August 2009 Book Challenge

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

Is it August already? Where does the time go to? It seems like just yesterday we were in July. Hopefully you're a bit further through your summer reading pile than I am. We've got one more month of summer though, so in the words of The Doctor, "allons-y!"

Anyway...

Now, repeat after me...

So, just by way of clarification (for comers both new and old), new and improved guidelines for the Book Challenge Thread are as follows:

1) Post the books you read ... or not
2) Post a recommendation ... or not
3) Number your book ... or not
4) Make a goal ... or not
5) Have fun with books (This one, unfortunately, is MANDATORY)


So, with that, avante and a happy reading May to everyone!


2008's Threads can be found HERE
January's Thread can be found HERE
February's Thread can be found HERE
March's Thread can be found HERE
April's Thread can be found HERE
May's Thread can be found HERE
June's Thread can be found HERE
August's Thread can be found HERE

[Bufomander]

#83 Baranaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
short chapter book. it was okay, and probably great for the target audience.

[cathe]

Subbing -- be back soon to post a book.

[kaliki_kila]

70. Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad

I saw this one on display at Starbucks. Anyone who likes survival stories (Into Thin Air?) will love this. It's about a little boy surviving a plane crash and climbing down the icy mountain piece by piece for nine hours. Every other chapter goes back to before the plane crash, when his dad pushed him to excel at skiing and surfing and put him in some really life-threatening situations. I'll never forget the metaphor he made about the feeling a surfer gets being wrapped up inside a wave.

"There is more to life than just surviving it. Inside each turbulence there is a calm - a sliver of light buried in the darkness."

I think this book has three important themes - father/son relationships, survival, and also living in a walkable community. The family gets their home on the beach taken away because of imminent domain. They move into the city and the boy has to commute to a school in L.A. He loses out on a lot because of that.

[cathe]

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

The newest (actually an advance reading copy) from one of my favorite YA authors (Story of a Girl, Sweetheart). This was about a girl struggling with her faith in God when her mother goes to a detox, her dad (the pastor) seems to be interested in another woman, and a girl from her youth group is abducted. I didn't love it as much as her previous books but the writing was good though the book was a little slow.

[mammastar2]

#42 - The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin

British police novel, good read. Rankin can be a very fine writer although he does stay within the confines of the genre.

[Jenifer76]

A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson

This book drew me in immediately with the author's descriptive prose. However, some where in the middle it began to feel bogged down with too much detail and too many plots to follow. I hate when I get itchy for the book to end because I feel like I am not giving it a fair chance. Perhaps its a book I should pick up again at a different time.

[kofduke]

A Brief History of the Dead, Brockheimer

A deadly virus has spread rapidly across Earth, effectively cutting off wildlife specialist Laura Byrd at her crippled Antarctica research station from the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the planet's dead populate "the city," located on a surreal Earth-like alternate plane, but their afterlives depend on the memories of the living, such as Laura, back on home turf. Forced to cross the frozen tundra, Laura free-associates to keep herself alert; her random memories work to sustain a plethora of people in the city, including her best friend from childhood, a blind man she'd met in the street, her former journalism professor and her parents.

I really, really enjoyed this. I found the descriptions of the afterlife in "the city" fascinating, and found the characters came alive for me. And the vision of the future catches you by surprise -- so much like today, but with subtle nuances of environmental devastation rather than catastrophic apocalypse.

Jane Austen in Scarsdale, Cohen

Head of guidance at Fenimore High, Anne Ehrlich is knee-deep in worried students, demanding parents and the politics of college admissions when her old flame Ben Cutler returns to Scarsdale and enrolls his nephew in Fenimore. Anne's beloved granny-the only trustworthy relative in her family of self-centered social climbers-talked Anne into dumping Ben 13 years before, when he was a travel agency peon. Since then, he's become a successful travel writer and hooked a beautiful, worldly fiancée.

A novel about a guidance counselor -- what's not to love? A modern-day take on persuasion. Things wrap up perhaps too neatly -- but overall, an interesting book.

#1 Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, #2 Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, #3 Autobiography of God, #4 The Ghost Orchid, #5 The Poe Shadow, #6 Knit One Kill Two, #7 Citizen Girl, #8 The Fourth Bear, #9 The Third Secret, #10 Change of Heart, #11 Guardian Angels, #12 The Gore, #13 The Undomestic Goddess, #14 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil T. Frankweiler, #15 Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, #16 Blood Memory, #17 A Thousand Splendid Suns, #18 Then we Came to the End, #19 - Feed, #20 - Paper Towns, #21 - The Sparrow, #22 - Swim, Bike, Run, #23 Field Notes from a Catastrophe, #24 Pillars of the Earth, #25 The Geographer's Library, #26 Lady Killer, #27 Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, #28 The Abstinence Teacher, #29 Under the Banner of Heaven, #30 Duma Key, #31 The Portrait, #32 Dirty Blonde, #33 Death Gets a Time-Out, #34 Kiln People, #35 Baudolino, #36 Memories of my Melancholy Whores, #37 Sculpting Her Body Perfect,#38 Property Of, #39 A Brief History of the Dead, #40 Jane Austen in Scarsdale

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

I'm wondering if some of you wouldn't mind weighing in on this for me. Thanks in advance.

