What I'll Do This Summer 2013

I haven't blogged in 5 months, but it's time for summer goals, so it's also time for a blog post! Here are the goals I've come up with for this summer so far.

1. Read the following classic novels - Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns, Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum - Originally this goal was going to be to read 5 classics, but things got a little out of hand. Most of these are shorter, so I still think this is doable.

2. Learn to bake an apple pie from scratch - Apple pie is probably my favorite dessert, so I should probably learn how to make one, right?

3. Take an old TAKS test online - This is super nerdy. But one day I was talking with Camille and Erin about the STAR test Erin's students were taking. We started wondering how we would even do on these tests now that we've been out of school for awhile. So I'm going to try it and see!

4. Read an astronomy book - I've been listening to podcasts from Star Talk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson and I've become really fascinated with everything about space. So I want to learn more! I've chosen a book by Neil himself called Universe Down to Earth and I'm pretty excited about it.

5. Go to the planetarium - After I finish the book above, I need to do this because I've never been! Plus my sister has a museum membership, so I can go for free.

6. Watch all the movies on my DVR - I've recorded between 20 and 30 movies over the last year that I still haven't watched. Some are from free movie channel weekends. 9 of them are Elvis movies from the TCM celebration of his birthday last summer. I can't wait to see my DVR with 100% free space...and to see these movies.

7. Catch up on Jeopardy - Similar to the above goal, on the downstairs DVR, my roommates and I have over 100 episodes of Jeopardy. We'll be having some major marathons, if anyone wants to join us!

8. Finish my Thomas Jefferson book - My eventual goal of reading bios on all the presidents is moving along extremely slowly. Yikes. And Jen, my official Jeopardy coach, has assigned me to make it through Monroe by the end of the year, so I've got work to do.

9. Scat Jazz Lounge - This was on my list last summer and I just never made it happen, so I'm putting it on here again.

10. Finally visit California - I'm going for about 2 weeks this summer and I can't wait! I have lots of friends to visit and lots of things to see and one wedding to go to!

Looks like I better get to work! What are your summer goals?

The Book List: 2012

Okay, here we go. The second annual, end of the year summary of what I read. Last year, I was a little disappointed with my final total for the year. I'm happy to say that I added to that number in 2012, though I still want to do better in 2013. Without further ado, here's the list. (R = a book I reread, BC = a book I read for one of my book clubs)

Shadows in Flight, Graceling (BC), Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (BC), The Name of the Wind, Let Me Be a Woman (R), Wise Man's Fear, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Out of the Silent Planet (BC), Thunderstruck (BC), Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, This Momentary Marriage, Around the World in 80 Days, Ragtime, The Once and Future King, Go Tell it on the Mountain, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (BC), John Adams, Anna Karenina, The Polysyllabic Spree, Ready Player One, Murder on the Orient Express (BC), True Grit (R, BC), 1Q84, Fall on Your Knees, The Map of Time, The Prisoner of Heaven, The Night Circus, The Hangman's Daughter, The Last Dragonslayer, Ready Player One (yep, again, BC), The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club (BC), The Woman Who Died a Lot, Robopocalypse, Neverwhere, The Princess Bride (R), World War Z (R), Harry Potter 1-5 (R)

So there it is. 42 books, 18,856 pages. 33 fiction, 9 non-fiction.10 repeats. 9 book club books (5 for one, 4 for the other).

The best non-fiction book I read in 2012 would have to be This Momentary Marriage by John Piper. The Bonhoeffer biography follows closely behind, Mindy Kaling's book was hilarious, and I loved the Duran Duran book, but Piper's book on marriage is something everyone needs to read. For married people, I imagine it would be a wonderful reminder of what marriage is supposed to be. For those who aren't married yet, I feel like it's so important to read this first and gain an appropriate perspective on what they should be looking for in marriage. Read it if you haven't!

My top 5 novels of 2012 are Ready Player One, The Name of the Wind (and I'm including Wise Man's Fear with this because it's its sequel), Fall on Your Knees, Neverwhere, and The Night Circus. If I had to pick only one favorite book from last year, it would be Ready Player One. I did read it twice in one year, after all. But in a year of pretty stellar books (I only read 1 or 2 that I just didn't really like at all), these are my top 5. They have mystery, magic, sadness, laughter, romance, and characters I fell in love with. Here's to more amazing books in 2013!

