Reading Update: September 11, 2010

TeaIt feels each day like fall is just around the corner. Fall makes me think of tea. I truly wish we had a little tea place like this, where I had a great pot of tea several years ago. We have a few branches of Teavana, but none close by (that I know of) have a little place to sit. Sort of like Starbucks, but for tea. Because Starbucks’ tea is only OK.

What goes with a great cup of tea? Books, of course! So I finished The Hunger Games series, and am currently experiencing the withdrawal symptoms that go with finishing the last book and wishing it wasn’t the last book. I did pick up The Heretic’s Daughter, and so far it’s fine, but it doesn’t have me by the hair yet.

I had to abandon American Music. It has some great reviews on Amazon, but it looks like some of the folks on Goodreads were in agreement with me. It sounds like an interesting premise, but I just wasn’t interested, and I decided not to spend any more time on it. I realized I needed to just stop listening to the book in the car when I was trying to find other things to do—listen to all of my podcasts and music—rather than listen to it. It might be better to actually read rather than listen to, but at any rate, I don’t think it’s for me. When I decided to stop listening to it, it was sitting on about two stars for me, and life is growing too short to spend on two-star books. So I am listening to Persuasion, and Juliet Stevenson is a brilliant narrator. I love her characterization of Sir Walter Eliot. Plus it’s part of my Everything Austen II Challenge, and since I feel behind on that one, I need to give it some attention.

I have what I think is a pretty good idea for a reading challenge in 2011, but I’m keeping quiet about it for the time being.

Now I’m going to go fix a cup of tea and work on my portfolio a little while before I read. How are you spending the weekend? And what are you reading?

photo credit: Prakhar Amba

Reading Update: August 29, 2010

Reading a book at the beachI set aside Syrie James’s The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, which I am reading as part of the Everything Austen Challenge, because everyone I know is reading Suzanne Collins’s Mockingjay, and I hadn’t even read The Hunger Games. Well, I’m about 200 pages in now, after borrowing it from a friend, and I have to say it’s real page-turner. I have been trying to talk my daughter into reading it because Collins’s writing style actually reminds me of Sarah’s. I think Sarah would like it. I might finish it today (after all, I read more than the amount of pages I have left yesterday). If so, I’ll post a review later.

I do have a couple of theories that I can’t wait to discover whether or not I’m correct about. District 13, believed to be destroyed by the Capitol, reminds me of the group of readers in Fahrenheit 451, and I am wondering if they’re not really destroyed but secretly carrying on some form of resistance. Don’t tell me! I want to find out. Also, it’s obvious to me that the Romeo and Juliet move that Peeta pulled is no act, whatever Katniss has decided to believe. But I guess I’ll find that out.

I am still reading David Copperfield on DailyLit. The infamous Miss Havisham has just been mentioned for the first time. I picked up Jane Mendelsohn’s American Music at Audible after hearing Mendelsohn interviewed by Valerie Jackson on Between the Lines. The book sounded interesting. After listening for a short time, I think I would have put the second chapter of the book first. It seems a little disjointed. But I haven’t been listening long, so we’ll see. It is short for an audio book. Of course, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables is still on my Kindle, though I haven’t even finished chapter 2 yet. I bought The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent and Juliet by Anne Fortier on the Kindle with my Amazon Associates gift card. Also subscribed to The New Yorker on Kindle. I’ll let you know how it is. It’s my first Kindle magazine subscription.

What are you reading?

photo credit: Simon Cocks