[fremontmama]

Originally Posted by NewCrunchyDaddy

I'm wondering if some of you wouldn't mind weighing in on this for me. Thanks in advance.

Oh, I like the letter rating system, definitely more info than a star rating system for sure. And your reviews are always great, super informative and insightful.

[kaliki_kila]

Originally Posted by NewCrunchyDaddy

I'm wondering if some of you wouldn't mind weighing in on this for me. Thanks in advance.

I like the rating system (stars or letters or anything else). There's that one book blogger who rates her books in caterpillars (eight-and-a-half-caterpillars!)

[fremontmama]

#46 Material Obsession: Modern Quilts with Traditional Roots by Sarah Fielke

I enjoyed reading through this book. I didn't actually make any of the quilts, so I can't speak to the quality of the instructions in terms of following along while actually sewing, but they seemed pretty clear while visualizing my future projects. One of these days I may actually make a quilt. A few of these designs were a bit too precious for me, but there were definitely some really interesting and different projects that I would enjoy trying out.

#47 Last Child In The Woods by Richard Luov

This was a good one. I liked that he followed up his thesis that we need connection to nature to be complete healthy people with ideas of how to be sure to infuse more nature into our lives. (I hate it when books bring light to an issue but don't offer up solutions) And I agree that it helps kids to have that unstructured play within nature. One criticism; I don't agree that just because a child is inside playing they are automatically plugged into the tv, video games and ipods, which he seemed to imply is the truth. I think unstructured play happens inside too. However, I do agree with the overall message of the book. More time at the park (than our current 5 or so days a week? *lol*) seems to be in order.

[Jenifer76]

Ghostwriter by Travis Thrasher

For years Dennis Shore has thrilled readers with his spooky bestselling novels. Now a widower, Dennis is finally alone in his house, his daughter attending college out of state. When he's stricken by a paralyzing case of writer's block and a looming deadline, Dennis becomes desperate. Against better judgment, he claims someone else's writing as his own, accepting undeserved accolades for the stolen work. He thinks he's gotten away with it . . . until he's greeted by a young man named Cillian Reed--the true author of the stolen manuscript.

What begins as a minor case of harassment quickly spirals out of control. As Cillian's threats escalate, Dennis finds himself on the brink of losing his career, his sanity, and even his life. The horror he's spent years writing about has arrived on his doorstep, and Dennis has nowhere to run.

While I liked this one better than the last book of his I read ("Isolation"), I still found that it left me with a lot of unanswered questions in the end. Thrasher seems to start strong and then just dry out by the end.

[friendtoall]

Fahrenheit 451 (audio) by Ray Bradbury

I really enjoyed this. I love to read old futuristic books to see how close their predictions come to our present. Ray Bradbury was somehow able to anticipate earbuds.


Build your own earth oven : a low-cost, wood-fired mud oven, simple sourdough bread, perfect loaves by Kiko Denzer

I won't have the opportunity to try this out until next summer, but this book is definitely inspiring.


Simply organic : a cookbook for sustainable, seasonal, and local ingredients by Jesse Ziff Cool

I really enjoyed that this book was organized by season. Sadly, it is another local eating book from California, which does not really help the rest of us. Lots of yummy looking recipes though.

[fremontmama]

#48 A Year Of Mornings by Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes

I really liked this book. A beautiful array of juxtaposed pairs of photographs that two friends across the country from each other take every morning. I know they are just snapshots, but I would love my mornings to start out as peacefully as these photographs seem to be.

[principii]

subbing...

currently in the middle of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Why haven't I read this before?! It makes SO much sense!! :

[kangamitroo]

where did july go? i've never seen a july where i got so little reading done.

i am counting the minutes until bath/bedtime. i am in the middle of Water for Elephants and want to finish. thanks to all of you here who have mentioned this book.

i picked up Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov for my next read. it has been on my list for a while. but it is so....thick! if i plunge in, that will be august. well, i'll see how the first few chapters go and if i get sucked in.

[kbond]

Originally Posted by kofduke

A Brief History of the Dead, Brockheimer



I really, really enjoyed this. I found the descriptions of the afterlife in "the city" fascinating, and found the characters came alive for me. And the vision of the future catches you by surprise -- so much like today, but with subtle nuances of environmental devastation rather than catastrophic apocalypse.

I loved this book as well. It was very, very engaging.

[cathe]

Originally Posted by kbond

I loved this book as well. It was very, very engaging.

Well you both just about have me convinced it's worth paying the $.50 hold for . . .

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

Originally Posted by cathe

Well you both just about have me convinced it's worth paying the $.50 hold for . . .

Just to add my two cents, I really enjoyed it when I read it last summer. It's worth fifty cents.