Average Girl Reads

My small group (what some churches call neighborhood Bible study groups) is taking on the challenge of reading the entire Bible in 90 days. The church our group is affiliated with has a young hip congregation so they have renamed the challenge B90X. Like a crazy person, I decided to join the rest of the group and try it.

Why is this crazy? Well, I'm supposed to be starting a new job tomorrow so I won't have as much time to complete the challenges I've already set for myself. Why on earth would I take on another one? I guess it's because I am a Christian who has strayed somewhat from many of the trappings of my faith. I don't go to church and I don't listen to gospel music. I rarely watch sermons on TV. The only time I devote to God these days is a quick prayer at night and my weekly small group meeting. I want to jump-start my spiritual life, and this might be the way.

I am back in NC after a week-long vacation, and it was a bestseller in more ways than one. For a start, the cruise shop was completely sold out so there were a lot more people than there were on our last two cruises. Among all those passengers, there were a lot of readers. I saw books everywhere. Which one did I see the most?



Yes, I saw Dan Brown's latest bestseller The Lost Symbol everywhere. Following at a close second were books by Janet Evanovich, although not her latest ones.

The fact that I saw anyone reading at all was a change. Last year I felt like the odd woman out with a book in my hand. This year even my husband, who isn't much of a reader, sat in a lounge chair and caught up on back copies of his favorite magazine Men's Health. Perhaps there was more reading because we took a longer cruise this time. I know that in our group, we felt free to sit and do nothing for a few hours between activities because we had plenty of time.

TBR LIST: I currently have 96 titles on my list. I eliminated three titles by James Lileks after discovering that I didn't like his writing style. On vacation I started
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food and hope to get it reviewed this week. After that, I expect that my reading time will be cut drastically since I start my new job on 01 Oct. My original goal was to get below 50 by the end of the year, but I think I'll be lucky to get below 80 unless I totally cut out TV watching -- and that's not gonna happen!

Gastroanomalies: Questionable Culinary Creations from the Golden Age of American Cookery by James Lileks

Genre: Nonfiction, food, humor
On my TBR list?: Yes

Read for the Spice of Life Challenge


When I picked this up, I expected a bit of snarkiness but I also expected actual recipes. I was looking forward to trying to recreate a few of these crazy dishes myself and passing my own judgment on them. What I actually got was pictures from vintage cookbooks with captions that were supposed to be funny. In fact, it can be funny in small doses -- say, as individual entries on a blog. Take said blog and compile all the entries in a book, and the humor becomes annoying.

I'm counting this in the Nonfiction category for the Spice of Life Challenge. Reading this has also helped me eliminate three other books from my TBR list which were also by Lileks. I'm not saying that this book is bad. I actually like sites like Cake Wrecks and Go Fug Yourself, which have a similar type of humor, but I enjoy them more when I only read one or two posts a day. Reading the whole book of this brand of snarkiness in one sitting bored me.

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"Leaving on a jet plane,
Don't know when I'll be back again.
Oh, babe, I hate to go."

(RIP, Mary Travers)

By the time this is posted to my blog, I should be on a airplane headed to Ft. Lauderdale with my husband. We are taking a week-long cruise without the kids. This is our third year taking a cruise, so we are a bit more laid-back about it. The first year we ran around trying everything, especially since it was the first vacation we'd taken in about 15 years. Last year, we took the kids and extended family, so we ran around like cruise directors making sure everyone had a good time. This year, we plan to relax! Relaxing for me right now means reading. On the ship, I won't have the usual distractions of housework, TV, and the internet to pull me away from my books. I'm hoping to finish at least one book while I'm gone.

So what am I going to take? I thought I knew until I started writing this post. My bag is already packed with the latest copy of Good Housekeeping magazine and the next book in the Yada Yada Prayer group series. I was going with the idea of light beach reads. Now I'm thinking I should take something from my TBR list. I have three choices on hand:



I know I can jump right into the Yada Yada Prayer Group book, but these nonfiction books are more iffy. I may settle down in my deck chair with one of them and hate it after five pages. What will I do then? Of course, this could all be useless speculation. My husband claims that he wants to relax, but he may have me running around so much that I never get a chance to pick up a book!

