Good News

I finished Team of Rivals over the weekend. And have since started and finished Austenland. It's a quick read. And it was so nice to be reading fiction again that I just had to stay up and finish the last 60 pages. (And it didn't hurt that it was finally getting into the fun stuff with Jane and Mr. Nobley.) Yay for reading fiction!

I discovered the URL for Shannon Hale's website while perusing the reading group guide at the end of the book. And even though it was ungodly early in the morning I felt duty-bound to check it out, which is how I found her blog. On her blog I found this post, which notes that Austenland is the rare movie written, directed, produced by, and starring women and, therefore, the Hollywood establishment is sure it will fail. If you have any interest in the film please see it in the theater. It's always fun to prove the Hollywood establishment wrong.

And I must say that I really liked Team of Rivals. (I wouldn't have been able to bang out 40 pages at a time if I hadn't.) I bawled my eyes out when President Lincoln was assassinated. I hadn't expected to cry since I knew it was coming, but then again there are books and movies and TV show episodes that never fail to make me cry no matter how many times I read or watch them. (There are even some movies and TV episodes that I watch when I want to cry.) I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised by my reaction.

And now to read some more Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone before I go to bed.

Austenland

I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to see Austenland when it finally hit theaters down here, but my fear was unfounded as I talked my mom into seeing it with me last Friday. (We had to do something to kill the time before my brother and sister-in-law flew down after all.)

I absolutely loved it! In fact, it will be on my Christmas list (assuming it's released on DVD in time for Christmas). Naturally, I tended to focus on things that didn't fit with my memory of the book, but I was much more willing to let them go than I was the first time I watched The Host (which may or may not have been due to the fact that I much prefer the casting of Austenland to that of The Host). Incidentally, I did enjoy The Host much more the second time I watched it, so buying it was a good idea.

As for my mom, she's pretty sure she stayed awake for most of it (which is the best you can expect from her when watching a movie in the theater). She liked it, but probably not as much as I did. That's okay, though, because I don't think she liked the book as much as I did, either.

Speaking of Austenland the book, it has jumped to the top of my TBR list. I still have about 100 pages to read in Team of Rivals, but I had 140 pages to read this morning, so things are looking up :)

Powering Through

I know, I missed last week entirely. I'm sorry. Let's not dwell on that, though.

I've been reading Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin for the past month and a half and I can't tell you how often I think about abandoning it in favor of re-reading a YA series. That's not to say that it's a bad book; it's not (and it's gotten much better since the Civil War started). It turns out that I much prefer fiction to non-fiction. And my preference for fiction is why I can't read one of the YA series that are calling my name while I'm reading Team of Rivals. I actually tried that in January and Team of Rivals lasted all of eight days. I'd tell myself that I'd read a little of whatever novel I was reading at the time and then 10 or so pages of Team of Rivals, but then I'd get caught up in the novel and by the time I pulled myself away it was too late at night to attempt something as dry as the beginning of Team of Rivals.

Why am I forcing myself to continue reading a book that by my own admission I don't want to be reading? Because I actually do want to read it. I may really want to re-read Harry Potter, but I also want to read Team of Rivals. And I would like to finish it sometime this year so I can give it back to my dad, so I may as well read it now. Harry Potter will keep. So will Uglies, Divergent, The Selection, and The Hunger Games.

An Apology And Penance (In Link Form)

I have been remiss with this blog and I apologize. (I never said it would be a good apology. It is, however, a sincere one.) In my defense, I must tell you that I came home last Wednesday and discovered that my Internet was dead (it turned out that my [physical] cable was cut in two different places). My cable company, like all cable companies, wasn't particularly interested in fixing the problem at a time that was convenient for me (because, really, why should they make sure I'm happy with the one and only service I pay them for?), so it wasn't fixed until Saturday and by then I'd forgotten that I hadn't blogged. And that forgetfulness carried over to this week (apparently I need to do something more than once a week if I wish to make it a habit), but I remembered now.

As for my penance, it's from BuzzFeed. I can always find interesting and/or funny lists at BuzzFeed and that's why I love it.

• My old roommate shared the link to 17 problems only book lovers will understand on Facebook a while ago and I've been meaning to share it here.(Yes, I know it's from HarperCollins, but they're not trying to sell anything.) And I couldn't agree more with Donnie Darko that a book is a Do Not Disturb sign.
• Did you know that BuzzFeed now has a section devoted to books? I didn't until Laurie Halse Anderson tweeted a link to it. I apologize for destroying your productivity for the rest of the day :) Of course, it's currently the Friday before Labor Day and no one is ever productive on that day. The rest of my links are some of my personal favorites that are currently on the BuzzFeed Books front page.
• There's the 13 worst things that can happen while you're reading. (Contributed by another publisher, but they're not trying to sell anything either.)
• I love all the Belle GIFs in the list of 12 signs you're really into your book. I think I may need to re-watch Beauty and the Beast.
• How could I not love a list that gives love to one of my favorite YA authors, John Green? Some of the life lessons are better than others, but that's to be expected when the list has 56 items. Would someone please buy me the poster at the end of the post?

Summer Of Jane

First, I must apologize for not posting this last night. I've been having weird sleep issues for a while and last night that led to me taking a nap at 4 PM but not waking up until 1 AM. And I just didn't feel like getting up and writing a blog post at 1 AM.

Last summer was my own personal summer of Jane (Austen). I re-read all six completed novels and capped it off by reading All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith. This summer, however, is everybody's summer of Jane. Austenland, the film adaptation of Shannon Hale's fabulous novel of the same name, opens in limited release tomorrow. I cannot wait to see it, but it appears that it won't make its way to the Tampa area until September 13.

