenager.

Lullaby

by Chuck Palahniuk

I read this for book club. I had heard of this author because of his book (and movie) Fight Club which I never really had a desire to read (or see) and I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It is about a “culling song” which kills people. Originally the culling song was supposedly used in times of war or famine to humanly end the suffering of the young, the old, the wounded or dying. The novel however is set in today’s world in which it has been printed in a children’s book of nursery rhymes and consequently led to many accidental deaths. A man who accidently killed his wife and daughter teams up with woman who accidently killed her son and attempt to rid the world of all copies of the nursery rhyme book. I don’t want to give too much plot away but the novel is filled with outrageous characters, darkly funny scenes and witty social commentary.

The characters include a bereaved journalist, a real estate agent who sells and resells haunted houses, a witch, an extortionist/ environmentalist, and a paramedic who likes to have sex with beautiful dead women. There are some wonderful scenes regarding the bombardment of the senses by the noise pollution of the media. His descriptive narrative is unique and vivid, his dialog witty. My only complaint was that I found the end unsatisfying but I still enjoyed the book. If your not scared off by necrophilia and sudden infant death syndrom this dark satire will have you laughing out loud.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

by Robert Pirsig

I had first read this book the summer after I graduated from college while riding trains backpacking through Europe (1985). My husband (boyfriend at the time) read it that same summer while backpacking the Appalachian trail. We both loved it. And now, many many years later I just re-read it for book club and absolutely hated it although it did make for an interesting discussion. The story, to the extent that there is one, is the classic road trip. A boy and his father set out on a motorcycle for a holiday. It is gradually revealed that the relationship between the boy and his father is strained perhaps partly because the father had a mental breakdown and had been hospitalized for quite a while. The main thrust of the book however is to provide “Chautauquas” on the author’s philosophy regarding quality. It is remarkable how little I actually remembered of the book and I was expecting the philosophy, given the title, to be much more Eastern - which it was not. I had to force my self to read it by putting a book I was actually looking forward to reading on the coffee table which I would not allow myself to start until this one was finished. I did finish Zen but my husband didn’t get very far into it even though it was his book selection for book club.

While I don’t often reread books, I have never had such different reactions to the same book. Is it a book that only spoke to its specific era or generation (it was written in 1974) or does it particularly resonate with people at a certain stage of their life? A friend that is about the same age as I am commented that when we graduated from college Zen was a book that anyone who wanted themselves to be considered an intellectual had to read. I don’t remember being that pretentious but perhaps that was part of it. I suspected that it was a book of its time but while nobody at book club liked the book one person did say that a friend of his last year read it just after graduating college while hiking the Appalachian trail and loved it. All I know is that this go around I had no patience for its discussions of romantic versus classical approaches to motorcycle repair or the Greek philosophers. For those interested, a short recap of Pirsig’s philosophy be found at Wikipedia.

If the book put more focus on Eastern philosophy I may have found it more interesting. I enjoyed the story line of the father’s descent into madness and would have liked that story line to have been developed, but the entire plot seemed to be a mere afterthought. Perhaps I am just to the point in my life that I don’t want to waste time on something that I don’t find enjoyable just because others think it is important.

More Books

Darkmans, Nicola Barker
Three Days to Never, Tim Powers
Flower Confidential, Amy Stewart - NF
Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
The Bestiary, Nicholas Christopher
Intruders, Michael Marshall
An Ocean of Air, Gabrielle Walker NF
The River’s Tale: A Year on the Mekong, Edward A. Gargan - NF
The Children’s War, J.N. Stroyar - SF
Probability Broach, L.Neil Smith - SF
Light, M. John Harrison - SF

Some Sci Fi

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams
Recommended by Stainless Steel Droppings


