Wordless Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: My Bookish Resolutions

Thanks to the lovely bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish for hosting this weekly event.  This week's topic is Bookish Resolutions.

I am not really a resolution person.  Let's just say that the few times I have made a resolution in January I was back to my pre-New Year's state by February.  Besides, as a teacher it feels like my "new year" is in August, when I go back to school.   But, there are a few things with regard to reading and blogging that I want to do in 2011, so I'll give it the old college try.

1.  Stop requesting so many books on Goodreads: Since discovering Bookswap in May, I've gotten about 60 books.  For a cost of about $4.00 each that sounds like a good thing, right?  Problem is, I already have enough books in my reading room to last me three to four YEARS without buying or borrowing another book.  Seriously, the rush of getting books in my mailbox for so cheap is just too good to pass up.

2.  Read more quality middle-grade and young adult books:  I am almost done with a masters degree in reading, and if I am going to work as a reading specialist as I hope, I need to stay current with what is out there for kids in all age ranges, not just the primary and intermediate grades I teach now.  Besides, my children's and YA blog Second Childhood Reviews is feeling neglected.

3.  Read all of the longer books on my shelf:  Last year I did the 100+ book challenge (here is my post about it), and as a result I avoided some of the longer books on my shelves.  I've already made headway on this goal.  I just finished Stephen King's Under the Dome this weekend, in all of its 1074 page glory.

4.  Get around to some authors I'm ashamed I've never read:  OK, I admit it, I have never read a Jonathan Franzen book, or Phillip Roth, or Dave Eggers, or Ian McEwan, or Salmon Rushdie, or Thomas Pynchon.  Shame, shame on me...I have books from at least three of these authors on my shelves waiting for me to get with the program.  The fact that all of these authors are men are not lost on me so...

5. Read more fiction by men who are not mystery or horror writers:  I'll admit a certain prejudice in my book buying and reading for female authors.  I mean, I read good female authors, like Atwood and Kingsolver and Allende, but nonetheless I should probably get some perspective from the other half of the population.

6.  Blog more about general literary topics:  In reading the many book blogs that I've found, I've come to realize that the ones I enjoy the most are the ones that do more than just review books.  They are the ones that take on interesting literary topics, and talk about reading in general.  I'll have to fit in more time for blogging, but that is doable.  My TV and XBox probably don't need quite so much of my attention.

Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

Where shall I begin? There are simply too many thought-provoking issues in Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (the same author who wrote Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) that I wished I could share them all with you here. Anyway I chose the following extracts which I feel we should be well aware of, especially the first extract.


A University of Chicago study recently found that our food choices contribute at least as much as our transportation choices to global warming. More recent and authoritative studies by the United Nations and the Pew Commission show conclusively that globally, farmed animals contribute more to climate change than transport.
(Pg 58)

What does organic signify? Not nothing, but a whole lot less than we give it credit for. For meat, milk, and eggs labeled organic, the USDA requires that animals must: (1) be raised on organic feed (that is, crops raised without most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers); (2) be traced through their life cycle (that is, leave a paper trail); (3) not be fed antibiotics or growth hormones; and (4) have "access to the outdoors." The last criterion, sadly, has been rendered almost meaningless - in some cases "access to the outdoors" can mean nothing more than having the opportunity to look outside through a screened window.
(Pg 70)

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. This month's Mailbox Monday is hosted by Rose City Reader.

Here's what I received last week from a good friend, Julia of Julia's Books Corner (Thanks so much for the gifts, Julia!):

1) Wild Notion by Cathy McDavid

2) Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag

3) The Summer We Fell Apart by Robin Antalek

What books came into your house last week?

Under the Dome, by Stephen King

If there are two things that Stephen King knows, it's character and setting.  Despite the bizarre situations that he places them in, his characters usually feel completely authentic.  In fact, I think that his real talent as a writer is imagining what the average person would do when confronted with the impossible.  In that sense, Under the Dome represents the most obvious example of what he has spent a career writing about.  He does nothing so well as place his characters under the microscope to see what they will do in in the most trying of circumstances.

