Book Awards Reading Challenge

Cross-posted at my blog.

Holes, written by Louis Sachar, is a novel for kids from about ten years old to fourteen. It won the 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the 1999 Newbery medal, and many smaller awards. In 2003, it was made into a Disney film, with numerous changes from the book. In 2006, Sachar wrote a companion book, Small Steps, which includes some of the same characters.

The main character is Stanley Yelnats. Stanley is a nice kid, but he has bad luck which is tied to one of the back stories. He ends up being sent to a juvenile detention camp where he is forced, along with the other detainees, to dig holes in the hot sun every day. There are a couple intertwining back stories, and as the reader puts together these stories, it is gradually revealed why the boys are digging the holes. Between flashbacks to these other stories, we see Stanley gain the respect of the other boys. You can read an excerpt (the first chapter) here.

I really enjoyed Holes and would recommend it to a pre-teen kid who was looking for a good book. There's subtle humor throughout, and the characters are all interesting. Stanley, a bright kid with a lot of integrity, is particularly likeable. What I liked best, though, was the structure, which alternated stories from Stanley's time at Camp Green Lake with some of his memories of his family life, a backstory about the history of the Green Lake area, and another backstory about Stanley's ancestors.

My son has read the book twice. A friend of his who enjoyed it gave it to him for his 10th birthday (at the Harry Potter sleepover party!) and then he was assigned to read it in school. I asked for his opinion of the book, but maybe it wasn't such great timing to ask while he was playing a video game. All he said was, "Mm-hm, pretty good."

Cross-posted at my blog.

I read The View from Saturday for the Newbery Challenge. I'm enjoying reading the Newbery books for this challenge so much that I just might set myself a personal challenge to read every Newbery Medal winner.

In this novel for kids from about 8 to 12 years old, four sixth graders form a trivia team. Their coach is their social studies teacher, who has been away from teaching for ten years due to a car accident which left her confined to a wheelchair. The four sixth graders are connected in other ways, mostly through their grandparents. Their strengths complement each other, and this, combined with dedicated practice, helps them become an unbeatable team.

I found the dialogue, especially that of the kids, stilted and not a very good reflection of how kids this age actually speak. Nadia, the only girl on the team, doesn't use contractions at all. In theory, I think this sounds like a good way to portray Nadia as a serious, intelligent girl, but in practice, it makes her sound pompous. I'm pretty sure that in real life, Nadia would be mercilessly picked on by the other kids, who would imitate and mock her odd speech patterns. Instead, Julian (my favorite character) is picked on because he wears shorts with knee socks (which I do think is realistic). None of the four kids care about what their peers think of them, though; in fact, they don't seem interested in any social interaction with anyone but each other.

Other than some problems with dialogue, though, this was an enjoyable story, and I particularly liked the sections taking place in Florida, where three of the kids' grandparents live.

My favorite character, Julian, is Indian, and he has grown up on cruise ships, where his father has worked. At the time the novel takes place, though, Julian's father has bought a bed and breakfast in the town where the others live, and Julian becomes friends with them by inviting them to a tea party via coded messages.

As I suspected, Konigsburg herself was a teacher. Children's books that take place mostly in schools so often seem to be written by school librarians or teachers. And why not? Who else could even try to write realistic scenes taking place in a classroom? It's funny when Snape verbally abuses the kids at Hogwarts, but kids know that Snape couldn't get away with that in a real, non-magical school.

Konigsburg has a new book being published this year, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World. I can't really say yet that I'm looking forward to reading it, but I am looking forward to seeing reviews about it that will help me decide whether to read it.

Apparently I never posted this here, although it's been on my blog for over a month

The Sparrow (Arthur C Clarke Award)
The Life of Pi (Man Booker Prize)
Disgrace (Commonwealth Writers Award)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Costa/ Whitbread Award)
A Complicated Kindness (Governor General's Award)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Hugo Award)
Out Stealing Horses (IMPAC Dublin Award)
G (James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
The Great Fire (Miles Franklin Literature award)
Cold Mountain (National Book Award)
All the Pretty Horses (National Book Critics Award)
Bel Canto (Orange Prize)
Independance Day (PEN/ Faulkner Award)
Housekeeping (PEN/ Hemmingway Award)
Middlesex (Pulitzer)
I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company (Spur Award)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

McCarthy won a Pulitzer Prize for this, his most recent novel set in a post-apocalyptic world. In sparse language he tells the story of a father and son who travel “The Road” in search of a better world. Essentially, they are trying to escape to an un-named location where they hope to find food, shelter, and a better life. There are grim scenes in this novel, when we realize that the boy’s mother has killed herself so as not to have to live in this nightmarish situation. There are scenes of gruesome cannibalism when we realize that, desperate to survive, some people have captured their fellow human beings and are keeping them in the cellar, eating them a little at a time.

Although I found the story to be compelling and, in the end, hopeful, I can’t say that I enjoyed this book, liked it, or would even recommend it to someone else. I have read other books in a similar post-apocalyptic setting, such as Adam Rapp’s excellent book The Copper Elephant or even Lois Lowry’s The Giver (which, although not post-apocalyptic, is, in essence, about a dystopian society). I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t like it, but I just never cared for the characters.

