Average Girl Reads

A friend recently told me that she wanted to start reading again and avoid the "evil box" -- TV. I'm glad that she wants to read more because I would like to discuss books with more people in my real life and not just online. However, it aggravates me when people call TV evil. There are plenty of true evils in the world but I don't think that TV is one of them. The effect of TV has a lot to do with what you choose to watch.

In the 50+ years that TV has been in existence, the quality has changed. Yes, there is still a lot of questionable material on the air, but I've also watched a lot of shows that have made me think and sparked deep discussions between me and my husband. Also, I've read books that weren't any better than a poorly-written sitcom, and I'm pretty sure they didn't enrich me intellectually as much as an episode of "CBS Sunday Morning News" or "Breakfast with the Arts".

I think of reading and TV as entertainment choices without one being any better than the other. There are some kinds of information that you can only get through reading, but I also think it is difficult to keep up with society without watching at least a little TV. I look at people who say they don't watch TV and people who say they don't read the same way -- as if they are missing a vital part of American culture.

CURRENTLY READING:



I started "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel this morning. This is a book that my reading buddy Maestra picked as part of our goal to read more books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. So far, there is very little dialogue and not much action, which makes it difficult reading for me. Frankly, I wouldn't be pushing through it at all if I didn't have a partner. I'm beginning to think that literary fiction is not my thing. The only book I've enjoyed out of the ones Maestra and I have read together was "Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis. I have a feeling that "The Life of Pi" is going to be one of those books that I won't necessarily enjoy but will be proud to check off my list.



I'm also reading "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream". I actually started reading this book before "Life of Pi", but it hasn't grabbed me yet. I read a page while waiting for water to boil or something, then put it down for the rest of the day. The concept is intriguing; a guy strikes out after college graduation to see if he can get a job and improve his lot in life without using his education or any of his college or familial connections. The writing style is definitely easier to read than my other book. I don't know why I haven't sped through this book yet.

TBR LIST: As I said at the beginning of the year, my only goal is to either read or eliminate all the books that I added to my TBR list in 2008. I started with 25 titles at the beginning of the year and I am down to 24 now. It has only gone down by one because even though I've removed several 2008 books from the list, I've also moved some books from my "not at my library" list to my TBR list because my library has gotten them in. Goodreads counts them as added in 2008 because of when I added them to the first list, so I'll go with that. I have high hopes of zipping through this small subsection of my TBR list quickly because several of the books are light Christian romances. The only snag I can foresee is that some of these same romances are first books of a series, and I may get sidetracked into reading all the series books first!

Even though I don't buy a lot of books, I think that today's post on Lisa Shearin's blog has several good suggestions. It is about ways you can support your favorite authors and show publishers that their books are being read. Buying all the books I read doesn't fit into my budget, but I can definitely take some of the other actions that Shearin listed. I already write about the books I read; one of the reasons I started this blog was to bring attention to books other than the Harry Potters and the Twilights. However, I could do a better job of seeking out the authors' web sites and linking to them.

How vocal are you about your favorite authors? I've ceased trying to get non-readers to pick up a novel, but I am trying to be more active in giving recommendations to my friends that are book lovers. In the past, I would just ask them what they are reading and mention a title that I've picked up. Nowadays, I do more evangelizing for certain books and series. I also take a little more time to give my local librarian my impresssions. Librarians are not super-human; they can't read everything. My librarian seems to appreciate hearing what I thought about a certain book; perhaps it helps her know who to recommend it to.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Genre: epistolary fiction
On my TBR list?: yes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description from Goodreads:

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

This book had the book bloggers all abuzz when I added it to my TBR list in October 2008. I didn't read it then because at that time I was attempting to review all books that I read, and I didn't want to join the throngs of bloggers who were already writing about this title. So I waited. I didn't mean to wait two years, but lots of other books got in the way!

The authors managed to capture the 1940s style in their writing, which I enjoyed. The letters and telegrams had a light, conversational tone for the most part. The accounts of abuses that the island residents suffered during the war were detailed enough to make me sad without grossing me out. I'm not a scholar of WWII history, but I got the sense that the authors really did their research on the period. The ending was a bit of a letdown; from other reviews, I'd gotten the impression that there was a surprise twist so I kept waiting for it. Other than that, the book was a satisfying diversion.