This New York Times article makes the case that this isn't just the summer of Jane but 2013 is the year of Jane and I think it is a pretty strong case. There have been completely random news stories out of the UK about Jane, both Jane's inclusion on British currency (and the resulting controversy and disgusting behavior of people opposed to that decision) and the story of the legal limbo of one of Austen's rings that Kelly Clarkson purchased at auction last year. (By the way, I really don't understand that story. If the ring is such an important cultural artifact that shouldn't leave Britain, then why didn't culture minister Ed Vaizey prevent the auction from ever happening in the first place. It all just seems like posturing on Vaizey's part.) And then, of course, there's the upcoming Austenland movie and a bunch of books mentioned in the Times article. (I'm trying not to read the list too many times because otherwise I'll end up adding titles to my TBR list, which is already very long.) The Times piece also includes a fun interactive quiz. I only got 12 questions right, and I'm quite disappointed about that, but it was fun nonetheless.

More Links

I'm always looking out for things to share on my blog, particularly for weeks when I'm not inspired to write about something specific. This is one of those weeks.

• I nearly edited last week's post to include this skit from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but drunk Ron Weasley singing "Happy Birthday" to Harry Potter is still funny this week.
• Nick Offerman's summer reading recap from last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! is also really funny. Do schools really have summer reading lists, though? I don't remember ever having to read books during summer vacation. I did read books during summer vacation because I've always loved reading, but nothing was ever assigned. Also, was my high school the only one that didn't include Of Mice and Men or Lord of the Flies in the English curriculum? I've still never read either of them.
• Finally, a friend of mine passed along this link to pictures of the abandoned Wal-Mart that is now the largest single-floor public library in America. I would love to visit that library because a) it looks amazing and b) I want to laugh in the face of an abandoned Wal-Mart. (I am not a fan of Wal-Mart.)

Happy Birthday, Harry!

Today is Harry Potter's birthday (or it would be if he were a real person). It's also J. K. Rowling's birthday.

I still remember the first time I read Deathly Hallows and how shocked I was to realize that Harry was only a month younger than me. I'd never had any idea that the books took place in the 90s until Harry found his parents' headstone in Godric's Hollow and their death dates were listed as October 31, 1981. One of the beautiful things about the world of Harry Potter is that it doesn't really matter when Harry was born or when the books took place, but I found it interesting.

Of course, I didn't remember that today was Harry Potter's birthday until I saw this quiz on BuzzFeed. (I did not do as well on the quiz as I would've liked. I guess I don't remember the books very well.) BuzzFeed also published a list of 28 things that happened after Deathly Hallows. I knew some of the stuff on the list, but a lot of it was news to me. I think it's awesome that Rowling has thought about it, though.

Thanks to BuzzFeed, I really want to re-read all of the Harry Potter books. Like, right now. But I really ought to wait until I finish Team of Rivals. Maybe the Harry Potter books will be an effective bribe.

Not Ideal

I'm reading The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare right now. It was on sale for five bucks in the iBookstore about a month ago and trailers for the movie had piqued my interest, so I bought it. This post isn't about the book (which I'm conflicted about), though.

I only mention the book to explain why it is that I've finally realized that I don't like the experience of reading on e-readers. That's not to say that I'm not a fan of e-readers; I think it's great that I can carry around the complete works of Jane Austen on my iPhone (thank you, free Project Gutenberg e-books). It's just that e-readers are not ideal for reading a book for the first time.

I keep finding myself wanting to go back and look for things in the book (usually because a character will say something about x and I don't remember that character knowing about x), but I don't. Rifling through the pages of a physical book to remind myself of something is second nature to me, but going back through the pages of a digital book feels like too much work. Maybe if I read more books on my iPad I would become comfortable doing that, but I doubt it. Like I said, it's not ideal.

On a completely separate topic: Jane Austen is officially going to appear on the £10 note. However, the Austen-adorned currency will not go into circulation until 2017. That gives me plenty of time to save for my trip to the UK.

Whoops

Goodness, Wednesday came and went without my noticing. And I'm far too tired to write anything of any substance tonight. Luckily, I stockpiled links to share for just these situations.

• First, we have Mashable's list of 15 YA books every adult should read. I've only read one of them (The Book Thief), so my TBR list has grown again.
• Apparently shell-shocked WWI soldiers were told to read Jane Austen. Is it strange that that makes perfect sense to me?
• Speaking of Austen, I'm going to bookmark this page in the British Library's online store.

I think this is a good place to stop. I can't run through my whole stockpile at once, can I?

Thoughts

Perhaps I should have named this post "Reviews," but that sounds too pompous or something. Regardless, I have thoughts to share on a couple of things.

First, there's Diana Peterfreund's For Darkness Shows the Stars. I wanted to read this book since a friend sent me the link to The Atlantic Wire's 2012 YA Book Awards, in which it is described as "a clever dystopian retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion." As I said to the friend who sent me the link, there are so many magic words in that one little sentence fragment. I was so wrapped up in the story that I read it in two days and I found myself worrying over whether or not Elliot and Kai would get together, which is not something I worry about when re-reading Persuasion. It reminded me of a moment in You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan's character says that she always worries that Lizzie and Darcy won't get together when she re-reads Pride and Prejudice, which never made sense to me before. When I started reading the book I was annoyed that several character names were a little too on-the-nose (Elliot North, Captain Malakai Wentforth, and Elliot's neighbors the Groves), but then I realized that that is a dumb thing to be annoyed by. Plus, I always enjoyed that the Mr. Elton character in Clueless is named Elton, so why be annoyed by these names?

The apocalypse of this post-apocalyptic world was interesting (though not explained as fully as I would've liked), the story was true to the original, and Peterfreund even managed to have Kai write his own version of Captain Wentworth's letter. Apparently there's a companion novel that discusses the apocalypse more fully, too, so I'll have to check that out. (Isn't that always the way? You knock one book off your TBR list and immediately replace it with another.)

