Twelve-year-old Emily's family does not exactly lead a conventional home life. Her parents, blessed (or cursed) with wanderlust, are trying to live in each of the 50 states. For Emily and her brother, this
means every few months they are dragged to a new city, a new neighborhood, and a new school. Emily doesn't really mind too much, though she's learned the hard way it's easier to leave a place if you don't put down any roots there-which for a 12-year-old means friends. Emily finds her books to be better company anyway.

One thing her parents' quest to live in all 50 states is good for is the game Book Scavenger. Created by Emily's idol Garrison Griswold, the game entails hiding books in public locations and then posting clues to their whereabouts online. Other players read the clues, puzzle out the locations, and retrieve the book. Every book you find earns you points towards the ultimate goal of becoming a Book Scavenger master. And now, just when Griswold is getting ready to release a new puzzle game, Emily's parents are moving them to the center of the Book Scavenger universe, Griswold's hometown of San Fransisco.

Emily's excitement is dampened, however, when Griswold is attacked. When she and her new friend James find Griswold's book of clues, they know they have to keep it a secret if they want to win the game. But they aren't the only ones looking for it. Emily and James have to race against time to discover the secret and save Mr. Griswold before it's too late.

Basically, I was Emily as a kid, and if the internet had existed and this game had been real I would have been ALL OVER IT. For sure I would have needed to get the most points. I'm not competitive about most things, but reading challenges or games of intellect, those get my competitive juices flowing. Plus, I love the idea of releasing books out into the world for other readers to find. When I read a book I love, it makes me happy to share it with other people.

The story is a good blend of tween friendship drama and exciting quest story. Emily and James are perfectly suited to each other as friends, and Emily's growing angst about her family's unusual way of life is both completely understandable and well-handled. Bertman has created a little gem of a series, one that avid readers will relate to, and fans of action and excitement will also enjoy. I look forward to checking out the other books in the series.

Property of the Rebel Librarian,

It should come as no surprise to any of my readers that I'm an OG book nerd. I don't ever remember NOT being able to read, and many of my childhood memories revolve around laying on my bed reading. In elementary school, I was quiet and bookish, and I tried not to be noticed. Most of the students in my blue-collar, working class school didn't get me, and as we see all too often, people are not usually that nice to people they don't understand. I was often teased for being a teacher's pet, a judgement that was in no small part reinforced by the fact that I found it impossible to disobey my teachers. In some of my classes, this meant I was often called upon to be the "class monitor", and to report students who were not following directions or who broke the rules. You can see how this would endear me to my classmates. Whenever I could, I would escape into books.

My bookish ways were a weakness in the eyes of my classmates, one they could exploit for their own entertainment, except for one time each year: the annual classroom reading competition. Our librarian had classes or student teams compete against each other for the number of pages read in a month, and for that glorious 30 days I went from being the object of ridicule to the class hero. I read not just a little bit more than most of my classmates; I read more by a factor of ten. This wasn't that hard to do, considering how many of my students never read anything at all, but it was a pretty good bet that whatever class or team I competed with for our reading contests would win. For one month, I suddenly became visible to the classmates who ignored me the rest of the year, and even the actively mean and nasty of my classmates backed off some, instead growling what I assume they thought were words of encouragement in my direction, hoping to ride my literary coattails to fame, glory, and class popsicles.

Eventually, elementary school ended, and I moved on to middle and high school, as we all do. I left behind my torturous recesses hiding on the playground, and met other kids who loved books, kids I could feel safe being myself in front of. I left behind being invisible, as well, and allowed my natural extroversion to show itself, leading me to be the loudly opinionated lover of discussion and debate that I am today. But no matter what else I have done in my life, or how I have grown and changed over time, nothing has changed the love-no, the reverence- I have for books and the written word.

And because in my heart I am still that little girl lying on her bed buried deep in a good book, Property of the Rebel Librarian may be my favorite new middle-grade book. The protagonist, June Harper, is your average book-loving seventh grader. She happily goes about her life, reading whatever she finds in the school library that interests her, until the day her parents discover a novel in her room they consider "inappropriate". Thus begins a sad spiral into a reading desert for June. The beloved middle-school librarian is suspended for providing developmentally inappropriate reading material to students, most of the books disappear from the school library, and June's own personal collection is rounded up and sanitized by her parents. June falls into despair, until a Little Free Library she passes on her way to school gives her an idea-she will round up copies of the banned books and turn her locker into a secret Little Free Library. Suddenly, students who have never shown an interest in reading can't wait to get their hands on a forbidden book. As reading fever grows, June comes up with a plan that just might save the library-and her own intellectual freedom.

