Sunday Salon: Finding the cozy mystery for me

This past week was Mystery & Thrillers Week at Goodreads, and I took the opportunity to read one of the cozy mysteries from my Overdrive wish list, Hooked on Murder. My overall reaction to it was, "Meh." I could picture my husband's aunts enjoying it, though.

I was ready to say that cozy mysteries aren't for me but after some thought, I'm going to keep looking for just the right series. Although I didn't realize it at the time, Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen is considered a cozy mystery series and I read and enjoyed five of those in rapid succession. I also read and enjoyed a couple of Barbara Bretton's books from her Sugar Maple series. Those are considered paranormal romance but the small town setting gave me a cozy mystery vibe. Perhaps the key to enjoying cozy mysteries for me is to circumvent all the books with punny titles that are set in bakeries and have recipes in the back in order to find a mystery that is historical and/or has a bit of magic in it. Any suggestions?

ABANDONED: I think it is time to admit that I am not going to read Jane Austen's Persuasion. I wanted to try the Serial Reader app and thought that starting with an Austen book would be a good way to ease myself into reading classics. There was also a retelling of this book that I was interested in reading (can't even remember the title now!). I've enjoyed many retellings of Pride and Prejudice without ever having read it but I'm starting to feel a little guilty about that, so I thought I should read the original first this time. That was a month ago and I'm still only 12% done. The language is more twisty than I expected. I realize now that the only other time I attempted Austen was in audio form and I understood it just fine. It sounds like I need to see if my library has Persuasion on audio or give Librovox a try.

CURRENTLY READING: I'm almost done with the Seven Brides for Seven Mail-Order Husbands Romance Collection, which I received as a digital ARC through NetGalley. To be honest, I have read better novella collections from Barbour Publishing, but it is a good book for me to have on the go. Even though I am trying to break out of my historical romance rut, I find myself craving it after I read one or two books from another genre. Novella collections like this are good to keep handy so I can get my fix and then move on.

UPCOMING: I took a detour for Mystery & Thrillers Week, but now it is time to get back to my ARCs. As I've written before, it weighs on me to have them sitting here unread. In addition to the one mentioned above, I have a graphic novel interpretation of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and The Little French Bistro by Nina George. I will probably read The Good Earth last because I'm hoping that it will put me in the mood to read the other four graphic novels that have been gathering dust on my bedside table for nearly a year.

So, what are you reading next?

Sunday Salon: It's a Wash

In January, I wrote a post about reading only from my TBR list until the end of March. I also tried to resist the urge to add any new books during that time. Well, we are almost at the end of March and I'd say that I broke even. I read eight books that have been on my radar for a while, but they came from the free books on my iPad and my wish list at the library. This means my Goodreads TBR list didn't decrease at all. In fact, it increased because I added six books. So, like I said, the challenge was a wash. I'm still going to make an effort to get through the books on my lists, either by reading or purging.

One thing this personal challenge caused me to do is to think more carefully before I add a title to my TBR list. I added six titles in the past three months but there were about 15 titles that I didn't add. My routine has been to add any book whose title I want to remember, and then every few months I delete titles that no longer interest me. There are worse ways to kill time on a lazy afternoon than clearing out my TBR list, but I'd rather spend that time reading.

I also came to the realization that I don't finish books as quickly as I thought. I've read 14 books total since the beginning of the year, but I expected to read twice that many in the space of three months. The reading itself goes quickly, but when I put a book down it takes longer for me to pick it back up. I don't seem to need reading as an escape as much right now as I have during other times of my life. For instance, this time last year I was working a stressful job and I picked up a book every chance I got. I finished 24 books by the end of March 2016 and 11 of those books were novella collections with at least five stories each so they were LONG books. I know that reading isn't a race, but I'm sure I would get more enjoyment out of a book than with whatever else I'm wasting time on.

The last thing that slowed down the clearing-out of my TBR list was that I signed up for NetGalley. In the past, I only requested advanced reader copies (ARCs) occasionally and rarely received them; before this year, I think I only read and reviewed two. However, it occurred to me that I could provide a better reader experience by reviewing some upcoming releases along with the backlist titles. With my past experience, I requested several ARCs at once because I expected that I would have to wait a while to get any. Boy, was I wrong! I got every title I asked for almost immediately. I know that there are bloggers who stack up ARCs and keep requesting more as if it is no big deal, but the pressure of the looming publication date weighs me down. If I don't write a review for each ARC before its publication date I know that I will feel guilty. Currently, I've reviewed two ARCs and have four to read, so I won't be requesting any more for a while. After I read these, I want to get back to knocking titles off my TBR list.

