Reading Notes

Alrighty then. I have too many books going. The Faerie Queene, Tristram Shandy, Introduction To Narrative, Writing About Literature, How To Read A Poem, plus my two audiobooks. That's what happens when I want to read everything at the same time. Nothing gets finished! :-)

Now that the Timberwolves' season is officially over and I don't have a show for another four weeks, hopefully I can buckle down and clear some this from the schedule. On the upside, I've slipped in some books that I hadn't planned on and I'm way ahead of where I thought I'd be on my reading challenges. Score! When I make my May plan, some of the April plan is going to be spilling over and I'll be giving myself some extra wiggle room for spontaneous reading. I'm figuring out that some of the Teaching Company course reads are more time consuming than I expected them to be. Tristram Shandy, for example. I'm enjoying it, but I need mental breaks. Going forward, my Learning Project schedules will need to anticipate that kind of thing or I'll get all rebellious on myself. :-)

OK. Deep breath. Temporarily put aside my new fascination with Chuck Palahniuk, work some of his books into the Countdown Challenge over the next couple months, size up all the books I'm in the middle of, prioritize, and get to work. Let's see what I can get done before the end of April update!

Reading Notes

Hmmmm. . . I may have been a bit optimistic when I made my April plan. I know it's only the 2nd and there was a bit of unplanned excitement last week (Peter is doing much better now. Thanks, everyone!), but Tristram Shandy, while fun in a weird sort of way, is going to be a bugger to get through. It won't happen as quickly as I had hoped. And I just got C.J. Sansom's Revelation from the library! I've been waiting forever for this book, so my Learning Plan is on hold for just a moment while I indulge, and I don't feel guilty about it for one second. I love the Matthew Shardlake novels!

I'm also really looking forward to reading How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry in my nod to National Poetry Month. Then I'll get back to Tristram and his craziness. My Wolves season will be over by then, and I'll have all kinds of reading time!

Oh! Speaking of my Timberwolves, remember our little "Meet The Timberwolves" outing? They posted some of the photos from their photographer on the Wolves site, and Peter and I are the first pic of the bunch! Check it out here. That first one is us with Ryan Gomes. If you flip through to #50, there is a photo of us with Brian Cardinal and Mike Miller. Mike is the guy in glasses and standing right next to Peter like that, you can kind of see why we were mistaken for his parents! (True story.)

Happy Reading, Everyone!

Reading Notes

I believe Cabin Fever is officially setting in. It's all I can do to sit down with a book for more than fifteen minutes. If it weren't for audiobooks, I'd be getting nothing read at all! I'm on about Day 10 with The Confessions of Nat Turner, and that's not a reflection on the book. Today is the first time I have spent an extended period with it, and it really is a good book. It did win the Pulitzer Prize after all. But any book that takes more than a week for me to read tends to suffer from my weird need to move on to the next book, no matter how good the one I'm reading might be. Maybe it's an affliction that stems from being surrounded by hundreds of TBR's. I don't know. Anyway, poor Nat Turner is not getting the benefit of my undivided attention. I hate when that happens.

On the audio front, my commute book is an entertaining story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary entitled The Meaning of Everything. It has kindled in me a deep desire to own the entire print version of the OED. All twenty volumes. How fun would that be??? Unfortunately, the price tag is a bit hefty at $975. It may have to wait for awhile since spring is on its way and I have my heart set on a laptop so I can blog to that same heart's content out on the patio soon! :-)

I'm also listening to Wuthering Heights and I have a question for those of you who have read it already. Do Heathcliffe and Catherine ever become likable? Don't get me wrong. I'm about 1/5-1/4 into the book and I like it a lot, but I'm finding the lead characters strangely annoying. I know that doesn't make any sense, but reading can be like that, can't it? :-)

OK, I'm going back to Nat Turner before I have to leave him alone again to go cheer on my Wolves. Happy Reading, Everyone!

Reading Notes

I need to focus! There is so much I want to read and I want to read it all right now. :-) I'm going to finish out this month reading The Woman in the Dunes and The Confessions of Nat Turner and listening to The Woman in White and Misquoting Jesus. After that, I need to buckle down and make a plan for March.