I identified with both June and the librarian while reading this, though I admit I would NOT have been brave enough to confront the problem so boldly when I was June's age. I would, however, have been crushed if someone had tried to curtail my reading. Occasionally I picked up books I wasn't quite ready for (my parents' copy of The Joy of Sex comes to mind), but put them down again because I wasn't able to relate to their content at all. Thankfully, my parents believed in the freedom to read, and they supported my habit with frequent trips to the library and the bookstore. Allison Varnes clearly worships at the altar of books as well, and she and I apparently have similar taste in books. Many of the books that Varnes weaves into the novel as examples of "inappropriate" titles are books that I read and loved as a young person myself.

Nowadays, of course, I relate more to the librarian. In my current position, I am asked to justify a book that we teach in our high school curriculum at least a couple of times a year. Usually the complaint has something to do with profanity, or with controversial content. And we do read some novels that deal with pretty heavy subject matter: death and grieving, sexual assault, abuse, and suicide being a few. But these books also explore identity, and redemption, and healing; they provide a window into the experiences of others that allows our students exposure to diverse perspectives, and to think deeply about what it means to be a friend, or a child, or a partner; in other words, to explore the full range of what it means to be human.

Property of the Rebel Librarian is a middle-grade novel that empowers young people to stand up for what they think is right, and to respect the free exchange of ideas that contributes to greater understanding of our complex world.

The Storied Life of A.J Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin

I'll admit it-I'm a sucker for books about books. Not literary analysis or style guides, mind you. Fictional stories about bookish people, places, or things. So I suppose it's no surprise that I found The Storied Life of A.J Fikry charming and endearing, much like the main character himself.

Fikry's life is getting narrower and narrower all the time. Depressed after the death of his wife, Fikry cuts himself off from his friends and neighbors on Alice Island slowly but surely. His bookstore is doing poorly, and his daily existence mostly consists of brooding in his office, followed by brooding in his apartment alone, except for the bottle of liquor he consumes like it's his job. His friend, Lambiase and his sister-in-law Ismay try to pull him out of himself and back to the world, but Fikry basically doesn't see the point. Even the attractive and persistent book rep, Amelia, who keeps coming to the island determined to make this curmudgeonly client accept at least one of her books.

He thinks things couldn't possibly get any worse, when his most prized possession, a copy of a collection of Poe stories, is stolen. Just when he's about to give up, a surprise package arrives on his doorstep-a baby! In a storyline that is not at all realistic but completely works anyway, he becomes the girl's guardian, and things begin to change for him.

Fikry's character is smart and sarcastic and hilarious. His love of books, and the way in which Zevin writes about them, made me chuckle aloud more than once, despite how hopeless Fikry is for much of the first quarter of the book. Even at his most self-pitying, I couldn't help but like Fikry. Which makes the ending all the more poignant. Zevin was not lazy with this one. All of the plot points are nicely summed up, and while many authors would have stopped at what was definitely one of the happiest points in the story, she didn't. Not only did the novel move past the easy, happy ending, it somehow made the not-as-happy ending into something wonderful. Zevin explores the power of words and stories, and the way that community and family are created in so many different ways.

It probably didn't hurt that this book contains two dreams of mine: island living and owning a bookshop. A bookshop on an island sounds pretty much like heaven to me. So yeah, I was predisposed to love this book. And love it I did, not just because of the bookishness of it all, but because of the heart and soul of this story of love and life and family and power of ideas.

The Least Depressing Book about Death I've Ever Read

Occasionally my book club forces me to go outside of my regular reading comfort zone and try something that I would never have picked up on my own.  I remember thinking that I wasn't really interested in reading The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe.  It's non-fiction, for a start, though it is memoir, which I find much more enjoyable than other forms of that genre.  But I will admit to having some prejudices.  I imagined a book full of discussions about "how to deal with death/dying" books, and I was prepared for something akin to The Five People You Meet in Heaven (not that there's anything wrong with that-just not my cup of tea).

What I got instead was a smart, thoughtful, thought-provoking look at the end of a remarkable life.  Will Schwalbe's mother, Mary, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2007.  She was a strong, confident, socially conscious woman who had worked for years supporting refugees in war-torn parts of the world.  She had traveled to some of the most dangerous places in earth, and when she came back from a trip to Afghanistan feeling ill, at first no one thought too much of it.  But what her doctors thought was a form of hepatitis was soon revealed to be tumors in her pancreas, which had already spread to her liver.  And while treatment could extend her life, the illness was terminal.  This left Mary with the task of living while dying, and her family the task of figuring out how to relate to their spouse and mother knowing her time was limited.