Second, I finally saw The Host. I'd preordered it from Amazon and received it on the release date. I liked it and I'm glad I bought it, but I didn't love it. Since when is Melanie Southern? Did they just do that since Southern accents are easiest for non-Americans to affect? I actually have a bunch of complaints about changes they made in the movie, but I really need to stop focusing on them. They hit the important parts of the story and Ian was wonderful (even if he didn't look like Ian). I'll probably like the movie more the next time I watch it. At the very least, it inspired me to re-read the book again, which is awesome.

Huh, I just realized that For Darkness Shows the Stars and The Host were the two things I bought myself with the Amazon gift card I got for my birthday. I'd forgotten these things had that connection when I started this post.

Young Adult Fiction

My YA literature course ended six months ago, but I'm still reading a lot of YA fiction. Good stories are good stories and getting hung-up on labels is stupid. However, I realize that lots of people feel that YA books are somehow less because they are marketed to young adults (as discussed in that BBC News clip I linked to last week). If you have yet to embrace the joys of YA fiction, I highly recommend you read Chuck Wendig's blog post: 25 Things You Should Know About Young Adult Fiction (NSFW).

I'd never heard of Wendig before a link to that post showed up on my Twitter feed (don't remember who tweeted it, though), but I've enjoyed the little bit of his blog I've read so far (and not just because the post before the YA one argued for a female Doctor, which would be awesome). I realize that the post is aimed at authors, but he talks about the importance of reading YA fiction if one wishes to write for that audience.

A Couple Of Links

Wednesday snuck up on me this week. Thankfully the Internet provided me with a couple of interesting articles from BBC News yesterday.

First, Jane Austen may appear on British money. This is exciting to me because of my great love for Austen. I would seriously consider traveling to England to get my hands on Jane Austen money (and also because I've always wanted to go to England).

Second, a discussion of whether adults should read children's books. My answer to that question is a resounding yes (and not just because I enjoy re-reading the Betsy-Tacy books every once in a while). A good story is a good story and, really, people should feel free to read whatever they want to read.

Decisions, Decisions

I'm facing a conundrum. I can't decide what to read next.

It's the first time I've had this problem all year but it's not for a lack of options. I still have several Christmas presents (and at least one birthday present from last year) in my TBR [to be read] pile. But none of them feel like the right book to read next. There are at least two reasons for that.

The first reason is that I finished John Green's Looking for Alaska last night. It's phenomenal, but it's kind of heavy. I want to read something a little lighter next.

The second reason is pretty much the same as the first one now that I think about it: summer (and my birthday) is fast approaching and I want to read something summery (read: light) to honor my favorite season.

The stuff at the top of my TBR pile doesn't feel particularly summery. I do have a Jennifer Weiner novel, but it's not the Jennifer Weiner book I most want to read. (I will buy the Jennifer Weiner book I most want to read, The Next Best Thing, if I get an Amazon gift card for my birthday. And the odds of that are pretty good.)

If I don't want to read any unread books, then I'm left with books I've read. But that has its own problems. For starters, how do I narrow it down? Although I am leaning towards re-reading a YA series. But, again, which one? I know I just read Veronica Roth's Divergent books and Kiera Cass' Selection books a month ago, but they're both begging to be read again. I should really hold off on the Divergent books until October, though, because that's when Allegiant is coming out. The Selection books are kind of perfect summer books, but I just read them a month ago. I'd all but decided to re-read Scott Westerfeld's Uglies books since it's been six months since I read them, but then a voice in my head just whispered, "Harry Potter." And I definitely have a history of reading Harry Potter books in the summer, but seven books is kind of a big commitment - I would like to get back to my TBR pile at some point this summer.

There is, of course, a third option that I'm not really considering: I could go to the library. I know the library is a veritable treasure trove of books I've never read. But my TBR list is really long and I don't currently feel up to wading through it to find books to check out.

I think I've just come up with the perfect book, actually: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I haven't read it since I was in college and I loved it. I saw a reference to it on the Internet recently and thought that I should re-read it, but then I forgot (of course). But I just saw it on my bookshelf and it all came back. Yes, I believe I will read The Mists of Avalon.

I'm A Book Addict

I'd never really thought of it in those terms before, but I fit pretty much all of BuzzFeed's 25 signs you're addicted to books. And if I read it on the Internet it must be true, right? Joking aside, I love that list. It is very, very me.

I love that the first item on the list uses a GIF from Matilda to illustrate its point. I've never seen the movie, but I read the book in elementary school and I still have it. I haven't read it in years, but I think it's time to give it a re-read. I really should read it before I see Matilda on Broadway in December.

The other items on the list that really hit close to home were those that talked about books having a great impact on one's emotions and books causing the reader to make bad decisions with respect to eating and sleeping. The sleeping thing is a real issue for me right now. I keep choosing reading over sleeping even though I know it will screw up my sleep patterns; the books are just so good that I don't care. (And any book that I choose over sleep must be good because I love sleep.)

I wish I knew where the "Baby Got Back"-inspired mug came from. I must have it. If you know where I can purchase it, please let me know.

Fun With Dialects

A Facebook friend posted the link to this group of maps that show various American dialects and I thought, "I'll have to check that out." Then I saw a bunch of different people talking about the maps on Twitter and thought, "I'm going to check that out right now."

It's pretty interesting. Some of the findings match my expectations, while others don't. For example, I pronounce "crayon" the way the map says I should based on my Delaware Valley roots. But here's the thing: I know very few people from the Delaware Valley who pronounce "crayon" the way I do - most people I knew growing up said "crown." I don't know how I learned to pronounce "crayon" the correct way, but I did; it's the same with "water." Speaking of, I'm surprised "water" didn't make the cut since I can think of three pronunciations off the top of my head.

