April 01, 2010

March reading update

Sorry no Road Trip Wednesday. Life kept me offline yesterday. :-)

Can you believe it's April 1st already? Happy April Fool's Day! In case you're like me and enjoy random trivia, click here to read about the top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of all time, including the infamous Swiss Spaghetti Harvest.

JANUARY

1. SUITE SCARLETT by Maureen Johnson (Young Adult)
2. THE TEMPTATION OF THE NIGHT JASMINE by Lauren Willig (Historical Fiction/Spy Thriller/Romance)

FEBRUARY

3. THE HORSE AND HIS BOY by C.S. Lewis (Christian/Fantasy)
4. TITHE by Holly Black (YA/Urban Fantasy)
5. PRINCE CASPIAN by C.S. Lewis (Christian/Fantasy)

MARCH

6. THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER by C.S. Lewis (Christian/Fantasy)
7. THE OPPOSITE OF ME by Sarah Pekkanen (Women's Lit)
8. NIGHT by Elie Wiesel (Memoir)

I did good this month - reached my goal with days to spare and started rereading DEATHLY HALLOWS (my favorite HP book - it or GOBLET, anyway). Somewhere along the way I still have to make up for the book I missed in January, but so far, not bad.

I really am amazed at people who aim to read 100 books a year (I've seen a couple around). I'm not sure how they do it. I subscribe to several magazines that I like to read cover-to-cover (Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly, Family Circle, Reader's Digest, Conde Nast Traveler) and I read a lot of blogs and articles online (MSN, Slate, Dear Abby, etc.), so I know that takes away from my book-reading time significantly. I like to think I am a quick reader, but who knows? Anyway, 36 is a stretch for me, but it's going well so far.

I started the month off reading DAWN TREADER, which is the 5th book in the NARNIA series. DAWN felt much longer than its 250-some-odd pages, simply because there were so many settings, so many adventures. I find it hard to compare the NARNIA books to one another because they are so different, but I think this one, along with THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW, is among my favorites.

Next I read Sarah Pekkanen's debut novel, THE OPPOSITE OF ME, about competitive twin sisters who seem to have nothing in common until career changes and family tragedy help them realize otherwise. If you like Jennifer Weiner, you will like Pekkanen. She is now one of my auto-buy authors (as in, she puts out a book, I buy it, no questions asked).

Bear and I attended a lecture by Elie Wiesel several years ago, which is what prompted me to buy this Nobel Peace Prize-winning account of his survival of Nazi deathcamp Auschwitz. Though a slim volume, for days NIGHT left me pondering the unimaginable cruelty humans are capable of inflicting upon one another. What struck me most about Weisel's story was that as an optimistic, pious 15-year-old, Weisel marched into Auschwitz thinking the whispers of cruelty he'd heard could not be possible in the 20th century. I think it's important for us in the 21st century to read and remember, because the moment we forget, we are condemned to repeat.
What did you read in March?

4 comments:

Southpaw said...

A lot of great blog posts!
I'm reading three different books right now. I can’t seem to settle down for reading lately, but I’m a seasonal reader. I read nothing for a couple of months and then do nothing but read. Oct-Dec last year I devoured a book and half every week. This year, I finished a whopping three books and parts of anthologies.
Currently I’m reading some oldies given to me by a friend:
T is for Trespass
Murder on the Orient Express
I’m also reading a book I’m cringing over – the language, the writing, yikes, but gosh darn if it is not a best seller so I’m gonna keep reading.
Oh, and I started reading through a technically book, just to balance things out.

Abby Stevens said...

Oooh, Southpaw, I'd be interested in knowing what that awful bestseller is. I'm thinking of a couple likely options... ;-)

I am, by nature, a seasonal reader, too. I'll read a ton and then read nothing. Feast or famine. My goal of 36 isn't something I'm too worried about (as I only ended up reading 20 last year, lol), but it's definitely fun to try. Sometimes I read more than one book at a time, too - just in the mood to story-jump, I suppose!

Kayeleen Hamblin said...

Let's see... Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. the Hunger Games. Catching Fire. The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Just Ella. A couple others that I can't think of right now. I'm in a real reading jag, avoiding the last bits of revision before I send out my first round of queries. Just another way to procrastinate, eh?

Rachel Bateman said...

I've been trying to read 3 books a month as well! After a slow start in January (only 2), I made up for it with 4 in February.

And now, I am on number...

EIGHT!

For March.

Yeah...I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't get enough of it this month!

If you wanna know what I am reading (and who doesn't?), I keep an updated list here. :)

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