Tag Archives: Book Chat

Over to you…great books for teens

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“When I only begin to read, I forget I’m on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.” – Anzia Yezierska

So, we’re in a deep freeze here in Eastern Canada. That’s what happens when you get complacent about winter, I guess. Until the last few days we’ve had a perfectly respectable winter…but minus 30 with the wind chill, come on!

In the real world I teach high school. I don’t have a long career behind me because I started teaching, got frustrated, abandoned it and did other stuff and have only recently returned. It’s shocking how many kids today don’t read. Shocking. What I would like to do is compile a list of great books for teens and I am looking for suggestions. I would also like to make a list of books/poems/plays that every teen should read before they leave high school. Yes, we have a curriculum, but I am shocked at the gaps in their reading.

Great books for teens.

A comprehensive reading list for teens.

Any thoughts?

Help an author…

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Fiona Robyn is going to blog her next novel, Thaw,  starting on the 1st of March. The novel follows 32 year old Ruth’s diary over three months as she decides whether or not to carry on living.

To help spread the word she’s organizing a Blogsplash, where blogs will publish the first page of Ruth’s diary simultaneously (and a link to the blog ).

She’s aiming to get 1000 blogs involved – if you’d be interested in joining in, email her at fiona@fionarobyn.com or find out more information at http://www.fionarobyn.com/thawblogsplash.htm.

Still waiting to be read…

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A couple of days ago I asked readers of this blog (okay, perhaps readers should be singular, but I can dream!) to help me sort through my endless tbr pile, which I’d posted here. These are books I actually own; my tbr list is likely 1000 books long! (And, yes, I do have a list – well, a book actually:

I keep track of all the books I want to read, listed alphabetically, by author. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I’d have to give up sleep and food and work…and apparently when you have kids you’re required to spend time with them. Who knew?

Anyway. I wanted some help going through the list and trying to decide what should get moved up to the top. You can still help out, if you’d like. If you’ve read anything on that list which you think should make my reading list this year, I’d love to hear about it.

But it did make me wonder – what prevents us from reading books we should (I mean I did, after all, select and purchase 90% of the books on my shelf!)

Then I came across this great little article on AbeBooks. com

Remaining Unread: The Top Ten Reasons We Don’t Get To Certain Books

It’s a wonderful (and wonderfully funny) look at book procurement and guilt. I, too,  have purchased books because I’ve liked something else the author has written; I’ve snatched something out of the bargain bin even though…I’ve caved under peer pressure. There are classics I have never read…and I call myself an English teacher!

What are your reasons for not getting to certain books?

Here’s a challenge for you…

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If you check out my page On My tbr Shelf…oh dear, you’ll see that I have more than enough books to keep me reading for the next year (or three). My goal this year is to watch less TV and read more…and also to try not to buy any books other than what’s required for my book club.

Currently my tbr list is organized alphabetically. I’d love it if you’d take a look and help me prioritize my reading list. What’s on that list that I should be reading straight away because it’s awesome? What should I relegate to the bottom because, quite frankly, you have no idea why I’d want to read that.

I’d love to compile a list of 50 because that’s my reading goal for the year, so by all means…tell me what I should be reading in 2010.

Blast from the past…just not mine…

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According to a recent article in the New York Times, The Babysitter’s Club series is coming back.  That series was wildly popular – 213 titles and 176 million copies sold – in its day.  I can’t comment on the series’  literary merit because I’ve never read one. When the series began in 1986, I was already an adult.

For me, the equivalent of The Babysitter’s Club would be The Bobbsey Twins. Oh, how I loved the adventures of Nan and Bert and Flossie and Freddie, two sets of twins solving mysteries in and around Lakeport. Laura Lee Hope, the series’ author, was actually several authors overseen by Edward Stratemeyer, the man behind The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and several other juvenile series.  Of course, I didn’t know that back in that day. I thought Miss Hope was wonderfully inventive and I thought the  Bobbsey twins were courageous and funny and clever.

The first Bobbsey Twins books was published in 1904 and the never-aging twins continued to solve mysteries until the mid-seventies.