Halting States by Charles Stross
Recommended by Stainless Steel Droppings

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

Wish List

Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Tiger Force - Michael Sallah - S
Heartless Stone - Tom Zoellner
Baby Merchant - Kit Reed
Stolen Child - Keith Donohue
Pale Blue Eye - Louis Bayard
King of Lies - John Hart - S
Hard Way - Lee Child - S
Lambs of London - Peter Ackroyd
In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders - S
Jpod - Douglas Coupland
Cellophane - Marie Arana
Eagles Throne - Carlos Fuentes
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser - S
Sex Lives of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost
Caliph’s House - Tahir Shah
Field Notes from a Catastrophe - Elizabeth Kolbert
End of Story - Peter Abrahams
Digging to America - Anne Tyler
Challenger Park - Stephen Harrigan
Sea of Fertility - Yukio Mishima (Spring Snow 1 of 4)
Borges and the Eternal Orangutans - Luis Fernando Verissimo
Lempriere’s Dictionary - Lawrence Norfolk
Quincunx - Charles Palliser
Bangkok 8 - John Burdett
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
Accidental - Ali Smith
Rainbows End - Victor Vinge
Quantum Zoo - Marcus Chown
Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
House of Paper - Carlos Maria Dominguez
Ex-Libris - Ross King
Sixpence House - Paul Collins
A Reading Diary - Alberto Manguel
Ex-Libris - Anne Fadiman
The Master - Colm Toibin
Next- Michael Crichton
Blindsight - Peter Watts
Mysteries -
Thailand - John Burdett - Bangkok 8 series
Laos - Colin Cotterill - The Coroner’s Lunch
China - Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine
Israel - Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist
Japan - Akimitsu Tagaki
Natsuo Kirino - Out
Italy - Michael Dibdin - Ratking
Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr. Ripley
After Dark - Haruki Murakami
The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano
Angelica - Arthur Philips
My Holocaust- Tova Reich
The Raw Shark Texts- Steven Hall
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union - Michael Chabon
What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
Brasyl - Ian McDonald - SF
Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Baby Merchant - Kit Reed
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Haruki Murakami
Fragile Things - Neil Gaimon
Right Livelihoods - Rick Moody
Ghostwalk - Rebecca Stott
Garden Iden - Kage Baker - SF Company Series - first one
The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox
End of Mr. Y- Scarlett Thomas
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson - S
Fieldwork - Mischa Berlinski
God is Not Great-Christopher Hitchens -S
Yellow-Lighted Bookshop - Lewis Buzbee
Foreign Babes in Beijing - Rachel DeWoskin
Probability Broach - L. Neil Smith
Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo-S
Cheating at Canasta - William Trevor - S
Theory of Clouds- Stephane Audeguy
Elephanta Suite - Paul Theroux
Caspian Rain - Gina B. Nahai
Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon - S
Uncommon Reader - Allen Bennett
Pirates Daughter - Margaret Cezair-Thompson
Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
Mister Pip- Lloyd Jones
Three Days to Never - Tim Powers
Against the Day - Thomas Pinchon-S

Bookmarks Magazine

March/April 2007
Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski
Signed Mata Hari by

May/ June 2007
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Death of a Red Heroine by qui Xiaolong M
Remainder by Tom McCarthy
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin M
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Axis of Time Trilogy by John Birmingham SF
Over Clocked by Cory Doctorow SF SS
Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart NF
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali NF


March/April 2007
The Accidental by Ali Smith
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge SF
The Quantum Zoo by Marcus Chown NF
Books About Books
House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez
Ex-Libris by Ross King
Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel NF
Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins NF
Ex-Libris by Ann Fadiman NF
Yellow Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee


July/August 2005
Revenge by Stephen Fry
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

S =Scott
Nf = Nonfiction
SF = Science Fiction
M = Mystery

Barnes & Noble Wish List

Kafka Americana, Jonathan Lethem
Nam-A-Rama, Phillip Jennings
The Priest of Blood (Vampyricon), Douglas Clegg
Thousand Years Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
Golden Boy, Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood, Martin Booth
Literacy and Longing in L.A., Jennifer Kaufman
The Last Witchfinder, James Morrow
The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein, Dorothy Hoobler
Orientalist, Tom Reiss
Here is Where We Meet, John Berger
Sea, John Banville
Counting Heads, David Marusek
Magus, John Fowles
Singularity, Bill DeSmedt
Birds without Wings, Louis de Bernieres
Le Colonial, Kien Nguyen

In the beginning

This blog has existed for a long time as a place to test different things before I tried them on the book club or food blog. Lately I have been reading lots of great blogs by avid readers and using Library Thing to keep track of books but have been searching for a way to keep my wish list of books on line so I can access them from anywhere. B & N's limit of 25 is just not adequate (even though I have 2 lists), I don't want to use Amazon (I am a B&N stockholder you know) and I don't want to mix up books I may want to consider reading with those I have read in my Library Thing library. Finally it dawned on me that all these great blogs that I read have wish lists on them and I could easily do the same thing with this. So after I dusted this old neglected blog off, picked a new format, brightened up the colors and added some sections - here it is my new place to keep track of books.

Moreover, I may even consider putting my book diary on line. I have kept a book diary for some time in which I write a page about each book I read, why I read it, what I thought about it etc. When our house got broken into last year one of the strangest things the thief took, in addition to a mold of my husbands teeth, was the book diary. Luckily I got it back but a thief couldn't easily steal a blog. Of course it could get whipped out by some cybernetic catastrophe. Hmmm. We'll see.