RIP V Challenge: The Book List

After many recommendations from the wonderful readers in my life, I have chosen the four books I will be reading for the challenge.

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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Recommended by: My SIL, Sara

I'm 95 pages in, and while it is slow going, It's a very good read so far. It took me a little while to get used to the fact that Mr. McCarthy doesn't use quotations and that the Man and the Boy don't have actual names, but I've gotten over it and everything is alright again.
Also, every time I read the author's name, I misread it as Cormac McLaggen, who is a fictional Hogwarts student, not an author. I have read Harry Potter far to many times.
2. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

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Recommended by: Goodreads

It's about Vampires (sort of), and who doesn't love a good vampire story?

3. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
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Recommended by: My Uncle Lance

His actual recommendation was "Anything by Anne Rice", and this seems to be one of those "read before you die" books.

4. Firestarter by Stephen King

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Recommended by: My mother and sister

I've never read anything by Stephen King, but apparently this particular title is very Koontz-esque, and I do love Dean Koontz.

I have the first one on loan from my SIL, and the other three waiting for me at the library. Should be a good two months.

Sherlock

All I wanted was a copy of A Study in Scarlet by Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle. It's not a huge request. But, apparently, libraries only stock like, four copies of classics in a library system of six buildings.

My library does not stock A Study in Scarlet...by itself.

No, I went in for a Sherlock Holmes book and found myself exiting with a textbook-sized behemoth labeled "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, VOLUME 1!!!" It's 688 pages of maps, introductions, and annotated narrative, rather than just, you know, a book. Every time I open it, I feel like I should be taking notes for an analysis of Mr. Holmes's cocaine addiction (which he totally has, by the way. Homeboy uses cocaine, opium, constantly smokes. Why do we even like him? Oh, yes, because he's played by Robert Downy Jr. Yum).

Reading this version is really like watching a movie you've never seen before while being forced to listen to the audio commentary. You can probably pick up the general idea of what's going on, but you don't catch the better part of it, because you're too distracted by the director going on about how wonderful he is. Only in this case, it's lots of academics who just luuurve Sir A.C.D and would like to gush about him in the footnotes. Except they aren't footnotes, it is precisely half the page, divided vertically, so that I find myself accidentally skipping from narrative to notes midsentence. Furthermore, the notes assume that you have not only read, but are familiar with the entire adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and make little asides to things with nary so much as a spoiler alert. Thanks a ton, William S. Baring-Gould.

Also, I have a habit of accidentally filling my head with little anecdotes and then popping them off in everyday conversation, invariably lading to that head-bob everyone does when someone has effectively ended a conversation, causing the dreaded "awkward silence" It's terrible, and I, knowing myself, know that I will somehow have managed to make this happen with my new found Holmesian knowledge before the month is out.

In spite of all this, I love Sherlock Holmes. I do. He is such a fantastically ridiculous character, and I love him. I truly do.

I also checked out Crime and Punishment, written by a Russian man whose name I can't quite pronounce. Apparently I have gone on a Classics reading kick that I forgot to inform myself about.

Notifications

I just got a text from Library Elf (which if you don't have, you should get. There's nothing like a text message in the middle of the day letting you know your book is available.) Telling me that Forever Odd is due back.

Forever Odd is an audiobook. Meaning that my "reading" time is limited to my 20 minute commute (total, not each way) to and from work each day and a 45 minute commute to and from school three times a week. Audiobooks are not ideal for people in my driving situation. They're meant for people who do a lot of driving, which s a little pointless, because if I need to go anywhere that would facilitate me listening to an entire audiobook during my commute, I'm going to fly instead, thank you.

But I digress.

The point is that I am not finished with Forever Odd, and when I went to renew, I COULDN'T, because some person has put a request on it, with no thought to my convenience. Selfishness, that's what it is.

I suppose this means I need to find an excuse for extra driving today. I simply can't picture myself sitting in front of my television, listening to a CD on the XBOX. It doesn't feel right.

Loveable, Furry, Old Grover

This was one of my favorite books as a child, and one that I credit (no lie) with making me love reading as much as I do. One of my best childhood memories i my mother reading this to me, and barely being able to get through the book because I was laughing so hard.

It is a very sweet and hysterical little story about facing your fears, and I love love love love it.

I am, however, a little embarrassed to admit that I checked it out from the library yesterday and read it aloud to my husband on the way home.

Oh, and while I was checking it out, I asked my husband "And do you know who the monster at the end of the book is?!" His response was "You?"

Thanks honey. For the record, it's Grover. Duh. My librarian, the one who knows my name, thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard and then told me I need to work at the library because she loves me. If only, if only, I say.

It's not a total loss, though, because he DID laugh when I read it to him. More at me than the book, I think.

Harry Potter Re-read (minor spoilers)

I am a self-proclaimed Harry Potter fanatic. I have frequented Mugglenet, read fanfiction, written fanfiction, predicted plot points and loopholes, shipped for Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione, attended Midnight premiers, and bemoaned omissions in movie adaptations. Now that all seven books are released and I have had time to heal from the heartbreak brought on by the end of the series, I am doing a reread. This, of course, means that all my other reading projects are on hold, since I feel that I can do the series the most justice by reading it strait through.

It's interesting, the things one notices when rereading the series. For instance, in Sorcerers Stone, for the first half of the book, one would think this was just going to be a happy story about a young wizard and his jaunts through a new world. While Voldemort is mentioned in passing in the beginning, he isn't introduced as a current threat until halfway through the book, when Harry serves detention in the Fobidden Forest. Another presence that is surprisingly absent is Malfoy. We don't run into him much in the first book, it's just known that he is a terrible little boy who wants a good beating.

