Tuesday Book Club
Good reading week for me. Your Heart’s Desire, a really wonderful book about pursuing–you guessed it. It’s by Sonia Choquette, whose workshop I attended last weekend. WAY outside my comfort zone, since it involved, among other things, looking strangers in the eye for long periods of time. Just isn’t my thing, even though the people there were all very nice. But now that I’ve had time and distance from it, I can see the workshop really did me some good. It still doesn’t mean I want to hold hands with strangers and sing to them. But that’s just me.
I also read our very own Sara’s (that would be Sara Lewis Holmes) Letters from Rapunzel, which stars my favorite kind of heroine, an extremely smart girl with some sass and bravery (although foolish at times). Good work on that book, Sara. I loved all the blending and weaving of fairy tales in this very real life story. And you’ve got some sass yourself there, S. You know I love the funny. Nice job giving us that as well as the more serious underlying topic of a parent in trouble.
But wait, that’s not all! Also read The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg. I think I need to read more and more graphic novels. Can’t believe how fun it is to go back to books with pictures.
And Miri? Are you listening? What book did I make a special trip to the bookstore to buy yesterday so that I could faithfully report this? That’s right, I am now looking at the very thick Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. So you can consider your work done, and move on to other charitable efforts, like getting all of us to read some Manga.
How about all of you? What did you read this week?
Technorati Tags: Tuesday Book Club, Book Clubs, Reading Clubs, Reading, Books, Book Reviews, Book Recommendations, Your Heart’s Desire, Sonia Choquette, Letters from Rapunzel, Sara Lewis Holmes, The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci
May 29th, 2007 at 5:47 am
Robin, you stealth book reader you!
Glad you liked the funny. And the sass. I think R is everything I WISHED I could be in middle school.
Can’t wait to put my hands on YOUR book.
As to my reading this week: I’m just beginning Framed. Love the car bits, which is funny, since I normally don’t care about engines and whatnot. So that bodes well. I love it when an author converts me from “so what?” to “so cool.”
May 29th, 2007 at 6:16 am
I read
Ogre Company
World War Z
Which both have the theme of people coming back from the dead. Ogre Company, it’s the protagonist. World War Z, well, that’s a Zombie war.
I’d call World War Z by Max Brooks a must read.
May 29th, 2007 at 6:31 am
I finished up Afternoons With Emily,making that #25 on my list of 50! I started my Beach Book reading with Maia by Richard Adams(it’s as fun as I remember)and Keeping The House by Ellen Baker,a first novel due out in July.
Robin,you’re really going to love Inkheart-lucky you,getting to read it for the first time:)!
May 29th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Sara, I like to surprise.
I also like what you said about a book converting you from “so what?” to “so cool.” Isn’t that the greatest?
Patrick, I’ve heard good things about World War Z, but never from anyone I knew. So I’m listening.
Lady T, good job getting to #25! Feels good, huh? Let’s both take a deep breath and keep up the pace all the way to 50.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Wow Robin! I’m impressed!!!
I got through three this week. I read an okay romance called Crazy Sweet. It was part of a series that I sort of like, so I felt like I should read it. I also read 10 Things to Do Before I Die. That was a fun (and fast) read! And I finished Harry Potter and the HBP! So freaking good!!!!! I am now officially ready for #7!
May 29th, 2007 at 8:18 am
It’s pretty wild. It’s written as a series of first person interviews about their experience during the Zack Attack.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Christen, thanks for the prompt. I need to reread Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before July, too.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:05 am
I finished Twisted last week as promised. It was just okay.
I read the Plain Janes and definitely did not love it. I don’t even know what I didn’t like about it…I just didn’t.
So now I’m reading Forever Fat by Lee Gutkind (in preparation for my journey back into creative nonfiction) and Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (is this not on EVERYONE’S to-read list?)
May 29th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Yeah, Molly, it just so happens someone lent me Special Topics this week, so it is sitting on my TBR pile now. Dang. So many books. I mean, good! So many books!
