literaturelife

Episode 18: Attack of the June Gloom!

We're back in the saddle with summer reading here on Episode 18- any teachers out there want to send us your summer reading lists? We miss them and want one! Instead we will read crime and chick lit- save us! We divulge weird reading habits, the deluge of the library hold list, and finally share our ScriptFrenzy plot concepts. Caroline learns that she says "uh" too much after a lunch at, uh, Toastmasters. Listen to her squirm and scream as she makes the verbal blunder over and over! (and over. uh.) Milda preps for military torture in the form of a mudrun/obstacle course race in just over 2 weeks... We contemplate reading another book for the show, maybe in July. Maybe. If we survive June-we'll see.

PLUS- see who sent us our first for real fan letter. (hint- he hates Miranda July. a lot)

Sadly, we will not have a show next week, which we forgot to mention. Between training, Caroline being in Boston, Milda having a pesky job and having to do all the rest of this, and our ScriptFrenzy not being quite as frenzied as it should be to keep up the word count, we need a week to recover. See you all on the 20th!

Observatory Mansions: A Success Story

I think this might be the strangest book I have ever read. Ever. I almost put it down for good about 50 pages in and was writing despairing messages on GoodReads. But something made me pick it up again a few weeks later (remember wine vs fruit?) and I was suddenly entranced. I just finished it last night and am trying to decide who is going to be the lucky pass-along recipient. Anyone really hoping to get this? Email us here and I will decide whose application is the most convincing. Read on for my thoughts...

More Challenge Guest Reviews.

posted by Caroline Donahue

I did a photo shoot with my brother, Tim, and our fabulous guest reviewer, Luke, yesterday. Luke is plowing along with the challenge and was even diligent enough to take some time out between our photo shoot and hitting our local pub, Molly Malone's, to get his reading quota done. This was wise, as I don't think any of us was going to get any reading done after the pub... ahem.

Here are his thoughts on the Three Musketeers , Salinger's Nine Stories, and Chuck Palahniuk's latest: Rant.

image: robwest via flickr

ScriptFrenzy is Coming: Time to Read McKee's Story.

I tried to start reading Story a few months ago, just for its own sake. It is a classic for screenwriters, and I reasoned that it would be helpful for fiction as well- that's why I originally bought it. But it's a big book and impossible to carry around with me and read waiting in lines and at doctors' offices. So it has sat, unloved, next to my nightstand until now, when the terror of ScriptFrenzy (and a miserable hangover from bad decisions about margaritas last night) has told me that today I need to get into it. And so far, I must say, I dig it. Quite a bit.

image: place light via flickr

Crossing the 6,000 Page Mark: Celebrate the Middle!

Ok, so I am not at the finish line yet, but crossing 6,000 pages is a pretty big marker, and in the American Visionary Art Museum's Kinetic Sculpture Race in Baltimore, pictured above, it is the person who comes in dead middle who wins. (it is happening this Saturday, May 5 in downtown B-more near Federal Hill- if you are in town, don't miss it!)In the race's honor, I celebrate the approximate middle with my latest review and book goal for May:

image: phil g via flickr.

Challenge of 100 Days: Where are You on Your Reading?

Day 100: the day of reckoning. What are your reading stats today? I will share mine and will hope to hear from all of you about how it is going:

Caroline's Stats
Number of Books Read: 12
(Number of Books Read from Original 39: 8)
Number of Pages Read: 4267
Average Pages per day: 42.67

OK, so I'm a bit of a cheat. But as I have recently been reading about my Scanner and Renaissance Soul personality, based on two great books: Refuse to Choose, by Barbara Sher and The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine, I am a little more forgiving of myself.

Look for reviews of those beauties this week. Podcast is taping tomorrow night- send in names of career books you love and we'll share them on the show.

Image: My Buffo, via Flickr.

Jacob's Update

I am really the worst. Jacob sent the following fabulous update on his challenge progress to me ages ago, and I have been so swamped with job changing and career and health research obsession that I have not put it up until right now. Let's all give Jacob (who came up with the challenge idea in the first place with Megan and was kind enough to share it with the site here) a big hand for plowing through those pages...the picture he references in the post is the one above.

Cheating on the Challenge - I Can't Help Myself!

Caroline has talked about cheating on the Reading Challenge…and now I, Milda, find myself desperately trying not to cheat as well. I am in the midst of reading – for the Reading Challenge - “The Subtle Knife” by Phillip Pullman which is quite exciting. I am thoroughly enjoying Will and Lyra’s adventures and I want to learn all I can with them about Dust, the other worlds, and what happened to Will's father. And, I can’t wait to get to the “Amber Spyglass.” I am also reading – “Zero To Zillionaire” by Chellie Campbell, for the podcast, which is quite inspiring and motivating and makes me believe that I too can be a zillionaire. Yes, I am awesome like that – you are too – you just need to believe it.

So, I have been reading avidly and reading really good books. And, then it happened…

Books like Wine, Books like Fruit

grapes that may become wine. image: rosevita via flickr

When my aunt, another voracious reader, and I were talking about books during a visit this past year, as we often do, she shared with me about books that have been laying around too long: they go bad. Having laid around unread, for whatever reason, they lose the connection to interest that brought them into your house in the first place. The use for them dies and yet there they are, rotting on the shelf.

This seemed true to me in some cases. However, I was not too quick to condemn a book just for taking up residence in my house. And at my own invitation,too. There have been a number of cases where I have felt compelled to buy a book, but haven't gotten around to reading it for a while. It waits, sometimes for years, until one day it pops into my mind and I simply must read it. Usually these books are exactly what I need to be reading at that moment. These books have needed to age. It is these books that work like wine.

As I plow my way through this challenge, I am learning that the 39 books on my list fall into both categories. Read on for my varied plan of attack.

stepping up the stakes of the challenge

I do most of my challenge reading in bed. It's my favorite place to read, besides the beach. I have been enjoying my bedroom view as of late as I have discovered fabulous re-stickable blik wall decals. So now I feel like I am sitting by a lake with birds taking off right in my bed. Fun.

I was very sad to note today that when I added up my pages, I am barely above the average I need to maintain in order to finish on December 31, 2007. Aie. I was hoping to read more in the 50 pages a day range and finish early enough not to make National Novel Writing Month a total madhouse. So I am stepping up the stakes. I am making my progress public.