Adventures in Reading, a returning college kid, and upcoming Christmas in Spokane!

Recent adventures in reading:

• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This was a great book. Interesting premise, and great love story.
• Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler.  I think I have read all of her books.  I really enjoy her writing style and her genre of "tragicomedy."
• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Elizabeth Howe
• listened to audiobook version of Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch (which then spurred me into re-watching the movies Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman.)
• listened to the audiobook version of Bossypants by Tina Fey.  I love nerdy girls like me.

Reading right now:

• still..... REAMDE by Neal Stephenson - it's just really big and it's kind of a gun-happy adventure book, almost masculine in nature, but I do enjoy it... it's just a long haul.  it's like 900 pages and i'm at about 390.
• Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart - I've just barely gotten started with this... no real opinions yet

• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - I just started this yesterday. Franzen really paints a detailed picture of his characters and their surroundings. looking forward to continuing on with this.
• Listening to the audiobook version of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling. I really enjoy listening to these types of books in my car, even though it is in really little spurts, since driving time in Juneau is pretty minimal no matter where you are going. :-)  I am NOT complaining about this.

Organized the humongous stack of miscellaneous books on my night-table and found a couple of books I need to finish and return to my dear friend, Lynne.  I'll throw those in the mix of my reading, too.

Just imported my other blogs: VWFC, Wish List, and Family Blog into this blog and now there is only one. :-)

One week and me and the boys leave for Spokane. I am really looking forward to spending some time with my parents, grandparents and sister.  I miss them all, and it will be really special to spend Christmas with them.  David will join us on the 23rd.

Tyler is returning to Juneau to live this coming Friday. He attended UAA fall semester and has transferred to UAS for spring semester. His education at UAS will be FREE if he lives at home, with the tuition waiver benefit from my job, and the Governor's Alaska Performance Scholarship that takes care of the rest (fees and books), and then some.  I am really looking forward to having him home.

I'm going to try to add to my blog more often. I noticed that I didn't do ANY posts in 2010.  I may try to recreate 2010 through Facebook export.

~~~klc

doing it for myself - this was written a couple months ago and was sitting in drafs

I go back and forth as to whether or not to even keep a blog. but i've never deleted this blog since i've created it. I like the idea of having a visual, interactive way to document my life, no matter how dull it is. I do this not for readers, but for myself. My husband is gone for 2 months. I get to go down to see him this coming Thursday. I'm very excited to see him. I really really miss him. He is my best friend and soul mate, no mater how cliche that sounds. It's true.

What I'm reading: two books right now. The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay, and REAMDE by Neal Stephenson. They are both OK but I haven't really gotten to the point in either where I can't put them down. I think that point will come.

I'm taking a class this semester, Introduction to Public Administration. I am not really enjoying the subject matter. My instructor is very dynamic, and makes the topic sound interesting during class, but apart from that I find it really hard to stay interested while reading the materials or doing the homework.

thoughts on recent and not so recent adventures in reading

so it's been a touch over 2 years since my last blog entry. my last post was a list of books I wanted to read. Out of that list I have since read:

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult - I found this book interesting, especially since a lot of the book has to do with dog racing in Alaska, which I had no idea was a part of the book when I started reading it. A lot of times when Alaska is used as a setting, I immediately turn on my critic switch, ready to dispel any myths that are about to be presented in the forthcoming pages. However, with this book I remember being pleasantly surprised that it was well written and seemed to be well researched as well. I haven't ready anything else by Jodi Picoult, but I may give her another chance in the future.

White Noise by Don Delilo - I remember reading this book but also remember it being kind of depressing. I didn't really feel any connection to any of the characters and found them all to be just sad.

The Servants by Michael Marshall Smith - I just finished this one recently. I received it from my sister for Christmas this past year. I enjoyed this book even though it, too was kind of sad. It had to do with a little boy and his mother who had cancer. I thought it was an accurate reflection of what a child might be feeling and how he comes around to understanding in the end.

I do have The Historian on my bookshelf ready to be read but I think I had started it and then got bored... maybe will have to revisit it.

I spent Christmas break reading all of The Hunger Games books, as well as Matched . All of these are categorized Young Adult Fiction. I really really really enjoyed all of these books. Prior to those books I read the entire Millennium Trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) and really enjoyed those as well. I am very much looking forward to these books being made into American movies. I have watched the Swedish subtitled versions and enjoyed them as well.

After those engrossing series, I read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, which was extremely entertaining and enlightening. Some of the things I felt I could relate with the author on, although of course her childhood experiences were very much more intense than mine. I'm sure all of us have times of extreme embarrassment caused by what our parents make us wear, or how they cut our hair, or what we are allowed to do or not do or listen to, etc.

I felt like continuing on in a lighthearted vein so I read Jennifer Weiner's Best Friends Forever. I enjoy everything she writes.

Since I finished her book at a time when I could not go to the store to pick up a new book, i revisited my bookshelf in search of something to re-read. I found The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and remembered that I had brought it along with me a few years back on a trip to Seattle. I had read about a third of it, and had gotten bored with it. But that night on revisiting the bookshelf, decided to give it another go. I really enjoyed it this time. I event put the movie in our queue, so will be watching that soon, too.

Oh, and I also read Never Let Me Go also by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I enjoyed too. Thought provoking about human rights and all that. Movie is for rent on-demand right now. I'll probably do that.

Right now I'm reading I Am Number Four, another young adult selection.