Month: June 2013

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Mo’ Books, Mo’ Problems: Update 4

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Here we go again.  I think this’ll probably be my second-to-last of these updates, because I’m getting a grip now (slowly).  Somehow I managed to work my way through three books this week.  Don’t ask me how I did it, because this has been one of the most stressful weeks I’ve ever had.  Seriously, pretty much the only thing that got me through Wednesday was an Instagram photo of Britney Spears with her crew cut, and the caption, “If Britney can get through 2007, I can get through today.”  Have you ever had one of those weeks where every single thing seems to go wrong?  The best I could do all week, when anyone asked me how things were going, was to mutter, “I’m surviving.”

The one and only thing that’s gone right for me this week was that I was able to renew Summer for the Gods.  So that one’s now due back… I don’t know.  Later.  What I care about at the moment is the fact that I don’t need to worry about it.  Reading-wise, here’s my (somewhat miraculous) progress for the week:

  • Finished The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, which I really, really enjoyed.  I’m looking forward to getting my copy of the author’s new book, The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England, from the library just as soon as my hold comes in.  Yep, I went there.  And then there were five.
  • I wanted something light and easy, so I went for The Mother-Daughter Book Club and finished it in a day.  Loved the sweet premise of moms and their middle-school daughters forming a book club and reading Little Women over the course of a year.  I had some thoughts about the moms’ un-Marmeelike behavior, and you can read my rant here.  All things considered, though, I really enjoyed this and will definitely be continuing on with the series.  And then there were four.
  • Next up, I felt like I needed some Paris in my life, so I grabbed The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris, which was another fast read.  This was spotty for me: there were some parts I found extremely enjoyable and informative, and other parts that bored me or put me off.  But the book worked its magic and I’m now dying for a trip back to Paris.  And then there were three.
  • Started She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth and I’m nine pages in.  Yep, only nine: I picked it up on a plane flight but was only able to make it that far before a headache I was battling escalated to the point at which I just had to close my eyes.  Advil helped when I got on the ground, but I ended up working late and didn’t get a chance to read any more last night.  Shame, because the little bit I did read was good stuff: fascinating history written in a great narrative style.  I can’t wait to read more.

So, yeah, between fighting off stress headaches and feeling like everything is otherwise falling apart on me, I’m sort of amazed that I read as much as I did.  Or maybe I’m not – reading has always represented an escape for me, and escape is just what I’ve needed this past week.  Next week… well, it’s shaping up to be another nasty one, and I don’t know that I’ll have much time to sink into a good book.  I think I’ll finish She-Wolves, but I may end up returning Far From the Tree and getting back on the waiting list for that one.  I’m okay with that option, since I have a lot of other books that I am itching to read.  Onward.

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What Would Marmee Do?

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I just finished reading The Mother-Daughter Book Club, the first in a middle-grade series by the same name.  I’ve been meaning to read this series for awhile and I’m finally getting around to it.  The premise is so sweet: a group of moms organize a book club for themselves and their sixth-grade daughters.  The moms and daughters read Little Women together while the girls navigate the drama of sixth grade, asking all the while, “What would Jo March do?”

For the most part, I really liked The Mother-Daughter Book Club.  It was cute and the characters were engaging, and I enjoyed seeing Little Women through a different lens.  But there was one thing that really bothered me, and days later, it’s still nagging at me:

I didn’t like the way the moms made fun of another mom in front of their daughters.

Mrs. Chadwick is not a pleasant character.  She’s the town shrew, she’s mean, she expels the book club from the library, and she’s the epitome of helicopter parent.  She actually chastises a mom because her kid, in Mrs. Chadwick’s opinion, took her son’s place on the youth hockey team (even though her son can barely stand up on skates).  She also turns a blind eye to the bullying done by her daughter, Becca, the school snob.  When Becca steals another girl’s diary and reads it aloud to the victim’s crush, Mrs. Chadwick refuses to chastise her.  She also yells at one of the book club girls after Becca violently shakes the girl’s five-year-old brother by the arm.  Much of what Mrs. Chadwick does throughout the book is very much not okay.