Will would often accompany his mother to her chemo treatments, and it was in the waiting and treatment rooms at Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York that they started what was to become a two-person, mother-son book club.  Both Mary and Will had always been avid readers, and the books they chose to read were either old favorites or new stories they discovered with and for each other.  The chapter titles are the titles of the books they read together, and each book frames a different part of their experience.  Some of the books had new meaning reading them while in the process of dying.  Some of them reminded Mary or Will about the things that were important in life, and all of them were high-quality literature.  My fears of a book full of trite, sentimental soundbites and self-help advice were unfounded.  In fact, as I read I found myself drawn more into the books they were reading than the story of their relationship.  I got a new reading list out of it, in fact.

That's not to say that the story was moving and emotional on a personal level.  Will and his mother had the enormous privilege of having the means and opportunity to spend this time together.  At several points in the book, Will or Mary points out how lucky they are to be in a position for her to get the best possible care, or for Will to quit his job and take on a new venture without worrying about losing his house or feeding himself. But ultimately, all of the money and education and connections in the world could not stop the inevitable progression of her disease.  Rather than railing against his mother's fate, Will is grateful for the time they were able to have, memories that will now forever be associated with the many wonderful books they read and loved together.

Literary Blog Hop-Reading in a Bubble

This week's topic for the Literary Blog Hop, hosted by The Blue Bookcase, is this:

What outside influences affect your reading experience? Do you think these influences enhance or detract from the experience?

 I have to admit that at first I wasn't entirely sure what this meant.  Are we talking physical surroundings?  Environmental noise?  People who are clearly not readers interrupting you to ask you what you are reading (because if they were readers they would never interrupt you!)?

But reading Meghan's answer, I see now that the question pertains to something more subtle and less concrete than that. Meghan's story about seeing a Hallmark adaptation of a book that colored her future reading of the book illustrates that our life experiences with one book in particular or a subject in general can change the way that we perceive a text.  In reading theory, we call that the transactional theory of reading.  The idea that each of us brings different experiences, behaviors, and feelings to a piece of writing, and therefore we each go away from the text with something different.  There may be many places where people's perceptions or feelings about the books overlap-after all, any freshman English teacher can tell you the major themes of Lord of the Flies or To Kill a Mockingbird-but no two people will read and understand a book in exactly the same way.  This is especially true for literary works, where authors' use of symbolism, metaphor, and allegory can lead readers down many paths of understanding based on their own knowledge and experiences.  Non-Christians not living in the US may read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and have no clue that a lot of it is Christian symbolism.  Reading can never be context independent.

So, understanding reading as a transactional process, then my answer to the question of which outside influences affect the reading experience is ALL OF THEM.   Like Meghan could not divorce her mind from the different ending of the movie version of the book she was reading, none of us can put our own knowledge, experiences, and feelings aside when reading.  What to me was a very sexist book about the relationships of husbands and wives (I'm looking at you, On Strike for Christmas) was to my friend a charming story about wifely assertiveness.  A story about an Africa refugee from Nigeria might read very differently to someone of African descent than someone of Asian or European descent.     Our common understanding of theme and mood come from discussion, from sharing each person's own take on the book, from analyzing it from academic as well as personal perspectives.   As a reader, I can often see why an author chose a certain style, and appreciate it for it's artistic merit, but in the end how I respond to a book has more to do with me than with the author.

A Book Geek's Dream

It has become more and more obvious to me, in part thanks to a thought-provoking series of posts from The Reading Ape, that there is a very clear culture of reading among serious readers, and a strong subculture specific to book bloggers.  We have our own jargon, common practices, etiquette...all of it built on a foundation of love for books and storytelling.  So it comes as no surprise to me that I had to find the book blogger community to find Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.  Fforde's books are a treasure trove of literary references and inside jokes any serious reader, especially of classic literature, should feel right at home in what is a decidedly strange world.

I just finished The Eyre Affair.  It is the novel that introduced Thursday Next, a SpecOps agent on the LiteraTec squad-that is, the group that is responsible for protecting the great books from harm.  While this includes rather ordinary things like verifying manuscripts for authenticity, it also includes some decidedly unusual things-like traveling into the book in pursuit of an evil villain out to destroy the great works of literature.  The Eyre Affair is a rather strange combination of literary discussion and science fiction, all rolled up into a thriller format.

I will admit that the structure of the novel didn't always sit well with me, and I'll have to read more to see if the rules that govern his particular universe stay consistent.  There are a lot of moving parts in this novel-Thursday herself and her past, a time-traveling father, a giant corporation (named Goliath-not the most subtle name I'll admit) that secretly runs things behind the scene, and a bullet-proof super-villain who can't be seen on camera and can apparently change the molecular structure of glass.  Intrigued yet?