Sunday Salon: On Reading More Black Authors

You would think that since I am a black woman I read a lot of books by black authors. Sadly, that is not the case. When I was a teen, I read a lot of poetry and there were poets like Alice Walker and Nikki Giovanni in the mix. I had a fascination with the 1960s and 1970s so I gravitated towards works that came out of the feminist and Black Power movements. I was the one who banged the gong for Walker's "The Color Purple" and tried to get my friends to read it long before it was turned into a movie. That was the last time I remember consciously choosing to read something by a black author.

I read sporadically after high school graduation and while my kids were young, but I didn't really get back into reading on a regular basis until about nine years ago when someone introduced me to Christian historical romances. I fell down that rabbit hole hard! This subgenre appeals to the same part of me that enjoyed previewing middle-grade books for my kids. I get a good story with a guaranteed happy ending, and I can recommend the books without hesitation to a friend without worrying about whether the language or love scenes would offend them. There was something calming about these books that got me through my mother-in-law's death and two years of stress on my last job. It never occurred to me that the books were written almost exclusively by middle-aged white women until recently.

My quandary is that I want to read black authors but I'm having trouble finding books that interest me. Books written by and/or for black people tend to feature a lot about "the struggle". Just because I am black doesn't mean that I spend all day every day thinking about how difficult it is to be a black person in America. I'm confronted with enough articles and nonfiction books about the issue that I want my fiction to be escapism. Historicals are out because, well, slavery. Urban fiction or "thug romance" may appeal to a certain demographic who recognize that as their reality, but I am a lower-middle-class woman who lives in a subdivision. Can't I have romances where a doctor or millionaire sweeps the heroine off her feet, and she just happens to be black? Clearly, I will have to do more research to find what I want instead of just taking random recommendations from the algorithms on Goodreads and Overdrive.

LAST WEEK: I read and wrote reviews for the first two books in Penny Reid's Knitting in the City series, Neanderthal Seeks Human and Neanderthal Marries Human.

UPCOMING: After all that talk, I have a black romance next on my reading list. I've read five books so far this year, and four of them have been contemporary romances. This is unusual for me and I am really craving a historical romance. Luckily I still have that new Jen Turano novella on my iPad!

Sunday Salon, 22 Jan 2017

My reading week has gone more slowly than I had planned. I only read and reviewed one book and it was a short one, "Love by the Letter". It had been a while since I read a Christian historical romance, and this novella started the craving all over again. This desire to stay cradled in the warmth of that subgenre is what has made it difficult for me to switch gears and read the other books on my TBR lists that are contemporary romance or thrillers or anything else. I've got to break free for the sake of my brain. Mental challenge is what prevents senility, right?

The other habit that slowed down my reading is my tendency to fiddle with planning rather than actually doing. In this case, I was fiddling with my blog. Not that the fiddling was useless; this blog has been semi-dormant for over a year and in the meantime, I have learned about tweaks I should make to bring it up to date, such as creating a disclosure policy. So I did a few things that needed to be done, but I didn't have to take as long as I did. I get absorbed in the minutia and lose track time.

UPCOMING: I'm trying to clear my Kindle app and my library wish list by starting with titles that have been on the list the longest and moving up (skipping over how-to non-fiction like cookbooks and craft books). So this week's choices are 31 Kisses by Chautona Havig or Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Mester. The first choice is a slight cheat because, although contemporary, it is a Christian romance and will probably draw me further into the sweet romance cocoon. The second choice is a comic ghost story about a woman being haunted by the famous Dorothy Parker, and it has the advantage of being an audiobook so I can get some knitting done while I listen. Maybe I should be ambitious and try to fit them both in this week.

Sunday Salon: Paring down my TBR list and other thoughts

After I posted my thoughts on how to move forward with this blog, I immediately went to Goodreads and started culling titles from my TBR list. I removed 74 titles but that still left me with a total of 383 books to read. Many of the books I removed were YA titles that I really added to my list so I would remember to check them out of the library for my kids. Considering that my kids now range in age from 18 to 23 and three of them no longer live with me, I think I can officially give up my household role of Bringer of the Books :-).

