Sproinged

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Spring seems to have sproinged today…or something like that.  I am busy busy with grading and all the special events that take place at the end of the kids’ school year as well. So, for now, just some links to some reviews:

Jacob’s Folly

The Good Nurse –true crime about a killer nurse.

The Accursed  by Joyce Carol Oates.   Also, my review is quoted here which is pretty cool!

Secrets From the Past—I read a romance novel….

Maya’s Notebook—the new Isabel Allende

I also recently read two books which I really loved: Magnificence by Lydia Millet and The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi.  The first is Millet’s brand of strange and natural wonder and tells the story of one woman’s loss and her recovery with the help of a crazy mansion full of taxidermy. It is not a perfect book by any means but I enjoyed it immensely! The second of these two was a harder read for me; also strange and full of natural wonder. It is the spooky story of a young girl tortured by either a spirit, the ghost of her dead twin or mental illness (or maybe all three). It nicely blends the rhythms of modern European life with that of traditional African beliefs.

Spring

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I live very far from any beaches. Spring Break may conjure images of bathing suits and sunny southern days and that does seem pretty fantastic.  For us this year, Spring Break was spent on a three day backpacking trip. Four adults, four kids, one dog, a rapidly rushing river and the beauty of the Gila Wilderness, stark on first glance but revealing a lushness to those who care to look carefully.

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Backpacking is not my ideal vacation (that would be a trip to Prague or New York City, taking in museums, architecture, sampling the food and watching all the interesting people) but on this, my second backpacking trip ever, I think I began to see the appeal. The reward for shlepping my essentials on my back (and, granted our hike in was just four miles) was a landscape like no other, a full day of exploration in water and dirt, canyons and riverbanks, birdsong in the morning, a beer in the shade of a tree in the afternoon, the sound of happy kids, moss and rock, bats at dusk and the biggest sky full of stars, planets and a crescent moon at night.

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Reads

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On Pinterest I started keeping track of the books I am reading (on a board oh so cleverly titled, “What I am Reading..”) and recently started noting the month I read the book in as well.  This is not that interesting except that it has shown that I am averaging about 4 books a month, not counting kids chapter books I am either reviewing or reading to/with my kids. A lot of 4 monthly books have been fantasy novels lately as I have a friend who has really gotten into the genre lately and lent me some good ones. Here are my 2013 reads so far with either a link to my official review or a one sentence review:

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett—contemporary classic I avoided for years but it turns out this is a great book: beautifully written with a unique premise and some good surprises.

Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde by Rebecca Dana–my review of this short memoir here.

When the Danube Ran Red by Zsuzsanna Ozsvath —a very short, unsettling and interesting memoir about a Jewish childhood in Hungary during the Nazi Occupation.

To The Power of Three by Laura Lippman—I have a soft spot for the crime-mysteries of Lippman and this may be my favorite so far!

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King—I also have a soft spot for King and had never read this hugey huge book about aliens and a small town in Maine: it was a fun and satisfying read.

Fuse by Julianna Baggott—My review of this book, which is Book 2 of the “Pure” trilogy, will be published soon…

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie—the first book in a fantasy trilogy: I am not done yet but will comment on it when I am.

I have some end of 2012 reviews to post as well but I am off to start my Friday with lots of coffee.

 

Image

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I have been trying for a week to get some new pictures loaded up here but the only one that is working is actually this door image which is one of the first pictures I put up here on Citizen Beta version 2.  I will keep trying.

Right now, though I am just going to take it easy. Though I am on break I have work to do (both for my regular job and a couple of reviews) but today I am feeling unconcerned.  My plan for today is to drink at least one more cup of coffee, watch a movie with the kids (they got a handful of good dvds for the holiday) after watching a magic show (complete with balloon animals) that they have been working on all morning.  I am going to read a bit of a fun book a friend lent me and consider going to the grocery store.  Maybe I will even take the poor dog for a walk.  Who knows.  Today is the first day in a long time with no agenda. Meals will be simple, sweatpants will be the uniform and I may keep curtains drawn for that cozy shut-in feel.

 

New!

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And maybe even improved. I am playing around with the style of the site today. I am liking the changes so far: a bit more colorful and dynamic.

Also, am thinking about a book giveaway so stay tuned!

Falling

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I noticed only yesterday that the leaves are falling off the trees. Finally.  It has been a long and warm autumn so far, still reaching 80 degrees many days.  But, the mornings are cool and dark, making it difficult for grumpy kids to get out of bed and ready for school.  I am halfway through the term so swimming in (not quite drowning in) student papers and exams and assignments.