I'm already finding myself completely distracted from all the challenges I signed up for and wanting to make my plans around my Teaching Company courses. I've ordered books like The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative and Norton Critical Editions of some of the books to see if I can give my personal studies even more of a "school" feel. I've decided to go with what I'm the most excited about, and if my reading challenges fall by the wayside a bit, it's no big deal. I love the challenges, because they always get me involved in some books I may have never looked at otherwise, but I'm going to try to view them in much the same way I view recommended reading lists -- as a jumping off point. I'm going to let the current take me where it may! I hope you'll hang around for the ride!

Totally unrelated, I updated the photos of Jack, Skye and Max on my blog page. Stop by and take a peek! Also, I haven't been very diligent about my blogroll. If you are a reader of Books 'N Border Collies, please let me know if a link to your blog is not included. I'll get it added right away!

Have a great day, everyone!

Reading Notes

First, I want to thank Jo-Jo from Jo-Jo Loves To Read for this cool award:


Thank you, Jo-Jo! If any of you haven't seen Jo-Jo's blog, stop over and say hello! She's a newbie blogger who started in Oct. and is so much fun to have around!

As for reading, I'm almost finished with Book One of The Faerie Queene. Only six more to go! And I'm a little more than half way through How To Think About The Great Ideas. Here's a great idea for me: Don't read two books I have to think about at the same time. They start moving too slowly and I can't make up my mind which one to pick up when I have a few extra minutes.

I started Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones last night. It's a book I can just sink right into, which is great because it's due back at the library tomorrow and I can't renew it because of requests. Someone is going to be up late tonight after the Timberwolves game. . . .

PS My house was 73 degrees inside this morning which was 93 degrees warmer than it was outside. You do the math. If I write that temperature out it makes me cry. ;-) There is hope though. It's supposed to be 30 on Sunday, which will feel like a sauna after this week!

Happy Reading, Everyone!

Reading Notes

It's a chilly, chilly day here in Minnesota. It's -8 right now. Brrrr!

I'm still plugging away at The Faerie Queene, and I still really like it a lot. I finished Book One, Canto Eight last night, and if the description of Duessa when she is unmasked as a witch doesn't conjure up some vivid imagery, I don't know what would!

I'm about half way though How To Think About The Great Ideas, which is still very engrossing. I read "How To Think About Punishment" yesterday, which, among other things, asked this question: Should punishment fit the crime or fit the criminal? I personally think I agree with the latter. I'm just not sure how to work that out in society. If I can come up with something, I'll let you know. :-)

I began listening to Hot, Flat and Crowded yesterday. I'm six discs into it (out of seventeen) and I'm currently feeling rather hopeless about our chances of saving our planet, but I'm just sure the author will give me plenty of reasons to be optimistic by the time it's over. At least, I hope so! It's so depressing to think of the damage people are doing.

Lastly, I'm hoping to have a chance to finish up Remains of the Day today or tomorrow and have a review up quickly. Short version: Great, great book!

Happy reading, Everyone! Stay Warm!

Reading Notes

I'm not good at reading more than one book at a time, not counting audiobooks. But I've got a couple going that can truly only be digested in small servings.

I can only concentrate on The Faerie Queene for a Canto at a time. I finished Book One, Canto Four last night. There was a wonderful series of verses when the Red Cross Knight is at the House of Pride and meets the queen, Lucifera. There is a parade of her advisers -- Idleness, Gluttony, Lechery, Avarice, Envy and Wrath. The descriptions are as fantastic as they are grotesque. I loved it!

The other brain twister I'm working my way through is How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization by Mortimer J. Adler. He has chosen a number of topics to be found by studying The Great Books, and waxes philosophical on them. Philosophy is not a forte of mine, but he makes a lot of observations that I like to spend a bit of time mulling over after I finish the chapter. With titles like "How To Think About Freedom", "How To Think About Learning", "How To Think About Art", and a couple dozen more, you can see there is a lot of fodder there for contemplation.

My fun book between all of this is Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, which I haven't gotten too far in, but I love his writing. It's mesmerizing even when there's nothing going on!

Happy Reading, Everyone!