R.I.P. Challenge Decided

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After thinking about the R.I.P. Challenge today, I have decided on the four books I will read. Actually, I already finished one, but these four books constitute my participation in this particular challenge:

Twilight Rebecca
Jonathan Strange & Mr. NorrellJane Eyre

In case you haven’t noticed, I changed the music in the sidebar to Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” which I think is perfect for curling up with a gothic book. I just wish we had some cool weather, changing leaves, and maybe some raindrops to complete the atmosphere. But I am thinking fall thoughts.

[tags]r.i.p. challenge, reading, literature, twilight, rebecca, jonathan strange & mr. norrell, jane eyre[/tags]

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Twilight

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TwilightA few short hours after announcing that Twilight would definitely be my first book in the R.I.P. Challenge, I finished it. According to my records, I did indeed start it on September 1, so without realizing, I wasn’t even cheating a little bit on the challenge!

I read Twilight based on a recommendation from my daughter. I have to admit I’m a little surprised it turned out to be her cup of tea. Twilight is the story of Bella, who moves in with her father to Forks, Washington in order to allow her mother to follow her baseball-player husband on away-game trips. She immediately notices good-looking Edward Cullen and his beautiful siblings — they keep to themselves and are considered mysterious by the rest of the students. Edward notices Bella, too. In a relatively short period of time, Bella is sure of three things: “First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him — and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

Twilight is aimed at a teen audience, but I believe fans of vampire fiction of all ages would enjoy this suspenseful book. My daughter devoured the book in less than 24 hours, and while I didn’t tear through it that fast, I have to admit that a 498-page book usually takes me a bit longer to read when the beginning of a school year is in full swing. The book is the first in a series including New Moon and Eclipse. The book is fresh, telling some of the familiar parts of the vampire story without being derivative. I think the novel would appeal to fans of vampire fiction as well as those who usually don’t read that sort of book. All of us can relate to Bella’s feelings about being the new girl and crushing on the handsome boy. I really enjoyed the book and plan to read the sequels, too.

[tags]twilight, stephenie meyer, literature, review, fiction, vampire, books, r.i.p. challenge[/tags]

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R.I.P. Challenge

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R.I.P. ChallengeCarl over at Stainless Steel Droppings has a challenge right up my alley — the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril challenge. I have heard of his challenges on other book blogs I read and wanted to participate in one for some time (and nearly did the last Fairy Tale challenge), but it seemed I always found out way too late (good argument for Carl now being in my RSS reader) or got way too busy at that particular moment. But the good news in this case is that I had already started without realizing because Twilight is a perfectly acceptable choice for the challenge! Beside that, I am all for ushering fall in this year with a stack of gothic books. I haven’t completely decided which books (in addition to Twilight) that I’ll read yet, but some ideas include:

I’m still thinking, so after you’ve checked out Carl’s post for requirements (which are very loose), please feel free to suggest titles. The starred titles would be re-reads, but I don’t think that’s necessarily cheating. I would like to firm up what I’m reading fairly soon, and I am totally up for suggestions.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to add that one my student’s parents invited Sarah and I to take part in her mother/daughter book club, and some of these books would be perfect!

[tags]r.i.p. challenge, literature, books, reading, gothic, mystery, horror[/tags]

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September Books

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I have given up on Return of the Native for the time being, but I think I’ll try to pick it up again later. It’s just the kind of thing I usually like to read. I am reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer at the behest of my daughter. Ms. Meyer will be at a book signing in nearby Alpharetta on September 14, so I am supposed to finish Twilight and its sequel in advance of our trip to the signing, but they’re pretty thick books, and I’m a pretty slow reader. Perhaps Sarah will forgive me if I can only finish one.

I’m still reading Moby Dick, but I’m behind. I know where it says I am in the sidebar, but that’s just the most recent installment DailyLit sent. I am actually a good twenty or so installments behind that.

I bought Anthony Burgess’s Nothing Like the Sun and plan to read it soon. I’m also trying to finish Grendel. I have this great historical fiction project going with my British Lit. class, and I want to read all the books on the list that I haven’t already read. Here’s the list, with the ones I’ve read crossed out:

OK, so I know that Grendel isn’t historical fiction, but it sure does go well with Beowulf, and I really wanted to have books that represented each time period we would be studying.

I have a lot of reading to do. I’m looking forward to it.

[tags]historical fiction, england, britain, reading, books, twilight, stephenie meyer[/tags]

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Soundtrack

Posted on by Dana
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Wendy mentioned this meme, and I love the music ones, so here goes.