May 29th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I’ve never read Manga, but I need to.
I’m finishing up Shadow Hawk by Jill Shalvis, a Harlequin Blaze with a smokin’ hot cover and fast paced plot.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (Printz winner) and Beauty Shop for Rent by Laura Bowers (starred review in PW last week — yay, Laura!).
May 29th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Woohoo! YES! Good for you! You’ll love it. (Movie comes out on March 19th, 2008~! With Brendan Fraser as Mo~!)
Speaking of manga (since yes, books with pictures can be wonderful), Books-A-Million is running a three-for-two sale on all Tokyopop graphic novels. While that doesn’t include my actiony favorite, Fullmetal Alchemist, it does include my first manga love and emotion/depth favorite, Fruits Basket by the esteemed Natsuki Takaya (though it does have quite a bit of action to it as well. That’s what happens when two of the main characters hate each other). Go out and buy a volume or three. You won’t be sorry. (You will have to adjust to reading right-to-left, but it’s not as hard as it looks, I promise. Tokyopop is pretty friendly with their manga.)
Now that I’m done plugging for today, I finished my reread of the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, finishing The Opal Deception and reading through The Lost Colony this week. The Opal Deception is still my favorite of the five, but my appreciation for The Lost Colony grows with every rereading, and I can’t wait for book six.
I’m also in the midst of Mister Monday by Garth Nix, but I’m putting that down this evening to read The Pilgrims of Rayne by D. J. Machale so that I can discuss it with my friends before we go our separate ways.
Still on the TBR list is the whole Keys to the Kingdom sequence (of which Mister Monday is the first) and New Moon by Stephanie Meyer.
Yay.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
A manga-related clarification to my prior comment:
The thing about manga is that it teaches your brain what organization really means, and you grow a huge appreciation for anything that can make you follow a series of events seamlessly. And while words are my thing (I can’t draw that well, really), I still hold that there are some things you can do with pictures that you just can’t do with words alone. The minute-to-minute changes in a character’s emotions, the way we naturally break up our thoughts…Go out and get some, Heather. Pretty please.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Hi there.
I’m tagging you for a meme, http://mentortexts.blogspot.com/2007/05/8-things-meme.html.
NYCTEACHER
May 29th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
NYC Teacher, I accept. Jen Robinson tagged me with that, too, so I’ll get on it this week. Thanks!
Miri, thanks for all the info about manga. Consider yourself our expert.
Hey, and now it’s my turn to nag you: read New Moon! The third in the series, Eclipse is coming out in August.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
I read the first novel of Hallowmere.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:04 am
Oops, I’m a day late. But it was such a productive reading week I have to share. I finished The Raw Shark Texts, which is SO AMAZING people, I can’t even tell you. I also read Beige by Cecil Castellucci, which was good (and I keep hearing good things about The Plain Janes, Robin - guess that’s next). And I read Polly Horvath’s new one, The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane. Eh, disappointing.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:16 am
LOL oops I see you are already tagged. That’s what happened to me, so I changed the meme. You can put it at the bottom of your todo list!
May 30th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Hey, I am back from Japan with all of the students we took. It was a fabulous trip, all us had homestays with Japanese families. We were busy from morning till night. This was my second trip and I saw many more new things. The highlights were trips to Kyoto and riding Shinkosen to Hiroshima. But the real highlight was listening to my students talk about their experiences, the new things they tried and learning about the culture from students their own ages.
I brought about 8 books with me and only finished 2 on the plane. (I’m back in school but still functioning in a bit of a jet-lag fog.) I don’t remember the titles.
I highly recommend a visit to Japan with a homestay, great way to learn about another culture.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Little Willow and Eisha, thanks for reporting in. Cloudscome, I love your modification, and I’m using it.
Readerdiane, what a wonderful-sounding trip! I still can’t believe you took it upon yourself to be in charge of students on a trip overseas, but how nice for you that they had such a rewarding experience.
Get some rest! You deserve it. Thanks for the travel report.