Still not blogging regularly

Daniel Catt recently posted a blog entry titled The worst time in the world to pickup blogging again. I definitely feel like this in my feeble attempts to resume regular blogging. Dan sums it up very well when he says, "the really simple answer is that Real Life took over. When it takes over, it then gets very hard to get back into doing it, the longer you leave it the worse it gets." As you can see, I still haven't made any serious move toward updating the reading log here.

Which of these have I read?

Jenn posted a message in the 50booksin2006 group over at Yahoo! stating that she had reached her goal of 50 books. Here's here list and I've bolded the books that I have read.

• The Time Traveller's Wife -- Audry Niffenegger
• The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories -- Tim Burton
• Boys and Girls Forever -- Alison Lurie
• Lucky Man -- Michael J. Fox
• The Sunflower -- Richard Paul Evans
• Conversations with the Fat Girl -- Liza Palmer
• The Seven Gateways to Happiness -- Mary Lou Retton
• Girl Swirl -- Taryn Hipp
• The Camera My Mother Gave Me -- Suzanna Kaysen
• Freak the Mighty -- Rodman Philbrick
• Yoga Chick
• Letters to a Young Poet -- Ranier Maria Rilke
• The Illuminator -- Brenda Rickman Vantreage
• Dating Big Bird -- Laura Zigman
• There and Back Again -- Sean Astin
• The Pillow Friend -- Lisa Tuttle
• Cradle and All -- James Patterson
• The Fat Girl's Guide to Life -- Wendy Shanker
• Fat?So! -- Marilyn Wann
• Schoolhouse Brides
• The Quilter's Daughter -- Wanda Brunstetter
• Wicked -- Gregory Maguire
• How to Conquer Fear -- Jerold Potter
• Embraced by the Light
• The Covenant -- Beverly Lewis
• Time Was -- Nora Roberts
• Keeping Faith -- Jodi Picoult
• The Bishop's Daughter -- Wanda Brunstetter
• Crossing Over
• Sink Reflections - - Maria Cilley
• Body Clutter -- Maria Cilley
• The Betrayel -- Beverly Lewis
• Tithe -- Holly Black
• The Man Who Heard Voices
• Prep -- Curtis Slatterfield
• Bad Twin -- Gary Thorpe
• Beauty -- Susan Wilson
• The Sound of Us -- Sarah Willis
• Stop Stuffing Yourself
• Velvet Elvis -- Rob Bell
• The Cinderella Pact
• How Nancy Drew Saved My Life
• The Mermaid Chair -- Sue Monk Kidd
• Jonathon Livingston Seagull -- Richard Bach
• The Whitney Chronicles -- Judy Baer
• Must Love Dogs -- Claire Cook
• Running with Angels -- Pamela Hanson
• Little Drummer Boy -- Ted Dekker
• Child and Curriculum -- John Dewey
• The Pact -- Jodi Picoult

Book Crossing's Top 100

1. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
2. Harry Potter Series, J. K. Rowling
3. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
4. The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
5. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
6. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog..., Mark Haddon
8. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
9. My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult
10. The Hitchhiker's Guide..., Douglas Adams
11. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
12. The Stand, Stephen King
13. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
14. 1984, George Orwell
15. Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
16. The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
17. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
18. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
19. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
20. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
21. The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
22. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
23. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
24. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
25. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Alborn
26. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
27. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
28. The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
29. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
30. Watership Down, Richard Adams
31. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
32. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
33. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
34. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
35. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
36. Animal Farm, George Orwell
37. Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christopher Moore
38. The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
39. Persuasion, Jane Austen
40. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
41. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
42. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
43. The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
44. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
45. Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
46. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
47. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
49. 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
50. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
51. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry
52. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
53. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
54. Dune, Frank Herbert
55. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
56. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
57. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
58. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
59. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
60. Discworld Series, Terry Pratchett
61. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
62. Stephanie Plum Series, Janet Evanovich
63. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
64. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
65. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
66. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
67. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
68. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
69. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
70. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
71. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
72. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
75. A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snickett
76. Atonement, Ian McEwan
77. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
78. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
79. Emma, Jane Austen
80. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
81. Little House Series, Laura Ingalls Wilder
82. Possession, A. S. Byatt
83. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
84. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
85. Sabriel, Garth Nix
86. Saturday, Ian McEwan
87. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
88. Stones from the River, Ursula Hegi
89. The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
90. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
91. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
92. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
93. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
94. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
95. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
96. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
97. Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
98. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
99. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
100. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
101. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
102. Outlander Series, Diana Gabaldon
103. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
104. Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
105. Small Island, Andrea Levy
106. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
107. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
108. Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne
109. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
110. Tomorrow, When the War Began, John Marsden