So what do I do next? Well, I think that my goal from two years ago is still valid. I'm going to do my best to stop adding books to my TBR list and stop downloading free books on my iPad, at least until the end of March. I've actually done pretty well on avoiding the free Kindle books. I canceled my subscription to all the free book emails, which helped a lot. I only ended up downloading five books in 2016 and one of them was a book I actually purchased and read right away. The next book I plan to review is another one I downloaded in 2016, so I think I will continue down that road and keep reading from my Kindle collection for the next couple months. I really don't want to go into 2018 looking at the same collection of books on my iPad.

I would also like to work out a new strategy for reading the Overdrive ebooks from my library. The new Overdrive app doesn't work on my old iPad and I won't be buying a new one anytime soon. Many of the ebooks from the library are available in Kindle format as well as Overdrive format, so it isn't an immediate problem. I do prefer using the Overdrive format, however, because it is easier to return books and delete them from within the app. Right now, I can either read the Overdrive ebooks on my iPhone or on my laptop. The iPhone screen is too small and the laptop is not portable due to a bad battery. As an alternative, I may go to my favorite pawn shop to see how much used e-readers are going for these days and if they have one that will work with Overdrive. If I can get one for less than $50, that may solve my issue, at least until Overdrive upgrades again.

LAST WEEK: I read my first book of the year, and it was a romance novel. That's not new, but it was a contemporary romance which is unusual for me. My review of "Truth or Beard" is here.

I also posted my first Gentle Media review, which is where I review a TV show or movie (usually from a streaming service) that some people would call "clean" or "sweet". I'm not talking about moralistic or religious movies; I'm just talking about something with little violence or cursing and usually has a happy ending. If you have ever binged on Hallmark movies, then you know what I'm talking about. My review of "Terrace House" can be found here.

UPCOMING: This week I plan to read and review "Love By The Letter" by Melissa Jagears and "Just Desserts" by Claudia Bishop. Both are books that I already own, so I'll be making a tiny dent in the TBR list.

Sunday Salon: Temptation Everywhere!

Until I put a halt to adding books to my to-be-read list, I didn't realize how often I ran into information about books. Besides the three daily newsletters that notify me about free e-books, I have reading recommendations staring me in the face on Goodreads, on my library's website, and in my Facebook newsfeed. Then, when I'm watching the Today show or CBS Sunday Morning, there is usually at least one or two authors saying something interesting that makes me want to check out their books. There is temptation everywhere I look!

One of the reasons I set this no-add goal was to get out of my rut and read something on my list that wasn't a prairie romance, and I started that last week. I read Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. I've watched a couple of movies based on his novels, so I knew his books weren't exactly happy. Still, that book took a little longer for me to finish because I knew after 10 pages that there wasn't going to be a happy ending. Hornby is great with words and there were several passages that made me smile, but overall it was a book where the characters didn't really seem any better off by the end of the book. That's a little sad for me, but I'm glad that I pushed myself to read something different. I'm treating myself to another prairie romance before I tackle another tough book :-).

Sunday Salon: Zinio for Libraries -- A source I keep forgetting about

Recently I was preparing for a relaxing getaway, and nowadays that means loading my iPad with entertainment options that don't require internet access. I usually make sure I have one or two e-books on my device, but there are times where I want to flip through a magazine while chatting with my husband. That's when I remembered that my library offers access to Zinio for Libraries. 

With Zinio for Libraries, I can download digital versions of the magazines that the library subscribes to and read them either on my laptop, my phone, or my tablet. Our house is a mix of Android, Windows, and iOS users, and we are all covered. The process to use the service is a little clunky. Basically you go to your library's website to see if they have a banner or link proclaiming that they subscribe to Zinio for Libraries. Once you click through to the library's collection of magazine offerings and pick one, you will be taken to Zinio's website to sign up for Zinio or log in to your existing account. Then you have to open the Zinio app on your chosen device and actually download the magazine. As I said, the process is a little convoluted, but some of the magazines I like are $50/year for a subscription so I think it is worth it. I don't know why I keep forgetting that I can do this!

TBR LIST 2014: This is the first full week of 2014, so I guess I should take a moment and look at how many books I have on my to-be-read list. I don't really have to do this since most of my books come from the library. It is not like they are taking up space in my house. Still I like to take stock from time to time.

My general TBR list increased from 275 titles in June 2013 to 391 books as of today, but that isn't the whole story. My list of books I want to read but that aren't at my library has 172 titles on it, and I went from 25 books in my Kindle app to 110 books. I have a bit of an addiction to download free books from Amazon :-). The majority of them are romances and I keep downloading them because once I get in the mood to read that genre, I zip through two a week. I'm trying to be more discerning about what I download, though, instead of just grabbing every free book I find.

