Eclectic Reader Challenge 2012 Completed!

Here's what I read:

Literary Fiction: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese finished 1/19/12

Crime/Mystery Fiction: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson finished 12/28/12

Romantic Fiction: Horseplay: A Novel by Judy Reene Singer finished 7/9/12

Historical Fiction: Clara and Mr. Tiffany: A Novel by Susan Vreeland finished 7/28/12

Young Adult: The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) by Lemony Snicket finished 6/3/12

Fantasy: Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman finished 3/31/12

Science Fiction: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov finished 8/25/12

Non Fiction: Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints by Sam Brower finished 2/5/12

Horror: Desperation by Stephen King finished 5/26/12

Thriller/Suspense: Bag of Bones by Stephen King finished 6/29/12

Classic: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey finished 10/9/12

Your favorite genre: After Dark by Haruki Murakami finished 12/15/12

My favorite from this challenge was probably The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.

P.S. Give A Hoot, Read A Book is by Stephan Britt.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

I can't believe I waited a year to read The Girl Who Played With Fire, the sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. But the story picks up about 2 years after the last so in their world I'm ahead of the game.

We find Mikael Bomkvist back at Millennium, ready to change the world by publishing a story written by a new character about the illegal sex trade in Sweden.

Lisbeth Salander is living it up, traveling the world and spending the money she stole from the bad guy in Dragon Tattoo and reading math text books. As soon as she gets back to Sweden though, she gets pegged for 3 murders. Did she do it? Blomkvist believes she's innocent but needs to find the real killer to save her.

This book was as fast-paced and exciting as the last. Definitely recommended if you liked Dragon Tattoo.

This book fulfills my Crime/Mystery Fiction requirement for the Eclectic Reader Challenge.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

It's been over a year since I've read a book by Haruki Murakami, so after reading almost every category from the Eclectic Reader Challenge I rewarded myself in the Your Favorite Genre category by reading After Dark. Really I don't know if I could choose 1 favorite genre, but many of my favorites had already been covered so I chose Magical Realism. I think it's hard to put Haruki Murakami's writing style into a genre box, since he has a style all his own, but Magical Realism comes pretty close.

Anyway, here is my summary of After Dark:

Just kidding. That's Micah Lidberg's summary.

After Dark centers around one night in the lives of 2 sisters, Eri and Mari. Mari seems hell bent on staying up all night reading in Denny's. She meets a guy on his way to band practice who knows her sister. He plays the trombone because the first time he heard the song Five Spot After Dark by Curtis Fuller he thought, "That's the instrument for me. The trombone and me: it was a meeting arranged by destiny."

Meanwhile Eri is asleep in her home. She's been asleep for months and nobody can figure out why. But we see through an omnipresent narrator that something evil is watching her and perhaps controlling her through her television.

I don't want to give any more of the story away because the journey is the joy of a Murakami story. I loved this book, but it does all take place in one night and was only 244 pages. I'm used to really long, super involved books by him.

Here's one of my favorite scenes:

"You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen-bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking, 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction--they're all just fuel...You know. I think if I didn't have that fuel, if I didn't have these memory drawers inside me, I would've snapped a long time ago. I would've curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. It's because I can pull the memories out of the drawers when I have to--the important ones and the useless ones--that I can go on living this nightmare of a life. I might think I can't take it anymore, that I can't go on anymore, but one way or another I get past that."

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

I saw the movie One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest over ten years ago so I thought I had a good buffer to read the book finally for Banned Books Week.

The story is told from the "Chief Broom's" point of view. For many years he's been a patient in the mental institution which is the setting for the story. He never talks, making people assume he has no brain capacity and making him privy to the true horror that surrounds him. The ward he lives in is ruled over by the terrible, power-hungry, and unjust Nurse Ratched. She has everyone stepping in line when the main character, McMurphy, gets sentenced to reform in a mental institution. In a choice between the institution or hard labor he thought he was choosing the easy way out.

Much of the story is a heroic, sometimes comical battle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. McMurphy loves a good game and believes he can beat Big Nurse at her own game. But what made me love McMurphy was when his struggle stops being a game and starts being about the people around him that he comes to care for.

The hardest part for me was not picturing McMurphy as Jack Nicholson from the movie. It shouldn't be a big deal to just go ahead and imagine him as Jack Nicholson, but he is described as a linebacker-sized redhead. His size and hair color come up constantly in the story and it was a little jarring for me. That detail aside, I loved the whole story and would highly recommend it.

Why was this book banned? My guess is because it makes people who question authority look like cool heroes. And we can't have that folks! Or it could just be the way McMurphy talks about women...if you know what I mean.

Does anyone watch American Horror Story: Asylum? I read this right before the season began and it seems to borrow heavily from the book. Power trippin head nurse? Check. Same song being played repeatedly on the intercom to drive patients crazy? Check. Torture used to punish heal patients? Check. But I still like it.

