On Wednesday, I got up earlier than usual, so I could get to campus from Austin to participate in the Book-it Brigade. What is the Book-it Brigade? The Book-it Brigade was a human chain to pass six books from Old Main, where Texas State University first housed its library, all the way to the Alkek Library, which opened in 1990. This particular Book-it Brigade was to celebrate those 25 years as well as reenact the first Book-it Brigade that was done when the Alkek Library first opened.
For the 1st time ever, you get to see my non-five-year-old face.
While I wasn’t even living in Texas when I was ten years old, this celebration is extremely important to me for three reasons. First of all, the Alkek library is where I discovered that I want to go to grad school for Library Science and Information Technology. Secondly, this is my final semester at TSU. I will be graduating in December, so getting the chance to be a part of this huge, wonderful event to celebrate my all-time favorite library is a big deal for me. I still get a little choked up thinking about it. Getting emotional is also due to my third, but most important, reason: the Alkek Library is why I chose to attend TSU.
The 6th book was a Kindle to represent how the library has grown over the years.It just wouldn’t be a celebration without cupcakes!
There are lots of reasons to apply to a university, and a few of them were secondary reasons, after the fact, for why I was glad I chose TSU. However, how many people do you know who went to their university for the sole reason of wanting to have access to the library? Well, when I found out the Alkek Library was seven football field sized floors stacked on top of each other, and it housed over 2 million books, my jaw dropped, and my decision made. I have not once regretted that choice.
Welcome to the 3rd weekly recap of The Joy Luck Club read-along! Below is the schedule. Each Saturday I’ll post a recap (with clearly marked spoilers for those who get a little behind). The final review of the book will be on Saturday, October 24th.
Oct. 4th – 10th: Chapters “Four Directions”, “Without the Wood”, and “Best Quality”
Oct. 11th – 17th: Chapters “Magpies” and “Waiting Between the Trees”
Oct. 18th – 23rd: Chapters “Double Face” and “A Pair of Tickets”
This week, we read three chapters, each about one of the daughters. I think I should have looked a little more closely at the way the book is organized before I wrote up the schedule since the four daughters’ chapters are split up between this week and next. Oh well. Once again, I found myself marking quite a few pages that I felt were key to understanding these women’s lives. It’s interesting to get the daughters’ perspectives.
[Spoilers] This week’s chapters weren’t nearly as emotionally devastating as the last two weeks, except for “Half and Half”. Guilt over the death of her younger brother, Bing, is a heavy burden to carry around, and I can see how it could eventually lead to Rose not making any decisions. Her mother’s loss of faith was what got me, though, and I think it shows the difference in how the Chinese view religious worship. What hit me so hard was An-mei’s lack of anger or feeling betrayed. It was as if, even though she never really accepted her son’s death, she resigned herself to the idea of beings beyond her control or power deciding not to give him back. “The Voice from the Wall” was disturbing, though, and I’m still not sure I know what happened to Ying-ying, Lena St. Clair’s mom. What I do know is that if my mom had told me what she tells Lena about the basement, I would have had nightmares too! I was happy for Waverly Jong and the empowerment she discovered through learning, and then excelling at, the game of chess. I loved how part of her learning came from books she checked out from the local library. I also appreciate that her desire to learn was spurred on and encouraged by her mom, Lindo. If you remember from last week, Lindo was the one who cleverly figured a way out of her marriage without bringing shame to herself or her family. I have a lot of respect for her, and I’m beginning to understand some of the comments she made towards her daughter, even though I still disagree with her some of her parenting. [End Spoilers]
What do you think of the story so far? Comment away! Just be sure to mark clearly any spoilers 🙂
There’s a party going on over at The Edge of the Precipice, and it’s all Tolkien, all the time! How could I not participate?! Below are the questions that everyone at the party has been asked to answer.
1. What draws you to Tolkien’s stories? For me, it’s all about the hobbits.
2. What was the first Middle Earth book you read or movie you saw? What did you think of it? My 1st Middle Earth book was a picture book based on the cartoon adaptation of The Hobbit. I was ten or eleven, came across it in the public library, and remembered that when I was five or so, I had seen the cartoon and loved it. Coincidentally, that was my first Middle Earth movie, but no one had told me it was a book! I immediately went to the card catalogue (yeah, I know, I’m OLD) and looked up The Hobbit.