However.  Mrs. Chadwick’s distinguishing physical feature is a large posterior, and the other moms vent their frustration about her high-handed tactics toward their book club by commenting upon it, incessantly, in the presence of their daughters.  They teach the girls to play a “synonym game” where they use synonyms for “big” in front of Mrs. Chadwick (who, true to form, doesn’t realize she’s being mocked).  Toward the end of the book Mrs. Hawthorne, the town librarian and organizer of the book club, comments, “Now that’s what I’d call a caboose.”  When the other moms gasp “Phoebe!” Mrs. Hawthorne turns red (even though she’s made the occasional nasty comment about Mrs. Chadwick before – she’s not the worst offender, but she’s hardly innocent) and begs them not to tell her husband what she said.

Your husband? I thought.  Who cares what he thinks?  Worry about them not telling your daughter – or actually, don’t, because she’s sitting right there and heard it for herself.  And if she isn’t already wondering, Emma Hawthorne will be soon beginning to question whether it’s okay for the other girls to comment upon her weight – which they do, even her friends – given that her own mother fat-talks another mom.

The book club moms have quite the double standard for what’s okay.  On the one hand, they heavily chastise and nearly expel one girl from the club because she turns a blind eye and participates in bullying.  But then they gang up on another mom.  They exclude Mrs. Chadwick from the club because she’s not in their yoga class (although, as Mrs. Hawthorne acidly remarks, yoga would do her some good).  They purport to instruct the girls on how to treat one another even when they’re bullying another mother.  Practice what you preach, ladies.  Forget Jo March.  What would Marmee do?  I can tell you one thing: she wouldn’t fat-talk another mom in front of her little women, no matter how irritating that other mom was.  I kept hoping for one of the moms to realize this and put a stop to the behavior, but none of them did.

Girls absorb a lot of information through their moms – not only from being spoken to directly, but from watching them too.  As Mrs. Hawthorne says, little pitchers have big ears.  The moms of the Mother-Daughter Book Club clearly know better, but what they’re teaching their daughters – even while giving lip service to kindness – is that bullying is okay if it’s someone outside your social circle.  That consideration and gentle treatment is reserved for your friends and when it comes to your enemies, all bets are off.  The girls spent the book listening to their moms tell them to treat one another nicely, but then watching them tear another mom down.  That’s a lesson that will stick with those girls, and not in a good way.  I don’t know if it’s something I would have picked up on before having Peanut, but now that I have a daughter I try to think about the example I set for her.  I want her to grow up treating herself and others with kindness.  I’m certainly not planning to preach one behavior and model the opposite – because girls are always watching, and they notice everything.  Peanut’s young yet, but ten years from now she’ll be embarking on her own middle school journey and when she does, she’ll have a mom that sets an example for her, and she’ll certainly never hear me fat-talking another woman.  I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I am going to try as hard as I can to never tear down another woman in front of Peanut.  I hope that in the second book, Much Ado About Anne, the book club moms will set a better example too.

According to the publisher’s description Much Ado About Anne, the moms invite Mrs. Chadwick and “snooty” Becca to join the book club in the next book.  So I’m hoping that one or all of them had an attitude adjustment and realized that they were behaving in exactly the unkind way they were warning their daughters against.  I’m not going to stop reading the series, because I really did enjoy the first book.  The premise is a lot of fun, and I did love the characters.  But if Peanut ever picks up this series, she and I will definitely talk after the first book about the moms’ behavior and how it relates to what she may experience with girls in middle school.  I’ll explain to her that sometimes moms make mistakes, and that it’s wrong to make nasty comments about a person’s appearance no matter how old you are.  And I’ll try my best to practice what I preach, because that’s what both Marmee and Jo would do.

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Peanut: Ten Months

No shoes on the furniture? Sorry Mommy, I chose not to hear that.

No shoes on the furniture? Sorry Mommy, I chose not to hear that.

Double digits.  Oh, my goodness, where is the time going?  How are we in double digits?  I keep scratching my head, because this is just unbelievable.  It feels like she just arrived a moment ago, and yet, here she is with a huge personality and into everything and just becoming her own little self, more and more each day.  I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, saying this stuff every month, but it’s just true.

Blah, blah, blah, Mommy.

Blah, blah, blah, Mommy.

This month, more than any other, Peanut discovered music.  Oh, she’s always enjoyed being sung to, and Auntie Em played plenty of Raffi when she was with us, but it’s just dawning on Peanut that music is a thing, and she LOVES it.  She has started to recognize her favorite songs on Pandora (we play the Raffi channel) and she sings along with them, stomps her foot and slaps her thigh like a little baby folk singer.  It’s just about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.  She’s also obsessed with my cello; I’m not sure she knows it’s a musical instrument, but it’s certainly on theme for the month.

