Books

Some of the books I've read over the past few weeks:


Stay 40  by Richard Lippman. I read this on the Kindle, which costs the same as the ebook.  Maybe it would've seemed less jumbled if I'd read it in paper -- that way I could've flipped the pages back and forth to see whether he was being as inconsistent as I supposed.  I could've gotten the BIG picture, so to speak.  As it was, I found myself pondering that the author was bragging about his sharp mind while displaying obvious need for an editor to get his rambling writing under control.  Please, if you want to impress me with your intelligence, stop babbling.

Actually, the guy did have some really good points.  After reading the book I started taking some supplements, and I do feel more energetic and more focussed.  I think my skin's improved, too.  But he has some ideas I disagreed with, things that left me rolling my eyes.  His fascination with hormones reminded me of the adage "he that is good with a hammer thinks everything is a nail".

As far as figuring out which supplements to take, it was a matter of sorting through his various recommendations.  At one point he would strongly recommend X, Y, and Z; at another point he would find A, B, and C as the most important.  Gah.

Your Skin, Younger by Alan Logan, et al.  I had started reading this about a year ago, and wandered off in boredom.  After finishing Stay 40, though, I picked it back up.  Hey, it talks about pretty much the exact same supplements!  Which makes sense, since things that help you be healthier as you age will help your skin look better as it, too, becomes healthier. The tone of the book is a lot more gee-whilikers than Stay 40 -- it seems more targeted to those who like to read books about beauty (well, duh, they've targeted a particular audience).  Enough science info to assure you that they're not making this stuff up as they go along.  And, blessedly, the authors don't go on and on about the wonders of taking hormones.

My Life As a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland.  I'm not big on zombie lit, but who could resist a title like that?  And it turned out to be plenty of zombie fun.  The author claims that there are no defined zombie traits in literature, unlike, say, vampires (which are NOT sparkly creatures, thankyouverymuch).  I've no clue.  Perhaps this would offend some zombie-sensabilities.  The language will offend those who don't care to read white-trash-speak.

It appears to be the beginning of a series, but works well as a stand alone.

Wool by Hugh Howey.  Okay, that link is to the initial short story entitled Wool.  There are currently 5 stories/books.  I got the Omnibus of all 5 as a free checkout on Kindle for Amazon Prime.

The initial short story is ... amazing.  So is the second story, but in a different way.  And so on and so forth.  The final, fifth, novel-length story is a bit more along the lines of a movie or television show -- I wasn't so surprised by the structure of it.

Let me tell you what's REALLY amazing -- this guy is self-publishing these.  And they absolutely do NOT read like typical self-published books.  I read a decent amount of freebies and cheapy ebooks and Kindle books that are self-published, and usually you can tell that they didn't pass through the hands of an editor, let alone a copy editor.  At best, they read a bit like really good fanfic -- the story hangs together well, but the characters are somehow flat.  Often you can really "see" the author behind the story -- the personality of the author (and his/her conceits) overshadows the personality of his/her characters.  For the most part, I read them, then pretty much instantly forget them.  They're not worth holding in memory.  A lot like fanfic, which I also read piles of.

But Wool is different.  It's going to be a phenomenon.  If you read it NOW, you'll be in on the ground floor.  And when every one's talking about it some time in the future, you'll just nod knowingly, since you first read it soon after it came out.  You'll be THAT COOL.

If you only read one book on this list, make it Wool.  It's that good.

A Snapshot of the Reading Life

Recently completed:

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward. I like Lisa Lutz's Spellman Files series, so I thought this would be appealing. Woops, wrong. It was contrived and annoying. I finished it out of a (probably misguided) desire for completion more than out of a desire to see what happened to any of the characters. Because, in the end, I didn't care -- not about the characters, not about the authors. Sorry, not much more I can say.

Star Wars Fate of the Jedi: Ascencion Book 8 of a 9 book series written on a rotating basis by 3 authors. If you ever wondered what Star Wars would be like if it had been written as a bodice ripper, this is the book for you. And, just like a bodice ripper, you can skip through it without losing track of the plot because there's just not a lot of plot there. Really. About 50-100 pages from the end I gave up, skipped to the last chapter or so, wrapped up the parts of the story that probably matter for the next book (oh, okay, Abeloth does THAT -- no big surprise there; the Sith do THIS -- again, no surprise; and Vestra is up to THAT -- huh, coulda written that myself; and Luke and the Jedi are pretty much up to the same ol' same old), and returned it to the library. But I shall persevere through to the final book because, yoohoo, STAR WARS!

Currently reading:

How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport. I think I've been reading this forever, although it's only been about 4-6 weeks. Really, it's a decent guide on how to organize your study time for maximum effect. It would be great for a college student to read, preferably before the beginning of the semester. It would probably be helpful for high school students. But, like I say, I'm not sure what's in it for me, other than being able to recommend it to people the appropriate age and occupation -- which I can already do, therefor no need for me to finish the book. Maybe I just like it because whilst reading I can fantasize about having been that clued in during college.

How to Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport. Takes some of the same concepts from the college book (above) and applies them to high school so that kids have plenty of free time to develop "interestingness". Also purportedly claims to explain how to develop "interestingness". I'm only about a third of the way through, and this one is worth finishing to see where he's going with it. Homeschool theoretically could be the PERFECT for giving kids huge blocks of time to develop "interestingness", but plenty of homeschool kids aren't making the leap. C'mon, you've all heard the stories of homeschoolers who, given free rein over their time, fritter it away on various meaningless pursuits and are barely literate years later. I suspect Cal Newport doesn't have magical words of inspiration for those kids -- I suspect the inspiration to be a Superstar has to already be present, and Newport simply gives a way to channel it. But, hey, it looks like it will be an interesting read. And I'm attracted to the way the author challenges the status quo, stating that the typical way people try to make college applications stand out is really downright silly. But, will my love of all things status-quo-challenging blind me to the flaws in his premise? Hmm....

For the Love of Physics by Walter Lewin. I picked this up at random from the New Book shelves at the library, attracted to the cover picture of a guy swinging on a pendulum in a classroom. I often like science biographies (Lives of a Cell, for example). And the fact that I'm currently teaching physics to a bunch of grade-school-age kids adds to the attraction. Wow, this book is great for inspiration. Admittedly I can't show the exact same demos in my itty-bitty co-op class -- I don't have access to the swanky equipment to drag into the classroom -- but his enthusiasm for his subject is infectious. I wish, though, that the book had an appendix that listed out all the YouTube videos and cool websites he mentions in the text, since as it stands now I have all sort of crappy little bits of paper stuck in pages since I'm often reading the without an internet-connected computer by my side. Really, if you like reading about science topics, this is a book you don't want to miss.

Okay, there are probably more bookmark-ridden books languishing around here. But these are the ones I've been carrying around with me lately, and continue to carry around.

Books

9. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. This book wasn't on my list of sci fi to use for lit class -- I picked it up simply because I saw it mentioned in Melissa Wiley's blog and I have great confidence in Melissa Wiley's book recommendations. Sure enough, I enjoyed it immensely.

