Hour 5 - My Goals for the Read-a-Thon

My goals in the next 19 hours are to finish 4 books that I've started:
The Lions, by Peter Campion (poetry)
In a Beautiful Country, by Kevin Prufer (poetry)
Love's Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life, adapted and translated by Scott Cairns
I Am Hutterite: The fascinating true story of a young woman's journey to reclaim her heritage, by Mary-Ann Kirkby

And here are some new books I'd like to read:
Little Bee, Chris Cleave (novel)
The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of Premier College, Jacques Steinberg
Tinkers, Paul Harding (novel)
The Shadow of Sirius, W.S. Merwin (poetry)
What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain
Why Read?, Mark Edmundson

I also need to read 22 student essay tests for my class. Not exactly a book, but reading nonetheless!

Hours 1 Through 4

Though I technically missed hours 1 through 4 of Dewey's Read-a-Thon, I did wake up this morning and finish 2 books that I had started earlier this week. The first one was The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, by Donalyn Miller. This book is written by a 6th grade teacher, and it focuses on teaching elementary age children to love reading. However, I've found some things in it that I want to use in my college classes as well. I especially love that Miller creates time for students to read for pleasure during classroom hours, and that she lets them pick their own books. She also talks about reading aloud to students, and modeling a reading life. These last two things I've done with my own children, and my daughter (age 10) is a voracious reader herself, and my 4 year old loves to be read aloud to and is making the first steps towards learning to read himself. I've always felt that the fact that I create time and space for my children to read, that I model reading behavior for them, and that I surround them with books, has helped ignite their interest in reading. I'm excited to find a book that confirms my thoughts about reading, and is showing me how to bring these techniques into a classroom setting! I think teachers of any grade, and parents can all benefit from this book.

The other book I finished reading this morning is A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis. This is a book I needed to read for the class I'm teaching. My class is discussing the book next Thursday as part of our "Life and Death" unit.

24 Hour Read-a-Thon

Today is Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon. This is something I've wanted to participate in ever since I found out about it last year, but unfortunately I forgot about it until right now, when it's about to go into hour 5. So if I start now, not only would I be starting late, I'd also have to take a break this evening to meet some friends for dinner -- an event I planned earlier in the week.

Since I REALLY want to participate in this, I'm going to adapt it a bit so that I'm able to participate as much as I am able. So here goes. To start off, Dewey asks us to answer the following questions:

1) Where are you reading from today? Southwestern, Michigan

2) Three random facts about me… I just started teaching college this year, I used to homeschool my kids, and I live just a couple blocks from a lovely Lake Michigan beach.

3) How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? I've got some books I'm in the middle of that I'd like to finish, and them some other books that I'd like to read.

4) Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? I'm still thinking about my goals. I'll post those in the next post.

5) If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? This is my first time.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

1. Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin Streeter
2. On Christian Liberty, Martin Luther
3. 703: How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained Life, Nancy Makin

The first two books I'm reading for a college class that I'm teaching. The third book is a random memoir that I picked up on the new book shelf at the library last week. The fact that I'm reading a book for fun means that I am currently on spring break and have some time to do that!

Before reading the Martin Luther book, I watched the movie Luther, which gives a great overview of Martin Luther's life and has some pretty decent acting. Watch out for a few cheesy scenes, though.

Check out It's Monday, What Are You Reading? at Book Journey.

To 10 Books of 2010

Here are my top 10 favorite books that I read in 2010, for the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. These are in no particular order. I think my very favorite book of the year was A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg. This book contains essays about food and family, and each essay comes with a recipe. The writing was fabulous, and I'm a bit obsessed with food and recipes, so I really enjoyed this book! And doesn't it have a gorgeous cover?

1. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home, Rhoda Janzen
2. A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table, Molly Wizenberg
3. My Life in France, Julia Child, with Alex Prud'homme
4. Iodine, Haven Kimmel
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, May Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
6. The Fortieth Day, Poems by Kazim Ali
7. Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet, Christian Wiman
8. Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Mark Doty
9.  Leaping Poetry, Robert Bly
10. Possession, A.S. Byatt

2011 Book Challenge

For 2010 I joined a book challenge to read 100 books for the year, and only made it to 36. It was one of my lowest years ever for number of books read, due to major life changes and a return to the workplace. My daughter, however, read more than 100 books for this challenge. This year I'm going to sign up for a challenge that looks more doable. Home Girl's Book Blog is having a Support Your Local Library challenge. I can decide to read 12, 25, 15 or 100 books from my local library during 2011. I think I should pick 12, what do you think? I can always read more than that if I'm able, and then I'll feel really good about myself! I'll be keeping a list of the library books I've read in this post, below.

1. The Last Time I Saw You, Elizabeth Berg. A typical Elizabeth Berg book -- light reading, but relatively well-written and with a story that carries you along. This one follows several characters who are about to attend their last high school reunion.
2. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender. This book is about a girl who can taste people's emotions in the food that they make. A fascinating, unusual book that flirts at the edges of science fiction in the form of the main character's brother, who also has some "special" powers.
3. Addition, Toni Jordan. Another surprising and unusual book, like nothing I've ever read before. I look for that in books! This follows a chapter in the life of a woman who suffers from OCD. Her particular form of OCD leads her to count everything that she does. Her life has become very narrow and lonely because of her disorder, but she encounters some unlikely turns of event.
4. 703: How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life, Nancy Makin. This memoir is so poorly written, that I wouldn't have finished it except that the story kept me going along. It's an interesting story, I just wish it had been written better. Also, watch out for long preachy passages musing on what she's learned about her experiences.
5. Room, Emma Donoghue.
6. Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls, Leonard Sax
7. The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, Ree Drummond
8. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Reader in Every Child, Donalyn Miller
9. I Am Hutterite: The fascinating true story of a young woman's journey to reclaim her heritage, Mary-Ann Kirkby
10. Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, Daniel Tammett
11. The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale, Susan Maushart
12. Lost and Found, Geneen Roth
13. Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, Gabrielle Hamilton
14. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua
15. Growing Up Amish, Ira Wagler
16. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
17. The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
18. The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson
19. The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Books Completed Last Week
Possession, by A.S. Byatt. I've read this at least one other time before, and seen the movie twice. It's one of my favorite books of the last century. A fascinating literary mystery that involves two scholars attempting to solve the mystery of two dead poets who appeared to have an as before unknown love relationship with one another. It took me months to finish this book -- it's not an easy read, but a satisfying one. Try it if you are a literature geek and love a good intellectual/literary thriller. Last week I also read The Color of Water, by James McBride. I had to read this book for a college class I'm teaching (the college class is the reason this blog has been on hiatus for awhile -- I've been too busy learning how to teach college!). It's one of the most fascinating memoirs I've ever read, about a black man and his white mother. The story is an intriguing one, and it's well written. It's one of those books that makes me want to head out to the library and check out all the books I can find by the author!

Books I'm Currently Reading
The Color of Water was the last book I had to read for my class this semester, so now I'm going a bit crazy reading books on my own. I've got a bunch going at once: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhonda Janzen, which is about a woman who grew up Mennonite and returns to the community of her youth after a divorce. So far this book is funny and poignant, and I like it a lot. I'm also reading The Ghost of Meter, by Annie Finch, which is a highly technical book about poetic craft; The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Caslas, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece, by Eric Siblin; Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barret Browning; and What the Best College Teachers Do, by Ken Bain. Whew. It'll take me awhile to finish all these I'm sure, especially with finals coming up and grades due!

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