Reluctant reader

I'm working the Reference Desk this afternoon.  I had 3 questions right away and then almost nothing for the rest of the time. I still have 1 1/2 hour left to go. I was thinking I'd write something. But I don't know what. I don't have a real topic. Mostly I'm just bored. So let's see.

I haven't been reading. That's unusual for me. I've read everyday since I learned how. But lately I've been playing games on my iPad rather than picking up a book. I've all but outright abandoned my book blog and sooner or later I need to either just shut it down or review something again. Maybe micro-reviews rather than the full ones or something. I just know that the actual act of picking up a book hasn't been happening. I read over Christmas break. I read 2 books and that felt good. Honestly this kind of reading impedance is confusing for me. I'll work it out.

I have still been listening to audio books on the commute and now I have Bub hooked on them. We've listened to Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, Floors, 3 Below, and Peter and the Starcatchers. I liked that he is enjoying books. I hope that one day he can read them himself with as much enjoyment. In the meantime, I'm listening to his books when he is with me and then my own when he is not. I'm on my 4th or 5th listen of To Say Nothing of the Dog, Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump At Last, one of my absolute favorites. At least that's something.

Wodehouse

Late last year I read a long short story (or a short novella, your pick) called "The Crime Wave at Blandings" by P.G. Wodehouse.  I'd never read any Wodehouse but he was an author I always meant to read.  I really enjoyed the story and in a fit of interest I decided I would read the entire Blandings Castle Saga, short stories and novels, in 2011.  And here it is, mid-April, and I've read 2 novels and I'm halfway through a 3rd.  I have a lot of books to read, including some review books for the book blog, and I'm now wondering if I am going to make my goal.  I'm going to continue to go through with my personal challenge, but I am going to try not to be too disappointed with myself if I don't make it.  It's honestly not that big a deal if I don't finish and if I can't get the whole thing done by the end of the year, I can continue it onto the next year.  That being said, I am enjoying the Wodehouse books.  It's like reading a British sitcom and I love those things!  I love that these books are still funny 80+ years later.

Reading classics

I've never been a huge fan of reading "classic" books.  I've read them to be sure, but they are not my favorite and I don't like it when people make a big deal about it.  It always comes off as pretentious whether they mean it to or not.  I have some favorites among the classics, a few Dickens and
Austen and so on.  Mostly I prefer reading young adult books.  That is my preferred genre and I hate it when people give me a hard time about it.  Rarely do I get a lot of flak for it, but there are some who can't understand why I don't read more adult books.  To them I say this, I am an adult all of the time.  Why do I have to read about it too?  YA books just appeal to me more.  I find most classics boring and I hate wading through the language in half of them.  And I am old enough now to make the choice of rather I want to read them or not.  And that is all there is to that.

My history of reading

read a lot.  Like a lot a lot.  I have always read a lot.  My mom read to us for as long as I can remember and then I took over from her, reading everything I can.  I can remember checking out all the Nancy Drews from the library and I read Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley and some series about dancing.  I read the Narnia books over and over and The Neverending Story and countless others.

 When I got older, I read much the same, loving series and reading everything by whatever author I was focused on that I could.  I went through an Agatha Christie phase around 15 and read as many as I could.  I read Harlequins and Judith Krantz and many books that were probably too old for me, but I was reading and my mom did little to censor me.  She just liked that I read.  And then I went to college and did very little reading for four years.  When I was done with my bachelors, I picked up the habit again and read for two more years.  Then I went to graduate school and reading became defined to textbooks and sneaking in pleasure reading at odd times and holidays yet again.  And then I was done and free to read and read.

At some point during this I switched from "adult" fiction to Young Adult or Teen fiction.  That genre of fiction that wasn't really available or at least termed that way when I was actually a young adult.  This actually served me well since my first librarian job was at a public library.  I was the Reference Librarian, true, but I made that job what I wanted and incorporated some teen programming, something that was sorely lacking at that library.  (Sadly, after I left, it fizzled out with nobody willing to pick up that slack.)

Now I now longer with teens, but college-aged students and their goals and questions put to me when I work at the Reference Desk are not about fiction, but assignments.  But to fill the void, I guess, I started a book blog that was, at first, meant only for me, but I've gained some followers and made myself a nice niche in a section of the book blogging world and I've enjoyed it for the most part.  It's given me lots to read and joining challenges has helped to pull me out of my normal reading and gotten me to explore some other genres.

I still read a lot.  And I read to my little boy every night, trying to instill in him the same love of reading that my mother did for me.

Good stuff on the Internet

I like funny websites as most people do. But there are some I look at religiously everyday. So here they are in no particular order:

1. TV Tropes: a website for "devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés." Be careful. It's like the mafia, once you're in, it's hard to get out.

2. Dlisted: For celebrity gossip with a side of bitchiness, this is it.

3. Go Fug Yourself: When celebrity have trouble dressing themselves they can go fug themselves.

4. Cake Wrecks: When "professional cakes go horribly wrong" so much awesome occurs.

5. Cracked: lists of funny stuff

6. 11 Points: ditto, but with 11 points always (This is thanks to Katy, my sister-in-law)

Read and enjoy.