TBR List: It stands at 99 titles right now. I've resisted the urge to add more books to the list even though there are a few that should probably be on there, like the Yada Yada Prayer Group books and the Sue Barton books. The first book of each series was on my list. Once I finished those, I knew that I wanted to read the rest of each series. I've been reading them but not adding them to the list. I'm reading them as fast as I can get my hands on them, so it seems silly to add them and then turn around and check them off again.

I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking by Alton Brown

Genre: Cookbook
On my TBR list?: No

Read for the Spice of Life Challenge


This book, written by Food Network personality Alton Brown, is like a cooking course in a book. It would make a great reference book because he doesn't stop at giving you recipes. Brown uses his humorous approach to explain the different ways that heat can be applied to food and what exactly is happening to the food. He throws in plenty of illustrations and anecdotes from his own life to keep things lively.

The subtitle of this book is "Food + Heat = Cooking" so you won't find any cookies or cakes here. In this book, Brown focuses mainly on taking a meat or vegetable, adding some seasoning, and heating it up. You will find detailed information on searing, roasting, grilling, frying, boiling, and braising, among other things. If you've ever wondered how to make french fries without having them soak up a ton of grease, this is the book to tell you.

Part of the Spice of Life challenge is to try some of the recipes in a cookbook. I didn't get a chance to try any of the recipes from this book, but I did use the suggestion to dip my chicken cutlets in flour before I dip them in the egg and then breadcrumbs. It improved the crunch and made the seasoning stand out more. Next, I want to try Brown's method of microwaving popcorn in a brown paper lunch bag. That sounds like a money-saver!

For the challenge, I am putting this in the Cookbook category because it is useful to the modern cook. The next cookbook on my list is more historical (some might say hysterical), so I am putting that one in the Nonfiction category.

Favorite quote: This quote describes the cheap cookware the author found in a colleague's kitchen.

"Next I checked out the hardware and what I found frightened me badly. It was as if one aluminum pie tin had been melted down and cast into 15 different pots and pans, each of which had then been adorned with a rotting balsa-wood handle."



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Michael from A Few Minutes With Michael seems to be paying pretty close attention to my blog. Not only did he give me a Zombie Chicken Award, but he also likes to give me helpful blogging suggestions. As you know, I don't do reading challenges because they usually feel restrictive, no matter how lenient the guidelines are. However, when Michael pointed me toward the Spice of Life Challenge, I couldn't resist! Here is the description from the challenge page:

The goal of the Spice of Life Challenge is to read and/or review books about food and eating our way through a good life. It will run from July 1, 2009 until December 31, 2009 so you can include all those scrumptious summer salads, savory fall soups, and yummy holiday books that get you in the mood for turkey dinner.

Doesn't that sound perfect for me? I would estimate that at least 75% of the non-fiction books I read are about food. If I looked through the books I've read since the official start of the challenge, I could probably count myself done already! I'm coming to the challenge late, though, so I'm only including books I've read since 15 Sep 2009.

I've signed up for the Sampler level, which means reading one book from each of the four categories. There are enough food-related books on my TBR list for me to complet the Feast level, but with my challenge track record I didn't want to be too ambitious. Hopefully, you guys will enjoy a few more food-related book reviews!

Michael over at A Few Minutes With Michael sent me this Zombie Chicken Award. I'm not used to be singled out for these bloggy recognitions, so I'm touched.

Here is the description of the award:

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken– excellence, grace, and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all.

Now it is my job as a Zombie Chicken Award recipient to pass the fun along to five other bloggers, but I could only come up with four. I really had to stretch because I don't read a lot of blogs regularly and the ones that come to mind have already gotten the award. Anyway, here are my choices:

Kelly at Yannabe
Rachael at Yarn-a-Go-Go
Protecting Your Crown and Glory
Nora at Whopping Cornbread

The last two are not book blogs, but they are fun to read, anyway. Enjoy!

I've made references to my kids in several posts, but a comment by KyleeJ made me realize that I've never really told you much about them. Many of the books I read were either read by them first or get passed on to them after I'm done, so you might want to know who is helping to shape my reviews.

--M is my 16-year-old daughter. She learned to read at an early age and loves it, but doesn't get to do much reading for pleasure during the school year. Right now she prefers manga and magical realism.