UPCOMING: With my spring semester starting this week and a new job possibly starting next week, I don't know how much leisure reading time I will have this month. The kids also have exams coming up so they will only be concentrating on assigned reading. My goal to do more reading over the winter break fell victim to my other goals of knitting more and spending more time with the kids. Perhaps when summer rolls around I can crack a book that isn't for a class.

Sunday Salon: Allowing myself to own books again

For most of my life, I have been a borrower rather than a buyer of books. I've never been truly poor, but choices always have to be made and buying books didn't figure into the budget. There was a brief period as a young adult when I started building up a small collection of my own, mostly consisting of books I found at thrift shops and library book sales. Then I got married to a non-reader who didn't see the value in taking up space with shelves full of books I'd already read, so I got rid of my budding collection and went back to exclusively borrowing books from the library.

Restricting myself to only borrowing shaped my attitude towards books and eventually other belongings. As long as I have access to a book or a TV show or a piece of music, I am fine with not owning it. We are major consumers of streaming services like Spotify and Netflix, and we make weekly trips to the library. My teenagers have become accustomed to getting rid of one old item of clothing for every new item they bring in. We are not minimalists, but we are trying to live a less cluttered life.  And yet . . .

I found myself coveting a book that I borrowed from the library last week: The Knitter's Life List: To Do, To Know, To Explore, To Make. Although it isn't a workbook, it is the type of book that I can see myself scribbling notes in and marking down dates as I complete different tasks. I even imagined passing it down to my daughters and having them show it to their kids, saying, "Your grandmother was a knitter and this is a record of her knitting life." Crazy, I know, but for the first time in a long time I really want to own a book. A brand new book, not a book from the 50-cent table at the library book sale. Even more surprisingly, when I told my husband that I wanted this book for the next gift-giving occasion, he didn't put up a fuss. We've been married so long that we've run out of reasonably-priced gifts to buy each other; I guess he was happy that I gave him a simple idea!

I don't know if I am going to turn into a full-on book buyer after a couple decades of faithful library patronage, but I am realizing that there are books that I would appreciate more over time as part of my personal collection.

Sunday Salon: Trying to break out of my rut

I've been in a rut as far as my fiction selections are concerned. My nonfiction selections are varied, but the novels I pick are usually romances. I often narrow things down even further and pick historical romances set in America in the 1800s. For a while I tried to make myself feel better about it. Like a lot of people, I was once rather dismissive of romance novels and embarrassed to let people know I read them. I've (almost) gotten over that, but I still want to become more well-read and vary my reading choices.

With that in mind, I picked up John Dies at the End by David Wong. I was attracted to this book because the blurb reminded me of a scarier version of the Sesame Street children's book The Monster at the End of this Book:

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. 

So far I've gotten to page 21 and I don't know if I will even be able to give this book the 50-page test. The humor and the absurd situations reminds me of Tom Robbins, whose novels I loved in my 20s even when I didn't always understand them. However, in the scenarios where Robbins usually referenced sex, Wong references a violent act or something that you would see in a gross-out comedy. Part of me wants to keep reading it because it is different than what I usually read, and I've always heard that smart people push themselves through difficult prose. On the other hand, I have 250+ titles on my TBR list and many of them are not romances. I could push myself with a title that doesn't talk about a doorknob turning into a flaccid male member in the protagonist's hand.

UPCOMING: The Great Gatsby is next on my list. My daughter C1 was assigned this book for summer reading and I told her that I would read it with her if she wanted. I read it when I was a teenager but didn't understand it, so it has been on my short list of "try again" books for quite a while. At first she said she didn't want my help ("We are not a book club, Mother"), but then she surrendered to the idea about six pages in. I hope the intervening years have sharpened my brain enough to understand the book more this time. If not, there is always Sparknotes!

Sunday Salon: Audio books and e-books on No-Screen Day?

Every Monday this summer is going to be No-Screen Day at our house. I decided to do this to break our dependence on tech as a means of entertainment, at least a little. In particular, I want us to get back to reading more. For the past year I have been checking out library books and sending them back unread because I have been spending too much time on the internet and watching TV. I figured if I instituted a No-Screen Day for the entire house, it would be easier for all of us to get back into our non-tech hobbies.

My dilemma is this. I want to get some knitting done during our No-Screen Days but I normally watch TV while I knit. Would it be cheating to listen to an audio book? I'm going to allow the kids to listen to internet radio because terrestrial radio reception in this area is lousy. What about e-books? I didn't check out any novels during our last library trip, and crochet stitch collections don't make for scintillating reading. I do plan to play cards with the kids, but we can't do that all day.