You think it's cute now, but you will never get Raffi out of your head.

Phantom of the Opera baby demands that you sing for her.

Another relatively new love: water!  Now that it’s warm, Nana has been taking Peanut out to play with a bucket of water on the deck on nice days.  And for when it gets really hot, we’ve got a kiddie wading pool all ready to go.  I can’t wait to see her splashing in it.  She’s been enjoying water so much, in fact, that we’ve been joking that we need to wear ponchos for bath time, and Peanut has been affectionately dubbed “Baby Kraken.”

Peanut also has another new nickname this month: Fang.  Yep, we’ve officially got teeth.  She has two on the bottom, and after being bitten several times I finally got a visual.  (Peanut hides them – if you try to get a look, she sticks out her tongue and covers them up.)  And just a few days before her birthday, Nana and I also caught sight of a little white peeking out from her top gum.  I’ve got to say for Peanut: she’s been remarkably easygoing and uncomplaining so far (knock wood).  Our little NICU ninja isn’t going to cry over some little thing like teething!  We can tell she’s teething because she gnaws on everything and drools constantly… and bites us, there’s that… but there’ve been no tears, not even a little whimper.  We have baby acetaminophen for her if she seems to need it, but we haven’t had to use it once.  She’s been her usual charming self the whole time.  Miracle.  I’m almost afraid to have another kid, because Peanut’s been such an easy baby (after that whole NICU thing, that is) that I’m scared of what would happen if baby #2 turned out more temperamental.  Peanut’s got me spoiled.

Hey bird, come down here. I have a surprise for you.

Hey bird, come down here. I have a surprise for you.

Another milestone this month: hubby’s first Father’s Day!  I didn’t do a whole special post for it because, well, this isn’t his blog and he’s entitled to a little privacy.  But we had a great day.  Peanut gave her dad a handmade oak beer tote with a sixpack of one of his favorite craft IPAs (yep, he’s a beer snob) and a t-shirt with an illustration of a dinosaur and the words “Daddysaurus Rex.”  We had a pizza date on Saturday (Peanut sat in my lap and made grabs for my pizza) and on Sunday church, then a relaxing day at home.  As a special treat, Peanut fell asleep in her dad’s arms on Sunday afternoon and snuggled there for over an hour while he watched golf and FaceTimed with his dad; she never sleeps in our arms anymore, so he was elated.  He’s an amazing, loving, hands-on father and Peanut is so lucky to have him as her dad.

Dad, did you see all these pizza toppings?

Dad, did you see all these pizza toppings?

Peanut at 10 Months

Adjusted Age: 8 months

Weight: 16 pounds, 2 ounces

Clothing Size: 9 months, mostly, but she has a few 12 month outfits she’s already wearing.  I can’t believe I have to go shopping again.  (Oh, who am I kidding?  I love it.)

Sleep: Still going strong!  Every so often there’s a short-lived nap strike, but for the most part she’s an angel.  And bedtime has gone from the time of day I dreaded most to being one of the things I look forward to most.  We have so many sweet moments.  At 7:00 p.m. Peanut and I go upstairs and I feed her the last bottle of the evening while Daddy listens in on the baby monitor.  When we’re done he comes upstairs and joins us while I change Peanut into her pajamas (a fresh onesie and a fleece sleepsack) – he can always tell we’re on that phase of the bedtime ritual because I sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” while I change Peanut’s onesie.  Then Daddy cuddles Peanut while I read a bedtime story (and hold the book well out of reach of her mouth), we put her in the crib and say her prayers (a selection from her Really Woolly bedtime prayer book, and then the classic “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep”), give her kisses, and tiptoe out.  And then, with very few exceptions, she’s down for the count.  She lays in her crib and talks quietly to herself for about ten minutes, then drops off to dreamland, and we hardly hear a peep from her until she wakes up, well rested and ready for her morning bottle.  Bedtime has gone from a battle to a sweet and cuddly time, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Likes: In addition to music and water, which I think we can all agree are the coolest, Peanut is still enjoying Mom’s homemade baby food.  I made her apple and pear sauce with cinnamon this month (recipe coming soon) and it was a huge hit.  Another big like: church, which provides endless entertainment.  Our historic church building boasts gorgeous art deco lighting fixtures, and Peanut is a big fan of lighting.  She’s also a fan of the old ladies who play peekaboo with her during services.  And, let’s be honest, she likes the way her voice echoes in the big room when she babbles loudly during the sermon.