On to my next book in the Reading Challenge!
-Katie M. www.lifeattheburrow.blogspot.com

I realized I never posted my list of books to read for this challenge.

(5/12)

Booker Prize
1997 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Gold Dagger Award
1993 Cruel and Unusual by Patricia Cornwell

National Book Award
1980 The World According to Garp by John Irving (DNF)
2003 Three Junes by Julia Glass completed 8.5.07
2006 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers completed 11.26.07

Pulitzer Prize
2003 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides completed 1.26.08

PEN/Hemingway
1988 The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton

Newbery Award
1994 The Giver by Lois Lowry completed 1.27.08

NBCC Award
1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

Royal Society Prize
1996 Plague’s Progress, Arno Karlen
1998 Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
2004 A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

Bram Stoker Award
1992 The Blood of the Lamb by Thomas F. Monteleone completed 2.2.08
2001 American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Giller Prize
2006 Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

World Fantasy Award
1989 Koko by Peter Straub

I signed up more than a month ago and I cannot believe that I haven't posted my list. (Maybe because it took me forever to figure out what I'm going to read.) Here goes:

1. The Singing - C.K. Williams
2. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
3. Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich
4. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
5. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. Vernon God Little- DBC Pierre
7. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
8. anything by Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk
9. anything by Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez
10. anything by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck
11. anything by Nobel Prize winner Shmuel Yosef Agnon
12. On Beauty - Zadie Smith

Alternates:

1. Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones
2. Vandal Love - Dy Bechard
3. Collected poems of Howard Nemerov
4. New and selected poems - Mary Oliver
5. The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
6. The year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
7. The Echo Maker- Richard Powers
8. The Worst Hard Time - Timothy Egan
9. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
10. Passing Through: the Later Poems - Stanley Kunitz
11. Out Stealing Horses - Per Patterson
12. When I lived in modern times - Linda Grant
13. The Penderwicks - Jeanne Birdsall
14. Small Island - Andrea Levy
15. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
16. anything by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky
17. This Blinding Absence of Light - Tahar Ben Jelloun
18. The Elementary Particles - Michael Houellebecq

Read:
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Bridge to Terabthia by Katherine Paterson
Newbery Award Winner
Recommended?: Yes.

This book reminded me a bit of To Kill a Mockingbird in its setting and main characters. Both books takes place in the south. While the core themes of it differ, both are essentially stories about growing up. Katherine Paterson seems to capture childhood so well. When Jess and Leslie create and explore Terabithia, I remember my own childhood of imagining other worlds, fantastic creatures and adventures. They even refer to Narnia. I remember reading that series, and trying desperately to find a wardrobe. I’m sure I hid in a wardrobe once, but alas, not gateways. The only thing that bothered me about this book is that I predicted the ending early on, and initially found it a bit contrite. I do not blame the book because if I had read it when I was 10, I probably would not have found it contrived since now I’m marred by years of books, movies and television. It’s hard for me to review very well written books, especially children’s ones such as this because it just comes down to the writer’s ability to write prose and experiences that capture readers. Paterson allowed me to be nostalgic, and I only wish I had read this when I was younger because I know I would have loved it and understood it even more than I do now.

For a review of the movie as well, go over to my blog entry.

To read the original review of this book, please check out my blog.

This was not on my original list, however I've added it as an extra read!

*******************************************************************

Now they were starting. Finality ran through the train, an exhalation. There were thuds, hoots, whistles, and the shrieks of late arrivals. From a megaphone, announcements were incomprehensible in American and Japanese. Before the train had moved at all, the platform faces receded into the expression of those who remain. -From The Great Fire, page 1-

Shirley Hazzard's award winning novel, The Great Fire, follows the parallel lives of two men at the end of World War II - Peter Exley, an Australian living in China to investigate war crimes; and Aldred Leith, a Brit who has traveled to Japan near Hiroshima to record the effects of war on the survivors. Both men struggle to come to terms with life after war ... and the novel explores their psyches through flashbacks of memory interspersed with their adjustment back to civilian life. Of the two, Peter is the least developed character - but nonetheless, the reader empathizes with his struggle over whether to pursue a life in music or return to toil in his father's law firm.

Hazzard spends more time refining the character of Aldred Leith who arrives in Japan to stay with an Australian Brigadier and his family. Brigadier Driscoll and his wife are unlikeable people who have two children - Ben and Helen. Ben, at age 20, is dying from Friedreich's Ataxia. His sister, Helen at age 17, provides the love interest for the adult Leith. The difference in their ages lends a subtle conflict to the novel. Leith's former preoccupation with his work is gradually replaced by his obsession with Helen ... and it is through this love, that he begins to understand how he will recover from the psychological effects of the war.