What did you read in 2012?

Learning about Entitlement

Over New Year's, I made my 3rd annual visit to see my best friend Jen in Phoenix and we talked a little about goals for this year. Not necessarily resolutions, not your typical things to achieve or whatever, but more like things to work on. Areas to grow. One of the first things that came to mind for me was that I want to make sure I'm working on getting rid of any sense of entitlement I may have in any area of my life.

This is honestly one of my biggest pet peeves - when people act as if they are owed something simply for existing or even act as if they're owed something for working hard, though they weren't promised that thing in return. My ultimate problem with this attitude is that it makes us forget the truth that we deserve nothing. Or more accurately, that we've only ever truly deserved one thing in this life (hell) and, if we're in Christ, He's saved us from that. A sense of entitlement completely demolishes our much more important sense of gratefulness. 

So while this is something that bothers me when I see it in other people, I know that I'm not without a sense of entitlement in areas of my own life. There are certainly things in my personal and professional and spiritual life that I feel I deserve, and I get bitter and angry when I don't get them. From something as small as the person in the next lane letting me over when I want them to, to something as big as being treated a certain way by a friend or at work, I feel I deserve things that, quite frankly, I don't. But if I don't constantly remind myself that anything good that happens to me is a gift from God, I can easily forget to be grateful. I can think I earned a friendship by being a good friend, instead of seeing that friendship as a blessing from a Father who loves me and provides me with a sweet friend when I know I am a sinner who can only be a good friend sometimes because He empowers me to be. If I forget that, I won't worship Him for that and instead I'll rest in my own perceived goodness and strength. And that's idiotic.

This year, I want to be grateful for what I get and grateful for what I don't get, because it's all God blessing me by making me more like Christ and causing me to rely on Him for everything. Every time I think I deserve something, I want to confess that feeling and send it far away. And anyone who's reading this can help me out by never telling me I deserve something. Never. Even if you're saying it to make me feel better or to be nice or to express encouragement or appreciation - please find a different way. Whatever it is, I don't deserve it.

(Political Aside: These won't happen often, because I don't like to talk about politics, but this has been on my mind a lot lately. There has been SO much talk about rights lately and it's driving me nuts. I know that the Bill of Rights and our rights as Americans and all that are beaten into our brains from an early age, but if we're believers, we're citizens of another nation first and I just don't see this much emphasis on rights in scripture. We are not owed the right to bear arms, or to marry whomever we want, or to have healthcare, or any of the other things everyone's fighting about these days. What would our country be like if we could stop insisting on our personal rights and instead look at all these issues in the light of, first, what would glorify God and, second, what would most show His love to the lost around us? Who cares what we feel we deserve if it doesn't lead someone to Jesus? Sure, we might have the freedom to carry a gun or do whatever other political issue is currently being debated, but if the fight over it makes Jesus look bad to someone else because they know you're a Christian, how can that fight be worth it? We should give up our freedoms for the sake of Christ, and we should remember that they're freedoms, not rights or entitlements. And admittedly I don't pay much attention to political debates and things, so I'm sure people will say I'm simplifying things or I just have it wrong, but that's just what's been on my heart lately. The end.)

What I Read: November and December 2012

Books I Bought:
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Books I Read:
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (November)
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (November)
World War Z by Max Brooks (November)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling (December)

It's been a weird couple of months of reading for me. November started out strong with an amazing book by one of my favorite authors - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This book is about a normal guy who, through the simple gesture of helping someone the rest of the city overlooks, gets drawn into a crazy underground world that he never knew existed. It's like a grown-up Alice in Wonderland and I loved it.

After that, I wanted to reread one of my favorite books of all time, so The Princess Bride it was. If you've only seen the movie, you're missing out. (And if you've never seen it or read it, you're double missing out and you need to sort out your priorities!) The author of the book wrote the screenplay for the movie, so there are a lot of similarities, even exact lines of dialogue the same in both, but there are major differences of tone in the book and it's hilarious and beautiful.