I learned some things, too. I had no idea that so many people have no idea how to pronounce "Bowie knife." I learned how to pronounce it when I was a kid and we were driving past Bowie, MD and I pronounced it like David Bowie and my dad told me I was wrong and explained about Jim Bowie and the Bowie knife. Also, I finally understand why the creepy Morgan & Morgan guy says "law-yer;" I always thought he was being obnoxious but it turns out he was just being Southern.

As far as the hoagie map is concerned, that sandwich was invented in Philadelphia so I think the rest of the country should just accept that it's a hoagie. And that's a fairly recent stance for me. We called that sandwich a sub when I was growing up (my dad isn't from the Delaware Valley) and I always thought the word "hoagie" was dumb. But I really started to embrace "hoagie" when I moved to Florida. It will be interesting to see if I revert to calling it a sub if when I move back to Philly.

Fun With Foreign Words

Back in March I shared a link to a list of English words that are no longer used but should be. The other day I stumbled upon this list of foreign words that we could use in English at Mental Floss.

The list does not include my personal favorite foreign word that has no English equivalent, Schadenfreude, but that's okay because Schadenfreude is used an awful lot in English (particularly in the corners of the Internet that I tend to frequent).

I'm disappointed that the list didn't include pronunciation; some of the words are in languages I've never heard of and there's no way I could pronounce them. I recognized one of the words, Koi No Yokan, because it's the name of the Deftones record that came out last year, but I didn't know how to pronounce it in November and I still don't. (On the plus side, I now know what it means.)

I appreciated that the list included Schlemiel and Schlimazel; I've known those words my whole life thanks to Laverne & Shirley, but I never had any idea what they meant.

Language Is Cool

I've always been fascinated by language; I think it's a pretty cool thing we humans have developed. I'm particularly interested in the ways languages change over time (especially English since it's my native language). The Oxford English Dictionary recently tweeted a link to the English in time section of its website. I haven't had a chance to spend much time perusing it, but the article I read (on nineteenth-century English) was quite good. I'll have to make time to check out the other articles. In fact, I'll have to make time to check out all of the articles in their Aspects of English section; English in use, Shapers of English, and Word stories all sound interesting to me as well.

If you're interested in the evolution of English, I suggest you spend some time with the OED online.

That's New

As predicted last week, I bought Veronica Roth's Insurgent at Barnes & Noble on Thursday. (It's phenomenal; I finished it yesterday. Can't believe I have to wait until October for the next book.) Even though I found the book I was looking for almost immediately after entering the store I decided to browse a bit because I hadn't been in a book store in months. In the end I bought two other YA books that caught my eye (one that was on my TBR [to be read] list and one with an intriguing title).

As I was excitedly pulling my new books out of the bag once I got home I noticed an extra scrap of paper attached to my receipt. I assumed it was an invitation to fill out an online survey or something similar, so imagine my shock at seeing "You may also like" in the heading. My Barnes & Noble receipt was providing reader's advisory service. I don't know how long Barnes & Noble has been doing this, but I think it's kind of neat.

The receipt listed five suggestions based on the three books I purchased and I think it did a fairly good job. Of the five suggestions, one was already on my TBR list, one was the sequel to one of the books I bought, and one had caught my eye while I was browsing. And of those three I'm almost certain that I'll buy Kiera Cass's The Elite soon (unless I decide that I don't like the first book, The Selection, after all, but I doubt that will happen because I read 120 pages today and I didn't really want to stop to write this post). Also, the list was not solely comprised of new releases; some of the books included were available in paperback.

Is this reader's advisory service a shameless ploy by Barnes & Noble to get people to buy more books? Maybe. But I have to support anything that makes it easier for people to find new books they might enjoy.

The Joy Of Reading Fiction

I read nothing but nonfiction last month. It wasn't intentional; it was just the way things worked out. I enjoyed it because I was reading and reading is one of my all-time favorite leisure activities, but it was nothing compared to this month.

I (finally) started reading Divergent by Veronica Roth a week ago and I absolutely love it. I've got about 150 pages left to read and I already decided to buy Insurgent, the next book in the series, on my way home tomorrow. I could've ordered it from Amazon, but I'm 99% certain that I'll finish Divergent tomorrow and I want to start Insurgent immediately. Besides, I'm going to the mall tomorrow night anyway.

I can't help but wonder, though, if I would be this excited about any novel after reading all that nonfiction. Or is Divergent really that spectacular? (I'm leaning towards the second option. I'd heard raves about the book from my best friend and my YA literature professor and I have to agree with them. Also, I'm pretty excited about the movie.) It seems funny, but I'd forgotten how wonderful it feels to lose myself in a novel. So thank you, Veronica Roth, for reminding me why I love reading so much.

Saved By The Bell

Or, more to the point, saved by the thought that just popped into my head to remind me that it is Wednesday. I had completely forgotten that it was Wednesday (and that I needed to blog) until I was getting into bed. Unfortunately, the key phrase in that sentence is "as I was getting into bed;" I am far too tired to come up with anything worth blogging. However, I committed to posting something on my blog every Wednesday and that's what I am doing.

Stop CISPA

Do you remember the Internet-unfriendly bills with dumb acronyms (SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA) that were defeated last year after a massive Internet campaign made them all politically toxic? Well, CISPA (Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act) is back and it's still bad news for Internet users. This handy infographic does a good job of summarizing CISPA and its potential downside.

Check out the infographic, do some research, and if you think CISPA sounds like bad news let your elected representatives, particularly your senators, know.