QUESTION: Do you think that partaking of e-books and audio books would be cheating on a No-Screen Day? Do you ever take a break from your tech?

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Since we are halfway through the year, I thought it might be a good time to check in on my reading progress. 

I am about halfway through the Goodreads Reading Challenge. I set my goal for this year at 25 books. Right now I'm at 13 books read and eight of them were non-fiction. I want to add more novels to that total because I think that most people are talking about fiction when they tally how many books they've read. Counting cookbooks and health-related books in my total always makes me feel a little guilty.

My TBR list stands at 275 titles, or 420 titles if you count the ones on my "not at my library" list. This also doesn't count the 25 e-books on my iPad or the books on my wishlist at the NC Digital Library site. I feel like I'm just adding books to my lists instead of reading them. On my TBR list alone, I added 33 books this year which is 20 more than I read. I know that I can't read all the books I want to read in my lifetime, but I could be reading a lot more than I do. Time to fill my empty hours with purpose!

Sunday Salon: Thoughts on Google Reader; Too Many Ebooks?

Although some people in the tech media like to say that blogs are gone, I am still a great fan of them and I am always running across new ones in my internet travels. Today my search for headband patterns led me to a blog about crocheting, and after looking at a few posts I wanted to bookmark it to read later. This is where I stumbled to a halt. Normally I would add it to my Google Reader and move on. With Google Reader shutting down in July, however, I need to find another way to keep track of my blogs.

There are many potential Google Reader replacements out there, but that makes it worse. I can be a tad indecisive, and when presented with so many options I tend to freeze and not pick anything. It was easier when I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader because there weren't any other prominent choices out there. I've managed to narrow my choices down to three: Flipboard, Feedly, and Google Currents. They are all free, which was a must. Flipboard is very pretty, but I always have the feeling that I am missing something because it mixes all the feeds together to make a magazine-like format. Google Currents seems like an obvious successor to Google Reader since they are from the same company, but Currents it is only for tablets and smartphones. I like having the option to read on the desktop, as well. Feedly is closer to Google Reader but it doesn't look as pretty on my iPad screen as the other two. I should just pick one and use it for an extended period.

QUESTION:  Have you settled on an alternative to Google Reader yet?

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There was a thread on Goodreads about how many unread books you have on your Kindle, Nook, or other ereader. Since I tend to only download free ebooks from Amazon or borrow them from the library, my collection is not that vast. Not counting cookbooks or how-to books, I have 24 unread ebooks on my iPad. That is pretty close to my limit. I don't have a specific number in mind for how many is too many, but I start to feel piggish if there are a lot of books on my tablet. The only exception to this is when I am about to go on vacation. We usually spend a week without internet or TV, so I like to have a lot of reading on hand for travel time and downtime. I made it through a book and a half in the van before we even got to our destination last year!

Sunday Salon: Ever have a story hangover?

Many times when I pick up a novel, I am in the mood for a certain type of story. Last week, I was craving my old standby, what I call the prairie romance. Lauraine Snelling has written some of my favorite books in the genre, so I picked up one of her books that I hadn't read yet from the library. I finished it in no time flat, but the next book in the series isn't available. Even though I know that the library will send me an email when it is available, I've found myself picking up my iPad at odd times of the day as if I am still reading my book and I have another chapter left. I really want to immerse myself in Prairie Romance Land but I don't have a book on the go. This type of thing has happened to me before. Usually I have another book in the genre that I can turn to, but occasionally the book is so particular that another book won't satisfy. That was the case when I finished reading the Harry Potter series. This "story hangover" isn't as severe, but I still wish I had another Snelling book in my hand.

QUESTION: Which book or series gave you the worst story hangover?

CURRENTLY READING: ABM and I are still on our healthy living kick. We started back in September, so this is no New Year's resolution fling. It looks like we are in it for the long haul this time. To keep me motivated, I picked up a book called Younger Next Year for Women by Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry S. Lodge. There are women who don't like the language in this book, but I am finding it encouraging. If my algebra homework doesn't get in the way, I may be able to write a post about it this week.

UP NEXT: In physical book form, I have Where'd You Go, Bernadette along with some diet and exercise books. However, I will probably end up scouring my library's e-book site for another book to satisfying my craving for a prairie romance. They are like popcorn!

Sunday Salon: My husband asked for a book!