Every year for my birthday, my uncle would give me a couple hard cover Bobbsey Twins books and I would devour them. They were always my favourite gift. I’ve never reread them as an adult and I have no doubt that they wouldn’t be nearly as magical as I remember them…but no matter. They served their purpose and did what all great literature does – transported me to another place.

I still own several of the books – although many were lost or given away during my childhood. They now have pride of place on my daughter’s shelf. Although she’s read them, she is not – of course – the same sort of kid I was. Still, it’s wonderful to know they are cherished.

I was an avid reader of these books when I was 8 and 9, and while they weren’t the only books I loved (I adored Trixie Beldon books and The Famous Five and The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton, too) they have a very special place in my heart.

How about you – I’d love to hear about your first literary love(s).

First day in the new digs…

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How wonderful that there’s a snow storm blowing through town and I could spend the day moving ‘Read ’em and Eat’ over here. Whew. Of course, that meant that I wasn’t doing any of the stuff I should have been doing today – wait for it…yep, here comes the guilt.

Still…here I am…ready for a year of reading and book chat.

January 1, 2010

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“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book,” Henry David Thoreau, Walden

So, it’s the beginning of a new year and a new decade. I have resolved to watch less television and read more. I am not a regular TV watcher…I am a binge watcher. So, after a long week I come home on Friday and after dinner etc I flake on the couch and watch back-to-back episodes of Criminal Minds. Back in the day, I was an avid Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel viewer (oh, who am I kidding, I was a total fangirl!)…but there isn’t much on TV that I watch anymore. I love Glee –  but I don’t think that’s on again until the fall; I love Lost and I will be watching its final season…but otherwise…I think I’m going to spend the year reading. And writing.

I also want to see if I can post something book-related every day. I am also going to be doing a little bit of housekeeping…I have decided to focus on the books and book-related things and will no longer be offering recipes and questions. I am also – when I get it figured out…moving the contents of this blog to a new blog (still here at WordPress because I do like it here). Stay tuned.

I can’t promise that I won’t be buying any new books this year (that’s just ridiculous), but I do hope that I will be making a huge dent in my tbr pile…191 books! And I look forward to getting out and about in the book blogging world a little bit more.

Happy reading!

2009 in review

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Once again, SavidgeReads is inviting people to do something cool…take a look back at your reading for the year.  So, I’m making a new pot of tea and doing just that!

How many books read in 2009?

48…which is not nearly as many as some readers out there…and I am hoping to squeeze one more in before the 31st

How many fiction and non fiction?

I rarely read non-fiction, but this year I read two: The Art of Meaningful Living and Traveling with Pomegranates.

Male/Female author ratio?

20 men and 27 women and I know  the math doesn’t add up…but I read two novels by Thomas H. Cook this year.

Favourite book of 2009?

This wasn’t a stellar reading year, sadly. I had a horrible slump in the late fall where nothing appealed to me at all. Of the books I read, though, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones was far and away the best. I said about it:

” Mister Pip is a fantastic book about the power of reading and imagination. It is also a powerful and startling novel about bravery and sacrifice, love and forgiveness.”

Least favourite?

Lots of potential here:

Love: A User’s Guide by Clare Naylor was god-awful.

At a Loss for Words by Diane Schoemperlen and Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon were hugely disappointing, particularly Dismantled because I had so loved the author’s book Promise Not to Tell.

Any that you simply couldn’t finish and why?

I started several books that I had to put aside. I finished Traveling with Pomegranates last night and I am hoping to finish The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman before the 31st. I never did get around to finishing The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson…that’s a book I will have to restart. The buzz was crazy about it and I’m not sure why I didn’t finish it at the time I started…there was just something. Other titles I started and the set aside include: The Almond by Nedjma, What Love Means to You People by NancyKay Shapiro, Under My Skin by Alison Jameson and Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

Oldest book read?

Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease, 1940. This is a book I am teaching to my grade nine class.

Newest?

The Art of Meaningful Living and Traveling with Pomegranates both came out in September and, strangely, are the two non-fiction titles I read this year.


Longest and shortest book titles?

Longest: Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch by Joan Barfoot

Shortest:  Envy by Kathryn Harrison. I had several one word titles, so I chose the one with the fewest letters. *g*

Longest and shortest books?

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski – 576 pages

The Pearl by John Steinbeck – 96 pages

How many books from the library?