Ten Months 5

You seriously put a cookie and a zucchini in front of me and expect me to pick the zucchini?

Dislikes: This is a tough one this month, because Peanut has been so remarkably good-natured – even more good-natured than usual – that I’m having a hard time coming up with anything.  Getting overtired isn’t fun, so missed naps sometimes create crankiness.  And Peanut really can’t stand it when I wipe her face (she’s going to have to deal, though, since teething-biscuit-mask isn’t the look I’m going for on my baby).  But for the most part, we’ve had such a smiley, giggly month that I can’t really come up with a dislike.

Favorite Toys: Still loving books (as a friend said when I told her about Peanut’s book obsession, “She’s your daughter!”).  And she’s been having fun with a big cube toy from Hape, which comes with a mirror and beads and a goldfish to twirl and all kinds of other good stuff.  I can’t really describe it, but here’s a  (blurry) pic, and you can see it’s enthralling (and yes, I play with it too):

Mommy, put the camera away and come flick beads with me.

Mommy, put the camera away and come flick beads with me.

Milestones: CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP.  One chomp for each of her three pearly whites!

Quirks: I don’t know why, but Peanut thinks that me walking up or down the stairs is just about the funniest thing in the entire world.  She can go from catatonic to cackling in three seconds if I start walking up the stairs.  Of course I ham it up, bouncing up and down and announcing, “I’m going up the stairs!  Here I go!  Yay!  Up!  Up!  Up the stairs!”  (Okay, I’d laugh at me too.)  But the strangest thing about this is that the stairs are not nearly as funny if it’s ANYONE else.  She’ll laugh at me walking up or down, and she’ll laugh if I’m holding her on the stairs, but if Daddy holds her and shows her Nana walking up the stairs… well, it’s mildly amusing, but the torrents of giggles are reserved for Mommy.  I’m so glad she finds me so wildly entertaining, but I don’t really know what it is about the combination of me and stairs that revs her little baby engine so.

I'm-a eat this pillow later.

I’m-a eat this pillow later.

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Mo’ Books, Mo’ Problems: Update 3

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Sweet baby carrots, what fresh madness is this?

So, uh, the picture above is different, because I have issues.  The best I can explain is that something irrational comes over me from time to time and I become convinced that the library is going to disappear and I must reserve ALL THE BOOKS or else I may never be able to read them, ever.  Please send chocolate.

Here’s the new sitch:

Due back June 29th:

The Mother-Daughter Book Club
Summer for the Gods

Due back July 8:

Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris
The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England

Sheesh.  What is WRONG with me, people?  What is this strange compulsion that keeps me frantically reserving books while simultaneously bemoaning the fact that I never get the chance to read anything from my own shelves, or re-read my old favorites?  There’s a simple solution here; I just can’t figure out what it is.

This week’s reading:

  • Blazed through The House Girl, which turned out to be a very quick read once I kicked the urge to throw the book down every ten pages and complain, “That would NEVER happen!”  (Note to self: don’t read any more books set in law firms.)  I loved the historical parts of the book, and I also enjoyed the present-day protagonist.
  • Finally managed to pick up and read Beautiful Creatures, which I’ve been promising R and my mom that I’d read.  I never read Twilight and never had any desire to do so, so it took some motivating for me to crack the spine of this one.  It was a fast read and I finished it, but I can’t say it was my cup of tea.
  • Started The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England and so far, two chapters in, I’m loving it.  It’s such a fun premise – a non-fiction history written like a travel guide – and it’s also fascinating.

This was another busy week at work and at home.  Things have just been piling up in both areas.  I’ve got several big projects on my plate at the office – interesting ones, and all things I’m excited about, but lots of moving pieces, and ones that will involve working this weekend – and at home I’m making an effort to stay more on top of meal prep and cooking, to save money and calories during the week.  Peanut is also eating more purees, which means I have to keep churning out baby food.  No complaints there; I love cooking all of her food from scratch.  But it takes time!  Still, I’m managing to squeeze some book time in each day and still not beating myself up if I have to return a book and get back on a waiting list.  (I may have to do just that with Far From the Tree, which would be a shame since I waited so long for it.  But it’s 972 pages of dense non-fiction, and I’m more excited to read the other new books I had reserved – especially The Most Beautiful Walk in the World and The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England.)  I’m planning to attack some of the July 8th books first, because I believe I should be able to renew both of my June 29th books, so after The Time Traveler’s Guide, I’ll be hitting up The Most Beautiful Walk in the World.  Can’t wait!