Hazzard's writing is beautiful and hypnotic, yet at times ambiguous. Entering the world of her novel feels a bit like plunging into a vast and complicated art museum where everything must be slowly considered and the meaning is not always clear. At times I felt tranquilized by Hazzard's descriptions, such as when Leith has a memory from childhood:

This is a slowly unfolding novel - quite literary in style and phrasing. It is a novel about love and recovery from war, about friendships and the complications of family. For those readers who enjoy a gently paced story and want to be enveloped and lost in words, this one is for you.

Recommended; rated 4/5.

My third book for this challenge is:

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Pages: 180
Finished: Aug. 9, 2007
First Published: 1993
Awards: Newbery Medal
Rating: 5/5

First Sentence:

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

Recommend: Highly recommended! This book was a re-read for me but I read it long enough (7-8 years) ago that I didn't quite remember all the details. This is a compelling story of a dystopian society. A quick yet thought-provoking read that should be on everyone's to-be-read list. This is definately a story that makes you think and will stay with me.

Please visit me on my blog.

For my 2nd book selection, I chose a Newbery winner, Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. As I explain in my longer review here, I was very disappointed in this book and quite confused by it as well. I would call myself a "deep" reader and this book just went incredibly far over my head.

Told in many vignettes and some poems, Criss Cross follows Debbie and Harry, two 14 year olds on journeys to make themselves better. Harry feels as if something about himself is missing and Debbie just wants to be another person altogether. A multitude of secondary characters is also involved in the story, as are strange drawings on many of the pages which adds to my interesting confusion.

Overall, I do not quite understand why this book won the Newbery Award and would looove for one of you to help explain that to me. Maybe I just missed something. Again, for my longer review, go here. Hopefully September's book selection will be better received on my part!

Book number four in the Book Award Reading Challenge is Atonement by Ian McEwan. Having read other novels by him, I decided to finally read this much acclaimed novel. I am very glad I did! And it is a good thing too, because it is currently "in production" as a movie and I would rather have read the story, without all the Hollywood hype. I very seldom reread novels, the old so many books, so little time theory, but this one breaks that rule. I will definitely be keeping my copy on the shelf for some time to come.

Set in the era of World War II, it is the story of a young adolescent named Briony. At first, her precocious attitude bothered me. I just didn't care about the story much. I almost gave up, but I am so happy I kept on reading! I will not give away the plot just in case this one is on your list. But she witnessed an "event" in which she lied and changed her life, and the lives of everyone around her. As the story progressed, it went into great detail about life a s soldier during the war. The characters became fully developed and they all become very real. With vivid descriptions, you become fully immersed in the life of an upper class British family at the brink of the War. A war, that like the event in the beginning, will dramatically alter their existence.

This book gave the reader quite bit to think about and reconsider. It is an awe inspiring book and I think Mr. McEwan will be one of our generations greatest novelists. I am eagerly awaiting my copy of his newest book, "On Chesil Beach". (Which I just found out is on it's way from PBS!!! YAY!!!)

Murphy's Law / Rhys Bowen
St. Martin's, 2002 - 978-0-312-98497-7 (paperback)

I'm not a big mystery fan. Apart from a few Agatha Christie classics, I've never felt compelled to explore the genre. In fact, if not for the Book Awards Reading Challenge, I'd probably never even realize there were awards dedicated to the genre, and more tragically, I would never have come across Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen, a fantastic historical mystery and winner of the 2001 Agatha Award for Best Novel.

The rest of the review (because I got a little wordy) can be found here.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2006

I enjoyed this historical fiction set in the early 19th century and in the early years of the U.S. Civil War. I liked reading about the Underground Railroad, John Brown, and the transcendentalist movement (Thoreau, Emerson). I think it helps to have read Little Women first so March's descriptions of his wife and daughters become more familiar.

More book information here.

Booker Prize 2000

Margaret Atwood's ambitious story, set during the depression in Ontario, told as a story within a story. The Blind Assassin is the name of a science fiction story written by one of the characters that is also about two lovers carrying on a secret affair. There are several other reviews already about this book; see wendy, tammy, matt, steven and nicola, so I won't go on too much. They have written great reviews.

Overall, just OK. I never go immersed enough in the story to care what happened, and the suspense didn't build up because things seemed pretty obvious. Atwood is a terrific writer, her idea was intriguing, I loved the setting in Ontario during the depression, and the high life in Toronto, and the newspaper clippings.

next up: The God of Small Things

Source: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/64

* Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
* Self Help by Edward Docx (Picador)
* The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon)
* The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
* The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
* The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (Sceptre)
* Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
* Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Viking)
* On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
* What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn (Tindal Street)
* Consolation by Michael Redhill (William Heinemann)
* Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)
* Winnie & Wolf by A.N.Wilson (Hutchinson)

My Name is Red is a somewhat convoluted murder mystery that takes place in late 16th century Istanbul. The main characters of the story are miniaturists, artists who draw and color the illustrations for books prior to the printing press, when books might be taken apart and rebound in a different sequence, depending upon who is paying for the story that is being told.

