Bookish Horizons

One or two of you may have already noticed something...I created a new blog.

Here's the deal. As you can probably tell, I love books and I read all the time. Since I've starting learning to speed read, I can read faster than I've ever been able to before, which means I've been reading more books.

So lately, with my new-found speed-reading super power, I've been drawn once again to the enticing possibility of joining The Classics Club. I learned about the Club a few months ago, and ever since I've wished I could join. But there are too many other things to worry about in life, I decided. Things like school and having a social life. I couldn't possibly decide to read 50 books outside of school--I already do enough reading in school!

Well, I've been having a lot of epiphanies lately about life, my life in particular. I'm not doing myself any favors by allowing school to take over my life, especially as I'm about to get married. Eventually school is going to be over, and then what? Will I be a shell of a human being? Yes, I love school, but what I really love is learning. If I allow school to get in the way of my learning, then I'm totally missing the point. Whether I got an A or a B isn't going to matter in 50 years; what I learned and internalized from the class, and how I applied it to other things in my life, is going to matter.

And now that I've learned to speed read, I'm even more ready to take my learning to a whole new level. I know there are so many classics I haven't read and always wanted to. And not just classics, but thousands of other books that could potentially change me as a person.

Photo by Rodrigo Galindez

And of course, what's better than joining a community of people that are all trying to do the same thing I am? I have the chance to motivate myself to read great books, respond to them, and join in a community of discussion with hundreds of other people who are reading the same or similar books.

But I realized something...the Classics Club is for bloggers. To join, you need to review the books on a blog. But my blog? It's not a book blog. I've written about books on here before, but book reviews just don't seem to have much of a place here. Pass the Chocolate is a writing blog, not a reading blog. As dear as it is to me, it can't fit that purpose.

I used to see blogging as a one-blog thing. A true blogger has one blog where they write whatever they want to write. And that's it. But I've learned from other bloggers that it only makes sense to have different blogs for different purposes. And once they outlive their purpose, it's time to move on to a different blog.

So, has Pass the Chocolate outlived its purpose?! ...No! Of course not! I enjoy the randominity of this blog. And I also enjoy the coziness. I welcome new readers, of course, but I enjoy having only a few, most of which know me personally. I like not feeling like I have to impress everyone. This blog is here to stay.

But if you want to check out my new blog (including my list of more than 50 classics I'm going to read over the next five years), here's the link: http://classicsandbeyond.blogspot.com/. I'm sort of falling in love with it. Join me in my book blogging journey!

A New Direction

So, for once in my life I am actually going to write a post that I told you I was going to write. Like I wrote in my last post, I am thinking of going a different way with my writing.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually decided on this idea. It's sort of like breaking up. Yes, maybe you think a certain other person is attractive, but you're not actually leaving your boyfriend/girlfriend for that other person. You're breaking up because the relationship itself isn't working out, not because you fell in love with someone else.

Photo by hashmil on Flickr

I'm not sure that analogy made sense, but basically, I'm not "leaving" travel writing because I'm infatuated with another genre. I'm leaving it because it's not right for me. And now I'm dating around in other genres, and there is one that particularly intrigues me.

Biographies.

If you're a student (or possibly if you're not a student), that one word alone might be enough to make you drowsy. Your immediate reaction? Boring. My immediate reaction to your immediate reaction? Exactly. 

How to Find Gems in the Library: 8 Tips from a Novice Library Lover

Are you the sort of person who tries to use and appreciate the library, but you just can't seem to make it work for you? Do you keep taking home stacks of books and then returning them without finishing them or even cracking them open? Or do you just have trouble finding anything to like at the library unless you arrive with a specific recommendation?

I was once one of you. Now, however, I've learned to see the library as a magical place, and I always bring home books that end up being my favorites. Now, I wouldn't say that I'm a library expert by any means, but here are a few tips from a novice library lover that might help you find books in your library to love.

Tip #1: Find the genre(s) that appeals to you. 

Picture from the public domain

If you love YA fantasy, then wander around in the YA fantasy section. This might seem like a no-brainer, but I used to have lots of reasons to ignore my favorite genres. I thought I "should" be reading certain genres, or I knew lots of people who read sci-fi so I would go look for sci-fi.