I had just finished reading Canticle for Leibowitz, with its intense scenes of a bombed out abbey and characters speaking in ecclesiastical Latin, before I started this book ... which began in a bombed out Coventry Cathedral, and turned out to have characters quoting Latin (although these were professors preferring Herodotus -- a background in, say, Henley Latin would be more to the point with this book). Of course, there the similarities end -- this book is a time travel/mystery/romp through the Victorian age, with WWII, 1930s mystery genre, and acres of Tennyson thrown in, to say nothing of the dog. And cats. So much fun, although the less you know about the cultural contexts the less fun (and more annoying) it has potential to be.

I'm glad I took a detour from my "official" sci fi book list to read this.

10. Enchantress From the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl. Another entry on my "official" sci fi list. I'd found it mentioned on the Well Trained Mind homeschooling forums, from whence I'd derived most of the list. It was tossed into the suggestion list as an accessible book by a female author. And I've gotta admit, it was a much quicker read than Frankenstein or Left Hand of Darkness, neither of which I've finished.

I'd never read nor heard of this book before, although while I was dragging it around various places over the past couple of days we ran into a high school student who recognized the cover and commented how much she enjoyed it. And I was absolutely enchanted by it. First of all, the main concept is that a group of people who have sort of Jedi-like power, but with less tendency to start whacking on each other with light sabers, is patrolling the universe, and they take the Prime Directive seriously, not just having it out there as a plot element that they violate at least once per season. Second, the story is told from 3 vantage points -- one is a very stylized fairy tale, one is more along the lines of, I don't know, early space heroes (I pictured this crowd looking like the gang back on Krypton during the original episode of the original Superman television series, although they sort of had a Romulan vibe going, too), and the third is a first person narrative of a teenage-ish girl. So, right there, fodder for much discussion in our future lit class about how the writer integrated these styles.

(Aside: Thinking of using different writing styles to help differentiate the different viewpoints of the characters, before I read Enchantress From the Stars I spent a day trying to read Albert Brooks' 2030. Everyone in the latter book sounds pretty much exactly the same, like a bunch of paper dolls drawn by a fairly unimaginative artist. It was, in a way, the opposite of what Engdahl did in Enchantress. It was also quite boring not to mention annoying, so I didn't bother finishing the book.)

10 BOOKS COMPLETED FOR SUMER READ. This is a first for me -- actually completing the program during the time allotment. Unfinished books still litter the house, as usual -- the 10 books finished are just a fraction of the books started during this time. Plus there are the various books started BEFORE this time that I read bits of during the past few weeks.

Also, as a bonus, I've used this SummerRead program to read and re-read several of the books we'll be using in our sci fi lit class during the coming school year. Now to read the rest of THAT stack, as well as the stack I've compiled for teaching 3rd-5th grade science at co-op.

Books

Okay, actually "Book" since I only completed reading one book this week, another SciFi classic,

8. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. I had read this years ago, and remembered it as a fairly dark, depressing novel. Re-reading after several decades, though, I found a lot of humor in it. I also found it much easier to read.

For one thing, in the intervening years I've learned some Latin -- the book is full of Latin quotes, although if you've worked through Latina Christiana you'll be comfortable with it, since the quotes are typically liturgical. Also, while looking up the word "grex" online I discovered entire web pages of Latin translations for this book. Having a clue what the Latin is about sped up the reading since I wasn't left wondering if I'd missed out on something.

Also, through the years I've gotten lots more comfortable with the idea that people aren't necessarily the "good guys" or the "bad guys", and that life has much vague, grey area. And I've read, discussed, and thought about enough theology and philosophy to make those discussions familiar territory. Overall, growing up and getting older made it a simpler book, although I don't think I would've understood that back when I was in my late teens (or whenever I read it before).

I liked the book quite a lot this time through. It was humorous, ingenious, and thought-provoking.

Okay, 2 books to go by Aug. 8, and I'm midway through another scifi book and have started 2 others. However, my attention is starting to drift -- I've other things I'd like to accomplish this month other than reading, and I have less time to read at the moment. We'll see.

Books

More books completed for Adult Summer Read. I've decided to start working my way through the pile of scifi we set aside for a possible literary analysis course for Thalia this coming school year.

6. Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I think I've read this before, but I've absolutely, utterly forgotten it, except for There Will Come Soft Rains which I've read in some anthology somewhere in the past year or two.

One of the first stories, Ylla, reminded me of Italo Calvino (some of whose books I love). But, alas, as I kept reading I became more and more disenchanted. By the end of the book I was recalling that the reason I haven't read anything by Bradbury for years and years is because I don't like reading things by Bradbury. Many of the stories have a 1960s sitcom vibe -- very embedded in the time in which they were written. But where, say, The Beverly Hillbillies had a certain affection for its country yokels, Bradbury seems to dislike his characters. By the end of the book I'm not so sure Bradbury doesn't dislike most of humanity, including me, the reader. So he and I are even, I guess.

I could enjoy these as short stories read over several months. Plowing through the entire book at once, though, was ... annoying.

7. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I've never read this before. Wow. I absolutely loved it. Could barely put it down. I found myself mentally comparing it to other books I've read this summer. For example, the climax didn't come as much of a surprise, yet it was still thrilling to read how Card portrayed it; contrast that to Demon's Lexicon where the climax wasn't particularly surprising OR interesting by the time we got to it.

I was tempted to run out and get all the other books from the series out of the library, but I'm worried I'd be disappointed. What I enjoyed about the book is how the writing style meshed so well with the subject; the same writing style would probably be inappropriate for the next segment, so, what then? What if I dislike it, and then the magic is gone?

As a side note, I had left these 2 books out on an end table in the family room during the cast party Saturday night, thus discovering that one of the other moms is an absolute scifi addict. What fun! Too bad I was so exhausted that my brain was practically nonfunctional -- she was flinging authors names around a mile a minute, and I was staring into space trying to remember what the heck those people had written that I'd read. Totally drawing a blank. I woke up the next day with an entire list in my head of books I wanted to discuss with her, but the moment had passed, alas.

So, 70 percent of the books read, approximately 50 percent of the time elapsed (I'm staring at the calendar coming up with this thing lasting 11 weeks instead of the 12 weeks they say it lasts -- where am I missing a week?). I've started Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness (I thought I'd read it before, but it's not seeming very familiar) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (definitely never read before, and seems pretty necessary for a scifi course), but I'm not sure I'll finish either any time soon. I might need to find another quick read in the meantime, just to pad the list with quantity -- I can worry about quality some other time.

Books

Continuing the Adult Summer Read program:

4. Star Wars Fate of the Jedi: Conviction by Aaron Allston. Book 7 of a 9 book series penned by 3 different authors. Actually, I've not been a big fan of Star Wars books -- I generally get about 7 pages into them and then quit due to the crappy writing. But I was reading the free short stories on Kindle -- Lost Tribe of the Sith -- that tied into this series, and decided to give the books a try. Very, very fluffly and fun. Here it is 30 or 40 years after A New Hope, and Han and Leia, now married, are still going on about things that happened when they met. Hee.