The Sultan has commissioned a a new book, and he wants part of it to be painted in the new European style, showing things as they appear to people, rather than in the Ottoman tradition of showing the world through the eyes of Allah. For instance, European portraits were painted with the subject of the painting in the center foreground of the painting. This would be considered blasphemous, because to put someone or something in the center of a painting would be to invite viewers to worship it on the same level that one would worship Allah. The miniaturists in the story are divided in their ideas of what to do about this development…some wanting to stick with the tradition that says nothing has been painted well and properly until it has been painted at least a thousand times before, and to sign your name on a painting is an admission that your work is so forgettable that no one would know who had painted it without you pointing it out to them; others wanting to explore this strange new world in which you paint a person with distinguishable features where, upon seeing them in a painting, you could pick that person out of a crowd, even without ever having met them before. Amongst all of this wondering what to do and what to think, one of the miniaturists is murdered, followed by another, even more shocking murder. The suspects? The other miniaturists in the guild.

The story is told from many different points of view: the various miniaturists, including the murderer and another miniaturist named Black, who is trying to win the love of his beautiful cousin by solving the second murder. In addition, chapters are told from the perspectives of a dog, a corpse, a coin, and the color Red, amongst others.

The strengths of the book, for me, were in the traditional narrative…the solving of the murder, and the love story between Black and his beautiful cousin, Shekure. These were well written and gripping, and drew me in, making me want to know what was going to happen, and if Black and Shekure would end up together…or even if they SHOULD end up together.

The weakness of the book is in the chapters devoted to the art of the era. While I found some of the detail to be interesting, and certainly learning of the cultural reasons behind that era’s views on individuality, style, and pridefulness was fascinating, other chapters were cumbersome and tiring, and I found myself wishing they would end.

I won this book in a drawing on Lotus’ blog, and I’m also including it in my list of award winners, as it won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I think My Name is Red would appeal to those who are interested in Persian art, and in the ways that Persian art, European art, and Chinese art influenced each other during this era of ‘globalization’.

Giblin, James Cross. 2002. The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler.

You might be wondering why anyone would spend time reading a book about the world's most notorious evil villain, Hitler. I remember when I first read it a friend told me a story about how she felt more comfortable removing the dust cover so no one would see her reading a book about Hitler and think she was 'weird.' (We were in college, so it's normal to read in public.) For someone who is well-read in Holocaust literature, the choice seemed an easy one. I devour almost anything World War II related. Throw in the fact that this one's an award winner, and just happened to be required reading at the time, and well, there you have it. This one was one of my favorites of the semester though. It was well-written. It was interesting. It was fascinating even. It was detailed. And there were just so many pictures and other visual aids. I remember how shocked the teacher was to see how yellow-tabbied (aka postied) my copy was. Almost every chapter bore witness to some little detail, some little fact, that I wanted to remember and make note of. Anyway, I took some teasing from my classmates that I was too "into" the assignment. But I didn't mind.

So when it came time to choose books for this list, I wanted to reread it. It had been four years since I had read it. I certainly wasn't blogging at that time in my life. And I wanted the chance to blog about it and share my thoughts.

The book is difficult to read in some places because the content is just too intense--and the revulsion of the subject is just too much to take in at some places. But it's a good read. Beginning with his childhood, Giblin traces the life of Hitler. In his childhood, he almost came across as normal. There were no indications that he was an evil genius in the making. He was an abused child. His father was horrid. But he had a good, solid relationship with his mother. And things might have been a lot different except a few circumstances turned a moody teen into a hate-filled monster. What were some of these events? Well, he wanted to be an artist--desperately wanted to be an artist--and he was turned down by the Art school twice. He lost his mother to cancer. He was living in poverty. For a while he was renting a room to sleep in, but soon he couldn't even afford the shabbiest of shelters...so he was homeless for a bit. But the thing that really turned him inside out and upside down was World War I. As a soldier, he was fed and sheltered. He was within a structure. He was surrounded by peers. And he liked the soldier part. It was the losing part...and the lack of morale of his countrymen that made him turn. When the Germans lost the war, on the very day peace was signed upon or agreed upon, the seeds of World War II were planted.

What the book shows is how Nazism took hold and took root. If the conditions hadn't been just right--if there hadn't been an entire nation in social unrest, if the whole country hadn't been angry and bitter--then Hitler would never have come to power. In fact, the book shows that if it hadn't been for Communism, he would never have risen to power. It was people's fear of Communism that led to their acceptance and promotion of Nazism. It took people--individuals--to give him that power. To give him that control.

Several things struck me as I was reading this book.

*Why wasn't anyone surprised or suspicious that a political party not only had an army but a large army?
*Why were people so willing to give up their civil liberties without a fight, without a protest? They lost their freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, privacy of their mail and telephone, they lost the sanctity of their home (I'm assuming meaning that means search and seizure as well as the government or army could take your home and dislocate you), the freedom to assemble, and they lost their right to form organizations.
*Why did librarians and teachers join in on the book burning? Why didn't they recognize this as the act of a crazy man?
*Why did the Pope support Hitler and Nazism?
*Why did the rest of the world stand by and do nothing? Why did they watch him conquer surrounding countries and not speak up? Why was peace at all costs more important than anything? Why did they let Hitler feel invincible to begin with?