--C1 is 12 years old and the best reader in the house. She's the one who chooses to curl up with a book instead of watching TV or playing video games. Although her reading level is way above her grade level, she prefers to read books with a protagonist that is close to her age. Currently she is working her way through Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice series.

--C2 is a slower reader than her twin sister, C1. Up until recently, she has also been tough to fit as far as books have been concerned because her tastes were so narrow. Before, all she wanted to read were primary-level mysteries. Nowadays she still isn't reading quite at her reading level but she is branching out. This week she is finishing up Things Not Seen.

--My only son DJ is 11 and he runs hot and cold when to reading. Sometimes he can't be bothered with it and other times I have to force him to turn out his light amid cries of "One more page, please!" He reads the typical "boy" books, but he also enjoys books like Rapunzel's Revenge which has a female protagonist but doesn't make a big deal about "girl power".

I never was a person to coo over little babies, so I am excited that my kids are at the age where we can share books and other interests.

At the beginning of this school year, I decided that the children should renew their effort to keep their Goodreads accounts up to date. Since many of the books they read aren't on the AR list, I wanted another way to keep track of what they are reading and what they are getting out of those books. I told the kids they could either write a little review on Goodreads or on this blog.

Out of all my kids, the one who has taken this edict seriously is C2. She loves updating her profile, adding books to her TBR list, and writing mini-reviews of the books she's read. I still have to work with her on her review-writing, but the fact that she is doing it without complaint is a big deal. C2 is my reluctant reader who rarely meets her AR goals. In the past, she hated writing and didn't want to read for more than 15 minutes at a time. Her twin sister C1 loves to write and is the best reader in the house so I thought she would love doing this. How wrong I was! You should have heard the whining.

I'm hoping that this marks a turning point for C2. With four kids I knew that the odds were good that at least one of them would dislike reading, especially since their dad doesn't read much. I loved reading as a kid, but I wasn't much of a reading role model myself until I started this blog. Perhaps seeing me with a book instead of sitting at the computer all the time has made an impression on C2.

Even though I stopped watching Guiding Light ages ago, I'm sad to see it go this Friday. I mean, it has been on the air for 72 years. I have a soft spot for anything that has managed to stick around that long.

As I was watching a retrospective of the show on Sunday, it occurred to me that watching soap operas (or "the stories" as most of the people I know used to call them) nurtured my taste for series fiction. Around the same time that I was heavily invested in the lives of the Bauers and the Spauldings, I started reading those huge family saga books that were written by authors like Howard Fast. I abandoned series fiction for several years after that, but lately I've found that I am drawn to it again. Perhaps because TV has been a constant in my life, I prefer to follow characters through more than one book.

Chances are you have a long-time Guiding Light fan in your midst. Maybe it's your mother, your auntie, or your kindly old neighbor. After this Friday, she will probably be missing "her stories". Why don't you help her with the transition by taking her a few books? Maybe if she has failing eyesight, you could read to her a little. Do any of you have some suggestions for series that might hook a soap opera fan?

As I mentioned in my last Sunday Salon post, I couldn't go to the library this week because it was closed on my regular pickup day (Labor Day Monday). All week I've been going to my bedside table where I normally keep my library stack, and then I remember that I don't have any new books. Bummer.

Today is the worst. I've come down with a cold so I'm not up to doing housework. There is nothing to watch on TV, and I've watched the backlog on my DVR. It is on days like this that I envy the book buyers and the bloggers who review ARCs. Right now, I'd like to be neighbors with one of them so I could zip over and borrow something!

I was scanning my TBR list, looking for something to request from the library, and decided to remove four titles. It seems like cheating, but I am no longer interested in them. My criteria is this: if I feel a zing of excitement when I read a title or think, "I should move that to the top of the list!", then it stays. Anyway, this is my game and I'm the only player, so I can change the rules if I want, right?

Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey

Genre: Non-fiction
On my TBR list?: Yes
Referred by: Mur Lafferty




The subject matter (how people born into a world of digital conveniences deal with it differently than their forebears) sounded appealing. However, the book reads like a dry textbook. I could visualize a grey-haired professor droning on as I read the words. I'm sure there is a lot of good information in this book, but I don't have the attention span to ferret it out.