None. And I do have a library card!

Any translated books?

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (translated from Norwegian)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (translated from the French)


Most read author of the year, and how many books by that author?

Thomas H. Cook, a fabulous writer of literary mysteries. I read two of his novels this year: Places in the Dark and Red Leaves.

Any re-reads?

Yes, I reread The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, a novel I first read 35 years ago. I also re-read Lord of the Flies by William Golding because I was teaching it to a grade ten class.

Favourite character of the year?

There were several interesting characters in the books I read this year. I fell totally in love with Claire Cooper, the narrator in Kelly Simmons’ terrific debut novel Standing Still. Claire is a fully realized character, fragile and brave. I also really loved that Claire is a woman who is trying to reconcile motherhood and marriage with the fact that she was, once, a very successful career woman. I loved her wild past, her ability to fall in love with a man based on a single characteristic, her yearning for that simple pleasure once again.

I also loved Caroline, the protagonist in Amanda Eyre Ward’s fantastic book How To Be Lost. Caroline is self-destructive and selfish and afraid. Her journey to find the woman in the picture (the  younger sister who has been missing for years) is ill-advised and necessary because by making the journey she is making her first real attempt to leave the past behind.

And, of course, I can’t leave out Matilda and Mr. Watts, the central characters in Lloyd Jones’ not-to-be-missed Mister Pip. As Mr. Watts unspools Pip’s story from Great Expectations,  thirteen year old Matilda begins the often painful journey from innocence to experience.

Which countries did you go to through the page in your year of reading?

Greece, France, Turkey – Traveling with Pomegranates

Norway – Out Stealing Horses

Poland, Switzerland – The Silver Sword

Brazil – The Trade Mission

England – Talking to the Dead

France – The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Papua New Guinea, Australia – Mister Pip

West Africa – The Book of Negroes

India – The White Tiger

Which book wouldn’t you have read without someone’s specific recommendation?

There are a couple books which might not have made their way onto my reading list so soon except for the fact that they were chosen by members of my book club and therefore I had to read them. For example, I would probably have never read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle – certainly not in hard-cover. I might never have given The Elegance of the Hedgehog a second chance; I really didn’t like it the first time I tried to read it, but managed to get through it the second time…and didn’t hate it.

Which author was new to you in 2009 that you now want to read the entire works of?

Lee Martin. I just finished his book The Bright Forever and it was terrific. I’ll definitely be looking for more work by him. I am also anxious to read Kelly Simmons’ new book The Birdhouse which is due out in February.

Which books are you annoyed you didn’t read?

You’re kidding, right? The bookshelf to the right contains about 200 yet-to-be-read books…so it’s not annoyance I feel when I don’t get around to those books…it’s more like panic!

Did you read any books you have always been meaning to read?

Not really, although several of the titles have been on my tbr list for a while: Out Stealing Horses, The Trade Mission, On Chesil Beach.

I’ll just add that the book I will be beginning 2010 with  is Kathy Hepinstall’s debut novel The House of Gentle Men. This novel is actually my pick for book club in January.  When Book Closeouts was having their massive fiction sale around American Thanksgiving, I bought each member of my group a copy of the book to give them as a gift at Christmas. I paid $1.24 per hard cover book. Score!

If you do this meme, I’d love the link so I can go check your answers out!

Happy New Year.

Thoughts for book clubs…

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I recently answered questions for BookJourney, who is featuring book clubs in a Q and A at her blog.  I’ve been in my current book club for 11 years now and they’re a great group so it was fun to think about how my group works…and why it does. It also reminded me that I put together a little book club primer for people who wanted to start a book club, but weren’t sure how to get going. I thought I’d share it here with you.

Some thoughts for book clubs…

Book clubs work best if everyone is on the same page…so if you have two or three members who just want to get out of the house, never read the book, are more interested in talking about the last movie they saw than the book – maybe they’re in the wrong group…or maybe you are.  So once you have a group of like-minded readers, you’re good to go.