Check back next week for more reading progress, and in the meantime, you can find me (still) furiously turning pages.

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Audiobook Week: Post III

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Friday!  At last!  TGIF, and for my first post of two today, here are my answers to Jen’s prompts for Thursday and Friday of Audiobook Week:

Thursday

Jen asks: What do you do while you listen? Any particular tasks or games that you find amazing for audio time?

If you read Monday’s post, you know that my main listening-time activity is driving.  Audiobooks make my commute so much better.  I haven’t yet found one good enough to make me sit in my driveway once I get home, or to pray for traffic so I can listen longer – I’d always rather get to work in the morning (the sooner I start working, the sooner I can go home to baby) and get home in the evening.  But the drives are bearable thanks to the library audio shelves, and that’s saying something.

Friday

Jen asks: Where do you learn about great audiobook titles? Buy your audiobooks? Share your secrets with the rest of us! We’d particularly love to know what narrators or publishers are active in social media or do a great job communicating with listeners.

Hmmm, I can’t say I have any secrets to share.  There’s very little rhyme or reason to my audiobook selection process, and they all come from the library.  I just choose something I want to read and hope for good audio production and non-scratched discs.  Maybe by next year, I’ll have some secrets to share.

(That said, there is one audiobook on my wish list: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the British version read by Stephen Fry.  I like the American versions with Jim Dale just fine, but I’m a huge Fry fan and I’d love to hear him read the last Potter.  I’ve yet to figure out how to get a copy Stateside, but the next time hubby and I travel to England – probably in a few years, when Peanut is old enough to take a long trip – this will be a must-purchase.  I haven’t looked into getting it on e-audio, but I would rather have it on CD anyway.  I don’t know how I came into the information that Stephen Fry narrated the British versions – must have read it somewhere.  Anyway, I’m coveting.)

That’s it for Audiobook Week – Jen, thanks for hosting, this was fun!  By next year, I expect I’ll have a full year of regular listening under my belt and plenty more to say on the topic.

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Audiobook Week: Post II (Mid-Week Meme)

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Audiobook week continues with a meme!  Fun, fun.  Here are Jen’s questions and my answers:

Current/Most Recent Audiobook:

Main Street Audio (Image Source)

Right now, I’m listening to Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis – specifically, to this version from Recorded Books Classics Library.

Impressions:

I’d been meaning to read Main Street for quite some time, so getting it on audio is a good way for me to check it off my list.  I’m on the seventh disc now and really enjoying it.  Barbara Caruso’s narration is wonderful – and very true to the times in which the story was set, and I’m well into the story of Carol Kennicott’s bumpy introduction to small-town life and loving it.

Current/Most Recent Favorite Audiobook:

The Lightning Thief Audio (Image Source)

Before starting Main Street, I was enjoying the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books on audio.  I’ve listened to the first two (The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters) and had so much fun that they almost made me forget that I was sitting in traffic for most of the time that Percy and pals were battling monsters from Greek myths.  I have the third installment, The Titan’s Curse, waiting for me on audio as soon as I finish Main Street, and I can’t wait.

Favorite Narrator You’ve Discovered Recently:

Never Let Me Go Audiobook (Image Source)

I really, really liked Rosalyn Landor’s voice narrating Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.  She was exactly the way I’d have imagined Kathy H. sounding, and her matter-of-fact tone made the book even more chilling to hear.  She also didn’t do my pet peeve among audiobook narrators: change her voice in a silly, distracting way when reading lines spoken by a character of the opposite sex.  (It drives me nuts when male audiobook narrators talk in a squeaky voice to suggest a woman’s voice, and when female narrators become weirdly gruff to suggest a man.)

One Title From Your TBL (To Be Listened) Stack Or Your Audio Wishlist:

The Forgotten Garden Audiobook (Image Source)

I’m dying to hear Kate Morton’s books read on audio – any of them.  I’ll probably start with The Forgotten Garden.  My library branch doesn’t have it, but I’m planning to reserve it soon and have a copy brought over from another branch.  But first I want to finish the rest of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books on audio – I have, I believe, three more to go.

Psst – since I’m still trying to deal with the consequences of my library shenanigans, there’ll be TWO posts on Friday – my final Audiobook Week post on Friday morning, and a Mo’ Books, Mo’ Problems update on Friday afternoon.  Books overload!  You’re welcome, or my apologies, depending on your perspective.