What I loved about this novel is the creation of a world where literature is so important to everyone that an entire arm of the government is dedicated to it.  In Fforde's world, the Marlovians and Oxfordians feel so strongly about their positions they go door to door like Jehovah's Witnesses trying to get converts, as though Shakespearean authorship study is a religion (frankly, there's just as much evidence for some of the authorship theories as their is for some religious beliefs, namely not much)  Some literary movements actually took up arms to fight for their literary theory, though that does seem like taking it a bit too far.  Imagine a world where people cared that much about reading and books.  That's not to say I thought this book was without its problems-the characters were not that well developed, and the action jumped around a bit.  But as fun, escapist reading for readers, this book was a winner.

The Amazing Disappearing Blogger

Imagine my surprise when I checked the date of my last post and discovered it was 15 DAYS AGO!  What?  Really?  How did that happen?  Surely it hasn't taken me two weeks to get through only 127 pages of The 19th Wife?  I mean, I did start The Summoner, but I wasn't feeling it, so I only read about 50 pages then I put it down.  Do you mean to tell me I have only read 200ish pages in TWO WEEKS?!?  Quick, someone call the library for a book infusion-STAT!

Spring is always a fallow reading period for me.  It is when things at work really amp up-I have yearly assessments to give and individualized educational plans to write and annual reviews to schedule.  I have a youth service to plan at my church, and youth conferences to plan for next year.  Then there are my wife's concerts and performances, all of which are in the next few weeks.  Oh, and the term paper on the entire history of teaching and learning due in two weeks.  Darn it-I hate when real life intrudes on my reading time!  How can I escape all of the above stress if I'm too busy to read?

The Wife as Katisha from The Mikado

So, Constant Readers, I promise that as soon as I can untangle my life from all of the aforementioned craziness, I will be back on track for future blogging.  And I will be doing my first ever blog tour and give away, for Karin Slaughter's new audiobook, Fallen.  So while I may seem to have disappeared, I sincerely hope you won't!

Top Ten Tuesday: Must Haves, Just Not Must Reads

This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the blogging team at The Broke and the Bookish, is asking me and my fellow bloggers to bust ourselves out about those books we just had to have, but that have been sittig on our shelves gathering dust ever since.  Well, I can't possibly make a list, because that compulsion has never happened to me!  I am frugal and circumspect in my book buying choices.  I don't ever walk into a bookstore and come out with a few extra impulse buys, like they are so many candy bars at the check out stand!  I never...

OK, who am I kidding?  Of course I have succumbed to the temptation to pick up a book in a whim which then serves as a shelf decoration for some period of time.  Sometimes I even pick up a book that I just can't wait to read, I need it NOW-except apparently I can wait to read it, because there it still sits, on my shelf.  Anyone who loves books-not just stories, but the actual physical thing-has probably got at least a couple of these squirreled away.  Please note that I WILL in fact read this books at some point, but with 350-400 books in my house I have yet to read I'm just not sure when I will read them!  Here's my list of the 10 most wanted (but not read):

1.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Graham Smith:  I love the irreverence of this idea-to take a beloved work of classic fiction and create a mash-up with something so absurd as a zombie story.  Can't tell you if I actually love the execution of it, because I still haven't read it.

2.  Life Mask, Emma Donoghue:  This is one of several titles that was on the long list for the Orange Prize for Fiction last year.  I vowed to read as many of them as I could by the time the prize was announced in June.  I bought about six of them-I read two.  This wasn't one of them.

3.  The Road, Cormac McCarthy:  What's puzzling about this one is that I bought the book specifically so that I could read it before watching the movie.  I'm still waiting to watch the movie because I haven't read the book.  Seems stupid, no?

4.  Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie:  This book has been sitting on my shelf for at least two years.  I've been telling myself ever since that whole fatwa business that I wanted to read it.  It took 15 hears for me to even buy it.  I kept putting it off last year because it is lengthy and I was trying to reach 100 books.  What's my excuse now?  Yeah, don't really have one...

5.  You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, Heather Sellers:  First I read about this book on a blog, then I heard and interview with the author on NPR.  It's a fascinating topic-face blindness.  Imagine going through life not being able to recognize faces!  Well, I'll have to keep imagining, because it's still warming the shelf.

6.  Love, Toni Morrison:  I don't just love Toni Morrison-I worship at the alter of her fabulosity.  So why I've had this book on my shelf for literally years and have yet to read the slim volume is a mystery to me.