With the previews for World War Z all over the internet lately, I wanted to reread the book before the movie came out, so that book was up next. I remember liking it way more the first time I read it, but I still enjoyed it on the second time through. I'm interested to see how the movie will pull this story off. It's told in flashback as a series of interviews conducted to see how the Zombie outbreak started and how the war was fought. If you're into these kinds of stories at all, it's definitely worth a read, though I think I like Robopocalypse better.

I read all three of these in early November, and then I hit a weird slump. I started reading 3 different books and just couldn't really get into them. They weren't awful, but I think it just wasn't the time for them. I'll be coming back to them another time for sure. But as I was getting into December and not finding any books I was really excited about to be reading, I thought maybe it was time to revisit a magical series to light the reading fires again, thus Harry Potter. (And this is why I bought Prisoner of Azkaban this month. I opened up my copy and realized it was falling apart because I've read it so much, so I figured it was time for a new one.)

There really shouldn't be much I need to say about good ol' Harry here. If you haven't read them, I'd really like to know what's been keeping you! I've read all the books multiple times, but this is my first reread of the whole series since knowing where everything ends up. It's been amazing to see things in the beginning books that have so much bearing on the end and wonder how planned out JK had the whole thing from the start. This is some great storytelling! If you happen to decide to do a reread anytime soon (or to read them for the first time), I highly suggest reading Muggle Hustle along with the books. This website archives the tweets of a guy who is currently reading through the series for his first time and tweeting his thoughts and reactions. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and full of profanity, so be prepared. It's absolutely my favorite twitter account of 2012, in case anyone was wondering.

Okay, time to get back to Hogwarts! Happy reading!

What I Read: October 2012

Books I Bought:
The Woman Who Died a Lot - Jasper Fforde
The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde

Books I Read:
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

I only bought two books this month. When one of your favorite authors releases two books on the same day, what else is a girl supposed to do? I also read them both this month, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

First up in October was The Hangman's Daughter. I've wanted to read this for awhile, and my sister gave it to me for my birthday. It take place in 1659 in Germany and is about the town hangman during a series of mysterious murders that seem connected to witchcraft. I liked it. Mostly. There was definitely too much description that was a little boring, but it's mostly good. It's also interesting because the author based it on actual ancestors of his.

After that, my Jasper Fforde books came in the mail and I was so excited! The Last Dragonslayer is his first teen book, and it's the story of a girl who works with wizards in a world that is almost out of magic. One day, a prophecy is revealed that the last living dragon will be slain in the next week, and she finds out that she is the last in a long line of dragonslayers. It's really good!

Next I took a break from Fforde to read for book clubs. In my Seven Sisters of Soul book club, we're reading Ready Player One, which I read in July and wrote about here. It was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I probably didn't need to re-read it before book club, but it was so good that I wanted to read it again anyway. Still can't recommend this book highly enough!

For my Read Between the Hines book club, I read The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club. It's a collection of articles Laurie Notaro wrote about her life for a Phoenix newspaper. I don't want to write too much about what I thought here because we haven't met to discuss it yet. I will say that we chose it because we thought it would be similar to Mindy Kaling's book that we read and really enjoyed, and it didn't quite live up to that for me.

Book clubs taken care of, I next went back to Fforde. The Woman Who Died a Lot is the next book in the series that first made me fall in love with Fforde's work. The hero of this series is a woman named Thursday Next who has been a literary cop, seeking out Shakespeare forgers and things like that, and can also jump into novels and have adventures there. Clearly, these books take place in an alternate reality to our own. Literature jokes and references, time travel, action, comedy - these books are right up my alley. Start with The Eyre Affair and read them all!

And finally, I read Robopocalypse. It tells the story of the war between robots and humans and what happened after. If you've read World War Z, it's the same basic idea, but still it's own thing as well. Both books are surprisingly moving, and Robopocalypse doesn't seem that far-fetched. I loved it!

Thanks to a wicked case of strep throat, I made it through twice as many books in October as in September! 2,085 pages ain't bad. I guess that's the one bright side to strep.

Are you reading anything good?

What I Read: September

Books I bought:
Zero! This is a victory of self-control for me.