On a slightly odd note, why is it science fiction seems to draw so much from Hitler and Nazism? Star Wars is a mock Nazi nation almost with its storm troopers and with its evilness in general...and it's voting of no confidence of the chancellor so the villain masquerading as the good guy can be appointed. And Star Trek...well the original series has at least two shows where there are direct references to Hitler. One is when they enter an alternate universe where Hitler won the war because a pretty woman was saved by Dr. McCoy...so they have to go back in time and watch her die. And the second is when they see Nazi Germany recreated on another planet. Both great shows by the way. And Hitler's policy on never retreating from battle and always holding your ground...that it is better to die in his service...than appear weak and retreat...and his stand on never surrendering...well that sounds like a goa'uld to me.

An abridged review from my original one here.

I never studied this in school, but I think I would have liked it more if a passionate English teacher had done so especially with this translation of the story. My mind wandered quite a bit while reading this text. It was not the most enjoyable thing I’ve read in awhile. On the other hand, I really appreciated the translation by Irish poet Seamus Heaney. There were some margin notes and the original text on the left page to guide you through the book. There is something in the prose of the translation and the arrangement of the text that makes me aware that Heaney is a poet, and this work has been well thought out. Even with a good translation, this is still Beowulf. I think part of the problem is that these stories are so different from present conventions and not created originally for a literary text form or modern prose. I would have much rather listened to this story as it is meant to be. These stories are meant to be recounted by a talented storyteller with a booming bard voice. I’m pleased to say that Seamus Heaney has recorded an audiobook, and exerpts from it can be heard at Northon Anthology. In the end, I’m still glad I read this classic as it does give me more ideas of the Dark Ages and the literary traditions that have derived from this era. I doubt I’ll read

This text won the Costa/Whitbread award and Seamus Heaney received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.

To Read the original review of this book, please visit my blog.

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down. -From The Blind Assassin, page 95-

In Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize winning novel The Blind Assassin, we are treated to a novel which is a story within a story - a memorial of sorts to the life of two women...Iris Chase Griffin and her sister Laura. The novel opens with the death of Laura...and a mystery. Atwood builds her story through a series of newspaper clippings, flashbacks from Iris' perspective on her life, and a piece of fiction about a man and a woman and the story they weave.

True to Atwood's style, the characters are painstakingly created and come alive on the page. No less detailed, Atwood constructs a small town setting within the bigger context of World War II. The result is a tale Gothic in feel, full of shadowy half truths and complex relationships which come together for a satisfying finish.

To give more detail about the novel would be to reveal spoilers - and so I will simply say "Read it." Atwood is a brilliant novelist that continues to amaze me with her scope and talent.

Highly Recommended. Rated: 4.5/5

I recently finished the science fiction book Seeker and posted a review on my blog. It is a decent book but not one I would assume worth of winning an award. The most impressive thing about the book is the knowledge of astronomy displayed by the author. Please check out the full review!

I've finished my first book for this challenge - E. L. Konigsburg's The View from Saturday. (This book is also on my lists for the Newbery Challenge and the "Something About Me" Challenge. Thank goodness for cross-listing!)

I thoroughly enjoyed this 1997 Newbery Medal Winner! I've posted a review on my book blog (here). I look forward to seeing what the others who chose The View from Saturday for this challenge think of it!

This is an excerpt from my review of Robert Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'...

I'm not a fan of hard science fiction because frequently the writers just throw out terms and ideas that I am unfamiliar with and they don't bother to explain what they mean. It makes me feel like I'm missing out on something. Heinlein is guilty of this as well. He also frequently just drops articles (such as 'the', 'an' and 'a') which I found very irritating as it interrupted the flow of the words.

However, the relationship between Mike, the computer and his human friends was wonderful and that is what kept me fully involved with the story. I wonder if it was intentional that the most sympathetic character in the novel wasn't even a human being.

The rest of the review is at my blog, which you can find (as always) here.

Book #2 for me in this challenge.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Pages: 521
Finished: Aug. 2, 2007
Reason for Reading: yahoo book awards group read for July
First Published: 2000
Awards: 2000 Booker Prize, 2001 Hammett Prize
Rating: 5/5

First Sentence:

Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.

Recommend: Highly recommend! This has moved to the top of my list as best book read this year. Wonderful story. At first it seemed simple and I thought it was good but why did it win an award, I wasn't sure it really deserved it but by about page 250 I realized just how much depth this book had.

This is a book within a book within a book within a book and the plot unfolds layer by layer. At first the story appears to be the memoirs of an elderly woman who is nearing the end of her life. The memoir is two-fold recalling events of the past within her daily life of the present. But woven between the pages of this memoir is the text of the book "The Blind Assassin" written by her sister in the early 1940's. "The Blind Assassin" itself is a book within a book which switches between a clandestine love affair and a science fiction novella. All four stories gradually merge together and the ending is fabulous. I really enjoyed this book!