Chamber of Secrets gives us our first clue, briefly, in passing, almost unnoticed, to the secrets we don't discover until books six and seven, when Dumbledore is asked "Who is opening the Chamber of Secrets?" and he answers "Not who. The question is how" To one who knows how the story ends, it is as if we see Dumbledore's wheels begin to turn and watch him realize that this threat is greater than he imagined.

I am picking up the third book at the library today. My original copies were all first editions, and, sadly, were read, literally, to pieces. Prisoner of Azkaban, which my sister still has, has to be read in two separate pieces, as the middle has fallen out. It is common, when reading that particular copy, to have to keep a pile of loose pages next to you, in order to search through them each time you encounter a missing bit of dialogue.

Hopefully I'll remember to post my observations as I work my way through the series. Stay tuned.

Audiobooks

I rediscovered Audiobooks last month, during an unsuccessful hunt for the book "Marley and Me" in print at my local library. They had it only on Audiobook, and so, being that I had a "Winter Book Challenge" challenge to complete, I checked it out.

This is not a review of Marley and Me. If it were, I would just have to tell you that I hate dogs, but I still spent most of this book in tears. Also the guy who reads it must have been someones cousin or something, because he is the most stoic and most gay reader of audiobooks that I have ever heard . A stoic gay is truly something to be heard.

I digress. I'm on my fourth audiobook at the moment, Alice I Have Been, by Melanie Benjamin (incidentally, this is a pen name, which is proclaimed loudly in her author bio, right next to her real name. Tell me, is there even a point in writing under a pen name if you're just going to tell everyone who you are anyway?).

The thing I've grown to love about audiobooks, especially ones told in the first person, is that it is (obviously) like someone telling you their own story. It seems a little silly to say that, but it's truly what I love about them. I connect to the characters better, and i all feels a little more real to me when I listen on audiobook.

The obvious trouble with audiobooks is that so far, almost all of them have made me cry, and, as everyone knows, the moment you begin to cry in your car, you begin to feel that there is a giant yellow arrow pointing to you, alerting all the other drivers in the vicinity to your weepiness. I actually play it up a little, hoping that someone in the next car will feel oh-so-sorry for me. I'm an attention whore like that.

Followers!

Five people follow my blog. I'm actually quite thrilled about that. It satisfies the needs of the attention whore in me.

Observations for today -

- The Diva Cup = Woman's greatest invention. It's not gross, I promise.

- Eight months is the awesomest age on a baby. B (my charge) is basically the coolest kid ever.

- I've read over 6000 pages this month...well...not this month. Last month...the one that ended two days ago. That's a heckava lot of pages. That's a dissertation...times 3...or 6. How long is a dissertation?

- I have the best librarians. I went to the library yesterday, accompanied by my husband, who NEVER goes to the library, but took the opportunity of sneaking kisses in empty aisles, which made me feel like we were in high school. It was not a bad feeling. Anyway, we were getting ready to leave, and one of the librarians walks by and says to me "They sang your song on the Grammys last night, and I thought of you!" I don't need to ask which one. My name is Rhyannon, only one letter different that the title of the Stevie Nix song "Rhiannon". What astounded me is that this woman, who sees hundreds of people a day, remembered not only my face, but my name, and rememebred it enough to want to let me know that Taylor Swift and Stevie Nix did a duet of my song on the Grammy's. Hows that for making a girl feel special?

Bibliophilia

As a child, I loved to read. I loved it. I read everything I could get my hands on, and, with very few exceptions, I was allowed to read anything I wanted, with never a mention of reading levels or something being too mature for me. I read things that were too old for me (Outlander when I was 14) things that were about right (All the Chronicles of Narnia at 9 - 12) and things that were too young for me (The Mary Poppins books at 13). I was picky about the genre of the books I read, but that's alright when you're young. It's probably what kept me away from the Stephen King and Tom Clancy on the shelves. I loved fantasy and romance, as well as silly books that made me laugh. I loved the written word, and was highly encouraged in this by my mother, who had been reading to my sister and I since we were infants.

I read a great deal up through high school, but tapered off once I got to college, and very nearly stopped when I got married. Marriage makes you poor, and I could no longer afford to go to the bookstore and buy whatever by heart desired. This year though, I have rediscovered a beautiful thing: The public library.

I have become a frightful addict to this institution. No more than two days goes by that I am not in the library, returning, borrowing or picking up one of my many holds. I know the librarians by sight now, if not yet by name, although, if this habit of mine continues, I could see that happening very soon.

Somehow new steps have been added to my routine. When I walk out the door, I check, not only for my keys and cell phone, but for my library card as well. My daily internet rovings include The Nest, Facebook, Blogger, and now Goodreads and the Public Library Site, to look for and reserve new books.

I had forgotten how much I adore reading. With this new, constant stream of literature, my mind, which had begun an alarming descent into slushy disuse, now buzzes with activity, thinking of what I have been reading, what will happen next, and when I will get a chance to sit and read a bit more. Reading not only transports me while I read, but throughout my day. It is, cliche though it may be, an escape, but more than that, a tool for keeping my mind busy as the monotony of the day drags on. It is something that is indescribable to a non-reader, but those who have found themselves lost in the written word understand.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Elfland is waiting.

What I am reading now: I, Robot (audiobook) by Isaac Asimov; Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin; Elfland by Freda Warrinton