Comfort Food

After learning about the horrific attack at the Boston Marathon on Monday I yearned for distraction. I don't watch the news much, preferring to get my news from the Internet, and I really have no interest in watching the same short video clips on an endless loop while pundit after pundit engages in blatant rumor-mongering (some might even say fear-mongering). So perhaps it is not that surprising that I wanted to take my mind off tragedy.

First, I turned to baseball because it's normally a really good distraction. But it was hard to get into the game because the Phillies' offense was anemic.

Eventually I realized that what I really needed was to lose myself in a book. Yes, I needed some literary comfort food. It shouldn't have been hard to find said literary comfort food, but it was. I may have made things needlessly difficult for myself by deciding that I couldn't choose a book where the messed-up world was a major part of the story (thus knocking nearly all the YA books I own out of contention). I decided on Jennifer Weiner's In Her Shoes (the first of Weiner's books I ever read) because I'd been thinking about re-reading it ever since I watched the movie (several times) on cable. But I realized that I didn't really want to start reading a novel; I wanted to read a piece of a novel.

I settled on the penultimate chapter of Jane Austen's Persuasion. Persuasion is my second-favorite Austen novel and the 2007 BBC version with Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones has accompanied me to sleep for the past couple of weeks. I chose the penultimate chapter because it contains Captain Wentworth's letter, which I adore. (Much as I love the aforementioned BBC adaptation, I think they messed up the scene with Captain Wentworth's letter.)

In the end, my distraction worked. I was able to go to bed thinking of swoon-worthy Captain Wentworth instead of tragedy. And isn't that one of the greatest gifts we get from stories?

I Have A Confession To Make

As much as I want to see The Host, I haven't yet. (Neither has anyone else, apparently; IMDB says it's grossed less than $20 million thus far.) And at this point I don't think I'm going to see it in a movie theater.

It's a shame because I really was looking forward to seeing it in the theater; I even had an AMC Theatres gift card earmarked for the occasion. But there aren't a lot of screenings at my local AMC this weekend and I just don't think it's going to happen.

At this point the only way I'll see The Host in the theater is if someone goes with me. I have absolutely no problem going to the movies by myself; I actually enjoy it. But if I go to the movies by myself I have to be pretty sure that there's going to be a decent-sized crowd in the theater. There's nothing worse than the feeling of sitting in one of the smallest theaters in your local multiplex (and somehow the smallest auditoriums are always kind of creepy to begin with) by yourself. Except maybe the feeling of sitting in one of the creepy small theaters with one or two strangers.

It's disappointing that I'm probably not going to watch The Host in a theater, but it's even more distressing that I have no idea when I'll be able to watch it in the comfort of my own home. I can't find a DVD/Blu-Ray release date on Amazon or Netflix (at least Netflix knows the movie exists, which is more than can be said for Amazon). A cursory glance at Stephenie Meyer's Website also came up empty. A quick Google search confirmed my belief that a DVD release date hasn't been announced yet, but one site estimated it would be in July.

July, huh? That's later than I thought it'd be. I don't know if I really want to wait until July to see The Host. I may have to find someone to go to the movies with this weekend.

Book Recommendations: Baseball Edition

I don't know about you, but I am thrilled that baseball season is finally here (even if my team is 0-2). With that in mind, I thought I would briefly discuss the baseball book I just read and the baseball book I am currently reading. (I have to be brief because I can't stop yawning. I think the Phillies' sleepy offense made me sleepy.)

• Just a Minor Perspective: Through the Eyes of a Minor League Rookie by Eric Pettis - I bought this book a year ago and it sat in my Kindle app while I read Jane Austen and lots of excellent YA fiction. I never forgot about it, though, and decided to finally start reading it during Spring Training. Pettis, a former Phillies pitching prospect, tells the story of his first year in professional baseball. I was attracted to the book by Pettis' Phillies connection but also by its subject matter. I am fascinated by the lives of professional baseball players at any level, but particularly the minors. The Mike Trouts and Bryce Harpers of the world give fans a skewed idea of prospects; most guys toil for years before they get a chance in the big leagues and, unfortunately, even more guys never get that chance because they're cut from the organization for one reason or another. This book provides a look at the minor leagues that most fans would never get otherwise; I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the minor leagues and minor league players' lives.
• Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong by the Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts - Since becoming interested in baseball I've wanted to learn more about advanced statistics. I'd seen many different people online cite this book as a great beginning resource for advanced stats. I'm not quite halfway through the book yet, but I concur with that assessment. While the book is about statistics it is not about math; the statistics are explained at a high level and the point is not what the statistics say but what they mean. I'm looking forward to finishing the book and will probably read the follow-up, Extra Innings, someday.

Characters Stay With You

A strange thing happens when I watch Phillies Spring Training games this year: at some point during the game I start thinking about Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's not really that surprising, though, when one considers that the Phillies have an outfielder named Ender Inciarte and I just (some might say "finally") read Ender's Game in February.

This got me thinking about other fictional characters that stayed with me in weird ways. I used to smile whenever I saw the logo on the Sirius satellite radio antenna on my car because it made me think of Sirius Black (my favorite Harry Potter character). Sadly, it doesn't happen anymore because the antenna on my new radio is in a less visible place on my car.

In a lot of ways my new career in librarianship is due to Henry DeTamble, the time traveling librarian in The Time Traveler's Wife. It's not that Henry made me want to be a librarian, but the book made me consider librarianship as a viable career option; it made me realize that librarians have more options than working in a public library or a school.

I'm sure I have others that just aren't coming to me.

Fun With Obsolete Words

A good friend, who shares my fondness for fun vocabulary, sent me a link to this post at Death and Taxes about obsolete words. I didn't ask whether she agreed with the author's assertion that the words in question became obsolete before their time. I don't agree that we need all the words, but some of them are fantastic.