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Audiobook Week 2013: Post I

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So, this week (June 17-21) is Audiobook Week, an annual event hosted by Jen at Devourer of Books.  This is the fourth year running, but I’ve never participated before, because I never really listened regularly to audiobooks before.  I own three audiobooks: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Knit Happens.  (Which one is not like the others?, she sings.)  Up until this spring, the only time I listened to audiobooks was on long car rides (hence the Potters).

But this spring, hubby’s work schedule changed and with it, our commuting arrangements.  We used to drive to work together; by that, I mean hubby drove and I read in the car, which I’m lucky enough to be able to do without getting carsick.  But when his work schedule changed to a less convenient time, I didn’t want to change my schedule too, because it meant less time with the baby.  And since I don’t live close enough to take advantage of public transportation (the nearest metro stop is 20 minutes from my house, and the train ride is longer than I’d spend in the car just driving to the office) I’ve joined the ranks of rush-hour drivers.  Since I was losing all that reading time and actually having to contend with traffic instead of ignoring it, I decided there was only one thing to do: become an audiobook convert.

Since I started driving myself, I’ve listened to People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks; Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (shiver – so good); Knit Happens, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee; Fire in the Blood, by Irene Nemirovsky; and The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan.  Now I’m four discs into Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, and if I can’t say I’m enjoying my commutes, at least I’m surviving them.

So.  For audiobook week, Jen has created prompts for each day and I’m going to follow them while sticking to my normal posting schedule (M, W, F) by answering Monday and Tuesday’s prompts today, Wednesday’s on Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday’s on Friday.  (Confused yet?)  Here goes.

Monday

Jen asks: Are you new to audiobooks in the last year? Have you been listening to them forever but discovered something new this year? Favorite titles? New times/places to listen? This is your chance to introduce yourself and your general listening experience.

Well, I answered a lot of these above, so I won’t go too nuts with this.  I’m not exactly new to audiobooks in the past year, but I’m new to listening to them regularly; before the commuting arrangements changed I was a road-trip-only listener.  I’m still listening only in the car, but now I’m listening almost every day and only pausing when I need some silence after a particularly verbal day.  Audiobooks are certainly helping me keep up my reading even though I’ve lost about 90 minutes of time each day, so I’m grateful for that.  As for favorite titles, I was completely hooked on Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro – between a chillingly compelling story and a fantastic narrator, it was a big win for me.  And things have been a bit stressful lately, but they could have been a lot worse – Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series has stepped in and given me plenty to laugh and cheer about, even during the worst rush hour snarls.  (I have the third book on hold at the library, on audio again, and I can’t wait to start it just as soon as I finish Main Street.)  I also loved Fire in the Blood, with its beautiful writing and incredible narrator, but the library discs I borrowed were badly scratched and skipped constantly, which really put a damper on the listening experience.

Tuesday

Jen asks: How do you decide what you’ll listen to? Do you mostly listen, or split time between listening and reading? Particularly if you split time, how do you decide what you’ll consume in audio and what in print?

I do split my time between print and audio; as described above, I listen to audiobooks in the car, generally only when I’m the one driving, or on road trips.  I’m still devoting the bulk of my reading time to print – the audiobooks are really to make my commute faster and friendlier.  I don’t have much rhyme or reason as to how I decide what to listen to.  Mostly, I just wander the audiobook shelves at the library until something I feel like reading or hearing jumps out at me.  I did make a conscious decision to listen to the Percy Jackson books, because I wanted to read them and didn’t know when I’d get to them otherwise.

If I don’t have a specific plan, I just try to find something from my to-read list and or look for anything else that seems appealing, whether I was meaning to read it or not.  I have been borrowing all of my audiobooks from the library and there isn’t much selection at my small branch, so soon I think I’ll have to become more intentional about what I choose to listen to, since I’m going to have to start reserving more audiobooks and having them brought from other branches.  When that day comes, I’ll be looking through the TBR more carefully and reserving my selections online, then picking them up at my branch.  I think that system will work for me.  At some point I may look into Audible or other means of acquiring e-audiobooks, but right now the library shelves are my mainstay.

Wednesday’s post is a meme that Jen plans to put up on the day of, so my post won’t go up until Wednesday evening.  So check here Wednesday night or Thursday morning for the next Audiobook Week post.  And, this goes without saying, but – Jen, thanks for hosting!  This is fun.