I will say that you can't read book 7 without reading books 1-6. I've been blasting through them, getting them from the library. Don't worry about the new characters you've never heard of -- you can look it up on the Star Wars Wiki if you really care. I find myself skipping through certain story lines because I'm not invested in the characters and I think they're boring -- like the babe on the cover of this particular book, who I think is named Tahiri, is on trial for something or other that happened in an earlier series, and, really, I don't care ... so I just sort of skim those parts. The babe on the back cover? I looked her up on the Wookipedia, and, wow, what an incredibly absurd life she's had -- glad I missed THOSE books. Also glad there's not much about her in this book, since her very existence seems silly. I think her picture is on the cover to appeal to the Star Wars groupies.

Longtime fans seem to hate the series, probably because they've read too many books in the Star Wars universe for too many years, and are starting to realize that they've been at this too long and need to get a life. This series isn't so bad if you skip all the intervening stuff. Plus by skipping all the preceding books and series I was unphased by continuity issues -- I've no clue what Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker's been getting up to in the past 30 years, and don't much care if his character is consistent (or redundant) with earlier stuff. He's still reminiscing about hanging out with Yoda, and that's good enough for me.

5. Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Brennan. I kept thinking there was something or other I read BEFORE I read the Star Wars book this week, but was totally blank on what it could've been. Then I found this book in a stack -- aha, that's it. And that sort of sums up the book for me -- very forgettable. I had it on my to-be-read list after seeing a review of it on someone's blog a couple of years ago. Wow, I'm so glad I didn't run out and buy it, even though it's been on my Amazon wishlist all this time. For one thing, the US hardback cover is incredibly, embarrassingly dorky (the cover shown on Amazon is much better).

And, frankly, the book is sort of repetitive and predictable. I had read a bunch of reviews of it (I love book reviews) which all mentioned The Big Plot Twist, so I thought, "Okay, this thing I've figured out about a third of the way through the book? That was pretty obvious because the author foreshadows it on about every single frickin' page? That must not be The Big Plot Twist, because it's easy to figure out." But, alas, it WAS the Big Plot Twist. Disappointing. I had checked out the second book in the series from the library, but can't bring myself to read it because the characters were so very dippy.

So, 50% if the books read, about 33% of the time elapsed. No clue what to read next -- too much drivel in too short of time, and I'm starting to get sick of it. The next Star Wars Fate of the Jedi book isn't due out until mid-August. I might have to switch over to something thought-provoking, heaven forbid.

Summer Reading

Okay, THIS is going to be the year I actually complete the library's Adult Summer Reading program. I know I say that every year, but I think this time I've got a shot at it.

For one thing, this time I actually know when it starts and ends thanks to Facebook notification. It's taken me this many years to figure out that it runs at a slightly different time than the Kids Summer Reading program. But this time I was on top of things and signed up as soon as it opened. Unlike, say, the year that I didn't know about it until it was half over and then checked out Dune as my first book to put on my list (which ended up being blank for the year since the program was over before I even got through the first couple of chapters).

Also, I know that I'm going to count my progress by books instead of minutes read. You can choose to read 10 books or 50 hours. The timed reading seems easier, since most books I like take more than 5 hours to read (see Dune above), but timed reading involves things like keeping track of time, possibly even owning a watch.

So, we're about 10 days into the 12 week program, and this is what I've got so far:

1.Electric Barracuda by Tim Dorsey. I've been following the adventures of serial killer Serge Storm for years. Love it. Mayhem, gore, and random sex scenes ... come to think of it, that's how I described the Iliad. Except Tim Dorsey is funny. Also, much profanity, which is possibly different than the Iliad. Did the ancient Greeks use cuss words? How would we know?

I was thinking that this wasn't the type of thing you'd see done up in fanfic since Serge seems to be such a product of Dorsey's brain. Indeed, when I checked FanFiction.net I didn't find any written up for this series. On the other hand, the Iliad has a handful of fanfics. What does this tell us? Also, why am I comparing everything I read these days to the Iliad?

2.Night of the Living Trekkies. Okay, I'm not a fan of zombie lit. As a matter of fact, I think the last time I had anything to do with zombie culture was in the 80s when I saw Dawn of the Dead. Also, I'm pretty much an amateur Trekkie. Really. I didn't even catch on to the chapter titles of this book until half way through (although that's partly because I tend to ignore chapter titles, not to mention those quotes at the beginning of chapters which thankfully this book didn't have). But this, THIS BOOK WAS A RIOT! Really.

Another admission -- my favorite line wasn't even about Trek or zombies -- it was when the red shirt commented on the zombies wandering around the hotel atrium, saying he thought maybe they were a flash mob. It was just so ... perfect.

And on our Iliad comparison chart, one of the Iliad fanfics involved zombies. But this book was better written.

3. How to Grow Microgreens by Fionna Hill. When I go to the library I typically cruise the new gardening books (also the new knitting/crocheting/sewing books, and look for any new Terry Pratchett novels). My first thought on seeing this was, "why in the world would anyone want a book on THAT? Wouldn't you just look up what you need to know online?" But the pages were that nice, heavy paper and the pictures were pretty, so I checked it out.

Then, here's the truly amazing thing -- I decided to actually try reading it. Usually I just check a book like this out, flip through it a couple of times, then return it. But since it was Summer Read I decided to actually see what the text was like.

Introduction: Much blah blah blah about microgreens being the hot new trend. Then, "Microgreens are termed that after they have produced at least two 'true' leaves after the cotyledons appear." The following lines toss about words and phrases such as embryo, seed leaves, dicotyledonous plants ... with no explanation. The author assumes we can look these words up if we don't know them. The author actually assumes we are adults with brain power. I was spellbound. Fionna Hill, you had me at "cotyledons". (By the way, there's a glossary in the back.)

So, moving forward, the writing was at times clunky, repetitive and disjoint. BUT, the author also had a totally charming tendency to explain that she did something a certain way because that worked for her and perhaps we readers should just give it a whirl and see what happens. Whoa -- sounds like me explaining knitting and crocheting! Also, this is pretty much my approach to gardening -- give it a whirl and see what happens.

And then I got to the descriptions of 25 microgreens she likes to grow. This is where the book truly shines. Loved this part! By now, of course, I was mentally cataloging the contents of our house and garage whilst reading (to see if I could start planting any of this) when I discovered that she grows flax seed and popping corn. Really? Because I have those things in the house! And I've no clue if the popcorn would be viable, but, hey, why not give it a whirl and see what happens. Which I plan to do later today.

And I've moved from wondering why anyone would own a book on this subject to wondering if I should go ahead an buy this particular book because it's so amazingly cool.



In summary, approximately 12.5% of the way through Summer Read on a time basis, and already 30% of the way through the needed books. Woot. And I've read new things I don't ordinarily read (zombies! fluffy-looking gardening book!). I've also read a free book on the Kindle that I haven't listed here, but I might not put it on the list unless I get desperate to add another title -- it was one of those self-published jobbies that needed an editor.

Rick Riordan!

We got our tickets about a month ago (the tickets were free, but the library distributed them as a method of crowd control so they'd know how many people to expect, unlike last year when he was here). And we got there plenty early so we could get parking and a decent seat before the rest of our 1900-plus close friends showed up. (Update: the library web site now says they counted over 2,000 people attending.)