Visit my blog at Back to Books

after reading William Henry is a Fine Name earlier this summer for The Christy Challenge...which was selected as the winner for this year's "young adult" category...I decided to read a few more Christy Award winners for the Book Awards Reading Challenge...

so...my first read for the Books Award challenge is Unashamed by Francine Rivers...which won the 2001 Christy Award in the "international historical" category...

I'd never read a Francine Rivers book before...although I did recently see the movie The Last Sin Eater based on her novel by the same name...and if all of her books are this good...I can't wait to read them all...

Unashamed is the second of five books in the Lineage of Grace series...each story is a historical fiction account of five women in Christ's family tree...they include Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary...

Unashamed is the story of Rahab...a prostitute living in the city of Jericho...who helped save the lives of Israelite spies...

and I don't really know what more to say than I loved this book...and have ordered the others in this series from the library so I can read them all...in fact, my moms Bible study group will be doing the book on Mary just before Christmas...I can't wait!

Francine does an amazing job of expressing what Rahab's thoughts and emotions might have been while she waited for her hometown to be attacked...she helped me understand how the politics and religion in this culture may have affected her faith in God...and how her faith in God may have impacted her relationships...

I think it's amazing that a person can take an event that happened thousands of years ago and still make it relevant to my life today...of course you can't go wrong when you start with Scripture!!!

in the back of the book is a study/discussion guide that can be used for personal study or group discussion which helps the reader dig a little further into the Scripture and apply it to their life...

the book is short and easy to read...and I would encourage anyone who doesn't consider themselves a "reader" to read this...I think the length will not seem daunting and the story will keep you motivated to complete it...and you may even want to read the rest of them!

blessings, mamabright :-)

I looked back and realized that I never posted reviews here for two other books I've read for this challenge. In order not to flood the blog with three reviews in a row from me, I'll just link to these reviews in my own blog, and I'll try to keep up in the future!

Newbery Award: The Higher Power of Lucky

Pulitzer Prize: The Road

This review is cross-posted at my blog.

I hardly know where to start writing about Half of a Yellow Sun. It was so brutal, and so powerful. Apparently I'm not the only one who really isn't quite sure where to start; there's no Wikipedia article about it yet in spite of the fact that it won this year's Orange Prize.

Before reading this, I knew very little about the Biafran War/Nigerian Civil War/Nigeria-Biafra War (whichever name you prefer --Adichie seems to prefer the latter). I kept setting aside the book, both to look up information about the war and to process what was happening in the narrative.

I think I'm most impressed by Adichie's ability to realistically portray the everyday lives of people living in turbulent times. Aside from finding themselves in the middle of a war, the characters have very different ideas, traditions and lifestyles, depending on whether they're older or younger, wealthy or poor, black or white, African or English, educated or illiterate. I loved this diverse look at the people of this time and place. And it was fascinating to see how they all keep trying to live as normally as possible in spite of the upheaval of war.

The narrative switches back and forth from the early 60s to the late 60s a few times, and I found this hard to follow. I don't think it's a flaw in the novel so much as that I realize I just have a very linear way of thinking. I would have had an easier time with a strictly chronological story. The last several chapters, though, just pound straight through to the end of the war, and these chapters are so devastating that I felt emotionally bruised for hours after finishing the book.

I can't really mention the part I most want to discuss with others who have read the book without spoilers, so if you haven't read the book yet and intend to, please stop reading now. There may also be spoilers in the comments if people comment on the spoilers below.

Thalia from Judging the Cover

In the first paragraphs of Waiting by Ha Jin, I was reminded of Ernest Hemingway. Jin has a spare descriptive style reminiscent of Old Man and the Sea. Unfortunately, I didn't find the story as compelling as Hemingway's masterpiece.

Lin Kong is an army doctor hoping to divorce his wife so he can marry his comrade Manna Wu. Set against decades of Chinese political turmoil, Kong struggles to do right by his wife, his daughter and his mistress. In the end, he realizes his actions had nothing to do with nobility, simply an unwillingness to take a chance.

The 1999 National Book Award Winner, Waiting is part of the Book Awards Reading Challenge. Although the book was deep from an intellectual standpoint, I didn't find the plot or the characters compelling. The Kong's inner monologues were silly and seemed forced. Show, not tell. Isn't that the first rule of writing?

This is the biggest problem I have with "award-winning" books. Too often, they sound pretty, but the substance is forced. Great books, transcending books pull you in, compel you to think, to wonder, without flashing neon lights saying: Here, look, here is the theme. Waiting reminds me of a line from Breakfast at Tiffany's: "A sterling silver telephone dialer. I certainly think it's handsome, but well, you do understand."

Strengths: Jin captures the style of Hemingway, has actually won the Hemingway award. The story is vaguely interesting from a literary perspective.

Weaknesses: Apart from pretty language, there isn't much here. It tries to be compelling and intellectual but for me, it fell short.

Verdict: Burke it. I might read something from Jin again because he writes well but Waiting left me feeling meh.

Recommended reads on China: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan.