When good bloggers go bad

Well, it's been more than 6 months since I last posted an entry to this blog. I've been reading; I really have. And, I was doing a fair job of keeping up with the books that I had read this year—through most of April at least—but I just stopped logging. So, I've lost track. I'll try to recreate the list, though I'm sure I'll miss a few.

So now it is June and I want to restart this blog again. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be a bit better at keeping things going.

September's Books

I only read 9 books in September. Although none of them were particularly long or difficult, I just didn't find as much time to read this month. As of the end of September, I had read 97 books. To match last year's total of 150, I'll have to average 18 books per month for the rest of the year. I'm unlikely to do that.

Here are the books read in September. A few of them are reviewed in the blog—links lead to Amazon.com

1. Bio Rescue by S. L Viehl
2. Dream Country by Luanne Rice
3. Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
4. Sea Swept by Nora Roberts
5. Rising Tides by Nora Roberts
6. Eragon by Christopher Paolini
7. The Mask of Ra by P. J. Doherty
8. The Horus Killings by P. J. Doherty
9. Point Blank by Catherine Colter

Banned Books Week

It is Banned Books Week again. I get a big kick out of celebrating the Freedom to Read. I've read many of the books on the 100 most frequently challenged books, though I have only read The Chocolate War from the 10 most frequently challenged books in 2004. Looks like I need to get busy and read some challenged books.

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."—Benjamin Franklin

What I find discouraging is that year after year there is still a need to observe Banned Books Week.

Book Relay, Part II

I've been playing at BookRelay for the page month or so. I've participated in three relays so far. Unfortunately, one of these died and I had to ressurect it by accepting my own offer and posting another book to see if anyone was interested in it. But, I've had the opportunity to read some books that I might not have discovered at all if it hadn't been for this book-trading site.

The Mask of Ra by Paul Doherty was offered in an exchange for "first books in a mystery series". I looked it up on Amazon.com and decided that it sounded pretty good. The person who was offering it had commented that she started reading the book, didn't like it, and never finished it. But I figured that even if I didn't enjoy the book, I could offer it to someone else. Turns out that the story was fun to read.

Set in 1479 BC, the book begins as Pharoah Tuthmosis II is triumphantly returning to Thebes from a series of battles along the Nile. He's barely home when he drops dead in his wife's arma. Tuhatsu, half-sister as well as wife to Tuthmosis, is of even more royal lineage than the dead Pharoah and she decides to take the title for herself. Needless to say, Egypt is in an uproar. When it is suspected that Tuthmosis's death was caused by a snakebite, the captain of his guard is arrested for failing to protect the Pharoah. Enter Amerotke, cheif judge, who must sort out the truth of this and several other murders by snakebite.

I got so interested in the Pharoahs that I spent several hours researching online and reading about the succession from Tuthmosis II to Tutankhamun.

Along with The Mask of Ra, the Relayer sent the second book in the series, The Horus Killings, so I went straight on to that book as soon as I finished the first book. In this story, Amerotke must again solve the murders of priests and scholars amid the politcal turmoil caused by Hatusu's claim to the throne. Having convinced her privy council to support her bid to be recognized as Pharoah and won the hearts of the populus by defeating the Mitanni hordes, she now needs the approval of the high priests of the various temples. They convene a conference to determine if there is any precedent for having a woman rule the country. Unfortunately, someone is so opposed to granting Hatusu the title of Pharoah that supporters are being murdered horribly.

I intend to find the other books in this series. The mix of history and intrigue is pretty good. The characters have quite a contemporary feel to them, and yet there were no historical discrepancies that I could find. I think that must be a difficult task—to create characters who seem at home in the historic setting, yet just as human as the people you run into today.