Believe me, the place filled right up.

And, after an introduction by the head of library, during which we learned that he is unable to correctly pronounce "Riordan" (okay, I gotta tell you --Ridley Pearson also got up and had a charming introduction, during which he correctly pronounced "Riordan" several times, then Mr. Numb-to-the-World Library Director got up again and STILL consistently said it wrong), the MAIN EVENT:


RICK RIORDAN!

Rather than have a typical question and answer session after his talk, they had everyone write their questions down, then selected some representative ones. Ridley Pearson sat down with him to ask him the questions. I thought this worked really well, by the way, and the questions they selected were indeed interesting. You can read Rick Riordan's answers to a couple of the questions on his blog.




Next, time to stand in line forever and ever for book signing. This part of the evening had some organizational snags, but we survived those and eventually made our way to the front of the line. Mr. Riordan was gracious and charming to however many hundreds of people he greeted. Sheesh, you couldn't pay me enough to sit there and chat with 1900 people while repeatedly signing my name, especially knowing that the next day I'm going to fly to another city and repeat the entire experience. The kids, though, figure that it was easier for him to do the signing than, say, teach a bunch of middle schoolers day after day (he was a middle school teacher for 15 years).

When Thalia had her book signed she asked him, seemingly out of the blue, "How old do your kids have to be to date?" She said it really caught him off guard. Uh, yeah, I can imagine.


Actually, there is a reason for the question. For one thing, it's a continuing topic of conversation in our house, one that 15-year-old Thalia finds interesting. Also, while reading The Lost Hero over the last couple of days, we noted and discussed that the 15-year-olds in the book tended to have boyfriends and girlfriends, leading Thalia to believe Rick Riordan thinks that's okay. But, of course, she gave him absolutely NO CONTEXT for the question.

For the record, his 16 year old son would be allowed to date if he had a girlfriend. Or something like that.

Annabeth told him she was dressed as Drew from the new book which just came out Tuesday, The Lost Hero. Check out the metallic fingerless mitts -- quite the fashion statement, yes?

Rick Riordan: Oh, so you've already read the book?
Annabeth: Yes, I finished it this morning.
Me, later: What, you didn't tell him that your darling mother read all 500-plus pages aloud to you for 2 days straight?!




Because, yes, folks, that's how we've spent the last 2 days -- reading the book aloud. The house looks like a wreck, but at least there were no arguments over who got to read it first.

Lots of fun stuff in the new book, by the way. Star Trek! Star Wars! Irish dance! And more! But you'll have to read it yourself to see what I mean ....

Video clip from the local paper here. If I'd had a chance to ask a question, it would've been: How did he stay so fresh and energetic during a book tour?

Book Notes

I never did finish the library's summer read program, but here are some of the books I HAVE finished lately (if I write them down on paper I'll lose track of them):

The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz. I've been reading this series from the beginning. The characters are crazy. I like books with crazy people in them. Real life with crazy people isn't quite so charming, but that's another story (the preceding seemingly random comment prompted by hearing the neighbor outside while I'm typing this, and wondering if she's out spraying our lawn with Roundup again, sigh).

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde. I'd been reading this series a while back, and just caught on that there was a new volume ... which was published in 2007, so I'm a little late to be calling it "new". But, anyway. Love this series.

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen. Definitely not his best. Sort of plodding, in a full-of-insane-characters kind of way.

Currently reading:

First Contact by Evan Mandery. Very bizarre, and absolutely enchanting.

Gilgamesh by David Ferry. Well, not really by David Ferry, but his version of the various bits and bobs of the tablets.

And I'm probably some other things that aren't right here in front of me, so I'm not remembering them. If I wander around, find them and finish them, I'll write them down here.

In the meantime, this list is heavily weighted towards fiction involving mentally unstable characters. Is there a message in this trend?

June Books

It's Summer Read time at the library, and I'm once again participating in the Adult Reading Club. The goal is to read 10 books or 50 hours. Since I hate keeping track of minutes, mostly because it involves finding a clock, I'm keeping track of books.

Here's what I have for June:

1. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. Along the same lines as Matthew Syed'sBounce, which I mentioned last month. As a matter of fact, Bounce repeats much of the info found in The Talent Code (because of which I now know more about Brazilian soccer training than I ever thought I would). Talent Code extensively discusses myelin's role in developing abilities; we tend to talk a lot about myelin around here, so I thought that was pretty cool. Overall, I ended up liking this book better than Bounce -- it was stronger in the areas I was interested in.

2.The Good That Men Do (Star Trek: Enterprise) by Andy Mangels. You know how crappy that final episode of Enterprise was? This book re-writes it so it isn't quite so bad. It takes the exact same scenes (I think -- really, I didn't memorize the episode and have no desire to re-watch it) and puts a different spin on them. Totally nerdy.

By the way, while reading this I revealed to my kids that I had figured out that Captain Archer played water polo! Their reaction? "Um, Mom, they mentioned that about every 4th episode of the series." Oh. I guess I was thinking of something else when it came up so I wasn't paying attention, or maybe I'd left the room, or maybe ... I dunno, maybe I'm not the Trekkie I thought I was. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Overall, this was my least favorite book of June; its appeal seems to rest solely on the Star Trek connection.

3. Shakespeare Undead by Lori Handeland. There was this scene in Saturday night's performance of Twelfth Night where Cesario and Orsino looked like they were swaying like zombies while the clowns circled around them chanting (I'm pretty sure that's not the effect they were after). So when I saw a book about ZOMBIES and SHAKESPEARE on the new book shelf at the library, it seemed like fate had dropped it into my hands.

What a fun read! Shakespeare quotes mashed up with the undead -- can't go wrong with that. Great poolside reading.

4. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope. Melissa Wiley mentioned this in her blog, so, of course, I had to read it since I'm a Melissa Wiley groupie AND we had enjoyed The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Pope. Perilous Gard is as good as Melissa Wiley said. Also set in Elizabethan England -- we seem to be having a rash of connections to that era. And another great poolside read, if that's what you're looking for.

Books, books, books

The summer reading program has started at our library, so let me jot down the books I read this spring BEFORE the program started.

Gator A-Go-Go by Tim Dorsey. A crazed serial killer as the hero, lots of bad language and drugs, senseless violence --gees, I love these books about Serge. And this is one of the better ones. I also loved the little alligator going up and down along the bottom of the pages to make the novel into a flip book (pity the people who read this in electronic format -- they totally miss out on this).

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Although I'm not a runner, my interest was piqued by a post on embarrassing your kids over at Nurtured by Love. The shoes seemed a bit over the top for a non-runner to purchase simply for the pleasure of seeing the look on Thalia and AnnaBeth's faces, but the book was fascinating. The author did a great job of presenting factual information in an entertaining format (although I had the impression he was cherry-picking his facts at times). After I read it I started cruising web sites on barefoot running. Oooooh, physiology of running -- I love weird stuff like this that has nothing to do with my life!

Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success by Matthew Syed. I loved this book. I got it out of the library, and dearly wanted to highlight passages and stick post-it notes all over it. I might need to buy it so I can fulfill these fantasies. It's all about the importance of practice; also, lots about how important failure is (yeah, this is the book that got me started on THAT binge). I wasn't so excited about the chapter on drugs in sports (sorry, don't much care, plus it read like a high school research paper), and the chapter on genetics (interesting stuff, but not what I was reading the book to learn about).

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. Such a good author. And we visited Memphis soon after reading it! Which could've been really cool, except it wasn't. More about THAT trip coming up soon.

Early Spring Books

What I've been reading lately:

Carpe Demon
California Demon
Demons Are Forever
Deja Demon
Demon Ex Machina

all by Julie Kenner. I had picked up Demon Ex Machina from the new book shelf at the library, mostly because I thought the title was catchy. It quickly became apparent that there was too much back story to enter the series at that point, so I started with book 1 of the series. Fun, escapist reading, but it got a little redundant reading all 5 books in a row in the space of 2 weeks. Book 4, Deja Demon, was my least favorite of the series, and also the only one I read on the Kindle. I wonder if there's a connection there, since I seem more apt to say a book's writing seems choppy and disjoint if I read it on the Kindle.

Brain Rules by John Medina. Well written, but you know most of this stuff already anyway -- get some exercise, get some sleep, repeat things to remember them etc. etc. My biggest take-away was the discussion of an experiment in which the scent of roses was released while the subjects were doing a task; the scent was also released while they slept that night. The next day the subjects who had performed and then slept in an area with the same smell had better recall than subjects that did not. Hmmm -- I wonder how that applies to homeschooling, since kids sleep in a house that smells the same as their classroom ....

The Hole We're In by Gabrielle Zevin. I wouldn't mind being in a discussion group about this book now -- it's the sort of book you want to talk about afterwards. If I were in a group I'd mention that 1) I thought the end sort of fizzled; 2) Afterwards I had the dreadful feeling that I was supposed to write a paper about the symbolism of Carolyn What's-her-face's lack of nipples, since the book seemed chock-full of imagery specifically designed to give lit majors something to write about; and 3) most of the times when the idea of "holes" was inserted in the plot I was reminded of a lampoon I read of the Left Behind series entitle Right Behind, in which the characters would dramatically pause every time they used the phrase "Right Behind" (including references to someone's right butt cheek) so you could be REALLY REALLY sure to catch that it was SIGNIFICANT ... and then I'd want to giggle at the "hole" reference, because that cast it in a rather silly light ... and I'm still not sure if the author meant it all to be quite so overwrought and silly as it came across to me. Was it self-parody? No clue. This is why I wasn't a lit major.

Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel Amen. Give a child a hammer and he'll decide everything he sees is a nail; give a doctor a brain imaging machine, and he'll think everything he sees happening in your body is related to the pictures he sees on the screen of the machine. And then he'll write a book (okay, lots and lots of books, mountains of books) on the subject. I liked one of his earlier books, and picked this up to see if he had anything new to say. In a word, no. A waste of time. I won't bother listing the ways in which this book annoyed me, because I'd like to forget that I read it.

February Books

In February I managed to read books that weren't free downloads on the Kindle.

For one thing, I returned to my favorite type of reading -- non-fiction. And I've decided that I really prefer non-fiction to be in a real book with real pages. Also, to be blunt, sometimes the formatting on the Kindle sucks, and the diagrams accompanying a text end up in really odd places.

I tried the free sample download of Why Don't Students Like School by Dan Willingham, and it was an annoying mess on the Kindle. So I got the actual hardback, and discovered true love ... which you already know if you've been around me in real life this past month, since I've probably been waving it in your face and gushing about it like a televangelist, even quoting passages as though they're scripture. Really, I can't distill my enthusiasm into a few sentences. So let's just say I LIKE THIS BOOK. And maybe you should read it, too.

Then, while reading the 180 Degree Health blog (one of my favorite blogs), I noticed a list of books down the sidebar. Scrolling through, I discovered that Dr. Schwarzbein has written a new book, entitled The Schwarzbein Principle II. I'd read The Schwarzbein Principle a couple of years ago (got it from the library, and later put it on my Paperbackswap.com list). So I was eager to read this new, improved version. Fascinating stuff. Although I didn't actually read every word of the book (there are lots of books I browse through -- particularly gardening books like Gayla Trail's Grow Great Grub, or the piles of cookbooks I get from the library -- nice books, but I don't actually READ them). I disagree with some of what Schwarzbein says, but the vast majority of it is sensible.

Reading 2 non-fiction books was enough for my brain to absorb for the month, so I filled in the rest of the time with fiction. On the Kindle.

First up, I downloaded Tiger's Curse for 99 cents. What a fun book! Okay, at times the writing is clunky, and she could've benefitted from a good editing (do we really need an essay on the history of aviation plopped in the middle of a conversation?). But I kept reading through the less well-written bits simply because I wanted to see where the book was headed. I sort of want to read the next book, except that I'm concerned that a) I won't like it as well because the male leads are spending more time as men than as tigers, and the whole thing could slip into a sappy mess (a la Twilight) because of that, and b) the 3rd book isn't written yet, so if I do enjoy book 2 I'll have to wait until who-knows-when to see how things turn out.

Next, a free download, Off the Record by Elizabeth White. Christian romance. Really dippy. If I'd seen this book in the library I wouldn't have checked it out; if I'd seen this book in a "free book" bin I wouldn't have picked it up. So why did I download it and waste my time reading it? I guess because I kept thinking that it would get better, and I couldn't fan through the pages to see where it was heading. I have no problem throwing out crummy paperbacks partially unread; I need to learn to delete crummy downloads without wasting more time finishing them.

Another free download was The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher by Rob Stennett. The book is Christian satire. Sometimes it struck me as absolutely hilarious, sometimes as downright creepy. The writing seemed choppy at times, although that might have been a function of the formatting on the Kindle -- I had the impression that some parts would've read better if there had been more white space on the page, or the elements had somehow been arranged differently. In any event, I loved the premise -- a non-Christian decides to be "Christian" simply in order to make money off of Christians (I've met those people before, notably that plumber with the flashy cross and the flashy ichthus on his paperwork who turned out to be as incompetent and creepy as I thought he would basis those very symbols). If you read it, expect to see passages along the lines of:

"But she decided to push those feelings away, she decided to side with Jesus and forget about her past mistakes even though siding with Jesus probably wasn't the Christian thing to do," and

"...in his den he had a large collection of unwrapped Star Wars action figures organized alphabetically by home planet," and

"'But I'm what Christians need. I'm their new voice. And I can think so much more clearly than other pastors. I can be articulate and politically correct because I'm not encumbered by things like the Bible and Jesus.' "

And, finally, I just finished my free download of My Name is Russell Fink by Michael Snyder, which is apparently "Lad Lit" (I didn't know this was a genre). Very quirky, very well-written. I laughed, I cried, I was a little peeved that it ended when it did, although I understand why it did. I didn't mark any favorite passages because I was too busy reading. Overall, the best fiction I've read in a long time.

