Booking Through Urgent TBRs

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question, from Toddled Dredge, via Kat with a K, is:

“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf — the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’”

I can’t give you a picture of my entire TBR stack; most of it has been packed. But, here are the most urgent of the bunch, the ones I couldn’t bear to pack yet, reasoning: I still have to have something to read between now and when we move. I plucked one from its number yesterday. Here’s to a few more!

What books call to you?

Words from my reading

Just a couple new to me words this week:

daruka, n Tree (in Sanskrit); also used as a proper name, for males
page 10, The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine
“The dim-witted say that I should have a throne of gold with pearl inlay and legs of ivory, and they ask why I chose instead the simple wood of the daruka tree to sit upon.”

khukri knife

khukri, or kukri or khukuri, n Curved Nepalese knife used as both tool and weapon, part of the regimental weaponry and heraldry of The Royal Gurkha Rifles, known to many people as simply the “Gurkha Blade” or “Gurkha Knife”
page 20, The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine
“In an instantaneous action, Father pulled his khukri knife from behind his back, where I did not even know he had it.”

Earlier installments of this feature (more great words!).

Review of book cited here:
The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine
Note: I did verify these quotes with the final version, but I was unable to verify the page numbers; The page numbers cited are from my Advance Reading Copy, so they may not be consistent with the page numbers for these quotes in the final version of the book.

What new words have you found lately?

A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman

A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman (The Daughters of Boston, Book 1) (Revell, 2008), 480 pages

Book 3, A Passion Denied, came out a couple months ago.

I read the second book in this series, A Passion Redeemed, in April. I don’t usually read a series out of order, but I did this time. While I stated in my review of Book 2 that it was OK to read the second book without reading the first book, I need to amend that now. Yes, it’s OK to start with Book 2. But don’t start with Book 2 if you ever hope or plan to go back and read Book 1. Because much of the enjoyment of Book 1 is taken away by knowing things from Book 2. The story lines are more intertwined than I’d thought, from my reading of Book 2. So, like all series, I recommend starting with Book 1.

A Passion Most Pure opens in Boston, in 1916. Faith, the oldest daughter of Patrick and Marcy O’Connor, 18, is trying to ignore her own feelings for the rogue her 16-year-old sister Charity is sneaking around with. Partly because her sister’s claimed him, but also because this guy is no good. And then there’s the question of whether to tell her parents, who have expressly forbidden Charity seeing this Collin.

Things just get more messy from there, especially as it becomes clear that the United States will not avoid entering the war.

While in broad strokes, Book 1 could be called Faith’s story, and Book 2 could be called Charity’s story, Book 1 (A Passion Most Pure) is really much more than Faith’s story. Book 1 introduces the reader to the O’Connor clan, both those in Boston and those in Ireland. In Book 1, we get a good sense of who each character is. Lessman accomplishes this without the book feeling like a first-in-a-series, in that it’s so busy introducing characters that it action suffers, though, which is good.

This book has a lot of twists and turns. Sometimes it felt like too many. Toward the end, I noticed the author telling what happened and how the characters felt, rather than showing.

I didn’t love this book. Perhaps it’s (partly) because I read the second book prior to reading this book. I did love, though, the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. O’Connor. This is a strong, vibrant, beautiful marriage relationship, and too many love stories end at the wedding.

These are not good candidates for back-to-back reads. I recommend letting each book breathe before venturing into the next volume of the story.

Lessman’s website.

Other reviews:
Booking Mama
My Friend Amy

Did I miss yours? Leave a link to your review and I’ll add it here.

The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine

The Blue Notebook: A Novel by James A. Levine (Spiegel & Grau, July 7, 2009), 224 pages

The Blue Notebook is the life story of Batuk, a 15-year-old prostitute in Mumbai, India. Naturally, the story is tragic, heart-wrenching. Batuk acquires a pencil and charms a boy into bringing her a little blue notebook, and she begins writing her story. The writing is simple but beautiful.

Batuk is 9 years old when her parents throw her a farewell party before her father takes her to the city, where she begins her new life. She’s never told what will happen or why this path was chosen for her.

It’s a hard book to read, but it tells an important story. We mustn’t close our eyes.

While reading this book I was constantly reminded of a nonfiction book I read a few years ago. True Grit: Women Taking on the World, for God’s Sake by Deborah Meroff is full of heartbreaking stats of how women are wronged the world over. But in addition, it also relays true stories of people making a difference in these situations, as well as having several appendices of ways to stay informed and ways to help. This 2004 book starts its On the Streets section with this: “There are probably over 100 million children working on the streets. Approximately 1 million more are forced into the sex trade worldwide every year. The average age keeps decreasing and even very small girls and babies are involved.”

All of the U.S. proceeds from Levine’s novel will be donated to the International and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children (http://www.icmec.org).