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Mo’ Books, Mo’ Problems: Update 2

Mo Books Mo Problems

I’m trucking along in my quest to read as many of the books in the stack you see here as possible.  Life’s been a lot less busy over the past week, which has really helped matters.  (Both in terms of reading time and stress levels.)  I was also able to renew both Beautiful Creatures (now due back June 21st) and The Mother-Daughter Book Club (now due back June 29th), although another book popped up on the holds shelf.  (For purposes of not allowing this endeavor to go completely off the rails, I’m not worrying about that one – or the six I have on hold right now – at least, not until next week.)  Here’s how reading went this week:

  • Finished Eighty Days and loved it (read my full review here) and returned it to the library on time.  Whew!  And then there were five.
  • Blazed through Leaving Everything Most Loved, as I always do with Maisie Dobbs mysteries.  They’re quick reads, although they are some of the more thoughtful serial mysteries published recently, I find.  I always enjoy my time with Maisie.  And then there were four.
  • Finished Leonardo and the Last Supper, which was a fascinating look at Leonardo’s life and career through the lens of The Last Supper, one of his most famous works.  (I don’t know if it’s the most famous, as the book claims – there’s a certain lady named Lisa who’s pretty well-known too.)  I felt like I was back in my Medieval and Renaissance art history class, freshman year in college.  And then there were three.

Now I’m about to embark on The House Girl, to which I’m very much looking forward, and I expect to finish it in time to return it, Leonardo and Maisie to the library by the deadline (June 18th) or maybe even early.  (I’m actually shooting for a Sunday return, so we’ll see.)  Then I will probably finally crack the spine of Beautiful Creatures, since it’s the next one due back and also since I made a tactical error by letting my mom read the book and now I have two people haranguing me to read it instead of just one.  So it seems that this particular quest is actually going very well.

Except.  While in the middle of this stack, I went on another book-reserving frenzy and I have six books waiting for me on the holds shelf.  One of which is over 900 pages of non-fiction about how parents shape their children’s identities.  Uh.  And also one more at home that popped up on hold before I got through these.  (Summer for the Gods, about the Scopes trial.)  Now, granted, one of the books on hold is for my mom to read (Beautiful Darkness – yep, I’ve created a Caster Chronicles monster without even having read the first book myself) and one is an audiobook for me to play in the car on my commutes.  But then there’s the other four, and… I guess I’ll be continuing these updates after next week, at least for a little while.

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EIGHTY DAYS

Eighty Days

(Image Source)

November 14, 1889: The steamship Augusta Victoria lies in the harbor off Hoboken, New Jersey.  Soon, it will be en route to Europe, landing in Southampton, England.  Aboard is a young woman jauntily dressed in blue broadcloth, a black and white checked ulster, and a fore-and-aft cap of the kind worn by Sherlock Holmes.  That young woman is the intrepid reporter Nellie Bly, who has already gone undercover to expose shocking abuse at the Blackwell’s Island insane asylum and toppled the “Lobby King” of Albany, and she’s bound for her biggest adventure to date: a quest to circumvent the globe, by steamship and train, in less than the 80 days made famous by Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg.

That same day, without the fanfare attending Bly’s departure, another young woman will set off to do the same thing.  She is Elizabeth Bisland, raised on a shabby yet genteel Southern plantation, who has herself risen to a successful journalism career.  Bisland is quiet and unassuming (which Bly certainly is not), a lover of books and literature, writer of the “In the Library” column for The Cosmopolitan magazine.  She chugs west by train, since her editor believes that a western route will avoid the meteorological pitfalls he expects Bly to encounter on her Eastern route, and hopes to arrive back in New York City ahead of Bly.

The women’s “race” around the world soon captivates the attention of the entire country, thanks in large part to the skillful marketing done by Bly’s editors at The World newspaper.  And although the race took place almost 125 years ago, I found it just as thrilling.  I flipped pages at a speed worthy of Bly and Bisland, as I was just so anxious to find out who “won” (although Bly refused to acknowledge Bisland as a competitor, claiming to only be racing against Time, and Bisland stuck to her own non-competitive descriptions of the trip as a “journey” rather than a “race”).  I tried to remain neutral, but by about halfway through the book I found myself silently rooting for one particular competitor over the other.