At the beginning of this term I started a class myself: Spanish I through the University’s continuing education program.  For just $100.00 (plus the price of an overpriced textbook) I enrolled in a 14 week class meeting for a couple hours once a week.  The work itself is not difficult but my classmates are often frustrating (alternating between smug and helpless when it comes to the material) and I really don’t have the recommended 7 hours a week to study and work on exercises.  I feel I am not giving my all to the class and want so very much to stop attending.  But, the whole reason I decided to take it is to show my kids that I am really supportive of their bi-lingual education and to help them with their Spanish homework.  If I drop out, what message do I send?  Or, do I just lie: plan it so they sometimes come upon with with flashcards or struggling over some tricky conjugations.   I just don’t know.

In the meantime we are inching toward Halloween and Thanksgiving, parent-teacher conferences and such. This year we will have Athena and a Vampire Princess in our midst and they are as cute and charming as they are fierce and powerful (and unintentionally funny too like today when Athena had me paint her nails a silver glitter to get ready for a Halloween Carnival and told me she considered the pink glitter polish but decided it was “too Aphrodite”). I have a finished sweater—well, all except the sleeves—they just don’t want to knit themselves so… I am keeping my nose buried in books as much as I am able while still enjoying the real world around me.

I just finished How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran.  It was really funny but the feminist message was still strong.  The book got a tad weaker as it went on (a too long discussion of Lady Gaga) but a great read and one I may give as a gift to a few people I think would really appreciate it.

I am still reading Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.  I actually haven’t been reading it that long but it is a lot of work and I have had to put it down a few times to get some reviews done.  I think at the end I will be glad that I kept reading it because there are moments of real beauty and insight in it.

My book club read Wench which is very dark and sad despite its light-handed writing style.  I didn’t love the ending but it was a fairly good book on a really tough and important topic.

As for reviews:

I was super stoked to get to read & review the second book in Justin Cronin’s zombie apocalypse, The Twelve.

Also, The People of Forever are Not Afraid and I reviewed the second Lish McBride novel, Necromancing the Stone.

And finally a nice thought (and a nice color scheme):

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Round-Up

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As I mentioned I created a Citizen Beta Facebook page.  It is mostly a feed of bookish new: reviews, articles etc cetera.  But, I have also been posting cool videos, some music and art news, science articles and such.  So, I am going to try a similar round-up here from time to time.  Let me know what you think!

Here we go:

Flavorwire’s 10 Essential Books for Book Nerds (I have only read two or three so have my work cut out for me!)

Slinkachu’s miniatures…really amazing and pretty thoughtful.

This video really blew me away!

Great graphic novels for girls and for grown-ups.

Nevercity

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A month or so ago I spent an hour and $20.00 at Goodwill and left with a cartload of books.  Mostly these were kids books and they have long since been read and even re-read, filling in the last weeks and days of summer vacation.  I did grab a couple for myself, of course, including Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere which cost only 50 cents.  It took me a while to get to it what with finishing summer classes, planning for the five I am teaching this fall at the college and various reviews.  I have enjoyed the Gaiman books I have read before so was really excited about this one but it was shorter, less realized and less rich than the others.  The idea, that a whole world exists “below” ours (literally below) as shown in this case with a world under London.  A hapless young man, one at a bit of a crossroads, finds himself in this under-world and swept into a dangerous adventure. The premise is great: strange and creepy but almost believable and there were generous bits of violence, a couple nice surprises and some romantic tension as well. In the end, it was entertaining and even fun but not fantastic or quite memorable.  Some of the bad guys felt like poorly drawn King characters while the general mood and plotting felt like it would’ve been better handled by Clive Barker.

Next though I was on to a really terrific book, Drop City, by T.C. Boyle. I had only previously read The Road to Wellville by Boyle and this novel was way better.  In fact, it is one of my favorite recent reads.  It takes place in 1970 and follows (mainly though there are other characters of import) four young people who are seeking happiness and trying to forge their own path in a changing America.  Two of them are members of a small hippy commune and espouse free love and freer drugs and two are native Alaskans who value a rugged life lived on the land.  Obviously these two cultures meet at some point in the story.  Boyle’s writing is wonderful and interesting and the characters are compelling.  This is a dense read but so captivating I raced through it.

A couple recent reviews as well:

The Roots of the Olive Tree

City of Women

We Sinners

One last thought: I am obsessed right now with We Are Augustines: the band fronted by Pela’s Billy McCarthy. Take a look!

Before

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It used to be that people read this blog, even left comments.  These days when I check in on it I see thousands of spam messages and very little else.  I feel like I have ideas to share, books to discuss, pictures to post but also feel like I am at a crossroads.  I have had this blog for about 8 years and in its current form for about 6 years.  It has changed from time to time in both style and content and it means a lot to me.  But, at this point just to delete all the spam is days of work and days I don’t have.

I can’t seem to walk away from Citizenbeta after all this time but I am trying to think of ways to get really enthusiastic about it again.  In the meantime, you can “like” citizenbeta on Facebook if you are so inclined because I have been posting book reviews and news there as well as music and art stuff.  Maybe I’ll see you there and then we can meet back here?