This book fulfills my Classic requirement for the Eclectic Reader Challenge.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

I, Robot is a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov originally published in magazines between 1940 and 1950. No, it is nothing like the movie.

The stories all take place in our present time or the future, and are all linked together through their connection to Susan Calvin, born in 1982. She is a "Robopsychologist" and sees that through the years robots are actually evolving into Cylons. Well, I call them Cylons. Everyone around her sees them only as machines.

The Three Laws of Robotics are programmed into each robot. They are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Almost every story deals with how The Three Laws of Robotics are misinterpreted by robots or cause robots to malfunction. One of my favorites is when a scientist tells a robot, "Get lost," and how the robot deals with that command while also following The Three Laws of Robotics.

I liked this book but it won't make it on my Favorites list this year. I think I prefer watching Sci-Fi to reading it because movie makers often have a better imagination than I do when it comes to dreaming up space stations and things. However, I got a kick out of reading what Mr. Asimov envisioned 2012 would look like, and I still plan to read Foundation. I also got a lot of enjoyment out of reading this after Curiosity first landed. I pretended the two scientists found in most of the stories, Michael Donovan and Gregory Powell, were Bobak Ferdowsi and Steve Collins.

As a side note, I also loved it when one of my favorite Louis Armstrong songs made a cameo appearance in Escape! Please ignore the slide show that has nothing to do with the song:

This book fulfills my Science Fiction requirement for the Eclectic Reader Challenge. It is also on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

Clara and Mr. Tiffany is a historical fiction novel about Tiffany Glass in its early stages and subsequent take-off after the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

In real life Clara was a designer for Mr. Tiffany. The story centers around her as she fights for women's rights in the work place and passionately designs stained glass lamps. My favorite parts of the story were all the period pieces: Clara's love for Walt Whitman and sorrow upon hearing the news of his death, Clara getting a "wheel" (bicycle) and enjoying the freedom of exploring the city on it, and the plight of the suffragettes.

I liked this book but I didn't love it like I loved Luncheon of the Boating Party. There is a lot of time spent in the story describing the process of making, selecting, and cutting glass. I felt like it became tedious after awhile, but my friend Audrey from book club loved that part. So I think your enjoyment of this book will center around your desire to learn in a technical way how those beautiful stained glass lamps are made.

Susan Vreeland is a talented writer no doubt. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

A year passes like a revolving wheel, and when the spoke of January comes round again, it finds itself in a different place. And so with pain. It does not leave us where it found us.

and

You can keep upright only by moving forward. You have to have your eyes on the goal, not on the ground. I'm going to call that the Bicyclist's Philosophy of Life.

and

Son, if the mountain was smooth, you couldn't climb it.

and one from Susan B. Anthony:

The true republic -- men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.

and one from Emily Dickinson:

We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise;

And then if we are true to plan,

Our statures touch the skies --

I read this in July to fulfill the Historical Fiction portion of my Eclectic Reader Challenge. Now I am scrambling to get all my reviews posted before the end of the year!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you got everything you wished for this Christmas!

P.S. Carte Noel is by Anne-Julie Aubry.

wtf?

I found out about the Sandy Hook shooting today while on my lunch break. Going into the cafeteria to pick up my class always means being inundated with hugs from my former students, big smiles and "I missed you!" from my first graders -- I felt extra thankful for all the love they give me today.

We have a "high needs" population at our inner city school so I spend a lot of time reinforcing to my kids that my classroom is a safe place. How can they believe me any more? How can I say that without feeling my words are empty?

Peace and love to all the teachers, students, and families affected by this tragedy.

P.S. I found some comfort from Mister Rogers today. A Rotta Love Plus is a rescue organization and their website can be found here.

handmade christmas

After finally finishing Angi and Dan's honeymoon scrapbook wedding gift (only took me a year!) I feel inspired to continue the handmade love by making a few Christmas gifts. Hopefully I can get them done by this Christmas! I also did a lot of my Christmas shopping on etsy this year. Hooray for Handmade!

P.S. That crafty bird was made by Lisa Golightly.

Colorful Reading Challenge

Oh boy! Two years ago I took part in The Colorful Reading Challenge and it's back! Here's what it's all about...

The Colorful Reading Challenge is simple:

1. Just choose 9 books with colors in the titles.

2. The books can overlap with other reading challenges (because let's face it, we need them to.)

3. Post your links to your reviews each month to share with other participants.

4. The challenge runs from January 1, 2013 to December 1, 2013.

5. Read to your heart's content!

When most people think of colors they think of the basics- red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, white, black, and brown. But don't forget, as Crayola taught us, colors have a wide array of tints and shades so don't forget you can include colors such as silver, gold, plum, pink, crimson, scarlet, turquoise, blonde, gray, pumpkin, the list goes on.