3. Name three of your favorite characters and tell us why you like them. Bilbo Baggins because if he hadn’t decided to go on an adventure and subsequently forget his handkerchief I wouldn’t have been able to read about it, Gandalf because he arrives precisely when he means to, and Samwise Gamgee because without him, Frodo would have never gotten the ring to Mordor.
4. Are there any secondary characters you think deserve more attention? In the movies, yes, but not in the books.
5. What Middle Earth character do you relate to the most? I relate the most to Bilbo Baggins. Like him, I went on an adventure that required me to leave just about everything I took comfort in, and then I quietly “retired” back into my quiet world of books, tea, and cardigans. I do have the occasional crazy party, figuratively speaking, but, for the most part, I still feel world-weary from my time in the Army.
6. If you could ask Professor Tolkien one Middle Earth-related question, what would you like to ask him? I would ask him if he would please write another hobbit story or book of short stories about the hobbits.
7. Are there any pieces of Middle Earth merchandise you would particularly like to own, but don’t? The Hobbit Shopcan just take my money. Also,this hardcover editionof The Hobbit andeverything listed here and here.
8. What battle would you absolutely not want to be part of? I wouldn’t want to be a part of any of them!
9. Would you rather eat a meal at Rivendell or Bag End? Bag End, of course! Tea is at four 🙂
10. List up to ten of your favorite lines/quotes from the books or movies. I did a whole post aboutmy favorite quotes from The Hobbit.
The above ISBN is for the hardcover edition, but I listened to the audiobook I purchased.
Armada is an excellent second book by Ernest Cline, the author of Ready Player One. I enjoyed it from start to finish and was a little surprised at how quickly I got through the book. With Ready Player One, I felt that it took a while to get into the story due to the somewhat lengthy exposition at the beginning. However, that wasn’t the case with Armada. Instead, the backstory was given in little snippets when it was needed, so the pace of the story felt considerably faster. There was also a lot of action, and the story takes place over a very short amount of time. I can easily see the book being adapted to film.
As much as I loved it, though, I should have waited a bit longer to read it. I finished Ready Player One not too long ago, and the main characters in the two books seem to be a lot alike. Maybe they’re more different than I think. Maybe the characters seem too similar because Wil Wheaton narrated both of the audiobooks. Or maybe it’s because Ernest Cline is doing what every author should do and simply writing what he knows. Either way, I picked up Armada too soon after Ready Player One. That only goes for the characters, though. While both books center around gaming, they are completely different stories.
If you loved Ready Player One, or for that matter, if you’ve read and loved Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card or other books along that vein of Science Fiction, you’ll love Armada. This book is also an excellent choice if you’re a gamer. I don’t know if Ernest Cline has a sequel in mind, but if he does, I will definitely read it, along with any other books he writes in the future.
I recently found out about the Never-Ending Anne Rice Reading Challenge and decided to join in. However, I’m only challenging myself to re-read the “Vampire Chronicles”, including Anne Rice’s latest book, Prince Lestat, and “The Lives of the Mayfair Witches” trilogy. I’ve already finished Interview with the Vampire, but the Boyfriend is currently reading The Vampire Lestat. So, I’ll have to wait until he’s done. He takes awhile to finish the books I loan him, mostly because he’s busy reading other books, and that’s ok. I just won’t be able to set a time goal, but while I wait, I’ll be reading The Witching Hour. I’ll update this post as I finish each book, and link the titles to my reviews.
This check-in is for September 14th – 20th. My back is still bothering me, and I feel like I’m just now getting back into the swing of things with school. So, even though I did better than last week, I didn’t meet my step goal of averaging 9K steps a day.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – for the read-along.
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
The Portable Dorothy Parker
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling – for the HP re-read.
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Finished:Armada by Ernest Cline, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee, and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, all of which I’ll be reviewing sometime this week.
Total # of books for the year: 63. Since I finished Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy on Thursday, I’ve been striking out when it comes to audiobooks. Either the story doesn’t appeal to me, or the narration is horrible. I renewed A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole so I can give it a try, but for today I’m going to take a break and listen to music or maybe a couple of podcasts I’ve gotten behind on.