7.  A Mercy, Toni Morrison:  See above

8.  Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, Susanna Clarke:   This kind of fantasy story set as historical fiction sounded like and intriguing mix to me, so I bought it.  Then it came, and it's HUGE.  Not that I'm intimidated, mind you, but I am inpatient...I'll get to it, maybe this summer, when I can spend more time reading for me and less time reading for class.

9.  The Bookseller of Kabul, Asne Seierstad:  Unlike much of America, I knew well before 9-11 what was happening to women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule.  That's what originally drew me to this book.  Apparently it didn't draw me enough to actually read it, just enough to purchase it and let it have a place of honor on my to-be-read shelf for years.

10.  Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol:  Kozol's book Savage Inequalities complete changed the way I think about equity in public education, so when I saw his book about the effects of living in poverty on America's children I had to have it.  Have it, mind, not read it...

Practicing What I Preach

Reading instruction has come a long way from the days of Dick and Jane.  Best practices say that when teaching students about reading you should teach them not just the skills needed to decode the words, or to have a basic understanding of a text.  Teachers of reading all over the country are teaching their students to be strategic readers.  We model meta-cognition (that is, thinking about what you are thinking), have students practice monitoring their comprehension, making connections, visualizing, questioning, and summarizing a text.  We teach the features and structures of non-fiction, and how they differ from fiction.  And we teach them that the purpose for reading determines how you should read something.  Some texts require a slower rate and more strategic reading, some texts can be read faster without losing meaning.

So why is it that I can't practice what I preach?  I am a pretty quick reader, as I'm sure many book bloggers are.  I can whip through most YA and easy adult reads in a single day, more literary or longer works take me a week, max.  But I am working on week number three of the book I am currently reading, and it is driving me crazy.  Not the book, mind-that I'm enjoying very much.  It's the amount of time it's taking me to read it.

The book is Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon.  In my defense it is over 700 pages long, with small font, so it's not as though it's an especially short book.  But the real issue is that whole purpose for reading thing I mentioned above.  Gabaldon's prose is dense with historical detail.  And it's interesting historical detail, about a time period I don't know much about.  Both of these facts mean that in order to fully comprehend the text, even as an adult, I need to SLOW DOWN.  Darn it!  How can I fly through this book and get to the next book if I have to SLOW DOWN?!

But what do I have against slowing down?  I mean, it's not like I get paid by the book for the books I read.  I have no deadlines for reading.  The books that are waiting in my to-be-read bookcases (yes, bookcases, don't judge) will still be there.  So where is this pressure coming from?

Here's what I've figured out-I have so much of my self-concept tied up in being a smart, fast reader, that slowing down feels like a character flaw.  Do I know that this is irrational?  Yes.  Do I know that I should savor the titles that make me slow down?  Yes.  Can I seem to make myself do that?  NO

I believe I have now identified what my New Year's Resolution should have been...

Top Ten Tuesday: My Bookish Resolutions

Thanks to the lovely bloggers at The Broke and the Bookish for hosting this weekly event.  This week's topic is Bookish Resolutions.

I am not really a resolution person.  Let's just say that the few times I have made a resolution in January I was back to my pre-New Year's state by February.  Besides, as a teacher it feels like my "new year" is in August, when I go back to school.   But, there are a few things with regard to reading and blogging that I want to do in 2011, so I'll give it the old college try.

1.  Stop requesting so many books on Goodreads: Since discovering Bookswap in May, I've gotten about 60 books.  For a cost of about $4.00 each that sounds like a good thing, right?  Problem is, I already have enough books in my reading room to last me three to four YEARS without buying or borrowing another book.  Seriously, the rush of getting books in my mailbox for so cheap is just too good to pass up.

2.  Read more quality middle-grade and young adult books:  I am almost done with a masters degree in reading, and if I am going to work as a reading specialist as I hope, I need to stay current with what is out there for kids in all age ranges, not just the primary and intermediate grades I teach now.  Besides, my children's and YA blog Second Childhood Reviews is feeling neglected.

3.  Read all of the longer books on my shelf:  Last year I did the 100+ book challenge (here is my post about it), and as a result I avoided some of the longer books on my shelves.  I've already made headway on this goal.  I just finished Stephen King's Under the Dome this weekend, in all of its 1074 page glory.

4.  Get around to some authors I'm ashamed I've never read:  OK, I admit it, I have never read a Jonathan Franzen book, or Phillip Roth, or Dave Eggers, or Ian McEwan, or Salmon Rushdie, or Thomas Pynchon.  Shame, shame on me...I have books from at least three of these authors on my shelves waiting for me to get with the program.  The fact that all of these authors are men are not lost on me so...