The keys to a successful book club are:

  1. Having a venue conducive to talking
  2. Having a designated leader or system for discussing the book.
  3. Choosing a great book- which doesn’t necessarily mean reading War and Peace

There are all sorts of ways to choose books for your book club and you have to find a way that works the best for your group. One piece of advice I have heard from other clubs, though, is to choose a book that is unknown to you- that is, if it’s your pick don’t choose your favourite book of all time because there are bound to be hurt feelings when someone in your group doesn’t like it.

Some of the ways to choose a book include:

Everyone come to the first meeting of the year with a couple of choices and put all of the choices into a hat and pick randomly. The group can decide out of all the picks what they want to read.

Everyone gets one pick per year. That person is then responsible for hosting the meeting (whatever that means for your book club). In our group it means the person who chose the book hosts at their house, provides the nibblies (or, as is often the case in our group a three course meal!) and leads the discussion.

Leading the discussion can take many forms…and again, there’s many ways to do it depending on your group. We have 11 really chatty women so the leader has to be a bit of a tyrant in order for everyone to have the opportunity to speak. Usually she’s prepared with a list of questions…but we’ve also done it other ways, for example, inviting everyone to make up their own question about the book, putting the questions in a dish and allowing everyone to answer one question and then, if anyone wants to add thoughts, they can.

Vigorous discussion comes from well-thought out questions and a little bit of planning on the part of the hostess. The questions need not necessarily be related to the book, either. Or at least not directly.

Here are my questions for the novel The Myth of You and Me – which was my choice, only mediocre, imho, but we had a great chat about it.
1. When Ruth and Cameron start to pack Oliver’s things up Cameron remarks: “It’s astonishing what a single life accumulates. These things we endow with a certain life- the possibilty that we might use them, the memory we attach to them- and then, when we die, they become just things again.”

What things do you save and what meaning do they have for you? Do you ever purge? What is something you own that is likely meaningless without the weight of your attached memory.

2. When we finally discover what ended the friendship- what is your reaction? How does it change your feelings about Cameron and Sonia? Is it enough of a reason to sever the ties between them?

3. While Cameron searches for Sonia she meets Suzette again and remarks: “All at once it strikes me that as well as I know Sonia, I only know one version of her- that all you know of a life are the places where it touches your own.” Do you think it’s true that we offer people different versions of ourselves? Why? Who has the clearest picture of you?

4. Oliver’s second letter to Cameron reveals the truth about his life and his story and, for me at least, offers the book’s most important lesson. Why do you think he waits to tell Cameron the story of Billie, the story of his life?

5. If you could track down one person from your past who would it be and why?

How do you choose your next book?

The Internet makes it easy to do research…but how do you find titles?

Some great blogs:

ReadySteadyBook

Bookgirl’s Nightstand

A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook

SavidgeReads

(generally if you find a blog you like, it’s easy to follow that person’s links to other similar blogs- trust me, there’s a HUGE network out there)

 

There’s a whole raft of book communities

Chapters/Indigo

Shelfari

Fantastic Fiction – info on over 300,000 books!

There are also lots of useful sites if you are looking for ways to keep your book club thriving…try this one:

I am always happy to talk bookclubs…and answer questions if you have them!

(Originally posted August 3, 2009)

A bookish weekend…

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Every May, our local Public Library has a huge book sale. Last year I scored big time…hauling off bags of books for $5. (This year it was “an armload of books for $1″. ) Sadly, I didn’t fare as well this year- just not the same selection or something. I came away with three books: Perpetual Ending by Kirsten den Hartog, Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay, In the Night Room by Peter Straub

Not satisfied with that, I stopped by Bean Books once more. I knew I could get a decent cup of King Cole tea (which I did) and I scored a hard cover copy of Clive Barker’s latest novel Mister B. Gone, for the bargain price of $8.95! (I’d come across this book during my Indigo days and it looked intriguing. I do enjoy a decent horror novel every once and awhile.)

My book accumulation this week was rounded off by purchasing The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. This book is this month’s book club pick. I also received, as a gift A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick- which is Indigo’s book club pick.

I may not have stated this, but I decided back in January (with 200 waiting-to-be-read books eyeing me haughtily from their shelf) that I wasn’t going to buy any books this year except for the two a month I’d need for book club. I can’t do it.

Hi. My name is Christie and I’m a book-a-holic.

(Originally published May 3, 2009)