My favorite word on the list, and the one that I'd most like to start using, is resistentialism. My friend told me to check out resistentialism when she sent the link because she knows I have a habit of commanding inanimate objects to do things when they are being particularly spiteful; it would have been so great if we'd known there was a word for the spiteful behavior of inanimate objects when we were in college.

Another word on the list I really loved is Englishable, but I doubt I'll be able to use it much. It makes me wonder if there's a word for taking an English word that's one part of speech and turning it into another part of speech. My friends and I did that all the time in college, normally turning a noun into a verb (table and tea were the most commonly turned). Furthermore, I wonder if there's a word for using a proper noun as a verb (Google and Netflix spring to mind).

A Good Book Could Lift Sagging Spirits (article)

My mom passed along this article that appeared in the Tampa Bay Times last week. It discusses a "list of 27 books to make you feel better" (Tobar, 2013) that was released by the UK's Society of Chief Librarians.

I've used books as comfort food my whole life, so I was intrigued by the list. The funny thing is that I've only heard of one of the 27 books (Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani). The next time I'm feeling down I'll have to look for one of the books on the list to see if it helps. (Big Stone Gap is a strong contender for the role because I actually started reading it once upon a time.)


Tobar, H. (2013, March 8). A good book could lift sagging spirits. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved from
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/a-good-book-could-lift-sagging-spirits/2107403

The Ghost Writes Back (article)

I stumbled across a link to an article by a former Sweet Valley High ghostwriter on BuzzFeed the other day. (Yes, BuzzFeed; it's more than just jokes and cute animal GIFs.) I was never much of a Sweet Valley High fan (I preferred The Baby-sitters Club, but for some reason I had a Sweet Valley High board game), but the BuzzFeed post piqued my curiosity so I checked out the article.

Amy Boesky spent most of her twenties writing every other Sweet Valley High book while pursuing her PhD. Her article is extremely interesting and I highly recommend you head over to the Kenyon Review and read it for yourself.

There were two parts of the article that I found particularly fascinating. The first was the description of the writing process. Francine Pascal, the creator of the series, provided story plots: "eight or nine pages of single spaced directives that laid out exhilarating and implausible fables of duplicity, innovation, risk, and triumph" (Boesky, 2013, para. 25). Boesky first turned Pascal's "long, free-verse poems" (Boesky, 2013, para. 25) into chapter outlines, which she then sent to her editor for approval. After receiving the editor's approval she wrote the books.

The other part of the article I really noticed was her discussion of the arguments for and against series books at the time. "Librarians hated series books. They kept kids from reading 'real' literature" (Boesky, 2013, para. 27). The other side was argued by reading specialists who believed that the important thing was to get kids reading. "Lay down the habits, they [reading specialists] argued" (Boesky, 2013, para. 27). The discussion struck a chord with me because I rarely came across anyone who didn't share the reading specialists' view in my library science courses. Was adolescent literacy so much better in the 80s that librarians weren't desperate to get kids reading? I come down firmly on the side of "it doesn't matter what kids read as long as they are reading." Plus, I believe that reading "real" literature in another form, such as a graphic novel, can help some kids understand the story better than they would if they read the classic tome itself.

As an avowed fan of mass-market series books (not just The Baby-sitters Club, but also Nancy Drew), I really enjoyed this peek behind the curtain.

Boesky, A. (2013). The ghost writes back. Kenyon Review Online. Retrieved from http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2013-winter/selections/amy-boesky-656342/

Foiled By Illness

An idea for a blog post started percolating in my head when I finished Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot last week, but it requires a bit of research. Unfortunately, I came down with a cold on Friday and spent the past five days on my couch watching baseball and movies. I finally started to get my energy back today, but there were too many pressing items on my to do list to allow me to spend time researching for a blog post.

That was just a very long-winded way to say that I don't have anything to write about this week (but at least I'm actually getting this posted on Wednesday). I will make the time to do the research, though, and I will have something to write about next week.

Movie Adaptations

I learned last night that The Fault in Our Stars is being adapted into a movie. (My source was none other than John Green himself, too, so I think it's legit. When you stop to think about it, Twitter is amazing.) Green was pretty positive on Twitter and Tumblr, so I'm hopeful that they'll make a movie that lives up to the book.

The news got me thinking about other movie adaptations, especially adaptations of books I read last year (Stephenie Meyer's The Host and Shannon Hale's Austenland). Both The Host and Austenland are set to hit theaters this year, although I don't believe Austenland has a firm release date yet. I adore both of those novels and have been eagerly anticipating the movies from the moment I learned about them. (In fact, news of each film sent me running to my bookshelves so I could re-read the book in question.)

There are differences between them, though. I immediately agreed with the major casting decisions for Austenland because I love Keri Russell and JJ Feild. And who doesn't love Jane Seymour and Jennifer Coolidge? I was less thrilled with the casting of Saoirse Ronan as The Host's protagonists, Wanderer and Melanie. (Yep, one actor is playing two characters. It's intriguing, right?) In her defense, though, I've only ever seen her in Atonement and I strongly dislike her character in that film, so I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The Host is coming out in just over a month and I am conflicted about it. I'll probably see it because I love the book, but I'm afraid I'm going to dislike the movie. The first and third trailers make it look like an action movie and it really shouldn't be. In particular, the third trailer (which was just released) features an alarming number of car stunts; I don't remember reading anything about a car crash or a high-speed chase in the book (and I've read the book five or six times). So, yeah, I'm worried I won't like the movie but I'll probably see it anyway.