Recommended reads on self-deception: An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Rating : 3.0/5
Reason for Reading : Book Awards Challenge

Subtitled "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation", this isn't a grammatical how-to book, it's about the correct use of punctuation. It starts by looking at the different meanings you can give to the same passage of text without changing the words, just the placement of the punctuation. For example compare the two passages:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?
Jill

With:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You gave ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill

It then spends a bit of time talking about the main punctuation marks including the full stop, comma, apostrophe, exclaimation mark, question mark, colon and semicolon. She gives you the correct use of each and then a little time is spent on some examples showing how correct use changes the meaning of a sentence.

It was quite funny in places, but it didn't really tell me much that I didn't know already (except perhaps about the semicolon which I have never used). I think the main problem with this book is that people who already use punctuation are the type of people who will be interested in reading this book. Those who are unsure or don't really bother with it will see it as boring and pedantic and therefore not read it. This mostly defeats it's purpose!

Rating : 4.5/5
Reason for reading : Something About Me Challenge, Book Awards Reading Challenge

Tells the story of the Finch family (father Atticus, son Jem and daughter Scout) living in Maycombe in America. It is set back when black people were seen as inferior citizens and were mostly employed by white people in the kitchen or picking cotton. The story starts with the children telling ghost stories about the reclusive neightbour next door who they nickname "Boo" Radley. This keeps them and their friend Dill entertained for most of the summer.

The small town is rocked when negro Tom Robinson (a family man with a wife and children) is accused of raping white Mayella Ewell. The Ewell's are not the most respected of families, being poor with an alcholic father and too many children to feed on their benefit money, and are deemed "trash" by some of the other white folks. Despite this, at the time the book is set (around the 1930/40's), white people do not loose court cases if the defendent is black. Atticus is given the case to defend Tom, which he does to the best of his ability despite knowing his loss is nearly inevitable and the town folk call his all kinds of names.

It was a really touching book that covers a range of topics. Foremost if the racial discrimination that went on at the time and how people were starting to change their attitudes and realise that all people are equal and that the colour of their skin is of no importance. It also discusses the class system at the time, with Atticus telling his children that no matter how rich the person, if they mistreat someone on grounds of race they are trash. The hypocrasy of the townsfolk was interesting as well. There is one incidence of a Jewish teacher who teaches Scout's class about discrimination as Hitler is starting to round up the Jews in Germany. She was however overheard at the trial of Tom making derogetary remarks about black people.

The parts covering childhood and family values stopped the book from being too serious. The children are very intelligent and really grow up in the few short years the book covers. I really liked all the central characters, especially Atticus. I grew to like their neighbour Miss Maudie and their overbearing Aunt Alexandra. It also had a lovely sense of humour running through the novel. I can see why people love it so much.

Finally read my first book for this challenge!

Pages: 287
Finished: July 28, 2007
Reason for Reading: yahoo pulitzer book group read for July
First Published: 2006
Awards: 2007 Pulitzer Prize
Rating: 2/5

First Sentence:

When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.

Recommend: Take it or leave it. It is not a bad book but I didn't really find it a good book either.

My main problem was I just didn't find it believable. Read more on my blog

The first book I finished reading for this challenge was On the Black Hill, by Bruce Chatwin, which won the 1982 Costa/Whitbread Award. I have read other things by Chatwin, but this one did not take the reader on a journey to a foreign land, but rather on a journey to a farm in Wales, where twin brothers Lewis and Benjamin Jones live their entire eighty years in an area of a few square miles.

I found the book quite readable, though Lewis and Benjamin's quiet acceptance of their lot in life was frustrating at times. There were times when I would say to myself as I was reading, "Please you two, stick up for yourselves!" particularly against their father and his strict control of the family.

If you are interested, I posted a longer review on my blog, along with a review of a book I read for another challenge. The Chatwin book is in the second part of the post.

I always feel like my weakest, least persuasive reviews are about the books I love the most. I just don't have the words to describe feelings this strong.

I am left nearly speechless over this book. I could turn to any random page and pull out line after line of beautiful, fully engaging prose, but that would be a disservice to this work which must be viewed as a whole.

Our narrator, Calliope Stephanides is telling us her history reaching as far back as her grandparents courtship in Greece and Turkey. That most unconventional relationship gives way to the marriage of Cal's parents and then to the birth of our heroine. A heroine who in the course of time discovers that she is neither female or male and yet both. Cal is a true hermaphrodite and her story is the tale of how we see ourselves as men and women and as Americans.

It gets down to the nitty gritty about how we identify ourselves. Is our sexuality based on our anatomies or our hearts? And are we Americans based on the country of our births or rather what place we call home? These are questions that we must answer for ourselves, and not let anyone else decide. The answers are at the very heart of who we are and what our place in the world should be.

I was held enthralled by Eugenides gorgeous prose, unusual sense of humor and unique perspective into the hearts and minds of the Stephanides family. There is not one character in this book that you don't become fully attached to. These are characters that continued to live in my mind long after I'd put this book back on my shelf and walked away.