I won’t tell you who won – that’d spoil the fun of reading the book, which you certainly should – but I’ll tell you this: in my opinion, regardless of who traveled faster, Elizabeth Bisland traveled better.  She dealt with delays in a more cheerful, adaptive fashion than Bly, she was more open-minded and more willing to experience the exotic, and although she never wanted to go on the trip in the first place – it was Bly’s idea, and Bisland’s editors strong-armed her into making it a race – she seemed to have a far more positive attitude throughout her travels.  Bly’s chapters were often devoted to describing her boredom, her attitude of American superiority, or the social injustices she didn’t care to report (despite her fame as a muckraker), while Bisland’s chapters focused instead on almost poetic descriptions of the fascinating sights which enthralled the traveler as she made her way from port to port.  I loved following Bisland through Japan and Hong Kong, and I felt a special kinship with her towards the end of her journey, when she entered her beloved England for the first time:

It was a landscape she felt she already knew from books; riding through it she was not learning but remembering.  The land seemed to swarm with phantoms from history, poems, stories.  They tramped across the fields, peered over the hedges, looked out from every window; she could hear the clang of their armor, their horses’ hoofbeats, their voices ringing out a call of welcome in the frosty winter air.

That’s pretty much how I felt the first time I visited England (although I’ve been there in September and October, respectively, and never in the winter – brrr).  Traveling at breakneck speed, jumping from ship to ship or train to train, isn’t my idea of a good way to see the world, but Bisland made the most of it, squeezing in visits to temples and ancient monuments wherever she could, and enjoying her quiet moments at sea with a book in her lap the rest of the time.  She was open and receptive to other cultures and she truly seemed to appreciate the experience, rather unlike Bly – who was the one who wanted to make the trip in the first place.  (Not that I’m completely down on Nellie Bly.  I loved the description of her first experience with curry and her tart rejections of various suitors aboard ship.  I just wish she was a little less “rah-rah-America!” about the whole experience.)  No surprise here – Elizabeth Bisland is the one who ends up making more trips overseas, over the course of her life.

Eighty Days was by turns charming, fascinating, educational and thrilling.  As I read, I found myself wishing I could travel alongside Elizabeth Bisland – other than between the pages of a book, that is – and ruminating on the current state of the world, where this kind of trip would be met with shrugs, most likely.  That strikes me as sad.  I’d like to see more daring, more adventure, in the world today.  We need more Nellie Blys and Elizabeth Bislands.  But in the meantime, at least we have Eighty Days.  Highly recommended.

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World, by Matthew Goodman: Buy the book here (not an affiliate link) or support your local indie bookstore.

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#Villettealong: Reading Companions

Villette
(Image Source)

I had so much fun reading along with the #Villettealong.  I’ve never belonged to a book club, or participated in a readalong before, because the timing has just never worked out for me.  I’ve been busy with other things, buried under a pile of my own reading, or unavailable at the times a book club I might join meets.  So I was so excited to have the opportunity to read in a sort of community – a community extending, quite literally, over international borders.

Because I write and schedule my posts ahead of time (it’s the only way I can manage this blog, what with a baby and a demanding job), I posted all three of my #Villettealong updates without linking back to my reading companions.  That’s a shame, because I had two of the best: Beth of Too Fond, and Amal of The Misfortune of Knowing.  These two women are intelligent and insightful.  Reading their impressions of Villette helped me to inform my own opinions.  We shared laughs about the sly bits of humor Charlotte Bronte snuck into the text, debated points made vague by Bronte’s narrator’s dubious honesty, and enjoyed a reading experience made richer by the fact of sharing it with friends.  (Note: there were other readers who followed along on Twitter, but it was Beth and Amal who posted updates on their blogs.)

I want you to see what they said about Villette because their posts were smart and thoughtful, and I truly enjoyed reading them.

So, here’s Beth:

Readalong: Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Villette Readalong: Week One
Villette Readalong: Week Two
Villette Readalong: Wrap-Up

And here’s Amal:

Our Shrinking World
Cats Are the Solution to Writer’s Block (Well, Sort Of)
VILLETTE & A Cup of Tea
Charlotte Bronte and I Can’t Agree on Everything (not a readalong post, but related)
Cold as Snow(e) (What’s in a Name?)

I highly recommend that you check out their posts.  And, of course, that you read Villette, which was wonderful.  Beth, by the way – the next time you decide to host a readalong, count me in.

P.S. If you missed them, here are my posts about Villette and the readalong:

So, Guess What I’m Doing?
#Villettealong: Volume I
#Villettealong: Volume II
#Villettealong: Volume III