Books I Read:
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Fewer books bought this month (hooray!), but fewer books read. September was the month when one of my bestest friends in the whole world came to visit and I got to spend almost 24 hours a day in her presence for 5 days, so very little reading was done. This was also a month where my boss and I had about 31 meetings with different small group leaders in 5 days, which also doesn't leave a lot of time for reading. But I did still read 3 books, so I'm considering September pretty amazing all around!

The Map of Time - The back of this book told me it was about time travel and Victorian English literature, so obviously I had to read it. A major character in this book was HG Wells and the plot involved saving classic works like Dracula from being destroyed. I'm all in. The plot definitely went some places I didn't expect, with some major plot twists, but I really enjoyed it, maybe even more than I expected to. I'd recommend it to anyone (except Camille, because she's weird and can't handle time travel discussions).

Next I read Prisoner of Heaven and it was wonderful. It's the 3rd book of his that's set in Barcelona and centers around the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The first two were Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game. I would highly recommend this book, but probably after reading the first two books. It's a great story but I don't know how connected to it anyone would be without having read the other ones. All 3 of these books are mysterious and a little creepy and funny and sweet and awesome.

And finally, on the last night of September, I finished The Night Circus. I've wanted to read this book since the day it came out. It's magical and romantic and a little mysterious. It tells the story of a circus that comes into town unannounced, sets up overnight, and is only open from dusk until dawn for a few nights before it moves on. In the middle of all this are two people who are locked in a mysterious game of magic. It is SO great! I don't even want to say anymore about it, I just want everyone to read it!

That's it for September. Three amazing books amidst lots of busy-ness. What have you been reading?

What I Read: August 2012

Books I Bought:
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Books I Read:
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
True Grit by Charles Portis
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

After the book-buying spree of last month, I am thrilled that I only acquired 3 more books this month. And Hangman's Daughter was a birthday gift, so I only spent money on 2 of them. Night Circus is a book I've been wanting to read for about a year, and Prisoner of Heaven is another sequel to a book I LOVE called Shadow of the Wind, so I had to buy that one...right?

As for books I read, I actually started with 1Q84, but finished that one third. This book came out last year and is almost 1200 pages long, so the paperback version is split into three smaller books. Since I had 2 books to read for book clubs this month, I read one of those books in between each section of 1Q84. This book is hard to describe. It's about 2 people who find themselves in a parallel world dealing with a cult and some mystical beings. For the most part, I enjoyed it, but it was occasionally (and unexpectedly) too smutty, for lack of a better word. That makes it hard to recommend, though I did enjoy the non-smutty parts.

For my book club with Hines ladies (what we call Read Between the Hines), my cousin Erin gave us 4 Agatha Christie books to choose from. I believe we chose Murder on the Orient Express because there's a movie starring Sean Connery we can watch after we discuss it at dinner. I've found that I always enjoy Agatha Christie books. I especially liked this one because the murder takes place in an enclosed environment, so the murderer must be among them, but it's still hard to figure out who did it. In that way, it's similar to other Christie books I've enjoyed - And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile.

This was actually my second time to read True Grit. After reading it last year, I recommended it to Jen and she has been enjoying it and chose it for our book club. It was still pretty fresh in my mind, but I decided to go ahead and read it again because I just like it so much. The narrator is a young girl (Mattie Ross) who hires a marshal to help her find the man who killed her father. Mattie has definite potential to end up on my list of favorite characters in fiction. She's witty, spunky, and theologically sound. One of my favorite things about the novel is how she speaks the truth no matter who's around and she's not intimidated by anyone.

After finishing the last part of the sci-fi epic1Q84, I decided it was time for some straight up fiction. Rachel Clary recently told me one of her favorite books is Fall on Your Knees. I'd never heard of it before, and it had the Oprah's Book Club seal on it, so I was kind of skeptical. But Rach and I love a lot of the same books, and the story sounded intriguing. It's the story of a couple generations of a family and how certain sins and secrets affect all of them. It reminded me a lot of East of Eden in that way. The writing is beautiful and the story is so sad, and somehow the whole thing is really amazing.

As far as literature goes, August was pretty great! 4 books in 2,222 pages that I really liked!

Are you reading anything good?