I usually like to mention who I would recommend a book to, but with this one I have no idea. My kids would probably find it dull, and the romance element wasn't developed enough to satisfy a true fan of that genre. Perhaps a fan of the gentle books of Louisa May Alcott might like this.

View all my reviews >>

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip . . . with Recipes! by Guy Fieri

Genre: cookbook
On my TBR list: Yes



Reading this book is almost like watching the TV show. I could hear Fieri's voice as I read the descriptions of each establishment. My only disappointment is that I thought the recipes would be mostly sandwiches, since that is what I see on the show. Instead, it has recipes for a lot of non-sandwich dishes. Still, this is a fun cookbook to flip through if you are a Guy Fieri fan.

View all my reviews >>

In my last post I mentioned that I am a frequent user of Gaston-Lincoln Regional Library's website, and a comment from JoAnn reminded me that there is one feature I haven't been using: the ability to make a list of books I want to check out later. There are two reasons I haven't used this feature. First, there is this warning message that pops up letting you know that if I create a list, law enforcement agencies will be able to access a history of my library activity. I don't know why that bothered me, but it put me off for quite a while. Second, I have an account on Goodreads where I keep my TBR list and I'm pretty happy with that system. However, I don't like adding books that I want to check out for the kids to my personal reading list, so I thought I would give the library's list feature a try.

The list feature is pretty easy to use, but not as robust as I would like. All I have to do is log in with my library card number, look up a book, and click a link that says Add to My List. Simple, right? However, it only transfers books to a working list. Then I have to go into the working list and move each book to my permanent list individually. Another function I would like to see added is the ability to click on the link for the book from the list and check its availability or put it on reserve. The list can be printed, which would be great if I was going to the library to look for the books, but active links would be great for patrons like me who do most of their browsing online and only go to the library to pick up reserves.

I know it sounds like I'm not a fan of GLRL's list feature, but I'm sure that I could find some uses for it. For instance, I often recommend books to other people in my local area. Just the other day, I told my best friend about some books I've been reading and she said that I should write those titles down for her later when I'm not in the car. Making a list on the library's website and emailing it to her would be useful because, like me, I know that she would only read the ones that are available at the library. I could also make a list and hand it to my daughter so she could go over it with her English teacher and decide what books she will be reading this semester.

Whenever someone tells me that she uses our local library a lot, I ask, "Do you use the library's online reserve system?" I have yet to have someone answer yes. It amazes me how many regular users of the library don't even know about it. Today one of my coworkers, who is studying fashion design, was wondering how she was going to have time to get some books that she needs for a project. She thought that she would have to spend her whole afternoon tomorrow, roaming around the library and trying to find the appropriate books. Oh, no, my friend! It took me about 15 minutes to pull up her library account, do a little research on what books were available at the library, and reserve four of them for her to pick up on her lunch break. Now she doesn't have to trudge out in the 3" of snow that we are supposed to get tomorrow. Why can't I get paid to do stuff like this?

We were doing our Saturday clean-up and discovered that we have two copies of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". This is a weird discovery for a person like me. I rarely buy books so there is no way that I would accidentally buy two copies of the same book. I was such a fan of the Harry Potter series that after the third book, I bought each one on the day of release and read it immediately. There is no way I could forget that I owned them.

What's even stranger is that my copy of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is the Bloomsbury edition that my best friend bought for me when she was honeymooning in England.The extra copy is also a Bloomsbury edition. It is my understanding that you can only get the Bloomsbury covers in England, or at least special order them at a premium. I can tell the difference between my copy and the duplicate because mine has a broken spine. Unfortunately, my daughter didn't notice that there was an extra copy on the bookshelf. She pick up the duplicate and wrote her name in it because she was taking it to school. Now I have somebody else's copy that they paid good money for with my kid's name in it :-(.

FINISHED: Well, I'm done with my detour into Charlaine Harris' bibliography, at least for the moment. I've read everything in the Sookie Stackhouse series thus far, and the next book won't be published until May. I haven't written any reviews because I have trouble reviewing books in a series. Whenever I've attempted in the past, I felt I couldn't do it without giving away elements of the plot. From now on, I will probably just review the first book in a series and then write about the series as a whole when I finish it.

UP NEXT: I have a mountain of library books by my bedside, but I'm still trying to shake off the vampire haze in my brain so none of them look appealing right now. Most likely I will go with something non-fiction like "Knitting America" because I don't think I could get caught up in another narrative right now.