My husband ABM does not read novels. I do not like to say that he is not a reader, because he will research subjects that he is interested in online and check out home improvement books from the library. The majority of his family doesn't even do that much. We live in the same area ABM grew up in and his family is the type to hassle someone for "gettin' above their raisin'", so I am proud of him for moving beyond what he knew. Still, he doesn't read stories for pleasure. So imagine my surprise when he asked me to find him some audiobooks to listen to while he works out! Some people don't consider audiobooks proper reading, but they are closer than my husband has gotten to reading a novel in 20 years.

Since I didn't want ABM to lose interest in the idea, I immediately installed Overdrive on his iPad and jumped onto the NC Digital Library site to find something for him. It was tough finding a book that would appeal to him. Many of the titles I thought he would like were already checked out or were incompatible with the iPad. I finally settled on these three:

--Quitters, Inc by Stephen King because his prose is simple and to the point. I was afraid something flowery and literary would be too much for him.
--Gone Fishin' by Walter Mosley because the author is black, the character is black, and the reader is black. ABM was raised to be acutely aware of race and it pleases my husband to see more of "our" faces anywhere. Sometimes that it enough to hook him into a movie or something else that he might not otherwise have paid attention to.
--California Demon by Julie Kenner. This one was a long shot, but I thought he might want something lighter. Also, since it is about a demon-hunting soccer mom, the book fits in with our TV-viewing tastes.

The results? Well, ABM didn't try the Julie Kenner book and abandoned the Stephen King book after about two minutes. He said the Walter Mosley book was interesting but moved too slowly for him to keep a good pace on the treadmill. So my next task is to find him something funny, possibly a book written and read by a comedian. I welcome the challenge if it means that I might end up with a husband whose interests are moving closer to mine.

Sunday Salon: Cheating on the classics

Yesterday my 19-year-old daughter was reading a graphic novel adaptation of Great Expectations, and it got me thinking about whether reading an adaptation or an abridged version of a classic novel is cheating. Charles Dickens, much like Shakespeare, is an author whose work is referenced frequently in modern media and it would do a person well to know at least the basic plots of his stories. If I hadn't familiarized myself with the story of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, I would not have been able to appreciate Shannon Hale's book Austenland or the ITV miniseries Lost in Austen.

I can hear the book nerds and literature majors screaming now. "The reason to read a classic is to appreciate the author's use of the language!" In a perfect or smaller world, that would be my stance, as well. However, we are no longer living in the days when it was possible to read all the "important" books. Not even the supposed literary experts can agree on a list what the important books are, so I have stopped beating myself up about not having read all the classics. Perhaps I will go back someday and read Austen or Dickens' works in their original form, but reading the adaptations or abridged versions at least gives me a baseline knowledge to work with.

What do you think? Is reading an abridged version of a classic better than never reading it at all? 

CURRENTLY READING:  The book by Baratunde Thurston entitled How to Be Black has been sitting on my bedside table for a little while, and I finally cracked it open yesterday. I'm only about 40 pages in, so I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. I've heard Thurston on various technology podcasts; his style of humor is mildly amusing on the air but seems a bit stale on the page. When he gets more serious and talks about what it was like growing up black in areas that are dominated by whites, I appreciate the book more. Hopefully the tone evens out in the remainder of the book.

I'm also flipping through Eat This, Not That! 2012: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution. I read the 2008 version a while back, so I'm just perusing this one to see what has changed. This book and the others in the series are a good reminder that even when you are making the choice to eat fast food or junk food, you can mitigate the damage by choosing a less-fattening menu item.

UPCOMING: I still have Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection and The Best of Everything sitting on my bedside, but I don't know if I will get to them before they have to go back to the library. I'm really in the mood to read a couple of the quick romances that are on my tablet and my iPhone. Try as I might, I still can't help feeling guilty when I choose easy-to-read books over the ones that I "should" read. 

Sunday Salon: Got my hopes up for nothing

As I was reading Sunday Salon entries this evening, I was looking up the books that bloggers mentioned on Goodreads, as I am wont to do. If a book's synopsis strikes a chord with me, I will check my library's website to see if they have the book. Today I noticed that the Goodreads page for a book had a Libraries link among the Get a Copy links for Amazon and such. I thought to myself, "This might be a shortcut in my Sunday Salon routine." I clicked the link and saw that it led to the book's entry on Worldcat, a website that gives a user access to the collections of libraries around the world. Cool!