Everything Austen

So I'm reading Pride & Prejudice for a book challenge, Everything Austen, and it's been a LONG time since I read it. The beginning was a little boring but when Mr. Collins came the action picked up which is funny since Mr. Collins is himself very boring. For the challenge I have to read or watch 6 things that are Jane Austen related, books she wrote or parodies or sequels or any movies. I'm doing an all P&P list since there are some many adaptions of her books.
This is my list.

1. Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
2. Pride and Prejudice (BBC mini-series)
3. Pride and Prejudice (2005 movie)
4. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Grahame-Smith)
5. Bride and Prejudice
AND either
6. Bridget Jones' Diary OR Pride and Prejudice:A Latter-Day Comedy(2003 movie) OR Pride and Prejudice (1940 movie)

I decided to start with the original so that I can compare the rest to it. I can't wait to read P&P&Z since I've heard great things although I'm not big on zombies. The only thing is I can't decide for #6. I'd like to watch the Latter-Day Comedy since I think that would be interesting, a very different take of P&P. And I LOVE Bride and Prejudice. It's the Bollywood version and it is really good by the same lady who did Bend It Like Beckham.

So anyway, that's what I'm reading right now.

Okay Is it just me?

I'm reading The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines and I am enjoying it. The rumor mill had Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, and Lindsay Lohan starring in the movie but that would be completely awful.

But I'm looking at the cover and this is what I keep noticing.

Does Snow White look exactly like Michelle Trachenburg or it is just me? I could get behind that casting in a heartbeat.

We like to read

Well, it's summer 'round here. I need to remember to sign up Bubbie for the summer reading program. Although this parish is doing it different than past years so I'm not sure if it will work for him or not. Last year, we read and listened to books. I count listening to audio books in the car as time since we spent a lot of time doing it and it is just like something reading to him. And, of course, we read at home, usually just one story a night but sometimes he brings me or BT a lot of books. Currently his favorite book is Go, Dog, Go and my husband reads it to him. He does an excellent job with the voices. I'm not so good with that one, but I like reading Green Eggs and Ham. I've read that one to him since he was born. It's cute since whenever I read my books he will grab one and start "reading" it. Hopefully, he will be a reader like me.

These are a few of my favorite things, er, blogs

Like everyone, I have blogs that I visited everyday or check weekly depending on my mood and how busy I am. I, of course, am obsessed with Twitter and keep it open all day at work and at home too. I have a book Twitter too so that I can share books with people and then I have my personal Twitter for the other stuff I like and for my life. The same thing goes for my blogs: I have this one for personal things and whatever and I have a book blog, just for that. And I have a Facebook, which I checked daily, and a Myspace that I never check and am thinking of deleting anyway.

But there are websites that I love and have on occasion obsessed about. Here they are, in very little order, my favorite blogs:


Occupation: Girl - Cleolinda Jones
I first found her blog when doing a search on Breaking Dawn reactions after Amazon blew up when all the Twihards started freaking out. Up til Breaking Dawn, I was just straight up in love with those books but that book just did something to me. Anyway, I found her recaps of BD and then read the rest of her Twilight recaps and commentary and I was hooked and was now in it for the lulz. She was posting everyday but lately she's giving herself a much needed rest and is posting every couple of days or so. Her main thing right now is The Secret Life of Dolls which is about the adventures of her, um, dolls including The Littlest Edward, a bunch of Lord of the Ring dolls, Lyra Belacqua, and a lot more. Look, it's funny, just trust me. She is a writer working on a steampunk/vampire? book and she talks about that too. She also wrote a book called Movies in Fifteen Minutes (which I own) and has posted some online including Twilight the movie. I could fangirl her so much more but 1. I don't want to sound creepy and 2. it could get really long so let's just say she's awesome and move on.

eric three thousand

I found him one day looking for Project Runway recaps. His are very funny and very accurate. He makes up dialogue and talks about the designs. He also does Top Chef which is another of my favorite shows and has started doing The Fashion Show from Bravo. He is very funny if you like these shows.

Libba Bray - the author, of course!

I LOVE A Great and Terrible Beauty so I went looking for her website and found her blog. I use to check weekly but now it's more like monthly. She is fantastically funny and insightful. I had a bad experience posting comments on her blog (not her, another commenter) so I don't do that now but she is still fun to read.

Maureen Johnson - the author (of course)

I can't remember when I started following her but it was definitely after I read 13 Blue Envelopes. She is insanely funny and posts really long and very funny blogs. I participated in the BEDA project that she started and meet some great people through it. She usually writes about writing or hamsters or J.K. Rowling. You just have to read it.

Speaking of BEDA, I still follow my BEDA buddies blogs (including someone who was my unofficial BEDA buddy) They are

Letter, Words, Thought, Ideas, Stories... - Tiffany Schmidt who is extremely funny

You Should Only Know - Erica Manney who writes about her life

Library Notebook - lindsaygail who is a librarian like me and writes about books and being a librarian

Life in Denim and Flip Flops - Becky Jean who is also a librarian and writes about different things like work, making cards, poetry, etc.

Anyway, these are just some of my favorite blogs. I actually have more, but this is getting long.