This is Levine’s debut novel. He is a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

Other reviews:
Maw Books Blog
Sara at the Book Nook Club
A High and Hidden Place
The Literate Housewife
The Book Lady’s Blog
Books on the Brain

Moving, part II

I’ve started noticing or taking note of things I’ll miss — the vistas are different here in the Ozarks from those on the Plains, even if I do appreciate the beauty of the Plains.

I’m also starting to make note of how little time we have left here, in a number of ways: As I did laundry this week, I realized I have only a couple laundry days left before the move.

I’m also kind of rebelling against the idea of packing. I don’t like how it requires one to take an orderly environment and create chaos, which one then has to live in for at least some amount of time before order is created in the new environment.

What we’ll miss most, though, is the people. We’ll definitely miss so many friends who live here. I said goodbye to a great friend, one of the best friends (I’ve never been one of those people who have a best friend or who can categorize their relationships well at all even.). I hope it’s not the last time I’ll see her before we move, and it certainly won’t be the last time I see her (probably even this year, in her opinion, although nothing’s scheduled), but it was really hard. Harder, even than it would have been if it was closer to our actual moving date.

Two days ago we sold the couch. The couch where I read. Where I blog and where I relax. When I’m at the computer, these days the laptop is generally with me at the couch. Except not anymore, because the couch is gone. We sold it, in preparation for moving, because it makes my husband sneeze. This is a good reason to sell it, but I’m still frustrated that I have no where comfortable to read or blog in the whole house. And not reading? Not an option when I’m as stressed as I am right now, surrounded as I am by chaos.

More questions have been answered. Fewer things are entirely up in the air. On this front, things are actually moving very quickly. It’s impossible to keep anyone updated — we’re having trouble staying on top of everything ourselves.

I’ve moved, for the most part, into fluff-reading territory. I don’t have the concentration or the expendable stress levels to handle difficult books at the moment. Which means I’ll likely be reading more (if I can find a comfortable place), which means I’ll have more reviews to write, which requires that comfortable place!

Ugh. Did I say I hate moving? That may be too strong. At the least: I’ll be glad when this is over.

Update on the chair situation: My husband found one, very inexpensively, and is on his way, in the rain, to pick it up and bring it home to me. Even if it’s not great, it should be an improvement over the current situation. Hopefully his luggage rack and tarp plan is sound! He posted about his chair hunt this morning.

Words from my reading

A few new to me words this week:

mattock, n A tool for loosening the soil, digging up and cutting roots: it is like a pickax but has a flat, adz-shaped blade on one or both sides
page 62, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“She had grabbed her sack and mattock and fled, bareheaded and barefoot, down the embankment.”

alb, n A loose, sleeved, full-length, gown-light linen vestment secured at the waist by a cincture and worn with other vestments as by the celebrant of Mass
page 68, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“He was babbling like a brook, his vestment bag still held aloft so his alb and chasuble wouldn’t drag the floor.”

chasuble, n A sleeveless outer vestment worn over the alb by priests at Mass
page 68, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“He was babbling like a brook, his vestment bag still held aloft so his alb and chasuble wouldn’t drag the floor.”

dotage, n Feeble and childish state due to old age, senility; a doting, foolish or excessive affection
page 95, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“’So, what are you up to in your dotage?’”

nostrum, n A medicine prepared by the person selling it; a patent medicine of a kind with exaggerated claims, quack medicine; a pet scheme for solving some social or political problem, panacea
page 100, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“’I must confess the use of yet another nostrum.’”

alluvial, adj Of, found in, or made up of sand, clay, etc., gradually deposited by moving water, as along a river bed or the shore of a lake
page 155, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“Besides, he wanted to watch the lambs grow up, and eat okra and tomatoes from the alluvial soil of a valley garden.”

tuits, pl n Circular objects giving owners the ability to get done everything that would have otherwise been put off to a later date
page 287, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“And Frank was fond of giving out round tuits; I believe I still have mine.”

thurible, n Censer, an ornamented container in which incense is burned
page 352, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“Indeed, the old stove would be their thurible.”

cincture, n The act of encircling or girding; anything that encircles, as a belt or girdle
page 356, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
“Smiling, she tied his cincture, smoothed his tousled hair with her hands, and gave him an approving blast of her sapphire eyes.”

Earlier installments of this feature (more great words!).

Reviews of books cited here:
Light from Heaven by Jan Karon

What new words have you found lately?

Reading meme

I saw this months ago at Stuff As Dreams Are Made On, who got it from Kailana; I’m finally getting around to posting my answers.

1. What author do you own the most books by?
C.S. Lewis: Narnia, Space Trilogy, Screwtape Letters and surely some nonfiction; I just packed up all the books I’ve read, so I can’t go check the shelves, oops.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
I don’t intentionally or knowingly own duplicates of any books.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No, that was never really a rule.