My advice: if you want to explore a new genre, find a trusted friend who has read a lot in that genre and ask them for a specific recommendation. There are great books and horrible books in every genre, and you don't want your first venture into the world of sci-fi to be the worst sci-fi book ever written. When you're just wandering, stick to what you know you like.

Tip #2: Judge a book by its cover. 
Yeah, I know, you're not supposed to do that, but there's a reason the book publishers used that specific cover; they were trying to appeal to the kind of audience that would probably be interested in that kind of book. So look for covers you like. There are, of course, plenty of fantastic books with ugly covers, but it's not so easy to weed them out. Save your tolerance of ugly covers for recommendations; don't force yourself to choose an ugly cover when you're just browsing.

Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum

Have you been wondering when I would EVER finish my next book for the summer reading challenge? Well, I have too, but after many snatched moments of reading, renewals, and returning the book to the library prematurely (and rescuing it two days later), I have finally finished reading Mort Rosenblum's biography of the world's most beloved food.

Photo courtesy of Everjean

The reason I took so long with this book certainly had nothing to do with hating it. I loved every second of Rosenblum's story of chocolate. He covered pretty much everything a layman could possibly want to know about the chocolate world, from cacao farms to the finished final products and the companies that sell them. The business of chocolate is a fascinating one.

I chose this book for the "pretty cover" category. I found it while in the library looking for a biography of Hemingway, and I happened to wander over to the section on (non-cookbook) food non-fiction. (I had no idea that section existed. I think I could live there...)

Of course, what first attracted me was the giant letters on the spine that read CHOCOLATE. But it wasn't just the subject matter; once I took the book down from the shelf, I saw the sophisticated cover with pale blue vertical stripes, brown and gold lettering, and a delicate drawing, outlined in gold, of cacao pods, cocoa beans, and a chocolate bar. And, of course, the clever subtitle. There were no rave reviews splashed across the cover demanding that the reader open the book or photos of the author scarfing down chocolate. Just the blue stripes with the hints of gold, seeming to say indifferently, "Open and read if you can possibly measure up to the level of sophistication required to appreciate me, but I'm certainly not going to beg."

Top Ten Things I Love Most About Non-Fiction: Part III

Note: I actually wrote almost this entire post yesterday! And then I meant to finish it "later" but...later didn't come until today, as you can see. Sorry! More to come! 


5. The book can be (relatively) good even if the writing is bad. 
A prime example of this is The Teacher Who Couldn't Read by John Corcoran. The writing style is sloppy and childish, but it was written by a man who had barely learned to write. If you're busy critiquing the writing style of that book, you're missing the point. Another, milder example is A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins. The writing is pretty bleh (and sometimes vomit-inducing) but the story can be worth it. (Don't take that as a recommendation for all audiences. Only if you have a strong stomach.) This is rarely the case with fiction, at least for me. Never is the plot so interesting that I can summon the will to slog through horrific writing.

4. There are often fantastic illustrations or photos within the pages. 
This one is pretty indulgent and I wouldn't even say it's usually true, but it still seems to happen a lot more often than it does in fiction. (When fiction does have illustrations, I usually can take them or leave them. Exception: Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Again, requires a strong stomach, but for different reasons.) I might have added this to the list because I've been busy reading books about chocolate with both illustrations and photos. It doesn't get much better than that.

3. It's not an escape from the world; it's an adventure into it. 
People are always talking about reading as an "escape." Well, that might be what some people need, but it's certainly not why I read. I don't read because I want to do less; I read because I wish I could do more. I wish I could spend weeks tasting French food, observing Buddhist monks, or building houses in Africa, but there are only so many experiences a poor college student can have (at the moment). And as much as I'm enjoying the experiences I am having, I like to be able to cram in more, however vicariously.

The Top Ten Things I Love Most About Non-Fiction, Part II

7. The feeling of knowing the author personally. 
Of course, this doesn't always happen (remember, I'm writing about a very wide genre here), but often while reading a non-fiction book, I get a real sense of who the author is and what he or she is about. Even if the author is trying to be objective, they will occasionally insert notes about their own research process, sometimes even using the pronoun "I." Rather than in fiction, in which the author is a mysterious being who is either godlike or a minion simply transcribing the words on the page, non-fiction is powered by the person with the pen--their passion, their zeal, their desire to educate, influence, and change. I'll often turn the last page of a non-fiction book feeling like I've known the author for years, even though all I've done is read his or her book.