Top Commenters: My Top Commenter for this week was Shaina @Shaina Reads.
There was so much that the Boyfriend and I saw and did in New Orleans that I couldn’t condense it down to one post. So, I’m breaking up our four-day trip into two parts. Part 1 concerns our first night and day there, leaving our second day and last morning for Part 2.
Friday night:
Sign on the edge of Faubourg Marigny
We arrived at our hotel just off the French Quarter in the Faubourg Marigny in the early evening. At least, it was early for New Orleans. We were staying in a historic hotel, meaning everything was original, or replica antebellum-style furnishings and the interior hadn’t been renovated to fit modern tastes (with the exception of electricity and other important technology of course). The staircase railing was so old, it was held by strategically placed metal bracings to keep it up and safely useable.
A word of caution: If you’re planning on staying in a historic hotel, be prepared for some slightly less modern levels of cleanliness. The women who came in to clean the room mopped the carpet and picked up debris with an ancient roller-style vacuum. Walking around barefoot left my soles black with dirt. Needless to say, I started wearing my sandals around the room so I wouldn’t have to worry about tracking dirt into the sheets.
One of the buildings of the hotel, and a view of our private balcony.
The first thing we did after getting the car into the hotel’s tiny, cramped parking area ($30 a night to park, and that’s considered cheap) and getting our stuff up to our room, was to head to Café du Monde for some dinner sugary goodness. On the way, we came across a parasol shop, so of course I had to buy my inner goth a fancy black parasol.
By the time we got back from eating beignets, the long drive, and then the walk to the cafe and back caught up with us, and we crashed for the night. Or at least I did. The Boyfriend wasn’t so lucky.
View from the side of our balcony.
Another word of caution: The hotel happened to be across from a Blues bar, which didn’t shut down until around 3 or 4 am. I love Blues music, but the house band seemed only to know how to play a couple songs well, and the later it got, the worse they played. If you require quiet to sleep, don’t think that earplugs will do the trick, and don’t get a room facing the street.
Saturday:
We both got Rose Benedict.
Few places are open for business prior to 11 am, but the hotel desk clerk gave us a couple suggestions for a great breakfast. One was the Cafe Rose Nicaud, and the other was Cafe Envie. We chose to try out Cafe Rose Nicaud first.
After breakfast, we headed back to our room to rest a bit before we needed to head into the French Quarter to meet up for a cemetery tour. We left early since we weren’t sure where the place was, and then we waited and people watched. There were tourists everywhere, a jazz band playing in the street, street performers scattered around the corners, and homeless people with handmade signs asking for help. Forget about having a conversation while in the heart of the French Quarter. However, I did get several compliments about my parasol.
The sign on the building where Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s now a t-shirt shop.
Our tour guide was a few minutes late, and our meet up point was in one of the busiest parts of the French Quarter. The information about the tour failed to mention it was actually two hours long, and the hour it was supposed to be was only for once we arrived at St. Louis Cemetery.
Allison “Tootie” Montana Mardi Gras Indian statue on the edge of Congo Square.
Because of this lack of information, we had only brought a couple bottles of water with us. I don’t know what kind of arrangement the tour company has with the people selling water along the way to the cemetery, but we felt we were deliberately not told how long the tour would really be. Though we learned a lot about the French Quarter, we were so hot, tired, and irritable we only took a couple of photos.
We chose not to take photos in the cemetery because that whole portion of the tour felt disrespectful. Our tour guide seemed to be more interested in telling us about the superstitions concerning Marie Laveau and made a spectacle out of the whole experience. Also, I felt deeply sad for all the people buried there who hadn’t been able to afford to pay the Catholic Church for perpetual care or no longer had any family to care for their tombs. Many of them were crumbling into a pile of rubble, the name markers completely gone or damaged to the point that I couldn’t read the names or the dates. Many more had been vandalized. All I could think was how little respect for the dead do people have to let any of this happen?
