Hour 12 -- the halfway point already!

Hour # (actual time): #12 (5:35 p.m.)

Finished Reading: Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis (350 pages), Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littin by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (116 pages)

Up Next:   Continuing with The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King -- though my daughter is home now, so we'll also be reading The Shadows by Jacqueline West-- the first book in the new Books of Elsewhere series.

Cover via Amazon

Feeling:  Glad to be with my daughter.  A little bit cold!

Eating/Drinking/Where: Planning to have some squash & white bean soup a little later tonight.  More Earl Gray for me and peppermint for my daughter.  Gonna snuggle up on the couch together.


I forgot to mention that Mary Modern reminded me, in some vague ways, of Audrey Niffenegger's latest (A Fearful Symmetry?) and that I'd like to read Clandestine in Chile in the original Spanish.  Really enjoying The God of the Hive.  Laurie King is just good stuff, plain & simple.  :)

Hour 10

Hour # (actual time): #10 (3:35 p.m.)

Finished Reading: Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis (350 pages), Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littin by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (116 pages)

Up Next:  The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King -- I started this one a long time ago and put it aside for books that were due back sooner --- I'm pretty sure I'm just going to start at the beginning again, as it's a complicated plot that is being continued from the previous book in the series.  I enjoy this series quite a bit.

Cover via Amazon

Feeling:  ready to see my daughter when she gets home in a little while

Eating/Drinking/Where:  still on the couch, held hostage by the cat. 

Hour 9

Hour # (actual time): #9 (2:40 p.m.)

Finished Reading: Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis (350 pages) 79 pages of Clandestine in Chile

Up Next:  Finish Clandestine in Chile:  The Adventures of Miguel Littin by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, start The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King  

Cover via Amazon

Feeling:  sad -- I just got the news that my husband(from whom I've recently separated)'s grandmother died.  

Eating/Drinking/Where: Finished another cup of Earl Grey, craving Chipotle, and back on the couch, held hostage by the cat.  I hope to move to the dining room eventually.

Hour 7

Hour # (actual time): #7 (12:22 p.m.)

Finished Reading: Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis (350 pages)

Up Next:  Clandestine in Chile:  The Adventures of Miguel Littin by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  

Cover via Amazon

Feeling:   a bit sore in the neck, content with my progress, a bit guilty about the complete lack of real food I've been eating.  :)

Eating/Drinking/Where: More Earl Gray and bean cookies, getting ready to sit on the back patio for a while -- change of scenery should serve me well as I switch over to non-fiction!

Hour 6

Hour # (actual time): #6 (11:20 a.m.)
Finished Reading: page 300, Mary Modern
Up Next:  Finish Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis
Feeling:   More awake
Eating/Drinking/Where: Not eating or drinking anything -- sitting on the couch in the living room with my feet up -- can't bring myself to wake the cat stretched out on my lap.  Bathroom break must happen at some point, though!

Still enjoying Mary Modern and glad I started with it.   Only 50 more pages to go and it'll be time to choose a new book! 

Hour 3

Hour # (actual time): #3 (8:15 a.m.)
Finished Reading: Part III, Mary Modern
Up Next: Part IV, Mary Modern by Camille Deanglis
Feeling: Good but thirsty, glad for the quiet house
Eating/Drinking/Where: Heading upstairs for more tea


I'm enjoying Mary Modern.  I checked it out from the library a while back after hearing about it from another blogger.  A little quote from page 25:

". . . but I'm not an atheist."
He shrugs.  "You say it as though it were a disease."
She gives him a sly look.  "You say that s if you were one."
At this he just smiles enigmatically, and so she pegs him as a Unitarian.

And so it begins

Hour # (actual time): #1 (6:00 a.m.)

Finished Reading: the beginning quote of Mary Modern :)

Up Next:  the rest of Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis    

Feeling:  happy to be starting, a bit tired as it took me a long time to get to sleep last night, glad that Nico the cat is hangin' with me.

Eating/Drinking/Where: a breakfast bean cookie, Earl Grey with honey, on the bed in the basement.

Dewey's Read-a-Thon Starts Tomorrow!

Here's the link to sign up -- you still have a few hours!  :)

With all that is going on in my life right now, I wasn't sure if I would be able to participate until just a few days ago.  For this reason, I didn't get sponsors this time -- I hope I'll be able to do so again in the spring.

Here's my stack:

These are basically just the next 10 books due back at the library.  We'll see what fancy strikes me -- but I'll try to at least finish half the pile before being tempted to delve elsewhere.  My daughter and I have a book that we just started last night and if she is with me tomorrow, we'll probably work on finishing that one as well.

This will be a good time for me to just take a break from the rest of my life for 24 hours.  Not sure exactly what I'll be eating but I'm planning to drink lots of water and hot tea. I hope to be able to start the week, after this mini-vacation, with some renewed energy and perspective to keep facing what lies ahead.

W.W.W. Wednesdays -- October 6, 2010

Answer the following questions:


What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you'll read next?




Currently reading:

•  Becoming a Life Change Artist:  Seven Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life by Fred Mandell, Ph.D. and Kathleen Jordan, Ph.D.
• The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
• 1066 and All That by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman

Recently finished:

• Zoo Story:  Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French
• Theodosia and the Eye of Horus by R. L. LaFevers

Up next:

Cover via Amazon

• Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis
• Clandestine in Chile:  The Adventures of Miguel Littin by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Teaser Tuesdays -- October 5, 2010 -- The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers! 

It was so happy to have a familiar food, after weeks of nothing but wilted flowers, that for several days it slept right next to the huge piece of portobello, waking throughout the day to reach up and nibble before sinking back into a well-fed slumber.  Each night a surprisingly large portion of the mushroom would vanish, until, by the end of the week, the very last piece had disappeared.

p.30, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

This is a lovely little book that my daughter and I have been enjoying (it's classed/shelved as adult non-fiction).  The author is bedridden with an illness -- holding a book for even a few minutes takes a level of strength and concentration that she just doesn't have.  When a friend finds a small snail in the woods, the snail becomes Bailey's bedside companion.  We aren't quite 1/4 of the way through but I'm pretty sure I'll be giving this one five stars on Amazon. 

The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian

Emmett Conn is an elderly man who, at the end of his life, is visited by confusing memories, memories that were lost to him after his injuries as a Turkish soldier in WWI.  These memories come back to him piece by brutal piece and involve the (real-life) genocide of Armenian Christians during a forced march to Syria.

Mustian himself has distant Armenian ancestors (who came to the U.S. before the U.S. Civil War).  As he learned more about this forced march  -- which came about because the Armenians were assumed to be sympathetic toward the Russians (and thus against Turkey) -- the idea for The Gendarme came to be.

While I'm glad that Mustian is bringing these horrible events to light, the book itself didn't draw me in.  It may be that I just am not in a place to be able to stomach the kind of brutality that is prevalent throughout the story.  I know that others have appreciated this book, so I'm not un-recommending it, but I myself did not love it.

Quote of the Day -- Creativity lives in the unknown

Transition and change bring us into the unknown -- where creativity lives -- and from this unknown, we can create in our lives that which did not exist before.  We can initiate and respond to life-changing events or internal uneasiness with creativity and resourcefulness and create a life of meaning and purpose.  So instead of fighting the currents in our river, instead of longing for the stability of the shore, we can flow with the river, finding our own unique way to make the journey.

~page 6, Becoming a Life Change Artist: Seven Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life by Fred Mandell, Ph.D. & Kathleen Jordan, Ph.D.