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Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel

Genre: Non-fiction
On my TBR list?: Yes
Referred by: NPR



This book of people talking about how they feel about their work was more difficult for me to get through than I expected. I think I would enjoy this more in an audio version. I've heard that it was adapted into a Broadway musical; that would bring it to life.

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Today I want to revisit the topic of reviewing every book. Last week I mentioned that I have trouble reviewing light books because there isn't much to say other than whether I enjoyed the book or not. However, I also have trouble from time to time reviewing the meatier books.

If a book has many intriguing topics or conflicts to explore, I end up wanting to discuss them in my post. Looking around the book blogosphere, I've noticed that most book blogs are spoiler-free so I'm guessing that an in-depth post like that wouldn't be kosher. My answer to that problem when I read Main Street was to post a general review on this blog and then post a more in-depth analysis of my impressions on my personal blog.

What do you do if you really want to discuss the particulars of a book and you don't belong to a book club?

READ: Last week, I read Sue Barton, Student Nurse and Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real. Both of them are series books and I know that if I had the rest of the series on hand, my "books read" total for this past week would have been higher than two!

CURRENTLY READING: That would be nothing. I'm still in the mood to read light novels (remember, I read in clusters) and all I have on hand are stodgy non-fiction books. The library is closed for Labor Day. Since Monday is the only day I can pick up books, I won't have anything new until 14 Sep. I may have to resort to reading one of the kids' books.

TBR LIST: Here's the rundown of last week's activity--

Read 1 book (Sue Barton, Student Nurse)
Removed 1 book (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)
Abandoned 2 books (Working and Born Digital)
Added 2 books (Woolbur and The Book of Jane)

The list currently stands at 102 titles. This week the list may grow as I hear about new books without being able to read any. I'm hoping that the week I will be spending on a cruise ship at the end of the month will help me make a big dent!

The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real by Neta Jackson

Genre: Christian fiction
On my TBR list?: No

Book 3 of 7

In this installment of the Yada Yada Prayer Group series, our narrator Jodi Baxter is dealing with new aspects of the problems that plagued her in the first two books. These include her dislike for prayer group member Stu, her struggle to forgive the woman who invaded her house, and the fallout from her car accident. There are also several celebrations that keep the story from being a downer.

I've read several comments online from people who say they can't make it through the entire series because they find Jodi whiny and that it never lets up. I suppose your temperament will determine if you find her this way. I can identify with Jodi's ever-present inner dialogue because I also have a little voice in my brain that comments on everything and expresses my doubts and fears all day long. If you don't have that, then you may be one of those readers who find Jodi annoying. Others may find the story of how Jodi works to overcome those fears helpful, especially since everything isn't magically wrapped up in one book.


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Sue Barton, Student Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston

Genre: Fiction
On my TBR list?: Yes

Book #1 of a series (7 books in all)

The title character Sue Barton is the daughter of a doctor who decides that she wants to go to nursing school. This book, the first of a series, is an account of her probationary period. It is a classic college story, but it doesn't have a romance in it. I've read that Sue does find love later in the series, but in this book it is all work.

The dialogue in this book was a pleasant surprise. Although the passages concerning how Sue felt about the hospital bordered on sappy, the dialogue between Sue and her friends reminded of witty 1930s comedies. These snappy exchanges kept the book from reading as too goody-goody.

Some of the plot twists may seem old hat, like the stern teacher who turns out to be nice. However, if you remember that the book was published in 1936 when story lines like this were new, then they are easier to swallow. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

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Much is made these days of having a multimedia experience, and I believe that Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist works on that level. The film, due to the nature of the medium, is presented as a rollicking night in New York City. The book is more about being inside the heads of the two main characters. Instead of being disappointed that the film didn't mirror the book exactly, I found that I enjoyed the way the filmmakers rearranged the events. Having read the book first, I had the characters' backgrounds and motivations in my head. It made for a richer viewing experience.

In my review of the book, I said that I wouldn't hand it to my 16-year-old because of all the sexual content. There is sex in the movie, as well, but it seems to be milder. I would much rather have M watch the movie.