In a way, it's funny that I'm so worried about The Host movie not being faithful to the novel because my favorite Jane Austen adaptations aren't the most faithful. Case in point, I adore the 2005 Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley and don't really like the 1995 BBC miniseries with Colin Firth. The miniseries taught me that there is such a thing as a movie adaptation that is too faithful to the original novel. (I know that a Janeite slamming the miniseries simply isn't done, but I have to be honest. The thing dragged at times and we need to acknowledge that.) I have always felt that the 2005 film captured the essence of the novel and hit all the high points even if the clothes were from the wrong period and the last scene was kind of dumb. And that's my concern with The Host; the trailers make me worry that they didn't capture the essence of the novel at all.

I will be sure to share my thoughts on the film version of The Host if when I see it.

Literary Crushes

I saw a post at HelloGiggles this week about literary crushes that struck a nerve. I've always been one to develop crushes on fictional characters. So not only do I have that in common with the writer, but she and I have crushes on several of the same characters. We even discovered the Lizzie Bennet Diaries at about the same time. Clearly, we should be friends. Before we become friends, though, I thought I would discuss a few of my literary crushes.

• Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice - I've hinted at this but I love Mr. Darcy. He's not perfect, but he loves Lizzie so much that he goes above and beyond to save her sister's reputation. I can't say enough wonderful things about Mr. Darcy.
• Captain Frederick Wentworth, Persuasion - The letter he writes Anne at the end of the novel is one of the most swoon-worthy things I have ever read.
• Mr. Rochester, Jane Eyre - He's so dark and brooding and tortured. (Those three words are like catnip to me when it comes to fictional characters.)
• Sirius Black, the Harry Potter series - I didn't even realize I had a crush on Sirius until I found myself bawling my eyes out at the end of Order of the Phoenix when he died. I knew I liked Sirius, but it took his death for me to realize it was a crush. He shares the dark, brooding, and tortured thing with Mr. Rochester, although with fewer crazy first wives locked in the attic.
• Joe Willard, the Betsy-Tacy series - Joe Willard was probably my first literary crush. I received a set of the first six Betsy-Tacy books as a kid and my desire to find out what happened with Betsy and Joe largely fueled my decade-long quest to find the rest of the books.
• Peeta Mellark, the Hunger Games series - I know that people have strong opinions on the issue of Peeta versus Gale, but I'm not one of those people. I am, however, Team Peeta. There's something so romantic about his unwavering devotion to Katniss and his selfless desire to give his life for hers.

I could keep going, but you get the idea. Literary crushes are fun.

There's A Wednesday Every Week

And they really sneak up on you sometimes. Like today, for instance, when I realized I needed to write a blog post and I had nothing to write about. I need to do a better job of looking out for potential blog post topics. One would think it wouldn't be that hard considering I only do this once a week. But it appears that it was beyond me this week.

Or it was.

I was watching tonight's episode of The Americans (which I am really enjoying thus far) and Keri Russell's character called Ronald Reagan insane or a madman or something like that. I instantly agreed with her. And then I started wondering how much of that was due to Drift. Admittedly, I've never been a fan of Reagan, but I didn't start thinking of him as crazy until I read Maddow's book. It was interesting to find my opinion of Ronald Reagan (or at least my opinion of his Cold War rhetoric) agree with that of a (fictional) KGB spy.

Happy Anniversary

I don't mean to sound smug, but I'm really impressed with my sense of timing right now. It is really quite something.

In my post from two weeks ago I discussed re-reading all of Jane Austen's novels last summer because she is my favorite author. Shortly after writing that I discovered the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which became the subject of last week's post. After getting caught up with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries I felt a very strong pull to re-read Pride and Prejudice because I just wasn't getting enough Mr. Darcy in the series, so I did.

I finished Pride and Prejudice on Sunday. The remarkable thing isn't that I read my favorite book in six days, but that Pride and Prejudice was published 200 years ago Monday and I'd had no idea such a big anniversary was coming up when I decided to read the book in six days. I found out about the anniversary shortly after I woke up on Monday (who says you can't learn anything on Twitter?) and I would've dropped everything and started reading Pride and Prejudice in celebration of the anniversary if I hadn't just finished it the day before. See, timing.

I owe a debt of gratitude to the British Library for tweeting a link to this delightful article about Pride and Prejudice's 200th anniversary on Monday morning. I highly recommend it.

How Did I Miss This?

In last week's non-YA book recommendation post I mentioned my love of Jane Austen novels and briefly noted that Pride and Prejudice is my favorite. That being said, I am horrified that I only discovered the Lizzie Bennet Diaries last week, especially because the series was created by Hank Green, brother of my new favorite YA author, John Green.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, as I just implied, is a Web series and an updated re-telling of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzie Bennet in the series is a grad student studying mass communications who started a video blog as part of her thesis project. She has two sisters, Jane and Lydia, an overbearing (and apparently Southern) mother, and a father who is pretty hands-off. Her video blog is in the confessional, girl-sitting-in-front-of-her-computer-in-her-bedroom style even though her best friend Charlotte Lu, a wannabe filmmaker, films and edits them.

Lizzie's video blog might have been pretty boring if a rich med student named Bing Lee hadn't bought a house in the neighborhood just before she started it.

Lizzie isn't the only character we've seen, though. There's been quite a lot of her sisters, Jane and Lydia (in the series Mary Bennet is their cousin and Kitty Bennet is Lydia's pet cat - how cute is that?), and Charlotte Lu (Charlotte Lucas in the book). We've also seen Bing Lee (Charles Bingley in the book), Caroline Lee (Caroline Bingley in the book), George Wickham, Ricky Collins (William Collins in the book), Fitz Williams (Colonel Fitzwilliam in the book), Gigi Darcy (Georgiana Darcy in the book), and, of course, William Darcy (Fitzwilliam Darcy in the book). Other characters mentioned but not seen are Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and (Lady) Catherine de Bourgh.

