Reading About Reading About Stealing

I've been struggling to come up with posts for the last few weeks. You may find that hard to believe, what with the pictures of undead grilled cheese men and verbatim snippets of conversation, but it's true. And it's not even my usual fall back excuse of being lazy, it's because I've been reading. Feeding my mind instead of polluting yours. Probably a good thing for everybody.

But it's also dangerous. Or at least a health hazard. The last week or so I've noticed my hands and wrists have been getting sore (stop it right there) but I couldn't figure out why. Then last night while I was tossing and turning in bed because I couldn't sleep I figured it out (seriously, stop it). I rolled over to look at the clock and couldn't see it because it was lost behind three of the books I'm currently reading. Two are usually on the floor and whatever I finish before turning off the light stays on the nightstand, but last night all three were up there. I decided to throw them on a scale and see what I got.

That's 8.9 pounds of books. 2720 pages of carpal tunnel. No wonder my hands hurt, and I have big hands. (That's what she said!)

Also, I seem to have accumulated a massive back log of reading material as well, a situation my Christmas job at the book store only exacerbated. You know the problem with working in a bookstore? It's full of books. It's also filled with people who generally like books, many of whom get very passionate about books they've read and think you should read them too. And the books? They just keep coming. Day after day the delivery truck drops off boxes filled with new books or sometimes even old books to resupply dwindling stock. Books that you've never heard of or books that you've always wanted to read. It's cruel, really.

I read two really good books over the holidays that I meant to post about at the time but never got around to, and both were about thieves. First up is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It's about a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany and it's narrated by Death.

Now I don't really do book reviews, don't get in the subtle aspects of this or the yadda yadda of that, but if I really enjoyed a book I want to share it, and I loved this book. Zusak is one of those writers that not only tells a good story, but he does it beautifully.

"When Max heard the news, his body felt like it was being screwed up into a ball, like a page littered with mistakes. Like garbage.
Yet each day, he managed to unravel and straighten himself, disgusted and thankful. Wrecked, but somehow not torn into pieces."

If you haven't read it, put it on your list.

Next up is The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

I spent a lot of time working in the kids section while I was at the book store and saw so many copies of this leave I decided to check it out for myself. Think Harry Potter, but instead of the main character being a wizard, he's a half-blood Greek god. Coincidentally, the first book in the series comes out in theaters next week.



Like Harry Potter, this is one of those kids books that you'll love reading as well. I'm going to read the rest of the series and I'm looking forward to reading it to my kids when they get older. Hopefully the movie is good as well.

This is the part where I should be wrapping everything up in a neat and tidy conclusion, but this post is long enough as it is. So, the end. Plus, I've got the start of a man-cold and I'm pretty sure it's a new hybrid strain of tuberculosis and ebola.

What? It could be.

RTT: Tasty Babies. Wait! Come Back, It's Not What You Think!

See? Baby shaped pears. That wasn't so bad. What the hell were you thinking?



Ok, maybe they're Buddha shaped pears, but either way, kudos to the farmer that came up with the idea of sticking a plastic mold around a young pear.

Random Tuesday? Oh, I got your random.



Did you watch Flash Forward last week? Do you watch Lost? Did you notice the billboard behind the two FBI agents advertising Oceanic Airlines?


Speaking of cool new shows, thanks for cancelling Defying Gravity ABC, you suck.

How is it my six year old can read off a word like Ichthyornids* like latin is his second language and yet ask for help pronouncing something like "common?" Although, when I told him to work it out for himself, he covered the last three letters with his thumb and then read the first three like I do when I'm helping him. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Speaking of reading, it's Banned Books Week, so go pick up a copy of Huck Finn or Catcher in the Rye or evil of evil's, Harry Potter and be damned. Sorry Nazi book burning haters, you're not welcome here. Go ahead, unfollow. If you do like books, check out Satan's Bookclub (no actual affiliation with the Prince of Darkness and the banner is HAWT).

For most of September we had above normal temperatures here. Yesterday I heard on the news that we're now heading into some below normal weather. This morning I heard that the mountains to the east of us are expecting 10cm of fresh snow tonight. My grass was concerned I might overlook it.


On House last night a patient started hallucinating and ran through hospital trying to flee imaginary monsters and bats. Why is it that all the doctors, nurses and orderlies just walked past him without trying to help?





*Early sea bird from the Cretaceous era, about a 100 million years ago.

Monday: Ex Libris

*Before we go anywhere, make sure you stop by The Wise (*Young*) Mommy today. It's the start of the He Said/She Said pissing contest. Confused? Just go. Well, not yet. I mean, read me first, right. Today's contenders are Cajoh and Irish Gumbo. There will be blood.


My bed-side table.



Some time last year I was tagged by Heinous for a book meme. I held off doing it because, while I liked the meme and I love books, I wanted to do something a little different. Last week-ish I was tagged by Mama Dawg with another meme and since I still hadn't gotten around to my own book post I figured I should just do it. Plus, she's got that accent. You know, that read the phone book one?

So, first question is what book has been on your shelf the longest?

Mack Bolan: The Executioner.