6. Instant application to real life. 
Sometimes this isn't true. Sometimes your knowledge of the rarest species of sloth does not actually change your life. But I would venture to say that most bestselling non-fiction applies, at least in a minor way, to real life. Often non-fiction educates us about an everyday thing that we never thought much about. Sometimes it encourages us to make a change because we never realized what we're missing. Sometimes all it changes is our attitude and the way we experience things. Whichever way, non-fiction generally applies easily and readily to some facet of our lives.

To be continued...


P. S. I'm sorry these are becoming so awfully short! While getting into some really wonderful habits, I'm apparently neglecting some of the ones that are most dear to my heart! I'm going to try to get better, but until then, please bear with me...

My Favorite Genre

As you may know, I am not a big fan of fantasy or sci-fi. To tell the truth (the whole truth, and nothing but the truth), I don't really like fiction either, unless it's classic literature, select historical fiction, or really excellent. So that leaves my favorite genre: non-fiction.

I really hate the fact that the name we use to designate the broad genre of non-fiction is just saying what it is not. As if fiction is what really matters, and non-fiction is just the secondary genre that you have to read occasionally for school or whatever. Non-fiction doesn't even get its own name; it's defined by what it is not.

But I digress. On to more important talk on the glorious nature of non-fiction. Here are...

The Top Ten Things I Love Most About Non-Fiction


10. You might actually learn something. And it might actually be fun. 
Publishers are trying to get books bought and read these days--which is why they publish non-fiction books that are so fun. It's such a wonderful feeling to know that I'm not wasting my time, I'm learning fascinating facts about wildlife in the Australian outback. Or whatever.

Tragedy Strikes

Ahem. Well.

Yes, I've missed two days. I know it's a flimsy excuse, but I've been busy. But don't worry--I'm now more committed to NaBloPoMo than ever!

Anyway, without further ado....

A experienced a tragedy today.

I had to return a book to the library...before I had finished it. 


I know! You're shocked! I can imagine you now, having dropped your 70% cacoa chocolate bar (since, I assume, you always eat chocolate while reading this blog--for your sake, I hope you do), you are temporarily paralyzed, your mouth gaping in disbelief--and now you are burying your face in your hands, fighting back tears, hoping against hope that it's NOT TRUE.

Okay, congratulations; you've made it through my eye-roller exaggeration of the day.

Worst of all, it was a book I was really enjoying: Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum. It's exactly my kind of book--a non-fiction book about chocolate. Could it get any better?

I have been reading it too, whenever I get a spare moment. But I checked it out at the same time as I checked out Committed. I wasn't ten pages into Chocolate when I had to renew it. A fatal mistake.

I was honestly a little surprised at how sad I was to have to return it. I mean, I'm planning on going back and getting it tomorrow (I doubt anyone will have checked it out before then). But there's just that bitter sadness knowing that I failed. When I checked that book out of the library, there was an expectation that I would finish it in time. That book put its trust in me. It needs its pages loved, savored. And I betrayed it. I loved it and left it.

I just hope it takes me back...

Anyway, being a little more practical--you can all expect a post on that book very soon. After I get it back from the library (after begging it to come home with me), I only have about 75 pages left. It won't be long now...

Experiencing Books

A year ago, I liked to write straightforward reviews of books. I liked to critique, examine a book's flaws as well as its good points, and give it a certain number of stars. Nowadays, though, as you may have noticed, I avoid doing that. Actually, I have no desire to do that anymore. The thing is, books have come to take on an entirely different meaning to me lately than they used to.

By Juan Antonio Flores Segal

I hardly have time to read for fun while I'm in school, so when I do take a few minutes away from my studies to crack open a book--without any assignments or deadlines looking over my shoulder--it's like drinking a glass of clear water after trying to strain mud through my teeth. So, of course, I'm not going to look for the one speck of dust floating in it. When I'm done, all I'm going to remember is how refreshing and beautiful the experience was.

That's why, lately, I've been more focused on writing about my experience with a book than I have been on critiquing it. Reading is so much more personal to me than it has ever been before. I feel like I'm having a conversation with the author. Trying to rate it would be like leaving a deep discussion with a friend and saying, "Hmm...well, it was fun, but not my favorite conversation...3 stars."