5. Read more fiction by men who are not mystery or horror writers:  I'll admit a certain prejudice in my book buying and reading for female authors.  I mean, I read good female authors, like Atwood and Kingsolver and Allende, but nonetheless I should probably get some perspective from the other half of the population.

6.  Blog more about general literary topics:  In reading the many book blogs that I've found, I've come to realize that the ones I enjoy the most are the ones that do more than just review books.  They are the ones that take on interesting literary topics, and talk about reading in general.  I'll have to fit in more time for blogging, but that is doable.  My TV and XBox probably don't need quite so much of my attention.

Be an Armchair Activitst

In 2001, the world turned its attention to Afghanistan.  In the wake of 9-11, everyone suddenly wanted to know more about this small country in Asia where Osama Bin Laden had planned and orchestrated the attack on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon.  All of a sudden the media was full of experts who wanted to explain the Taliban to us, explain what dangerous crazy extremists they were, and why we needed to go over there and take them out.

Here's the thing-some of us already knew about the Taliban.  Some of us had been urging the US government to intervene in Afghanistan for years.  The loudest voice came from the Feminist Majority Foundation, which educated people about the horrific conditions that existed for women under Taliban rule.  Because I found the FMF, I was able to explain to my confused, grief-stricken friends exactly who it was that had let Bin Laden find a safe haven.

There is a whole 'nother post in the question of why the US did nothing to help the women in Afghanistan until aafter 9-11, but the question I want to pose is whether things in Afghanistan would have happened the way they did if A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini had been published in the 1990s instead of after 9-11. If more people had known about the conditions for women and girls in Afghanistan, would more have been done to remove the Taliban before Bin Laden moved in?  I realize this is a fairly simplistic view of geopolitics, but as someone who believes in the power of reading to create understanding across cultures, I have to believe that increased knowledge of world issues would somehow lead to different results.

Teachers will tell you that reading opens doors in your imagination, that by reading you can explore new worlds and escape to exotic places.  And that is certainly true.  But there are authors who are out there writing truth to power, authors who have written works that hold up injustice and demand us to look, not to turn our heads.   And because reading is transactional, those of us who read those authors and those books can't help but be changed by the experience.

This may seem a fairly passive way to participate in social justice.  After all, there are people doing good works in our communities all the time, people who volunteer, who protest, who lobby, who take to the streets in an effort to make peace and justice a reality for all people.  But if you are like me, with a spouse, a child, a job, a mortgage, chances are that the best you can do is write that check to the charity of your choice.  While this is an important act, allowing people who can to do the work, it might leave you with a thin patina of guilt, a small voice in your heart telling you that there is more you can do.  It might seem like a gross over-rationalization, but I argue that by reading, you can do something to change the state of the world.

Obviously non-fiction seems like a good place to start when talking about books that can lead to social  change.  And to be sure there are plenty of thoughtful, passionately argued non-fiction books that can lead to greater insights about the issues of human rights and justice.  Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen is an example of non-fiction that is both informational and emotional.  But what about those of us that prefer fiction?  Well I say that sometimes, fiction is the best way to highlight social issues.  Fictional narratives on the scale of A Thousand Splendid Suns do more than tell us the facts and figures about oppression-they allow us for a period of time to live the lives of those affected by injustice.  They give us a cultural context for the what we see on the news.  And making connections with characters that lead such seemingly different lives can bring home to us just how similar the human experience is, regardless of place or time.

So, what should you be reading?  I've added a new page to the blog, where I've listed some recommendations of books that I have read or read enough about that I can attest to their worth.  If anyone has other titles, just put them in the comments.  All of the blurbs come from Goodreads or Amazon.  Some of them are difficult to read, some are joyful and uplifting, but all highlight issues affecting people somewhere in the world.  As that prolific author Anonymous said, "Nobody's free until everybody's free."

Top Ten Tuesday-My Favorite Places to Read

Time for another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's topic is "Favorite Places to Read".  While not the most literary of topics, it does go to my belief that reading is more than a cerebral/emotional act.  It is also a sensual one, with the weight of the book in your hands and the smell of the pages.  This is one reason I personally believe that e-readers will never fully replace books.

It is probably foolish to begin this post on my favorite places to read right before I go to work, where I will not be curling up with a good book anytime today.  But with a great blog comes great responsibility, so I will persevere.  My favorite places to delve into a good book are, in no particular order...