After the tour, we stumbled our heat exhausted, sunburnt, and dehydrated selves to Acme Oyster House, but they had a ridiculously long line. I absolutely needed to sit down and drink lots of water, and I didn’t want to wait any longer to do so, so we went next door to the Bourbon House, which also had oysters. I personally think oysters, mussels, and clams are disgusting and akin to eating loogies, but the Boyfriend wanted to have oysters at least once while we were in New Orleans. There was plenty of other food on the menu, and I just wanted a place to sit more than anything else. I’m glad we chose to park our butts there because the French bread was fantastic, the shrimp po’boy was delicious, and the crème brûlée was marvelous. Had it not been a nicer establishment, I would have licked the shallow bowl the crème brûlée came in.
(picture an empty bowl where a serving of crème brûlée used to be)
We made it back to the hotel around 6 pm, but we were so tired we were in bed by 8 pm, figuring we could head back out if we woke a few hours later. We didn’t, and you’ll find out what happened when we finally did get out of bed in Part 2.
Welcome to the 2nd weekly recap of The Joy Luck Club read-along! Below is the schedule. Each Saturday I’ll post a recap (with clearly marked spoilers for those who get a little behind). The final review of the book will be on Saturday, October 24th.
Oct. 4th – 10th: Chapters “Four Directions”, “Without the Wood”, and “Best Quality”
Oct. 11th – 17th: Chapters “Magpies” and “Waiting Between the Trees”
Oct. 18th – 23rd: Chapters “Double Face” and “A Pair of Tickets”
This week, we read two more character, rather than action, driven chapters, “The Red Candle” and “The Moon Lady” of part one. I’m still certain there isn’t going to be anything that isn’t essential, and in these chapters the author gave us more background and context. I marked quite a few pages that I felt really drove home the pain and suffering these women have endured. I asked myself again how does anyone survive what they have? How did any girl during this time grow up without being irrevocably damaged emotionally?
[Spoilers] Chinese society doesn’t seem to be friendly or supportive of women. I already knew that from an academic standpoint. I also understand that it’s a collectivist culture with an emphasis on selflessness and honor, and I don’t think those are bad qualities in themselves. However, reading the way it plays out through myths, folk tales, and even their religious beliefs is a bit unsettling. When I read the story of the Moon Lady, I couldn’t help but think of the story of Adam and Eve. The Moon Lady eats a peach her husband stashed away in a box, and for that she’s punished for all eternity by being trapped on the moon. The last line she says is, “For woman is yin…the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.” With a belief like that, it’s no wonder girls are brow beat into subservience and their value broken down to how well they restrain themselves from acting on their desires. I saw this same sort of reasoning in the previous chapter as Lindo Jong did everything she could to live up to her family’s wishes. At one point she says, “After a while, I hurt so much I didn’t feel any difference.” She then goes on to say that she was happiest when everyone else was happy. Another example is Ying-Ying St. Clair explaining that Amah gave up her child when her husband passed away so that she could be Ying-Ying’s nursemaid. I’m assuming that this was Amah’s best option, and that breaks my heart. [End Spoilers]
What do you think of the story so far? Comment away! Just be sure to mark clearly any spoilers 🙂
If you’d like to join in, the sign up is open until midnight!
The above ISBN is to the hardcover edition, but I listened to the audiobook I purchased.
Uprooted is the type of updated old world fairy tale that I love. If you stripped the story down to it’s bare bones, it could easily be the kind of story found in Grimm’s Fairy Tales. However, Naomi Novik adds the deep friendship of Agnieszka and Kasia and a touch of “Beauty and the Beast” style romance in such a way you would think she is herself a witch, and you’ve become spellbound. I’m not talking about the Disney version of a fairy tale, though. This is definitely an adult book.
Besides the friendship, I think what I love the most about this story is the Wood being the enemy. Perhaps because my all-time favorite book, The Hobbit, also includes a sinister forest, and there’s just something about the woods in general that is both inviting and slightly menacing at the same time. There is no “slightly” where the Wood is concerned, but it does lure people into its shade when it’s not grabbing and taking them, never to return.
I highly recommend getting the audiobook and bumping up the speed a bit (the narrator, Julia Emelin, talks too slowly IMO), unless you already know how to pronounce Slavic names or don’t care. I think the audiobook helped bring me further into the world of the story, but there were several people complaining about the narrator’s heavy accent on the Sword and Laser discussion forums on Goodreads. Regardless of the edition, if you love fairy tales, you’ll love Uprooted.