That's why my reviews of The Sun Also Rises, Committed, and Notre Dame de Paris were more of my thoughts on related topics than they were actual reviews. I feel like if I didn't enjoy a book--especially a book that is generally regarded as a classic--then it's probably my fault. Maybe I just wasn't engaging in the conversation enough. And frankly, I don't have time to not have a wonderful experience with a book.

Half the experience, of course, is where and when I read the book. I'm beginning to believe that if I read a book outside on a sunny day, then I will probably feel totally different about it than if I read it under my covers in the middle of the night with a flashlight. (I did that all the time when I was a kid...maybe I should resurrect the tradition.) Or if I read it snuggled on the sofa with hot chocolate on a snowy day. Or if I was trying to read it, but kept pausing to laugh at my roommates singing along to Justin Bieber.

I hope that you all have similar experiences with many of the books you read. Sometimes I get caught up in just crossing another book off my internal list and don't focus so much on--as corny as it may sound--the journey. That is the true reason I love books.

Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

You may have noticed (if you ever happen to glance over at my Goodreads widget) that I was reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, for a good long time. No, I didn't simply forget that it was there (although that wouldn't be a bad guess). I actually was spending several weeks on end immersed in this classic tale.

Okay, "immersed" might not be the right word. It was more like I dipped a toe into it every once in a while. Hence, the embarrassingly long time it took me to finish. I kept it off my summer reading challenge list because I was already a good way into it before the start date of the challenge. (Ahem. Yep, it took me a while.)

I started reading it with absolutely no intention of finishing it, by the way. In my English class, my teacher put us in groups of three, and we were supposed to help each other out with topics and material. We each chose  a book for the project (if you haven't already heard, mine was Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell). Whitney's was Pride and Prejudice, which I had already read, but Holly chose The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I had never so much as considered cracking open. Lately, I've been trying to branch out and read lots of different authors rather than lots of books by the same author, and having read Les Miserables, I had an unspoken agreement with myself that I would keep Hugo on the back burner. But Holly's passion for the book was contagious, so I hopped on over to the library and picked myself up a copy.

I almost considered trying to read the thing in French. After my common sense came to the rescue, I chose a small, lightweight English copy, bound in plain green hardback, probably published in the late 19th or early 20th century. The pages were old and delicate and carried the smell of a different time.

I planned on just reading a few portions, for Holly's sake, so I would understand her project a little better and be a better group member. My first mistake was to start from the beginning (although not from the true beginning, because the first page was unfortunately ripped out). I read 90 pages the first day (despite having other homework to do). After that, I was hooked.

But the unfortunate truth was that I didn't have time to bury myself in a thick tome, no matter how classic, and still keep up with school and the whole social thing. (No man is an island, they say--apparently, I'm a buzzing metropolis, whether I like it or not.) So I started a kind of strange habit: reading while walking to campus.

Maybe it's silly, but it's a 20-minute walk to campus, each way. That's forty minutes I could be reading. Once I realized this, Hunchback started getting read, little by little, a few pages a day.

By ell brown on flickr.com

After the story had become weaved into my day, it started to embroider itself into the edges of my life, in such a tiny way that I hardly noticed it. Instead of walking home on cracked sidewalks in the sunny, dry Utah heat, I was treading through the streets of Paris in the rain, watching La Esmeralda dance, in the imposing shadow of Notre Dame. For the first time in a long time, I really felt the meaning of getting lost in a book. The first day I walked to campus after finishing Hunchback, I felt useless and empty without it. I realized how big a part of my life it had been.


Such is the beauty of Hugo's writing. I had the same sort of experience with Les Miserables. Even though the lives of the characters couldn't be further from my own, they were still totally ingrained into my life somehow.

Reading, Reading, Reading. :)