Imagine that your entire town is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by an impermeable, impenetrable barrier.  Nothing can go in or out.  In an instant, you become just one creature in a very large terrarium.  That is exactly what happens to the small Maine town of Chester Mills.  As the government outside the dome tries to figure out where it came from and how to get rid of it, the residents of The Mills go about the business of figuring out how to survive their captivity.  In classic King style, there is the corrupt town leader, the drifter with a past, the good-hearted average guy, the strong, feisty woman (in this case, the owner of the town paper), and a cast of townspeople (good, bad, or a little of both) who make up this particular microcosm of America.  If I thought about it long enough, I could probably match every main character from Under the Dome with their counterpart in The Stand (my favorite King book by a green mile!).  What makes this familiar cast work time after time is the fact that most of us know someone exactly like them.  The power struggle unfolds with a Lord of the Flies inevitability, with some people rising to the occasion, and others showing their true, evil nature.

My one criticism of this book is its length.  I'm not averse to a 1000+ page book, if all 1000+ pages are integral to moving the story along.  However, the middle 400 pages or so of this particular tome dragged.  I suppose when you have a story with this many moving parts (there are something like 20 important characters, with many more minor characters), you run the risk of getting bogged down in each individual storyline.  In the end, however, it was worth it.  The last 100 pages were fast-paced and exciting.  And in an example of another thing I love about King's writing, there are no safe characters.  This gives his writing a delicious unpredictability.    But, satisfactorily, the truly bad guys almost always get what's coming to them.

Books Read in 2011

Here is a list of books I read in 2011. They are sorted in alphabetical order by the authors' last name.

B
Haunting Jasmine by Anjali Banerjee

C
Stay by Deb Caletti

D
Slow Dancing on Price's Pier by Lisa Dale
The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney (DNF)
You Against Me by Jenny Downham

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Doll: Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier

F
Dreaming in English by Laura Fitzgerald
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

H
Gone by Mo Hayder
Falling Under by Gwen Hayes

Veil of Night by Linda Howard

J
Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James

K
Blood on the Moon by Jennifer Knight

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

M
Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier
Spinning Tropics by Aska Mochizuki
In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

N

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

S
A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler
Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler

Shadow of a Quarter Moon by Eileen Clymer Schwab
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

T
Orchards by Holly Thompson
Mermaid: A Twist on a Classic Tale by Carolyn Turgeon

V

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

Y
The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

ISBN-13: 9780312611576
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: March 2010
400 pgs
Source: Personal Library

I didn't know why it took me awhile to read The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli, after all I have seen lots of good reviews of it. Nevertheless, it is always good to be late than never and with a little push by C.B. James' TBR Dare, I figured this is a good chance for me to pick up this book and read it.

Helen Adams is not your ordinary heroine. While other women trembled and scrambled for their life with the war raging in Vietnam, Helen chose to pick up her camera and risk her life shooting pictures during this chaotic times. But aside from this, Helen's main reason for going to Vietnam is to find out more about the death of her brother, Michael; who had lost his life in the war. However, she didn't expect that she would find solace in love amidst the war - whether it is fellow photojournalist Sam Darrow or Vietnamese ex-soldier and Darrow's assistant Linh.

Although the main focus of this story is on Helen, there is also a glimpse of Darrow and Linh's life as readers could read about their emotions and their struggles through Tatjana Soli's skilful writing. While reading this book, I felt there are so many issues are packed in this hauntingly beautiful story - relationships, ambitions, as well as loyalties. One could also feel a state of uncertainty as you can see from the following passage:

It was this way in Vietnam during the war - sometimes Darrow felt all powerful, felt he could ride fate like a flying carpet, like a helicopter, will it to do his bidding. Other times fate reminded him that he was only a toy, blown this way and that, swept away or destroyed on a whim. (Pg 249)

Through Helen's eyes, I see the cruelty of war and how this affected the civilians and the soldiers and all. I felt her struggle between duty and principle (which I'm sure many photojournalists will feel the same), and I also felt her happiness in love at times despite it falls under the most unfortunate circumstances. And because of The Lotus Eaters, now I began to understand more about the Vietnam War (I also want to extend my thanks to a good friend, Julia, for explaining the history to me.)

Despite the saddening mood and despair of the war and everything, I have to say I enjoyed this book immensely because author Tatjana Soli's prose and storytelling is simply wonderful. She has captured the essence of the wartime through research which what makes the entire reading experience so much enriching. I am sure The Lotus Eaters will be on my list as one of my most memorable reads this year. I highly recommend this book and cannot wait to see what the author has in store next.