Unfortunately, it wasn't as cool as I thought. Worldcat does not always show the books that are available in my local library system. I tried searching for two different books that I borrowed from my library this week. Worldcat shows only one of them as being part of my library's collection. I thought it might be a problem with what edition was being pulled up so I tried all the editions and none of them showed up as being available at my library. It is nice that Goodreads is offering the option to check your local library for a book, but I wouldn't be able to trust Worldcat's results. I'll just stick to my system for now.

CURRENTLY READING: I picked up Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food last week, but it didn't really strike my fancy. I don't think I will even put it on my Goodreads' Abandoned shelf. I only read 20 pages of it so it is barely worth mentioning. I'm not saying that it is a bad book, though. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy it, I suppose.

2012 READING CHALLENGE:  As I mentioned last week, the Goodreads widget was counting books that I added to my Abandoned shelf as part of my books-read total. Once I fixed that issue, my count dropped by 10. I've read 35 books toward my 50-title goal. My college semester ends mid-December, so I may be able to meet my goal if I go on an internet fast during the last two weeks of the year. Giving up TV won't be difficult because I'm not big on holiday movies and specials, but I'm still hooked on Facebook games that cut into my reading time.

UPCOMING: My library haul this week is a hodgepodge of novels, memoirs, finance books, and social commentary. Who knows which one I will be in the mood to read this week?

Sunday Salon: E-reader hijacked by daughter!

When my daughter C2's tablet stopped working recently, I offered to share my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 with her while we figured out whether we were going to buy another one. I'm not using mine that much now that I'm at home every day, and I figured that she didn't use her old tablet much, either. Boy, was I wrong! It turns out that her tablet was her preferred device for reading manga. C2 is my reluctant reader so I don't want to discourage any form of reading. However, the Galaxy Tab (which we call Sammie) was also my preferred device for reading novels in bed because the light on it doesn't keep my husband awake. Now we have to decide who gets custody of Sammie! I'm kidding myself; C2 will get full-time custody of Sammie, at least for the time being. I have two devices, my husband has four, and the two other kids at home each have an iPod Touch. C2 doesn't have anything, so I'll let her have Sammie for a while. Anything to encourage reading!

2012 READING CHALLENGE: I thought my Goodreads reading goal was well within reach, but I discovered a flaw in my tracking. Apparently, the Goodreads widget uses the "date finished" to determine how many books I've read for the year. Not knowing this, I was entering the date finished on my abandoned books, too, so these books are counting toward my goal. Another thing I do is track the cookbooks and craft books I've borrowed from the library so that I don't keep borrowing the same ones over and over. However, I don't think most cookbooks should count as a book I read. Some are full of anecdotes and such, but most of them are just recipes.

CURRENTLY READING:  Nothing but textbooks :-(. However, my semester ends in a month and I will get a two-week break -- possibly longer if I can't secure tuition for next semester.

UP NEXT: On my bedside table I have Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food, but I'm not really in the mood for it. I have a taste for something vintage, so I may pick up The Best of Everything which has been on my TBR list for about three years.

Sunday Salon: My Textbook Troubles

The video above is just a little bookish silliness from my daughter's YouTube channel.

I've just gotten through my first official week of school. Both of my classes are online, but not all online classes are created equal. My Intro to Computers class uses a physical textbook, but there is also a supplemental website with games and flashcards to help me study the important terms in each chapter. My American Music class, on the other hand, is just the textbook. Now, I was a child of the 70s and 80s, so I grew up with cramming knowledge into my brain through rote memorization and what sometimes felt like brute force. However, I have embraced technology in the intervening years and am finding it difficult to make myself stare at the page and will the information to implant itself into my head. I've got to learn how to study again. I didn't think it would be this tough.

CURRENTLY READING:  The Guinea Pig Diaries by A. J. Jacobs. Previously I expressed my doubts as to whether I would like this book since his previous books have been hit-or-miss with me. So far it is enjoyable. Instead of chronicling one large experiment, this book is a collection of essays detailing various adventures Jacobs has embarked upon, some of which were previously published in Esquire. Because of this, Jacobs does not drag on the way I felt he did in The Know-It-All. 

UPCOMING: I think I may have overestimated how much leisure reading I will be able to get done while taking classes. However, I will not be taking schoolwork with me when we go on vacation in a few weeks. I tend to get a lot of reading done on vacation, but my choices will be limited by what ebooks my library has available when I'm ready to go. Last year I read two nonfiction books, but this year I will probably go for more traditional beach reads. A nice frothy romance will be perfect while I'm relaxing in a deck chair!