I saw this meme over at A Room of One's Own the other day and, since I'm kind of a bookish blogger (not a book blogger, per se--just a bookish one), I thought I might do it, just to change things up a little. Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack: Not surprisingly, I love to eat chocolate while reading. The darker the better. What is your favourite drink while reading? I don't drink anything while reading as a general rule, but sometimes during the winter I curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. It's more my living a romanticized fantasy than it is a habit, though. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? The idea used to horrify me, but now I do occasionally mark my books. I really treasure the notes I've made in the margins of some of my books, but I don't really like to sit there with a pen as I'm reading. I like to buy used books with margin notes. It's like a strange connection with the reader before me. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open? I use "bookmarks"--aka whatever smallish slips of paper are handy. I mercilessly dog-ear the pages of my school books, but I refrain from dog-earing my favorites. I'm not afraid to leave the book lying open. I don't try to keep my books pristine; I like my books to look well-loved. Fiction, non-fiction, or both? Non-fiction for sure, unless it's classic literature. I do occasionally read modern novels (I'm currently reading one, as you can see from my Goodreads widget), but they're usually historical novels, or at least realistic. I don't like fantasy or sci-fi. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere? "I'll just read to the end of the chapter" is my go-to excuse to read when I should be studying, so I usually read to the end of the chapter. I don't mind stopping in the middle, though. Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? I will definitely throw it. The heavier the book, the more satisfying the throw. The moment I finished Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged provided an excellent book-throwing moment.

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

Well, life has been quite the whirlwind of excitement lately--as it tends to become--so even though I finished Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert *gulp* nearly two weeks ago, this is the first minute I've actually sat down to blog about it. (I'm giving you this explanation in consideration of your feelings since I know you've all just been weeping into your pillows every night wondering when I was going to tell you what I think of this book.)

(Okay, I apologize for that over-the-top sarcasm...)

Committed was a little bit different than I expected. Knowing that Gilbert wrote it after (during?) she and her fiance were traveling aimlessly around waiting to get the go-ahead for a green card wedding, I expected it to be similar to Eat, Pray, Love, and to include more about her actual traveling. (I believe I was slightly misled when I read an excerpt from the book, which happened to be one of the few portions which was about the people she met during her travels.) Most of the book consists of Gilbert's thoughts on the abundant research she's done on marriage. As a marriage skeptic trying to come to peace with marriage, Gilbert tries to uncover as much as she possibly can about marriage--the good and the bad. She shares various theories, statistics, words from experts, and stories from her own family (some of my favorite parts).

Even though it wasn't quite like I expected, I loved Committed from the get-go. Reading Gilbert's personal and down-to-earth writing was like a breath of fresh air. I've said it several times and I'll say it again: Gilbert is one of my writing role models. I hope that someday my writing will be as real as hers is.

That said, this book brought me face-to-face with my ideas about marriage. I won't get political (heaven forbid), so I'll stay out of that ballpark; my experience with the book was actually much more personal, since I'm very comfortable with my political views on marriage. I started to really think about marriage in relation to myself. 

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

When asked whether he would admit to there being symbols in his work, Hemingway said, "I suppose there are symbols since critics keep finding them. If you do not mind I dislike talking about them and being questioned about them. It is hard enough to write stories without being asked to explain them as well. Also it deprives the explainers of the work. If five or six or more good explainers can keep going why should I interfere with them?"

Well, after reading that, I resolved not to attempt to be an "explainer"--if Hemingway disdained explaining his work, then I certainly don't want to try. (And I doubt he would consider a 19-year-old college sophomore to be a good explainer.) So I'm going to do the best I can in this review of The Sun Also Rises to take a leaf out of Hemingway's book and just be as simple as possible.

There is such a beauty in this book--a beauty similar to The Great Gatsby, which is still stuck in my mind after a year and a half. It's not remarkable that these two books are so similar in style, considering that Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were contemporaries and very good friends. I kept thinking, as I read it, that the biggest difference between the two novels was the openness of the characters. The Gatsby characters are completely closed off, completely fake, never say anything that's on their minds. Hemingway's Sun characters, on the other hand, run around puking up emotion and slime and base humanity.

Okay, sorry, that may have been a little too crude. But as the characters' hearts spilled out all over the streets of Spain, I couldn't help but think how little it mattered, how easily they might change their mind the next day, how little the world cares about the petty problems and idle cares of these perpetual drunks who have never spent a single minute trying to make anyone happy but themselves.

"Excuse me, I have some Spain in the oven..."

The Sun Also Rises (which I've almost finished) has given me quite the appetite for all things Spain. That, and the fact that I generally spend a lot of time wishing I were somewhere exotic...well, more exotic than Provo, anyway.

It all started at the library. (That gloriously troublesome place.) I had to return a copy of the movie "Eat Pray Love," and I figured since I had walked all the way there, I might as well browse for a biography of Hemingway to augment my experience with The Sun Also Rises. One thing led to another, and I ended up walking out not only with the biography, but with Cooking Spanish (a very classy-looking cookbook) and "Discovering Spain!" (a corny-looking documentary from the '90s).