Books

I thought it would be cool to write monthly posts about what books we've read, except obviously I've already blown that by not getting around to writing an end-of-January post. Plus I'm pretty sure it would work better if I actually took notes on what books we're reading, as I can't really recall.

The kids have been reading a bunch of Naruto manga. When we go to the library we pick up 10-12 books at a time.

My own reading has mostly focussed on messing around with the Kindle. These are sort of in order backwards, since the oldest ones are on the last page of the "Home" list, and I'm paging through it to see what I read so far this year.

Talk of the Town by Lisa Wingate. This was a free download, and turned out to be a cute book. Chicklit, predictable, but fun to read while waiting for kids to skate/have a piano lesson/whatever other reason I end up sitting around waiting for someone. I didn't realize Lisa Wingate was an Evangelical writer until I was most of the way through the book -- the Christian point-of-view isn't applied with the usual sledge hammer (and one of the reviewers on Amazon was upset by that, apparently preferring the sledge hammer -- go figure).

Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent. Also a free download at the time. Wooden writing, predictable plotting. Again, it passed the time while I was sitting around waiting for kids to be done with various classes, but I should probably delete it from the Kindle now. The best part was the forward about a cat the author knows.

All God's Creatures by Carolyn McSparren. Another free-at-the-time Kindle download. A novel about a female veterinarian in the southern U.S., this was engaging and interesting. It would actually be worth checking out of the library if you want to read a novel about a vet, perhaps even worth purchasing.

A couple of Star Wars short stories that were free Kindle downloads. After reading them I considered purchasing the novel they were trying to lure me into buying, or at least checking it out it out fo the library. Then I thought about reading hundreds of pages of that sort of prose, and decided against it.

Genie in Your Genes by Dawson Church. I wanted to take a look at this, and the library didn't have it. So I decided to purchase on Kindle because it was slightly cheaper that way. And then spent most of the time reading it thinking about how I wished I had purchased the paper copy, since the Kindle seemed sort of balky for reading nonfiction. For instance, why aren't all the footnote superscript numbers hot links to the actual footnotes? Wouldn't that be handy?* As for actual content of the book, I'm just vaguely aware that I read quite a bit about genes, and that the mechanisms through which those genes are expressed means that Jurassic Park, Maximum Ride, and possibly even Clone Wars are works of fiction. As I said, this reading experience was mostly about wishing I'd chosen a different format for the book. Maybe I'll re-read it later and find out what the book actually said.

*The footnote asterisks in Terry Pratchett's books on Kindle are hotlinks. If they can do it for Terry Pratchett, why can't they do it for nonfixction?

EFT for Procrastination by Gloria Arenson. Also read on the Kindle, this time I got a grip on how to use the bookmarking feature to flip back and forth between bits of the book. As for the actual content, Arenson is a psychotherapist who deals with compulsive behaviors. I now know that procrastination isn't simply a matter of laziness -- there are all sorts of triggers.

I also downloaded a boatload of Kindle previews. They're a few pages of various books I might be interested in purchasing or checking out of the library. Sometimes the preview is enough to see that the book really isn't suited to the Kindle format.

Overall, I'd say I've been reading a lot more since the Kindle debuted in our lives. I can't say that the quality of what I've read has been that great overall. It's certainly handy to carry the Kindle around and pull it out at times when I'd be staring at the wall in boredom (actually that's not true -- I'd be knitting -- sometimes I knit while reading, too -- but you get the point).

Snippets of Weekend

Friday night was an awards dinner for Rick's work. It was ... an awards dinner. What else can you say? Not terribly thrilling, not terribly anything but long. Very, very long.

Saturday afternoon we again babysat a 3 year old. Wow, this kid is so cute and so funny! We dragged the rebounder upstairs, and also a bunch of little cars we'd amassed from giveaways. Since it was sort of cool and damp out, we spent most of the day crawling around the floor playing with cars, or else jumping on the rebounder, seeing who could go highest (Thalia's head nearly hits the ceiling).

And we marveled at Purdue's victory over Ohio State. Too bad this didn't happen last weekend when we were in Dayton.

I had checked Elissa's Quest out of the library last week, and read it Sunday afternoon. It's a fun book for girls. It even includes positive discussion of a girl's first menses, which isn't something you see in a lot of books.

I also spent some of the weekend thinking about fascia.

Annabeth's turnout really improved when she tried some myofascial release. Back story: Lisa Howell's Front Splits Fast email for this week mentioned the TFL. Googling to find out what the heck the TFL is, I found this video. You can buy those rollers at Target, among other places.

In the meantime, I was reading Deborah Vogel's blog, and by jumping around various links landed at this cool picture of the fascia that shows the line running from the top of the head down the back to the bottom of the feet. Which is why Lisa Howell suggests massaging your neck and head and feet to maximize your hamstring stretch.

Also spent a fair bit of time poking around on Ray Peat's website, reading articles about high cholesterol as a protective adaptation for hypothyroidism (the sort of weird health information I'll ponder for weeks at a time).

Library Acquisitions

It seems as though homeschoolers can never have enough space on the bookshelves for all of the books and instructional DVDs they amass.

Not that our recent purchases have much to do with standard homeschool subjects. Unless you consider them under the heading of Phys Ed and/or physiology.

In other words, if you're not interested in those topics, this post will be crushingly boring.

FIrst up we ordered Zena Rommett's Floor Barre. I couldn't decide between Series II,which is for beginners/intermediate, and Series IV for the young dancer. By ordering from Amazon.com and using a gift card I talked myself into getting both. And I'm sort of glad I did.

Series II is for adults. It's a film of a class she is giving to several dancers.

Cons: The sound isn't that great -- sometimes she seems to be muttering. Sometimes the filming isn't so great -- I don't really want to focus on blue-leotard-guy's head, thank you, I'd rather see what his feet and legs are doing. No time is spent with close ups of corrections such as showing the precise placement of body parts (she verbally corrects and an assistant gently guides the student's body to the correct alignment). It's very long, and you can't skip through various bits to get to the specific exercises you're interested in. The pianist is incredibly distracting -- what's with the left hand flipping all over the place? -- the music and gestures remind me of Chico Marx.

But, my understanding when I purchased was that this DVD is actually a supplement to a live class -- in other words, it isn't meant to be a stand-alone product that will teach Rommett's floor barre methods to the general public. So I'm not too disappointed, since I feel like I'm getting a nice peek into her classroom.

Pros: It's really amazing stuff. If you really work at it you can feel your muscles developing. The pace of the exercises is very slow and controlled. Also, these are professional dancers taking the class, and some of them are flubbing up, so it's sort of heartening to see pros struggle.

After working with this DVD a few times we tried Series IV for young dancers. In this DVD Zena Rommett is working with a single young dancer. The sound is MUCH CLEARER, although her voice does start to fade out (perhaps she was tiring -- she looks rather old in these DVDs). The moves are different, and she emphasizes different things -- for example, for the young dancer she doesn't mention how to gradually point the toe as a deliberate action (although the student does it anyway). My biggest quibble is midway through the class Rommett decides to use a different approach so the student can do something or other better -- it's a moment when you realize that this is really a customized class for an individual rather than a follow-along DVD for home viewers.