As someone who has read Pride and Prejudice at least six times and watched the Keira Knightley movie more times than I can count, I really love seeing how the writers update the story. For instance, Mr. Collins is no longer a clergyman, but is now a guy with a start-up Web video company. And Catherine de Bourgh is the venture capitalist who is the primary backer of his venture. Furthermore, the major characters all have online lives complete with Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. (In fact, I discovered the Lizzie Bennet Diaries through Tumblr.) I haven't become immersed enough in the story to follow any of the characters on Twitter (yet), but I have seen a few tweets and it's enough to tell me that Twitter is used to expand the story rather than just promote the series.

I watched every episode of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries in the last week and now I am all caught up. The downside of that, though, is that I have to wait for the next episode. The episodes are no more than six minutes long, which allowed me to watch a lot of them in one sitting, but I won't be able to do that with new episodes any more. All things considered, though, I'm glad I'm caught up. And even more glad that I discovered this gem of a Web series.

Book Recommendations: Not YA Edition

What do you call books that aren't YA books? I don't like calling them "adult" books because that seems to imply that the books in question are x-rated. Trust me, I'm not recommending Fifty Shades of Grey. I actually read Fifty Shades of Grey last year, too, but I would never recommend it to anyone because it's terrible; it's poorly written and has a boring narrator. In other words, it reads like the erotic Twilight fan fiction it started out as. But I digress wildly; the point of this post is to recommend books not tear them down.

• Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - I decided to lump these together so I wouldn't end up writing six bullet points about my love for Jane Austen. I normally re-read an Austen novel or two every year, but last year I decided to read all six completed novels over the summer. It was a good decision. I've listed them here in the order in which I rank them, but I suggest you read or re-read them all and come up with your own ranking. Austen's novels are also incredibly popular fodder for adaptations; I've seen great (and at least one terrible) movies of each of these books.
• All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane by Amy Elizabeth Smith - I used this book to put a bow on my Austen re-reading. Smith decided to take a sabbatical from her position as a university professor to travel through South America, holding impromptu Jane Austen reading groups in each country she visited. Part travelogue, part literary discussion - this book is a great read. I ended up reading it in two days. I think it helps to be familiar with the Austen novels Smith discussed with her groups (Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice), but it's not necessary; my mom also enjoyed this book and she isn't a Janeite.
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - I read this book for my YA class, but I'm including it here because it was never marketed as a YA book. When I finished this book (at 2 in the morning, mind you) I wrote a Facebook message to my old roommate who'd lent it to me that simply said, "The Book Thief. Holy crap." Frankly, I'm disappointed that it took me so long to read it (it was released in 2007). It took a little while for me to get used to the narrator's voice (in my defense, Death is kind of a strange narrator), but once I got the hang of it I was mesmerized by the story. So thanks, old roommate, for lending me this book :)

I also enjoyed Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner. Somehow I'm always a year or two behind when reading Weiner's novels even though she's one of my favorite authors.

Book Recommendations: YA Edition

I'm finally getting around to some of my promised book recommendations. I read so many good books in 2012 that I have to split my recommendations up between YA and not YA. I read each of the below books for my YA literature course. I think only one of them was actually published in 2012, but they were all new to me. They're listed in the order in which I read them.

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - This was the first book I read for the course and it set a really high bar for the 23 books that came after it. This book found its way to a lot of "best of the year" lists and deservedly so. Teenagers Hazel and Augustus meet at a support group for young cancer patients and fall in love. You'll laugh (yes, really), you'll cry, you'll be glad you read it. I also fully intend to read everything else John Green has ever written.
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale - I've read Hale's first not YA book, Austenland, several times, so I decided to check out one of her YA books for the course. I'm glad I chose this one. Miri is a fourteen-year-old girl who doesn't know where she fits in her village until she and the rest of the village girls are forced to attend a so-called princess academy. It's a sweet story with a happy ending and sometimes that's all you want from a good book.
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - I'd seen the movie Hugo in the theater, so I had a pretty good idea of the story. But I was completely unprepared for the way Selznick tells the story in the book. There's a visual aspect to the storytelling that is unlike anything I'd ever seen before and is incredibly compelling. I'd probably recommend this book on that alone, but the story is also very good.
• The Giver by Lois Lowry - I was so entranced by this story that I read the book in one day (practically one sitting). Apparently this book is often assigned in high school, but it wasn't in mine. And more's the pity. This is a deceptively simple story about a deceptively perfect world and it stayed with me long after I finished it.
• Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson - Of the 52 books I read last year, this is the one most likely to be slapped with the dreaded "chick lit" label. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I don't mind reading chick lit any more than I mind watching chick flicks or listening to emo. I do wish we could strip the pejorative connotation from "chick lit," though (and "chick flicks" and "emo," for that matter). The odds that I will re-read this book someday are high, which is one of the highest forms of praise I can give a book.
• Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson - This historical novel is set during the yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. This is a really good, fast-paced story, but I'm also recommending it because I feel like this is an episode in early American history that isn't well-known. I'd never heard of it until I read this book and I'm a native of the Delaware Valley; heck, I was in middle school during the 200th anniversary, it should at least have been mentioned in passing. The author blurb on the book states that Anderson first became aware of the outbreak when she saw something about the anniversary on the Philly local news, but she must have been watching PBS or something (we got all of our news from 6ABC).

I also really enjoyed Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

Happy New Year

I know, another post without my promised book recommendations. I really will get around to posting them, just not today. It's not a lack of material (in fact, I read what amounted to a book a week last year) but a lack of time right now.

I made a New Year's Resolution to blog (at least) once a week. I decided I would post on Wednesdays (hence this post). But it looks like I will have to start earlier than 11:30 PM in the future. As much as I would like to recommend some of the many fantastic books I read last year to you, I'd like to go to bed at a somewhat decent hour more :)