• "My" Chair-Don't we all have one of these?  We have a small extra bedroom that we call the reading room (because calling it the library wold sound pretentious, and be a total exaggeration despite the 500 or so books stored there).  It is where I go for a quiet place when my daughter and partner are both watching TV. 
• My parents' porch in Northern Michigan-though clearly only in the summer.  Right now it is probably cold and snowy.  But in the summer it is glorious, facing out on the woods.  I can look up and watch the hummingbirds at the feeders if my eyes need to rest.
• My parents' study in Northern Michigan-though usually only in the winter.  It is warm and cozy and looks out on the snowy woods.
• North Bar Lake, Empire, Michigan-Are you seeing a theme here?  Some of my favorite places to read are also the places I go away to when I need a little relaxation.  North Bar Lake is a small lake connected to Lake Michigan by a narrow stream.  Sitting on the beach at North Bar, you can look through the gap and see the big lake-that is, I can see it when I infrequently look up from  my book. 
• Sitting on a boat-Yes, my parents also have a boat where they live (ahh, to be retired!), but it doesn't have to be their boat.  Really, any boat will do, as long as it's stationary and comfortable.
• Misquamicut Beach, Rhode Island-My extended family lives in Rhode Island, and when I was a young single mother with very little money (as opposed to what I am now-an older married mother who still doesn't have very much money!), I would drive from Chicago to Westerly, Rhode Island and stay with my Aunt Roseanne and Uncle Tom.  It was free-and it was 10 minutes away from one of the most beautiful beaches in New England.  Soft sand, enough surf to make swimming interesting but not dangerous-and a great spot to sit and read in the sun!
• Over a Meal-Yes, I am one of those people that would be perfectly happy eating just about every meal with a book open in front of me.  Since my family and friends actually want to, you know, TALK to me when we share a meal, I don't get to do this as often as I like.  I actually enjoy going to a restaurant by myself, because it gives me an excuse to read while I eat and not seem rude!
• In a cabin in the woods in the winter, preferably in front of a fire-Let me start by saying I have never actually experienced this.  We'll call it a reading fantasy of mine.  Round about the end of January, when the holidays are over and winter feels long and the school year is at its most tedious, I often think longingly of holing up in a small cabin alone, with a fire, a stack of books, plenty of coffee, and no cell phone or computer.  So if anyone has a spare cabin I can borrow in late January, let me know!
• On an airplane-While reading on a plane may seem more like a survival skill rather than a preferred activity, I look forward to plane trips because I know that there will be a period of at least a couple when I will have no responsibility except to sit in my seat and let the pilots and flight attendants do their job.  Being held hostage to the rhythm of the flight absolves me from the occasional guilt of reading instead of cleaning/homework/lesson planning.
 

 

Does It Matter What We Read?

This week I discovered the Literary Blog Hop, hosted by The Blue Bookcase.  Unlike Crazy-For-Book's Friday Book Blog Hop, which is open to every book blogger regardless of what type of books they review, the Literary Blog Hop is open only to:

"This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion. If your blog does not fit this description, it may be removed from the Linky List. 

How do I know if my blog qualifies as "literary"? Literature has many definitions, but for our purposes your blog qualifies as "literary" if it focuses primarily on texts with aesthetic merit. In other words, texts that show quality not only in narrative but also in the effect of their language and structure."

All of the blogs that I have read as a result of finding this hop have been high quality, well written blogs.  I was thrilled to find them, and look forward to many long mornings having coffee with them.  I think that the idea of genre-based or topic-based blog hops is also a great idea.  I have enjoyed participating in the Friday Book Blogger Hop on Crazy-for-Books, but there are sometimes so many blogs that it can be hard to wade through them all.

Here's the issue:  As soon as I read the above definition, I started wondering if my blog would "measure up".  I mean, I have certainly read books that would be considered literary for the purposes of the hop (The Lacuna, Night, I'll Take You There) but I also read popcorn mysteries, fantasy and paranormal, and the occasional women's fiction.  I consider that I have a very eclectic mix of reading experiences, and I don't think I need to explain or justify why I read Toni Morrison one week and Charlaine Harris the next.

This led me to think about the reasons people read, because I think that the kids of things that people read are related to the reasons that they read.  Here is what I came up with in my own admittedly short thinking on the topic.

Edification:  Reading is famously seen as a window to the world, and one of the many reasons people read is to learn about cultures, eras, and experiences different than their own.  For some people this means reading non-fiction.  For some this means reading really high quality fiction that accurately and sympathetically represent the vagaries of the human experience.  Research has shown that one of the best ways to improve vocabulary and higher level thinking skills is by wide-reading. 