Not exactly Dostoevsky, but it eventually led to Dostoevsky. And that's something I think parents should keep in mind. If your child is reading, it doesn't matter what kind of crap they're into, all that matters is that they are reading. Don't try and push books you enjoyed and that you think they should enjoy too. Let them get to it in there own time. Anyway, every Sunday my parents would sit down in the living room with a coffee or tea and read. One day I decided I wanted to join them and my dad gave me this. From there I went on to the Africa of Wilbur Smith and the swash buckling adventures of Clive Cussler. Then my mom gave me Leon Uris' Exodus. Oy! I loved that book. Then along came Stephen King and Tom Clancey and it never stopped.

A book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used bookstore, prize, etc.):

I love history and art, so when The Book, A History of the Bible by Christopher de Hamel came out a few years back I asked for it for Christmas. Supreme Leader asked her sister to hide it in her house (like I'm a snoop or something) but she hid it so well she couldn't find it for nine months.

The most recent addition to your shelves:

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I needed a new book like I need a hole in the head, but Middle Aged Woman recommended it. Yes, period. End of sentence. She is wise in the ways of The Force. High praise indeed. Well, that and I was looking for something historical.

A book that’s been with you to the most places: That would be this.



I bought it in Paris on September 14, 1990. According to a note I wrote inside it was soaked in a rain storm in Helsinki six days later. That book criss-crossed Europe a hundred times over. From Barcelona to Prague and from Rome to the Arctic Circle. It even crossed Canada in a Grey Hound.

There was one question that I didn't really like, a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time, etc.). Well, they all do in some way or another. Instead of that, how about last book finished? That would be The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon which was pretty good. It's basically a detective story that takes place in a world where Israel never became a country. Instead the European refugees of WWII are granted temporary residency in Sitka, Alaska. The story takes place 60 years later in the last few weeks leading up to the reversion when the Jews have to find another place to live. If you think that's a crazy idea, it was actually proposed to Congress in 1940.

Smoke & Mirrors

Ok, I had a blog planned for tonight, but after watching part of The Sound of Music and then all of War, Inc and then reading other people's blogs and then realizing how much background I have to do for the post I was planning on doing I decided it would be easier to fall back on You Tube. War, Inc. I love John Cusack, but this movie kinda sucked. Wait, no, it just plain sucked. But it did have Joan Cusack being crazy, and that's alright. I'd love to hear her lose it while doing Peep and the Big Wide World. "Shut the fuck up, duck!" I love Peep, even though my kids don't. Ungrateful little...

Anyway, I'm going to go work on this other post. Then I'll give up and work on lying in bed reading my new book, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. Supreme Leader got me Anathem by Neal Stephenson, but I'm gonna' hold off a bit before starting that big boy. This is an ad from a local credit union, thought it would give you a laugh.



And before I go, a big thank you to Surfer Jay who got me a copy of Irish Gumbo's banner. I tried and failed to get one for yesterday's post. Thanks, Surfer Jay.



Oh, and go check this picture on Surfer Jay's site.

Spin Cycle: Relax

Earlier tonight (yesterday), before watching NCIS (ah, Cote de Pablo) and Fringe (John Noble kills me) (no more parenthesis, promise)(Ok, I can't really make that promise since I'm mostly winging this and I'm not sure where it's heading) I was over at Unmitigated reading Middle Aged Woman's post on what she's reading. I started to leave a comment about what I was reading but then I couldn't remember the correct name of one of the books and had to go upstairs to write them all down. Then I though, what the hell, I can make a post out of this myself. And then I thought, hey lazy ass, you still haven't done Spin Cycle yet this week (surprise, surprise...oops) two birds with one stone!

This week's Spin is about relaxing, and reading helps me relax. Unless, of course, whatever I'm reading is really REALLY good and I have to read just a few more paragraphs or at least until the end of this section (and here we are again, but I had to mention that I just ran upstairs to ask Supreme Leader for the word to describe a portion of a chapter that tells part of the story but isn't the entirety of the chapter, just a sub story to the chapter but I couldn't think of the name and she totally didn't help at all, just looked at me like I was insane and why am I bothering her during Eli Stone and she's not sure it even has a name but COME ON it has to have a name, doesn't it? Do you know what I'm talking about? Please?)...where was I? Oh ya, so reading relaxes me before bed, unless it's a really good book and I only put it down when my eyes start bleeding or I notice the room is getting brighter.

Wow. Why don't we start fresh down here. Remember reading before kids? Oh, those golden days. No offense to my little angels, but I miss that. Being able to pick up a book any time of day and read it without distraction. Without having to break up a fight, feed someone, kiss something that's hurt, find out why it's so quiet, hand out punishment for why it was so quiet, help battle Imperial Japan/Nazi Germany/the Dark Side/all Super Mario's enemies, take someone to school, bring someone home from school and put somebody on the potty before he pees on the carpet again because even though Elmo has told him that whenever he feels like he needs to go he should stop whatever he's doing and go he still doesn't because, by god, he might miss...well, SOMETHING, dammit! Remember that? So the last thing I do before turning out the light and kissing Supreme Leader is take this little tiny piece of the day that is mine and lose myself in a book. That's my relaxation.