(I also happened to walk out with a book about chocolate, but that's beside the point.)

I have yet to actually sit down and watch the DVD, although I've made several attempts. The cookbook, on the other hand, has made my weekend quite the adventure.

Yesterday I dragged my roommate to the store, where I spent a solid hour searching for ingredients for Spanish recipes. I came home and immediately made the simplest-looking recipe in the book: a tortilla.

If any of you are as ignorant about Spanish cooking as I was, you should know that a Spanish tortilla is actually nothing like a Mexican tortilla. (Except that they're both round.) A Spanish tortilla actually consists of thin slices of potato surrounded by egg fried to perfection. (According to the book, whether onions and garlic belong in the dish is an ongoing argument in Spain.) The book made a very big deal about this dish, saying that despite the simplicity, it's very difficult to get it exactly right.

Well, I'm sure my tortilla wasn't exactly right, since after all, I'm just a poor white American who has never so much as tasted authentic Spanish food, but it was delicious all the same.

After scarfing half my tortilla, I hiked Stewart Falls with a couple of friends. (Which was amazing, by the way. You drive half an hour and suddenly, you're hiking over rolling green, forested hills, surrounded by squirrels and caterpillars and forget-me-nots. We're not in California anymore, Toto.) To my delight, one of my friends went who actually lived in Spain for two years not too long ago. We spent most of the trip talking food and Spain and culture; I told him about my tortilla and the other recipes I was planning; he described the festivals, the people, and the diversity of Spain. (He also taught me how to say, "what's up, dude" in Spanish. I can't wait to go to Spain and use that phrase.)

Summer Reading!

When I found out about Jillian's Classics Club, I was tempted to commit myself to reading 50 classics in the next five years--and then realized that I'll probably end up reading about that many classics in that time anyway, being an English major (and considering all the internships and minors and whatever else I'm still planning to do, I'll probably be in school for that long, too). And I certainly won't have time to read 50 classics in addition to all those classics that I will certainly end up reading for school.

Anyway, before I started furiously listing all the classics I've always wanted to read and posting enthusiastic comments all over Jillian's blog (and neglecting my far-more-relevant-to-life studies), I realized how impractical it would be to take part in such a hefty book challenge, particularly since I've never participated in a book challenge before.

But even after I decided that being a good student was more important than indulging my classics/blogging fantasies, I remained intrigued. For a while I've been trying to do more reading outside of school. Let's face it, I waste plenty of time that I could be spending on more valuable pursuits. In my efforts to start using my time more wisely, I even checked a couple of travel books out of the library (in which I still have yet to get past the first chapters). And yet, here I am, still watching old episodes of Say Yes to the Dress on YouTube. (Yes, I spend my time watching giddy brides try on ridiculously expensive dresses that they will only ever wear once. It's my gateway drug...) I've been thinking how motivating it would be to be part of a reading challenge. It might get me reading some books I might not have read otherwise, and hey, it would be an adventure. At the very least, it would get me reading more, even if I didn't finish.

So I went in search of a more do-able reading challenge. In my quest, I found A Novel Challenge, which led me to this reading challenge by Reading Writers. It's simple enough--only 8 books required for the next 3 months, and the categories are pretty open-ended. And better yet, it starts today (which gave me a few days to think about it after I found the challenge). So I decided to take the plunge!

The Wondrous World of Literary Blogs

I am really coming to love literary blogs.

For those of you who have yet to personally discover literary blogs, I encourage you to find one that fits you. Book bloggers are always so cute and lively. Some are sarcastic and critical. Some are over-the-top enthusiastic. But they're all passionate about books, writing about books, and talking about books. Here's a literary blog I found recently as an example.