Entertainment:  Let's face it-humans love a good story.  From the earliest days of humans sitting around the fire telling stories of the hunt people have shared stories as a way to pass the time.  Most of the people I know who are readers read because it is an enjoyable activity, something that they choose to do despite the draw of flashier media like television and the internet.  Speaking for myself, there is nothing I like more in the world than to sit in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee and a good book.  Which leads to the next reason for reading...

Escapism: When I choose to read Stephen King or Jonathan Kellerman instead of Joyce Carol Oates or Salman Rushdie, it is generally because I am looking at reading as a relaxation activity, one that allows me to turn my brain off and get lost in a story.  The demands of school and work can fill a person's brain with so much noise that reading anything of substance can be a challenge.  I suppose some people find reading really challenging material relaxing, I just don't happen to be one of them. 

So...what the heck does any of this mean?  Does it matter what you read, as long as you are reading?  As an educator, I would say no-I'm thrilled if my students find texts that engage them (though I have issues with the Disnification of certain children's literature, though more because I am anti-branding, churning out the newest generation of consumers).  Of course, as an educator I also believe in life long learning, as cliche as that phrase has become.  For myself, I try to find a balance.  Of the hundreds of books on my shelves waiting to be read, there is a shelf that is dedicated to what I think of as substantive reads.  They will come off of the shelves during Christmas break, and during the summer, when I have less work and school stuff on my mind.

What does this mean for my future as a Literary Blog Hopper?  I figure I'll give it a try.  I'll try not to be too hurt if my link disappears into the ether.  Ultimately, as much as I enjoy blogging and the dialogue that can happen as a result, my reading life is for me.  

Please Don't Ask What I'm Reading...

...unless you really want to know!

I'm sure I'm not the only person this happens to.  Yesterday, when I was taking a few precious, highly-coveted minutes of reading time, an acquaintance asked me the dreaded question, "What are you reading?"

Why is that the dreaded question?  Aside from the fact that having to formulate a response meant losing out on the actual reading of the book in question?  I dread that question because the answer is never quite as easy as the asker might assume.

Part of the issue stems from the fact that usually this question is asked by an acquaintance.  My close friends know not to interrupt me when I'm reading, for starters.  But in my experience this question tends to get asked by someone who is looking to make some sort of connection with me-show they are interested by remarking on something they assume I care about-but are not usually serious readers themselves.  As a result, they don't understand how difficult it is to answer that question.

Well, the shortest answer, of course, is to just tell them the name of the book.  Sadly, this often leads to blank stares in response, since most of the time the person in question has never heard of the book or author, and now has nothing else to say.  This sometimes leads to the "What is it about?" question, which can be equally difficult to navigate. I have occasionally used the "title and author" answer as a way of shutting down someone who is attempting to talk to me while I read, my eyes immediately returning to the text in a very obvious signal to leave me alone already.  I try to only reserve this option for people I barely know-and don't necessarily care to know better.

But what about the others?  I usually feel obligated to say a little something about the plot of the book-but how much?  Maybe the person is really a reader on the DL, and I am going to ruin a perfectly good read for them if I say too much.  I love talking about the books I read with other people who are readers, so if I go into "book club" mode I could go on for a long time about the plot, style, author's voice, etc...That's usually when the casual questioner's eyes glaze over.  Kind of like asking someone how they are, and them telling you in detail about everything they did since they saw you last.  Either way-spoiler or oversharer-leads to awkward pauses, and gaps in the conversation where the person who had the bad luck to ask me the dreaded question has to figure out how to respond. 

Therefore, I'd like to make this announcement to the world!  Please don't ask me what I am reading unless you really want to know.  Because I will tell you, possibly in excruciating detail, both the plot and my analysis of it.  I know that you are just trying to be polite, making conversation about something that interests me.  But it requires too much thought on my part to navigate how much you really want to know, and how much time I want to take to tell you.  So be prepared, and ask at your own risk-just wait until I finish the chapter first!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading

This week I just about finished Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster.  I love her-she reminds me so much of my best friend (except for that whole being a Republican thing-but I forgive you, Jen!).  Not sure what I'm taking on next...maybe the Octavia Butler series I just got.  I loved her book Fledgling, I think it might be time to revisit her.  Hope everyone had a good reading week!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Being trapped on a plane last weekend made this a good couple of reading weeks for me.  I finished

Night Work, by Steve Hamilton
Testimony, by Anita Shreve
The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown
The Tarnished Eye, by Judith Guest

My favorite of the above list has to be the Anita Shreve book, because it still has me thinking and processing.  If you want to know why, here is my review, Testimony.  I just this morning picked up Pretty in Plaid, by Jen Lancaster.  She is one of my favorites, and I am sure I will like this one too.  Hysterical!

Have a good reading week!