These are the books that are on my shelf waiting to be read and have a color in the title:

The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing by Thomas Hauser

Black Swan Green: A Novel by David Mitchell

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel

Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work by Tim Gunn

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender

4 Blondes by Candace Bushnell

Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel by Joanne Harris

Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" by Alexandra Ripley

The Tea Rose: A Novel by Jennifer Donnelly

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Blue Rodeo by Jo-Ann Mapson

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg (maybe a stretch?)

I've already got Angi ready to take the challenge with me! Anyone else? Do you see a book from my list that you think I should definitely read in 2013?

Project Life Week 27

These pages are from July and have been done awhile. I'm just now getting around to sharing. I still love this Project and worked on October this weekend.

A closer look:

I got my hair cut and highlighted. I used my stylist's "prescription" to document the day.

Here's our trip to see Batman, which was scrapped here in July. I just cut out Batman's logo from a sheet of patterned paper.

Here is Stellaluna after one of her obedience classes. I got her Little Monster shirt for 47 cents after clearance and a coupon. Sweet! I used a leftover Jack Russell book cover pic to remind me that there was an adorable Jack Russell in class that day.

Time to make the doughnuts...back to school. I twittered about Big Brother so I printed it and cut it out to share for the day.

Right page:

A closer look:

I saved the tags from a shirt to help document this day.

I used some junk mail to document where we went to dinner.

We always celebrate the beginning of our relationship, game night with Kristi and Mike. I used my triangle punch to make the banner, some word stickers from my friend Angi, and the picture is from Corey's phone.

On the first day of school Stellaluna graduated from obedience. It was hard to get a picture of her with her graduation cap on, so I used a graduation cap sticker from Angi to complete the pic. Now that I'm looking at it again I see I made a mistake: I said we had to play Bingo to graduate but we had to play Memory.

P.S. Here is Nerd Nest's week 27.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Corey has to work today as he almost always has to work on Thanksgiving. Bummer! But I'm trying to stay positive. I'm thankful he has a job so we can pay our bills and take care of our little dogs. I'm thankful that I still look forward to him coming home from work even after all these years.

Project Life Week 26

This page documents a Monsoon storm, so you probably know it was from awhile ago. But I also made this awhile ago, and am just lazy about getting these posted. I still love Project Life and had fun this weekend adding more thrilling moments from my life to it.

This week also documents a pack walk, obedience class for Stellaluna, watching Craft Wars, and a visit from my parents.

A closer look:

I recycled a used Book IT! progress chart from school into the background for this pack walk. (Ha! I just realized I used a progress chart to help track my own progress!) Any other Book IT! fans out there? I couldn't believe they would actually give me free pizza just for reading!

I must have been in a recycly mood that week because I used a magazine ad as my journaling block for my obedience class with Stellaluna. It was for a tacky Hamilton teacup chihuahua knick knack. But the sentiment rings true for my real teacup chihuahua: She May Be Small But She's Got a Big Heart!

More paper junk: this ad for Craft Wars came with my purchase from Michael's. I liked that show but I thought it was weird that Tori Spelling had to revoice almost all of her parts.

Finally, my dad left this old list behind on accident after their visit. Funny how someone else's handwriting can feel so familiar. I also love my dad's shorthand.

If my mom hadn't misbehaved she wouldn't be immortalized as a backseat driver. That's on her.

P.S. Here is Nerd Nest's week 26.

my accidental art lesson

If you recall I wrote a review of The Bird Catcher by Laura Jacobs in 2010. My main complaint about the book was the numerous esoteric art references which were a distraction from the story. The example I gave was, "She's a Modigliani inside a Braque." And my reaction was, "What?" and "What?" So I looked up Modigliani (and Braque) and really liked this painting, Jeanne Hebuterne in Red Shawl:

Since then I have been unable to escape Amedeo Modigliani. In June I went to the Palm Springs Art Museum with Linny and I knew the instant I saw Head that I was looking at a Modigliani:

On Saturday we took Jake to see Skyfall. In one scene they use this painting to kill someone:

...and I said to myself, I think that's a Modigliani!!! (Letting my mind wander on these kinds of details may have led to my confusion on some of the plot points.)

So when I got home and googled it, I found out that Woman with a Fan was stolen in 2010 and is indeed a Modigliani. (And a Braque was stolen in the same heist! Maybe the author did it.) It also led me to a twitter post where someone asked the same question, and someone else replied, "Yes, it's a Mod." I guess if you're cool you will just call him Mod but I like saying his last name enough to get a dog and name it Modigliani.

If I'm going to be haunted by an artist I'm glad I at least enjoy the artwork.

The morale is that there is something to be learned from books, even the ones with tedious references.

I voted!

And this is where the mister is tonight:

My class voted unanimously for Barack Obama this afternoon. I told them I would tell them who I voted for tomorrow.