Sunday Salon: School days are nigh

The end of our summer vacation is fast approaching. My daughter M is returning to university this weekend (tomorrow as I write this, today as you read this) and high school will be in session for my other three kids a week later. Usually I am not excited about the start of school because it signals the return of schedules and hounding my kids to complete their homework. However, this year I am bouncing up and down in my seat because I will be returning to school myself! I will be working toward my associate's degree in computer information technology. It has been over 20 years since I have been a full-time student and I am pretty excited. I need to thank whatever committee in the NC state government that is responsible for making online classes available at community-college prices because I wouldn't be able to do this otherwise. Outside of my career goals, I'm hoping that taking classes will wake up my brain. Use it or lose it, as they say. The pressure of reading and writing reports to meet a deadline will hopefully sharpen my blogging skills.

CURRENTLY READING: To keep me from getting antsy while I wait for my textbooks to arrive, I started reading Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen. This is the last installment of the Royal Spyness series -- at least, the last one available at my local library. I believe there is a Christmas story due to be published later this year. After this book, I may try to stray away from series for a while. It is easier for me to write reviews of one-off novels than it is to try to review a book in the middle of a series without ruining it for those who haven't read the first book.

UPCOMING:  The next book on my bedside table is The Guinea Pig Diaries by A. J. Jacobs. I usually enjoy stunt memoirs and A. J. Jacobs is the first author who springs to mind when I think of this genre. However, I don't have any expectations when it comes to this book. The Year of Living Biblically was enjoyable, but The Know-It-All bored me so much I didn't even finish it. It's a toss-up as to whether I will like this one.

Sunday Salon: Beat the heat with a book

If you are in the southeastern or midwestern US as you read this, then there is a chance that you know how I feel right now. All my plans for working around the house are on hold until the temperatures return to something approaching normal. The family is already settling into a new heat wave routine that involves getting any cooking or anything strenuous done before 1p. At that point in the day, the heat becomes too much for our fans and window units to handle. When the cooled air is still 87 degrees, I think the only sensible choice is to wear as little clothing as possible, sit still, and read a book.

Friday I finished off Royal Flush, the third book in Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness series, and then I started and finished an Aussie YA novel called Pink by Lili Wilkinson (my thoughts on this book will be posted later this week). It has been quite a while since I've read an entire book in one morning, and my eyes reminded me that I am not a teenager any longer. When I finished the second book, my vision was so blurry that I couldn't focus on my surroundings. It took a few hours for my vision to revert back to my version of normal. From now on, I need to remember to take breaks to rest my eyes!

I don't know what I will be reading this week. We haven't made a library trip for the past two weeks since we were preoccupied with the end of my job and my son's surgery. I haven't even reserved any books online for my husband to pick up. So if I read anything this week, it will probably come from my local library's selection of ebooks and downloadable audio books. I've also toyed with the idea of revisiting my goal of reading books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. Stay tuned to see what I come up with!

Sunday Salon: Books -- Possessions or Experiences?

Hold on to your hats, folks -- I bought a book.

True, it was only a 99-cent ebook, but long-time readers of my blog know that I get all my books from the library. Even my ebooks and audio books come from the library's website. However, I was reading a book that I enjoyed so much that I couldn't wait to read more of the author's work, so I went straight to Amazon and bought one of her books. It was a surprise to me how quickly and easily I did it since I have a slight fear of spending money.

Buying this ebook made me think again about the relationship that I and other readers have with books. A big reason why I've rejected ebooks in the past is that I had trouble paying for something that I couldn't hold in my hand. This past week has shown me that I don't always have to have the physical book. I didn't mind paying 99 cents for the chance to experience the book, almost in the same way you pay for entrance to a concert or a play. I haven't settled yet on an upper limit of what I am willing to pay for an ebook, but thinking of an ebook as an experience rather than a possession has made it easier for me to part with my cash.

QUESTION: Do you have trouble spending money on digital items?

2012 Goodreads Reading Challenge:  We are halfway through the year, so I thought it might be a good idea to revisit my one and only reading challenge. For those who don't know, the Goodreads challenge is a simple one -- you set your own goal for how many books you want to read by the end of the year. The site keeps track of how close you are by monitoring your Read shelf. 

My goal was 50 books read by the end of the year, and thus far I've finished 28 books. That puts me five books ahead of schedule. Starting Thursday, I will be spending a lot of time in doctors' offices and hospital rooms (my son's surgery is on Friday). I imagine that I will be doing a lot of reading to distract myself. That goal may be toast by August!