Rabbit Hole #41: May Reading Update

As of today, I'm at 42/85 books for the three reading challenges I'm doing. Considering the reading slump I was in the past couple of months, I'm really happy with that. I'm also pretty sure I'm not going to finish anything else in the next two days, so here's what I read in May:


Pop Sugar Reading Challenge (Current Completion: 23/41)

A murder mystery: The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (3 stars)

A satirical book: The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore (4 stars)

A book and its prequel: Yellow Brick War (4 stars) and Dorothy Must Die Stories, Vol. 1 by Danielle Paige (3 stars)

A classic from the 20th century: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (3 stars)


Bustle Women/POC Reading Challenge (Current Completion: 7/20)

First book in a new series: Alice by Christina Henry (4 stars)


Read Harder Challenge 2016 (Current Completion: 12/24)

A nonfiction book about science: The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (4 stars)

A collection of essays: Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver (4 stars)

A nonfiction book about feminism or dealing with feminist themes: The Secret Life of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore (3 stars)

A book under 100 pages: for colored girls who've considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf  by Ntozake Shange (5 stars)

A play: The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (4 stars)

A book over 500 pages: The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness (4 stars)



Non-challenge books finished: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (4 stars), The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (3 stars), and Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza (3 stars)



And because it's the end of May...

Rabbit Hole #40: January-April 2016 Reading Reflection

I started this year with a pretty ambitious goal: to complete three reading challenges for a total of 84 books. Given how many books I was able to read last year, I thought, and still think, this is an achievable goal, but I do wish I had focused on one challenge at a time. Looking at all the challenges and bouncing between them tends to get overwhelming; I never really feel as though I'm accomplishing anything.

To date, I've read books for 31 of the challenge tasks. Here are some of the high--and low--points:

1. Nonfiction for the win! I've read some amazing nonfiction titles in the last four months: Redefining Realness by Janet Mock, My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem, The Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg by Irin Camon and Shana Khizhnik, Slave by Mende Nazar, Year of Yes by Shonda Rimes, and As You Wish by Cary Elwes. They covered very disparate topics, but I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. I was rather disappointed by The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, though. I really thought it would focus more on the actual comic; however, it turned out to be more of a biography on the creator. (And the writing bothered me. The sentence structure was one I would scold my students about using.)  I never thought I'd be one for reading much nonfiction, but these past few years have been proving me wrong--there are so many authors writing in such an accessible way that they take nonfiction from mundane facts and statistics to well-written, engaging reads.

2. At this point, traditional sci-fi and I don't get along. I was really excited about finally reading some Ursula K. LeGuin, but I just struggled to make any connections with the characters in The Dispossessed. I do have her Left Hand of Darkness for another task, and Joanna Russ's The Female Man so I'm hoping something may click. I loved Octavia Butler, but otherwise, most sci-fi just seems cold and clinical to me.

3. Why is it so many series suffer from the sophomore slump? I just finished Deborah Harkness' All Souls Trilogy, and while I loved the first and third books, the second just was...meh. I've noticed that with a lot of other series as well. Anyone have any ideas?

4. I really do love magical realism. I got hooked many years ago reading Isabel Allende's The House of Spirits, and this year, Tiphanie Yanique's Land of Love and Drowning and Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove are two of the best books I've read so far.

I'm starting off the second quarter with a lot of fantasy/retellings/paranormal reads. I think I just need to ease my way out of the school year with "lighter" reads, and save the heavier reads for this summer (which may seem counter-intuitive, I know). I also look forward to my reading picking up again; March and April really felt as if I were slogging through everything, and I was in a bit of a slump.

To the next four months!

Rabbit Hole #39: The Classics Book Tag

THE CLASSICS BOOK TAG: (I couldn't find the originator of this tag; if you know, please tell me!)

1. An over-hyped classic you really didn't like: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
I went in to this thinking it was going to be solely about Anna and Vronsky and the love triangle; I should have known that being a Russian novel, it was going to have a much wider scope than that. I felt bogged down in the agricultural discussions and found myself not really caring about any of the characters. 

2. Favorite time period to read about: 1920s

American and British Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance are my favorite areas to read and study (my master's thesis was on Virginia Woolf). Even though the 1920s had a lot of faults, there is something about that era of change and decadence that appeals to me. 

3. Favorite fairy-tale: Little Red Riding Hood
There is so much more to this tale than simply warning children to not talk to "wolves." It has layers of rape culture, feminism, sexual politics and much more. It also proves that fairy tales are often not for children.

4. What is the classic you're most embarrassed about having not read
I'm not really embarrassed about books I haven't read yet. I've read a lot of classics, and it's impossible to read them all (unless that's all you're reading, and there's just too much good stuff out there!)

5. Top 5 classics you would like to read (soon): Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, Passing by Nella Larsen, Lady Susan by Jane Austen, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, and Middlemarch by George Eliot

6. Favorite modern book/series based on a classic: Wicked by Gregory Maguire

I love backstories to well-known characters, especially villains. No one is ever completely good or evil, and our circumstances can put us into situations that require drastic measures. And sometimes the villain is actually less evil than the hero. 

7. Favorite movie version/tv-series based on a classic: Sleepy Hollow is my current favorite. 
I love the mix of the original tale with amped up paranormal events, connections to history, and a diverse cast. I also love Once Upon a Time for its twists and connections of all types of classic stories. 

8. Worst classic to movie adaptation: Beowulf (with Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie)
This strayed so far from the original, creating a romance between Hrothgar and Grendel's mother and then between Beowulf and Grendel's mother. I'm all for leaving details out, but when you create scenes and conflicts that weren't in the original, that bothers me. (Especially since Neil Gaiman, whom I love, wrote the screenplay.)

9. Favorite edition(s) you'd like to collect more classics from:I don't really collect editions, although I'm seeing some really beautiful ones that might tempt me to change my mind!

10. An underhyped classic you'd recommend to everyone: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Anne is by far the most underrated of the Bronte sisters--some people don't even know she exists--and probably the most radical. Tenant is a decidedly feminist book, and it was so far ahead of its time that even Charlotte didn't approve of its themes and "coarseness."

Rabbit Hole #38: April Reading Update

April was bit better for reading. Even though we've had lots of visitors and events going on, I ended up reading seven books (well, sort of--I read most of the Steinbeck in March, but finished it the first few days of April), a couple of which were over 500 pages. I'm planning on doing a review of the first quarter of the year in a couple of weeks, so be on the look out for that as well.

PopSugar 2016 Reading Challenge (Current Completion: 18/41 challenges)

A book about a road trip: Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (3 stars)

A book you can finish in a day: Krishna--The Journey Within by Abhishek Singh (4 stars)

A book longer than 600 pages: Winter by Marissa Meyer (3 stars)

A book with a protagonist with your profession (teacher): On Beauty by Zadie Smith (4 stars)

A book guaranteed to bring you joy: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness (4 stars)



Bustle Women/POC Reading Challenge (Current Completion: 6/20 challenges)

A book in translation: The Scattered Papers of Penelope--New and Selected Poems by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke (Greek) (4 stars)

A memoir from someone who identifies LGBTQIA: Redefining Realness by Janet Mock (4 stars)



Book Riot's Read Harder 2016 Challenge (Current Completion: 6/24 challenges)

Nothing finished for the Book Riot Challenge this month.