Reasons I Love Literary Blogs:

1. I love books. You know that feeling you get when you finish an amazing book? And you just want to talk to someone who will understand and share your feelings...but your family members/roommates are busy eating popcorn and watching NCIS and don't care about any ol' book from two hundred years ago. "Victor Hugo, who's that?" Literary blogs give you a great chance to connect with someone who feels just the same way about the book that you do. 
2. Literary bloggers are intelligent (and if you find one that isn't, then find a new one). They offer great new ways to look at books that I've never thought of before. 
3. Unlike the authors of reviews in a newspaper or magazine, bloggers are super easy to connect with. You can comment on their blog post and they--or other readers--might respond to you within hours. If you get into a literary blog, it can become a kind of community. 
4. Book bloggers are some of the more adorable bloggers there are. Even the sarcastic ones. They might actually be cuter than food bloggers. 
5. Chances are, the blogger is really no different from you and me. Maybe they've read more books, but they're probably just an average Joe. Their blog post might very well just be a few random thoughts about the book that they just shot into the blogosphere. Blogs have a great casual, informal feel; you feel like you're talking with a peer, not some high-and-mighty literature expert. 
6. They're a fun AND intellectual way to use the Internet (like I was talking about in my last post)!

So there you have it. Six great reasons to find a literary blog to love! 

If you're at a loss as to how to look for book blogs, try IceRocket.com or on Google's blog search engine and type in the name of a book or author you love. 

Happy blog reading!

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

A few days ago, it came to my attention that at that moment, in my backyard, was a very strong animal that, if I so much as looked at it in the wrong way, could ferociously rip me to pieces and devour my mangled body.  Easily.  What I think of as a harmless dog has the chops, claws, power, and instinct of a wild animal. 

Not that my dog isn’t domesticated.  Actually, he really is harmless – he’s never so much as thought about hurting a human.  He has the personality of a teddy bear.  And I wasn’t truly frightened.  It just amazed me that such a large, powerful animal has been tamed so thoroughly over the years, by a species inferior in physical strength and ferocity.

The Wednesday Letters

I started Jason F. Wright’s book The Wednesday Letters last night just before bed and read for about a half-hour.  I started up again at 9 am this morning and finished by 1:00 pm.  This book is a solid 280 pages, and I’m no faster than the average reader.  That’s the magic of Jason F. Wright – in The Wednesday Letters as with his other book, Christmas Jars, he creates a story so real that you almost believe you’re in the room with the characters.  It almost seems as though if you were to put the book down, you wouldn’t be returning to reality; you would be leaving reality, as if your own life were some fictional world. 

What’s truly remarkable about Wright’s writing is that his characters and plots aren’t remarkable – just average people going through challenges, taking life one day, one hour, and one minute at a time.  Wright’s stories are not about action and superheroes; they’re about people, real people that we can relate to and love.

The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

Did you know that in 1993:

--Between 21 and 23 percent of adults in America were unable to perform simple tasks such as filling out a job application, managing a checking account, and reading street signs?

--Between 25 and 28 percent of the adult population of the U.S. said they got help from family members or friends with everyday prose, documents, and simple literary tasks?

--20% of these same people with at the lowest level of literacy…had somehow received high school diplomas?

Just to be sure these statistics weren’t irrelevant and obsolete, I checked for more recent statistics. In 2003, a mere eight years ago, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (http://nces.ed.gov/naal) found that 14 percent of the adult population of America is nearly illiterate or completely illiterate, with no more than the most basic literacy skills.  29 percent are slightly above that level, but are literate enough only to perform simple, everyday tasks.  44 percent can perform moderately challenging literary activities, while only 13 percent of the population is considered “proficient” in our written language.

What exactly does illiteracy mean for an individual?  When I discovered the innumerable obstacles one illiterate person had to face, I was completely astounded.  In The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read by John Corcoran with Carole C. Carlson, Corcoran details his journey from being an insecure, violent child to his turbulent marriage – all affected tremendously by his inability to read.

Blink

A few days ago, my mom and I went through a bunch of her books, cleaning off shelves and deciding what to get rid of.  One book in particular caught my eye: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.

After seeing the cover, feeling its peculiar rough softness, and hearing my mom’s opinion that it was really good – despite her wanting to try to sell it – I made a split-second decision to read it.

It is this kind of split-second decision that Blink is all about.

Every day, we make decisions using what Gladwell calls our “unconscious” mind (I know it’s tempting, but try not to think too much about Freud here, even though it’s his term).  These quick, split-second decisions don’t use the same kind of rationality as weighing the pros and cons, or considering all the factors involved.  In fact, the more factors, pros, and cons you consider, Gladwell teaches us in the book, the more blind you will be to the wisdom of your unconscious.  Our experiences, education, and training all combine to create this second mind that can make important judgments in a fraction of a second, seemingly without any rhyme or reason.  But in certain cases, the unconscious should be used and trusted.