Both DVDs end with barre exercises performed standing. My understanding is that floor barre is, indeed, to be done prior to a regular class so that your body can use it's new understanding of alignment in the vertical position.

Overall, I really like having 2 different DVDs because I notice different things in each one. Annabeth prefers the Series IV, while Thalia like Series II. We are all much better at understanding instructions to degage, coupe, passe/retire , extend our leg in attitude vs. grand battement, etc. etc.

Next up, since Annabeth had nearly hurt her ankle during drills at dance class, I decided that enough was enough (way too many kids are injuring ankles and feet), and purchased a used copy of Dancing Longer, Dancing Stronger, which has strengthening exercises that are helpful to prevent injuries. Side note: I ordered an inexpensive used copy that was listed as "Very Good Condition" and it arrived looking like a brand new copy; hurray for used books.

I read through it myself, then started figuring out the exercises. Many for ankle and foot strength are what we already have in The Perfect Pointe book. And many of the leg strengthening exercises are duplicated in Rommett's floor barre, although the book doesn't force one into the slow, deliberate pace that makes you work so hard (it also lacks Rommett's memorable way of saying "now point your foooooooot"). Fascinating how all of this stuff repeats, eh?

I've also recently pulled out a book I'd purchased months ago and never read: Progressive Plyometrics for Kids. Well, actually I'd read it and then set it aside. Now I've gotten it out, actually took the DVD out of the back and watched it, and started doing some of the stuff in it. The DVD is well done -- simple and to the point. The exercises are varied and fun. Annabeth and I did one session of Bronze Level so far, and it was like one of those gym classes from years and years ago, with the two of us zooming around the yard, jumping around, figuring out which exercises were easy and which were hard. I'll admit that the "fun" factor might be because it was just the 2 of us -- I was never really a huge fan of gym class, but maybe if I'd done it individually with an adult who focussed exclusively on me I would've felt differently.

Our other big purchase for the month was Lisa Howell's new Front Splits Fast book and DVD. I never, ever would've spent so much on an item I'd found on the internet EXCEPT THAT we have her Perfect Pointe book and know that she puts out high quality products. It arrived last week, and Thalia and I read through the book. We've popped in the DVD a couple of times, and, wow, I could watch this over and over just for the sheer geekiness of hearing her explain how the bones, muscles and fascia work together -- this stuff absolutely fascinates me. Also, I'll admit, it's fun to listen to Howell's accent.

Frankly, much of the information isn't new to me. I've read Eric Franklin's Conditioning for Dance, I've been doing yoga for years, etc. etc. But Lisa Howell has put it all together in a nice, neat, seemingly do-able package.

So far we've all done the pre-test (oddly, I was the most flexible in the 2 specific tests used, which were a seated forward bed and a leg raise -- I guess all of those mornings of yoga have accomplished something). We've learned to massage our necks. We've tried some new stretches. And Thalia decided that her kicks were a wee bit higher in dance class last night. But we're not even halfway through all of the instructions for all the stretches; we're somewhere in Step 3 of How to Use This Course page, and already noticing results. Woosh. I wonder if we'll get to the point that we can lift our feet over our heads? Stay tuned.

Clicker Training

Last year when we were having issues with our cat I was exploring various options for improving her behavior (side note: sometimes Thalia expresses a desire to become a cat psychologist, and believe me, this particular cat could be her Master's thesis). One of the books I got was Karen Pryor's Clicker Training for Cats. Thalia had a great time teaching the cat some tricks. And then we sort of set the whole clicker thing aside.

The other day I waltzed into the library and looked through the new nonfiction shelves. Hey, Karen Pryor has a new book out -- Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us about All Animals. Figuring it would be full of fun animal training anecdotes (it was -- if you like reading stories about animals having positive training experiences, this is the book for you) I checked it out and started reading it.

And there on page 14 encountered the idea of clicker training in sports. "The first public application of clicks to human muscle moves was in children's sports, particularly gymnastics and track." Really?? So, like, you can train kids to improve physical performance using positive reinforcement instead of yelling at them?? I immediately started googling the idea and discovered that it has the name of TAGteach. And my mind started exploding with ideas, particularly when I read this PDF file that tells about a dance studio that uses the concept. And teaches kids to dance without a huge amount of shouting and negative reinforcement. No person standing there declaring, "No no NO, you're doing it all wrong, try again," just a simple click when the legs are "dead straight". (In my head I'm saying all that with a British accent. Hee. If you're in our dance studio you know what I mean.)

I finished the book. Which, by the way, is excellent, and goes fairly in depth with the concepts while maintaining an engaging tone. I read about clicker training in dolphins, other sea creatures, cats, dogs, wolves, horses (including the ponies that learned to surf), zoo animals (ibis, rhino, gorilla, etc.). I learned that conditional reinforcers always go through the amygdala , how clicker training affects the hypothalamus, what the SEEKING circuit is (other than a really tough concept to google, so no link -- it has to do with dopamine and is mostly in the hypothalamus).

And also in chapter 11 discovered an entire chapter on TAGteaching. It was fascinating. I explained the basic concept to the kids, and we decided to give it a try. We would use one of Annabeth's typical competition comments -- "arms" -- and see if we could improve her reel. We analyzed how we would tag this, and decided that she tended to raise her right arm during leaps, so we would tag for correct arm placement during leaps. I got out the clicker we had used for the cat, and plunged in. I soon realized that it would be better if Thalia clicked the tags, partly because Thalia was seated where she could see Annabeth's right arm more clearly, and partly because Thalia is more familiar with the dance and therefor knew when to expect the leaps.

It worked great, except Annabeth started raising her left arm to compensate. But before we tried to tag for that problem we had discovered a new problem -- the cat, hearing the clicker clicking away, had trotted in to see what we were up to and find out if it involved treats for her. Indeed, the book mentions that animals remember the clicker training seemingly forever. IT'S TRUE. And we need to find a new clicker if we're going to explore this further. I looked around at Target the other day for toys that make an annoying beep when you press a button, sort of like the Nemo car keys, but came up empty handed. I hate toys like that and refused to buy them when the kids were little -- now I'm searching stores for them. You just never know where parenting will take you, I guess, since I never would've expected to be interested in this sort of plastic-electronic craptastic toy.

In summary, this is a great book whether you're interested in animal training or in kids' sport/dance performance. Heck, it even has application for your own golf swing or softball pitching.

Summer Reading

I decided to sign up for Summer Read at the library this year. The kids do this every year, signing up as soon as the program opens, then spending about 2 weeks in a reading frenzy during which they complete the entire number of books/hours needed to turn in a completed form. On the other hand, I'd never tried the adult version.

The choices for adults were to read 10 books or read 50 hours. I thought the hour count might work better for me, given that I rarely finish entire books.

I started out withHow Lincoln Learned to Read by Daniel Wolff. After about 3 chapters it became quite apparent that 1) I really didn't care about the subject as presented (summary: sometimes people get interested in stuff they aren't taught in school, so they pursue that knowledge and learn it outside of a classroom ... not really a startling concept for a homeschooler) and 2) it's really annoying to keep track of how many minutes I read, since it tends to happen in little bits and pieces.