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Ooh, that’s tough.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life?
Green Rose of Furley, probably.

6. What was your favorite book when you were 10 years old?
Hard to say for sure, but I did really love A Wrinkle in Time (and still do)

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
I’m going to go with Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo; I abandoned it in January. And I didn’t look back a full 12 months, I just picked from 2009 reads.

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Tough. But I was thinking about this just last night (or was it this morning?). Again, I’m not looking back to 2008. I can’t choose! The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Saints in Limbo by River Jordan are the top contenders at this moment.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Dakota by Kathleen Norris

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
What kind of question is this? I’ll go with Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Well, they’re already working on The Hobbit, so, maybe Maisie Dobbs? Lewis’s Space Trilogy would be amazing on screen.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I think I’ll be nice and not answer this one.

13. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I don’t remember very many of my dreams.

14. What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I’ve read plenty of pulp, mass-market fiction. All my reads for the past year and a half are listed in my Books Read tab; why don’t you tell me which one’s the most lowbrow?

15. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Books can be difficult in so many ways. True Grit by Deborah Meroff was pretty difficult to read because the content is heart-breaking.

16. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Russians, although I guess I haven’t read many French authors.

17. Roth or Updike?
Updike (but I haven’t read Roth).

18. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Haven’t read either yet.

19. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
I really like Shakespeare and Chaucer. Not a huge fan of Milton.

20. Austen or Eliot?
Haven’t read Eliot yet (alas!), so I can’t answer this one.

21. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I’m lacking lots of the classics.

22. What is your favorite novel?
This is too hard of a question.

23. Play?
Waiting for Godot is pretty fun … I love some T.S. Eliot plays, too.

24. Short story?
I don’t read many short stories. My first thought is one of the stories in The Dubliners by James Joyce. I have a soft spot in my heart for O. Henry’s stories, though.

25. Epic Poem?
Beowulf, probably

26. Short(er) poem?
I can’t choose!

27. Work of nonfiction?
Dakota by Kathleen Norris

28. Who is your favorite writer?
I hate picking favorites.

29. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Wow, too many negative questions on this list.

30. What is your desert island book?
Tough. I’ll go with War and Peace. It’s long …

31. And, what are you reading right now?
Holy Roller by Julie Lyons and
A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman

Online book launch party

The amazing Beth Kephart’s (I’ve read her blog for ages, but alas I haven’t read any of her books yet, although I’m pretty convinced I’ll love them) tenth book was released last week. This is spurring online parties left and right, it seems.

First, My Friend Amy and Lenoreva announced a book drive and a party celebrating Nothing but Ghosts. The party’s tomorrow and will include a live chat with Kephart herself!

Then today I find that another blogger and writer, Anna Lefler, has also launched an extravaganza for Nothing but Ghosts. This party boasts a bootleg interview with Kephart, and it’s hilarious.

Both Lefler’s extravaganza and the book drive have great prizes.

It’s also spurred a conversation (again) about book bloggers’ part in the book industry.

Light from Heaven by Jan Karon

Light from Heaven by Jan Karon (Viking, 2005), 384 pages

This is the ninth and final book in Karon’s Mitford Years series.

What do you get when you start with the beloved Father Tim and his wife Cynthia, children’s book author and illustrator, along with all our favorite characters from Mitford, North Carolina, and add sheep, cooking and baking, farming, animals, land, country life, and above-the-cloud vistas? Why, you get Light from Heaven.

This may possibly be my favorite book of the entire series.

I appreciated this book’s higher number of liturgical references, and I think there was also a broader assortment of literature mentioned — while it still cited Wordsworth frequently, he wasn’t alone this time.

I’m sad that I’ve reached the end of the series. I’m certainly glad that I won’t have to live without new stories starring at least one of these familiar characters, though. I’ll definitely dive into Karon’s Father Tim series soon.

My reviews of the previous books in the series:

1. At Home in Mitford
2. A Light in the Window
3. These High, Green Hills
4. Out to Canaan
5. A New Song
6. A Common Life
7. In This Mountain
8. Shepherds Abiding

The Mitford books website.

Other reviews:
Bogormen
Have you reviewed this book? Leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

Double negative labeling

I promise this blog is not turning into one that just finds fault with grammar and usage (plenty exist already), but I couldn’t help myself.

Here we have Glutino brand Sans Gluten Free Wafer Cookies. While they taste really quite good, I was a little nervous because if it’s “without gluten free,” I suppose that would mean the cookies actually did contain gluten, which I’ve been strictly avoiding for nearly 11 months now.

I realize that this instance is almost certainly due to the bilingual nature of this packaging (Glutino is a Canadian brand), but still. On the side of the box, it’s much clearer, where it says: “SANS GLUTEN/BLE • GLUTEN/WHEAT FREE.” See, it’s not actually that difficult to communicate clearly, is it?

(And yes, they were quite tasty. Yum.)