Please do yourself a favor and read this book. You will not regret one moment that you spend with these unforgettable people.

As always, my blog is here.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman has received lots of awards around the world. I can see why it would, it's got a unique story line and beautiful language, but if I were an award giver, it wouldn't get one from me.

Lyra is content to run wild among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon familiar always by her side. But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle—a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen children, witch clans and armored bears. And as she hurtles toward danger in the cold, far North, young Lyra never suspects the shocking truth: she is destined to win, or to lose, this more-than-mortal battle.

Lyra is a fascinating character. I loved her. I liked most of the book, although it is very dark and brutal and I don't think it's appropriate for children. But at the very end, it starts preaching from a parallel universe Bible and that really bothered me. One, because I don't like people re-writing the Bible; two, it was so out of character for the rest of the story.

I'd be interested in hearing if this bothered anyone else—and why or why not.

For a more detailed review, visit my blog.

Winner of the 1993 World Fantasy Award.

"I thought for a long time, trying to put my finger on why I liked this book so much. Sure, it had a powerful plot and a memorable cast of characters. It was full of action, drama, suspense, and mystery. But what really got me was the mood. Powers created a sense of doomsday momentum that started off gradually and built to its inevitable conclusion, taking no prisoners along the way. It reminded me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and classic film noir movies."

For the full review, please visit my site here.

There are no spoilers in this post!

I recently read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as part of my re-read before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out. This one is probably my 2nd favorite Harry Potter.

My original review was posted on Friday, the day before the last one was released. You could find it here, but it isn't so relevant any longer. That post does contain spoilers for Half-Blood Prince, but none for Deathly Hallows.

This book won the 2006 British Book Award Prize.

I liked this story. I read several reviews after reading the book and tend to disagree with some of the people who seem to forget that it is fiction, not historical fact. Although it was convincingly written, at times you could imagine the words as fact. It was very easy to get pulled back into ancient Egypt with the writing style. Told though the eyes of a young man who, on a trip down the Nile, questions his father about Akhenaten as they pass by the abandoned city. The boy, curious, goes on a journey to interview the people involved. I have to believe that his father was some high ranking official or perhaps in the current Pharaoh's inner circle because he has no trouble getting an audience with some powerful people, including the former wife and queen, Nefertiti who is under house arrest (This is where the book becomes fiction as many scholars believed she died before her husband.)

Each player in the tale of Akehenaten and his quest to convert ancient Egypt to monotheism has a different take on the story and of the "heretic" Pharaoh himself, leaving the reader to come to his own conclusion. Written in a interview format, each player is given a brief introduction, and then is allowed to tell his story, with minimal comments by the narrator. It was not meant to be historically factual, just a fictionalized account of a young man curious to find out about a part of his history that is being erased as he writes.

Direct and to the point, this book is simple at first glance and yet modern and thought provoking. I will be reading more of Mr. Mahfouz's stores of Ancient Egypt.

Title: Middlesex
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Pages: 529
Rating: 4.25/5

Now, before you gasp at my rating--I think this book had all the potential to be ranked higher, but I think it was just a bad Reading time for me.

The story begins, "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

Pretty intriguing if you ask me! Cal, the narrator, tells the story of his family beginning with his grandparents in Greece all the way to his own arrival in the book as a baby girl. The story is engaging and Cal is a wonderful storyteller, but at times the book felt a little long to me, a little too heavy in the details. I do think most of this was my own impatience at the time--maybe not from the book.

Anyway, I would recommend it (as many others have). My full review is here.

I expected a depressing story as I cautiously started Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I have read several reviews of this book and knew it was a father-son story set in a post-apocalyptic United States, and that they would have to defend themselves against hunger, the weather and roaming bands of cannibals. How could this story be uplifting? How could this story be anything by dismal, foreboding and (again) depressing? (more)

This is my review for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. Winner of the 1993 man Booker Prize.

Let me just say that I LOVE Roddy Doyle's writing. I have always been a big fan of his, and my favorite book of his happens to be "The Van". I was very happy to see this book on the list because somehow this book had escaped me. Set in a small Irish village in the 1960's, it is narrated by Paddy or Patrick Clarke. Written exactly how a 10 year old thinks, and would write his thoughts, the mood and writing style took you right into his mind. It gave you a clear mental picture of what a child's world is really like. Tales of playing in construction sites, lying to their parents, and sibling rivalry as only a child could say it. Funny and sometimes sad, it is about how he grows up, rather quickly, as his parent's fight and eventually divorce.

There were no chapters which made it harder to read, for me anyway, because I tend to pace my reading by the ubiquitous "just one more chapter"! But after 20 pages or so, this was not missed at all! It did have quite a few Irish expressions which were funny and some of them I had completely forgotten about and made me laugh out loud. It did take me a bit to get through, but I did enjoy it.

I have just recently finished reading The Blind Assassin. I found it to be tragic but at the same time I was left feeling disconnected from the story. However, Margaret Atwood is most certainly a very able writer. I look forward to reading more from her. Please stop by and read my full review.