What is your ringtone?  Right now, it’s Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye.”

What’s the most incongruous song on your mp3 player?  I don’t have one, but of the mp3 collection on my computer, I guess it would be some of the 1920’s tunes I downloaded for use with a Great Gatsby unit I teach, or maybe recordings of Zora Neale Hurston singing African-American folk songs for a WPA project in the 1930’s.

What is the one genre of music you can’t stand?  Rap, hip-hop, whatever you want to call it.

What’s your desert island disk?  I really don’t think I can pick only one.  That’s not fair.  Maybe Jeff Buckley’s Grace.

What’s your secret musical weakness?  Something with violins.  Stick a violin in it, and I love it.

Do you play a musical instrument?  Not anymore, but I played flute for about 15 years or so, guitar for about five, and French horn for one year in middle school.  Of course, if you play flute, you can play piccolo, too.

Best makeout song:  Eh, I’ll pass on this one.

Best driving song: A toss-up between “Wiser Time” by the Black Crowes or “Take it Easy” by the Eagles.  Actually, the whole albums Amorica and Greatest Hits, Volume 1 (by each band respectively) are awesome driving CD’s.

Song everyone should read the lyrics to:  I just put a colon after a preposition, which is making me twitch a little, but I’ll be fine.  Um, I would say “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen or “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan or “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” by Jeff Buckley.

Is downloading music for free a sin?  Is it different from taping mix tapes from friends?  I don’t know.  It depends on a few factors, I think.

Do you do karaoke?  I have tried it.  “She’s a superfreak… superfreak!”  Not regularly.

One musician you would happily whore yourself to: Oh come on.  My parents and students read this thing.

First album you ever bought:  I think it was two at the same time, and if I remember right it was Unchain the Night by Dokken and Theatre of Pain by Mötley Crüe.

Most recent album you bought: Gosh, I am not sure I can remember.  Oh, yes I do.  It was a Chopin CD.  One of those cheapie “greatest hits” things.

Favorite Beatles song:  It’s hard to pick one.  I have always liked “Eight Days a Week” and “Norwegian Wood.”  “Yesterday” is awesome.  So is “Across the Universe.”  How can anyone pick one Beatles song?

Song that represents your teenage years:  I am tempted to say “Back in Black,” but it depends on the intention of the question.  If it means the song that represents my personality, I don’t know, but if it’s the one that I listened to incessantly, it’s either the entire Led Zeppelin catalog or “Living on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi.

Song that represents your twenties:  Maybe “Blue” by the Jayhawks.  Or “Sixth Avenue Heartache” by the Wallflowers.

Song that represents where you are right now:  Either “Bad Luck, Blue Eyes” by the Black Crowes or something bluesy you probably never heard of.

Song that represents your blog: Just because of the look, I’m thinking “No Rain” by Blind Melon.  That’s the quintessential sunny day song, isn’t it?

So tag yourself if you feel up to it.

[tags]music, meme[/tags]

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Silence Isn’t Always Golden

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Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder what to do about this blog. My other blogs have a much more narrow purpose, so they tend to be updated more frequently (although that isn’t always the case). The folks who read those blogs do so because they get something out of the content that I’m not sure they would if I hadn’t focused the content. In that regard, my most popular blog (and most frequently updated blog) is my education blog. Most people hit upon my Harry Potter blog looking for something particular, but I have few regular readers and no real regular commenters (which does not bother me, by the way). My genealogy blog has a core readership consisting of other genealogy bloggers. I have a blog for students that I think is mostly limited to their readership.

Sometimes I get really busy, and the blogs fall by the wayside. When that happens, the priority tends to be to focus on the education blog. This blog and the genealogy blog in particular are often victims of my lack of time. I know that it costs me readers, but I had to decide a long time ago whether that bothered me or not, and with this blog in particular, I decided it didn’t. I know a few people who don’t understand why I blog, and if they read only this one, I have to admit that they probably have a point. But this blog is a nice place for me to put stuff I don’t think fits elsewhere. I don’t have any real desire to completely delete this blog, but I hope everyone understands the reasons it isn’t frequently updated. I think if this blog had more “purpose” aside from serving as a place for me to review books, I would probably update it more frequently. I know having a purpose for my other blogs really helps in that regard.