So, I decided count my reading on a per book basis. And, furthermore, I'd concentrate on reading fiction that's written about an 8th grade level, figuring if I read fast enough I wouldn't notice how silly it was and therefor not toss any given book before I finished it.

First up was The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye. Someone had given me a 2 volume hardback set ("book club edition") of this, and I'd been using one of the volumes to prop up the bathroom window when the sash cord broke. I'd never read the book in all the years since it came out. The kitchen remodelers flipped off the electricity for a few hours, and with nothing better to do, I picked up vol. 1, sat down near a sunny window, and started reading.

It was really an engaging book. We'll be studying this period of history this coming fall, and this really gave a sense of the tone of the times. I can see why it was such a popular book, and why people love it so.

After I finished vol. 1 I tried to start vol. 2, but, alas, the covers of the 2 volumes were exactly the same and I kept picking up the wrong book. Finally I decided to come back to it later, and to count vol. 1 as an entire book (after all, it was about 500 pages long on its own).

Whenever I see a book by Elmore Leonard on the New Book Shelf at the library I pick it up, and thus read Road Dogs. You gotta love an author whose advice to other authors is to "try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." Quick, fun read, leaving me with a desire to swear a lot.

Next, I indulged a passion that typically doesn't work out. Whenever I watch a bunch of video of certain franchises -- Star Wars, Star Trek -- I get an urge to pick up one of the fiction books of the series. This is pretty much always a terrible mistake. For example, last Christmas we watched all 6 Star Wars movies back-to-back; later that week I picked up a Star Wars novel at the library and it was soooo bad ... ack.

So when we went to see the new Star Trek movie I had an urge to read Star Trek novels. I grabbed one,Gods of Night by David Mack, wondering if I'd make it past page 50. Imagine my surprise to discover that it was fairly engaging. Also, it was the beginning of a trilogy, which I ended up reading at the pace of a book per day, the next books being Mere Mortals and Lost Souls.

Of course, I do have some quibbles. Deanna Troi and William Riker are now married, and Deanna is pregnant and insufferably whiney. I was never a huge Deanna-Riker-romance fan anyway, so that undoubtably influenced me. Also, Picard and Crusher are now married and, get this, Crusher is pregnant ... I found this very disturbing. Also, the author apparently had the word "susurration" on his word-a-day calendar, as it appears at least once per book; it's a cool word, but throwing it around in every. single. book. is a bit much.

Of course, zipping through those 3 books at high speed left me with no library books. So I grabbed another book someone had given me, a used copy of Dorothy Sayer's The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. I'd never read a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery before. He seemed to be a twit, frankly. I only finished the book so I could put it on my Summer Read list.

Next up, another trip to the library revealed a new Lisa Lutz book on the New Book Shelf, Revenge of the Spellmans. There's something about these books ... the characters are beyond quirky, the writing fairly clipped. Also, I'm consistently entertained by novels with footnotes.


By this time I'd purchased the latest edition of The Well Trained Mind and was perusing it for ideas on spiffing up our homeschool experience. I didn't count TWTM towards my Summer Read total because I just read the bits I'm currently interested in.

For example, I was looking over literature suggestions for 8th graders, which are matched up to history studies by using authors from the era under study -- in this case, the Modern Age. The pointless, random, fluffy reading I'd been doing all summer was beginning to wear on my (I really, really wanted to read Pride and Prejudice or something of that sort by this time) so I decided to switch over to pre-reading some of the suggested literature. First up, another Lord Peter Wimsey -- Strong Poison. Which turned out to be a fairly engaging novel. Lord Peter Wimsey's character wasn't nearly as irritating, or maybe the strong supporting characters diverted my attention. Who knows. Anyway, Thalia will be reading it this year, and we can discuss what we like and dislike about it.

In a totally out-of-character move I purchased a current best seller for myself for my birthday -- The Guernsey LIterary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I was a little nervous about this bold move -- generally when people tell me I've gotta read something I end up hating it (I'd gotten 3 pages intoThe Likeness, another currently popular book, and decided I didn't like the characters and probably never would, so I stopped reading it). Honestly? I loved this book. It was engaging, and mildly educational. It's set in the time period we'll be studying this coming year, and touches on some of the events. I might have Thalia read it for history.

And for book number 10 I chose a book out of Story of the World Activity Guide vol.4 The Modern Age -- Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang, which was a fascinating look at life in China during the Cultural Revolution. A young adult book, it took just a few hours to read. And I think it will be a good choice for our history studies this year.

And now? Back to nonfiction, of course!

More Books We're Using for Botany, Parent Version

First, let me relate the traumatic news that I can't find my copy of Salisbury and Ross's Plant Physiology. I know it was around for years and years because it was my favorite college textbook. But, alas, I can't find it now. (I did find some really surprising books and magazines while looking for it, though, but that's another story.) I remember throwing out my notes for Hort 217 when we moved from Ohio to here, figuring I hadn't used them for about 20 years, and was unlikely to develop a sudden urgent need for them. Maybe I tossed other plant/college related material at the same time.

Anyway, I keep finding more and more plant-related things on our shelves. For example, the other day I realized that we have a copy of Donna Simmons Botany Unit Study. I really enjoy Donna Simmon's books. She explains Waldorf concepts in a way that I can grasp. The Botany Main Lesson is typically taught in 5th grade in Waldorf curriculum, and neither of our kids are actually in fifth, but I'm still finding this a useful booklet. I like her ideas for lessons, although I'll adapt them mightily for our own uses. And I LOVE her bibliography (possibly because I already own the majority of the books, ahem ... great minds think alike and all of that). It's a small unit study -- only 32 pages -- and seems sort of expensive for the size, but I can use much of the information in it to organize my thoughts.

Since Thalia has decided to study Botany also, I got a copy of Kym Wright's Botany Adventure. This is such a different product than the Donna Simmons unit study. Where Donna gently nudges you in a direction (although you can just pick it up and go practically seat-of-the-pants, she expects you to make it your own), Kym Wright gives you a fairly precise map of how to teach a middle school/high school level unit on botany. Wowza. We're talking microscope slides of onion tips (sheesh, I remember those from the ancient days of studying this stuff myself), we're talking vocabulary like "stomata", "guard cells", and "mesophyll". Not a lot of writing assignments that I've noticed so far, but oodles of lab activities. Also, lots of little boxes to check off as you complete each days work, which is something Thalia really, really likes. It will be interesting to see how we feel about this as we move through it. We will not be using the suggested ABeka biology text, by the way. I wonder if it would be helpful to keep track of what books we liked using with it and what books we didn't, for the sake of other homeschoolers contemplating using this unit study.

Hit the Pause Button

The fifth Percy Jackson book was released today.

Our copy, pre-ordered from Amazon.com, arrived right before lunch.



So far we've read 2 chapters aloud, mostly to mitigate arguments over who gets to read it first (cheaper than buying 2 copies, plus no arguments about who is skimming instead of really reading, etc.). When I'm not reading it aloud I've been reduced to carrying it around so no one peeks at the last chapter. Except me, of course. Heh.

Life will resume after we make it through 21 more chapters.