Right now I'm reading Stephen Erikson's Toll of the Hounds which is the 8th book in his Malazan Book of the Fallen series.



If you like fantasy, he is an amazing author, and not just because he's Canadian. The first book in the series is called Gardens of the Moon.

I'm reading four other books at the moment as well, but I've put all of them on hold while I work on Toll of the Hounds. On Hold:

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon.

The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

I've also got The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie on the bed stand, but I haven't opened it yet. And yes, long time readers, this was the same book Liam peed on.

And now it's after 11pm and I've still barely read any blogs from yesterday and I should be upstairs READING A BOOK! Deep breath... relax...

World War Z

Ok, continuing on with the book theme, this is my newest read...well, along with the six other books I'm reading. It's a library book though so it's jumped to the top of the reading list. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it did not make it onto The Big Read's top 100 list. However, 40 pages in, I have to say it's a good read. If you like pandemics. And zombies.

The book is written as a collection of oral histories from survivors of a world wide zombie epidemic. It's not presented as a Dawn of the Dead type typical zombie story, but as an epidemic caused by a communicable pathogen that causes zombie-like symptoms. The interviews are done with people from all walks of life and from all over the world and the path of the disease is followed through their stories. As I said, I'm only 40 pages in, but so far I love it.

After all of the excitement this morning... sorry, yesterday over the 100 Books list, I'm thinking of doing my own list. Not necessarily of books I think you should read, but more of books that I've read and loved and why. I love book lists, but they always tend towards classics or the English Lit version of what you should read. Let me rephrase that. They tend towards, IF YOU DIDN'T READ THIS THEN YOU'RE AN ILLITERATE FOOL AND PROBABLY INBRED. Who needs that? Yes, there are books that you should read. Not because if you don't you'll be a lesser person for it, but because there are some books that touch on so many other works you have read and you may not even realize it until you do. And not only other books, but movies, TV, plays, cartoons, you name it. When you go the whole, READ THIS DAMMIT route you turn it into homework. Maybe you can get a person to start reading one of those books, but are they going to enjoy it? Or are they just going to push through it to say that they've read it, or worse, give up.

I'm not saying The Big Read list is one of those, really, I just went off on a tangent. And now I'm sitting in front of my computer looking at the time and wondering what the hell I was getting at and how do I wrap this up because there's a big warm bed (with a small warm person in it) and a stack of books beside it that I'd like to go read. Ok, here's the thing. I read a lot of other peoples lists today and I heard many people, both bloggers and commentors, making excuses for not having read the list. The list is a suggestion. The National Endowment For The Arts isn't telling you you're dumb because you haven't read these books. It's saying that these are some amazing books and we think you would really enjoy them. But you also have lives, jobs, CHILDREN, and that is a pretty steep list. If you have only read a couple, or even none, so what. You're not dead yet, you still have time. And hey, maybe you didn't like anything that was on that list. Maybe you only like science-fiction. Or Danielle Steele. So what. In the end, I think all that really matters is that you do read. And if you have children, go read to them. Because that is even more important.

*Are you wondering how you got here from a review of book about zombies? Me too.

100 Books

I found this on Unmitigated this morning and I love books so I had to do it. I've read 32 of the 100 books and have seen quite a few of the others as movies. One thing I find interesting in these lists is what gets left out. I found that this list seemed to favour books that have been adapted to film. And Jane Austen. Whatever, lists are always biased to whoever makes them up, regardless of whether it was done by a single person or a group.

"The Big Read is a USA National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline (or color) the books you LOVE .

Share this list in your blog, too, if you like."

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (and from the 10th grade I wanted to name a daughter Scout until that bitch Demi Moore screwed it up for me)
6 The Bible (Um, I read the first half. Do I get a half point? I have read the Koran and recommend it to anyone, just to glimpse the other side of the fence, so to speak. And it's really short)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (many versions of the movie, thanks wifey!)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Complete? No, but a lot)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (movie a million times, thanks mom! Oh, and mom can totally recite the first paragraph. Possibly more. She's got skills)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen (don't think I've actually read an Austen book but dear GOD the movies! I joke, but I have a man crush on Colin Firth so it's all good)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (his earlier books were much better, where are they? The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, I mean, just the name!)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (no, but the Gables are actually in my country)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (no, but a lot of other Atwood)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (I defy you to find a better closing line, the best)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (still on my shelf unfinished)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (seriously? That's it? This man is a genuis)
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (good, but where's A Short History of Nearly Everything?)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (started it...)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (There are some amazing Japanese writers out there, how about some whose books weren't turned into movies?)
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (was read TO me, does that count?)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (no, but I did read Wind, Sand & Stars)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Oops, forgot to underline favs. My children are tired of being ignored though so there's no going back. Maybe I'll make my OWN list. Oooooo!

PS. If you do this and copy my list for your own blog, don't be a loser like me and forget to take out some of the comments like I did with Middle Aged Woman's list. Hopefully I got them all before you've read this.