I chose the title of this blog from the first line of a poem by Emily Dickinson that reads:

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, — you’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

In the sense that this blog is such a hodge podge — or more truthfully, and unfocused mess — I thought it was a good title.  I was essentially saying that it wouldn’t be like other blogs, and it might not make sense, but maybe a few people would get something out of it sometimes.

I like blogging.  I like having connections to people all over the world.  I know some people think it’s weird, but I have to accept that it’s OK if a few people I don’t know all that well think I’m weird.

[tags]blogging, direction, purpose[/tags]

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Scratches

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I have been enjoying a PC game this week.  I haven’t played one in a long time, I think.  I played them quite a bit in the ’90s before the Internet became my main distraction on the computer.   The game is called Scratches, and it’s pretty scary.  It was originally released over a year ago, but an updated Director’s Cut includes new material.  Not Halloween or Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street scary, but more like The Others, The Ring, or The Blair Witch Project scary.  What I mean by that is so far, the thrills are utterly devoid of gore.  I’m not done yet, so that might not be true — the game is rated T for alcohol and tobacco reference (there are cigars and alcohol bottles in the game, but no one indulges that I’ve seen yet), blood, mild language, and mild violence.  I’ve heard the mild language, but as for the blood and mild violence, not yet.

Here is a trailer for the game:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/64lHWOCLn70" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Like I said, so far it’s pretty creepy and scary, but not graphic or gross.  The storyline is intriguing, and the music is spectacularly creepy.  I think many times it was the music that  scared me more than what I was experiencing in the game.  You can read a review of the game here.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsI finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night, and all I will say is… wow.  It was amazing.  I loved it.  It was my favorite of the series, and possibly, I have to say, my favorite book ever.

I won’t post a review here.  I have a Harry Potter blog, and I will be posting whatever thoughts I want to share about the book over there.  I do want to wait until this weekend in order to avoid spoiling it for others, but frankly, after the book has been released, I say it’s fair game for discussion.  Pop on over there if you are interested.

I wish I didn’t have so much summer reading to do!  I want to start over again from the first book to the last.  That’s a project that will have to wait.

Thanks so very much for the wonderful books, Jo.

[tags]harry potter, deathly hallows[/tags]

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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One Day in the Life of Ivan DenisovichAleksandr Solzhenitsyn poignantly captures the hardships of the Soviet Union’s labor camps in Siberia, as well as the arbitrary unfairness of living in that regime in his novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich , and I’m glad I read it for that reason.  Solzhenitsyn himself was arrested after criticizing Stalin in a personal letter.  He was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp, and permanent internal exile following his labor camp sentence.  This sentence was, however, apparently commuted after he was treated for cancer.  He was deported from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned in 1990 following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Much of Ivan Denisovich Shukov’s experiences in the labor camp must have been modeled after the author’s own.

I found the novel difficult to read.  In order to preserve the narrative thread, which captures one day in an average prisoner’s life in the camp, the book is not divided into chapters.  This lack of division made it difficult to stop reading.  I am generally not a reader who can read an entire book in one sitting.  For one thing, I’m a slow and generally careful reader.  Even if that were not the case, however, as a mother of three I don’t have the luxury of reading in one sitting most of the time.  Therefore, with Ivan, I had to frequently re-read passage so I could pick up the thread of the narrative again.  To be honest, having to re-read so much made the book something of a chore to get through.  I would imagine a few of my more politically-charged students might have found the book interesting, but I would be surprised if the majority liked this book more than Siddhartha or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

I didn’t find the book difficult to understand; H. T. Willetts’ translation was accessible.  However, the unfamiliar names did impede my comprehension somewhat.  I’m not sure I did a very good job keeping the characters straight.  For example, I would imagine most American readers would have no problem understanding if a character named Robert were suddenly called Bob.  Likewise, it probably throws off no Russian readers when Ivan is addressed as Vanya, but it didn’t immediately occur to me that Vanya was a nickname, and I was confused.  I started to look up the name, thinking perhaps it was a term I was unfamiliar with and then it hit me as I looked at the name that it was a nickname.  In general, however, the book’s footnotes did an excellent job helping Western readers understand the allusions in the book.

I think One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an essential text — a true-to-life account of what life was like in the Soviet Union, and I think people who read this book may come away feeling more thankful for the freedoms they have.  However, I can’t really say that I found it enjoyable.  Perhaps a book about a Soviet labor camp shouldn’t be described as enjoyable?  Let’s say it wasn’t gripping, then — at least not for me.

[tags]aleksandr solzhenitsyn, one day in the life of ivan denisovich, book, review, literature[/tags]

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