Wednesday, June 9, 2010

50 books down. 50 books to go.

Well folks, I've done it. Well not it, just half of it. I've completed half of my resolution to finish 100 books in 365 days. It took me officially 158 days to read 50 books (or 13,651,200 seconds, or 227,520 minutes, or 3792 hours, or 22 weeks.... needless to say there is a clever website that will do all that fun math for you!) Here is the truth of it all: I'm pretty stinking proud of myself! I'm ahead of schedule! To celebrate I created a new header for my blog! Scroll up now and enjoy! Those are all books from my completed shelf, also known as the trophy shelf. It was also fun to dink around with Photoshop again. Although I'm ahead of schedule, I need to keep myself motivated! If it ever gets nice outside I'm going to have fewer Sunday afternoons where I can sit inside with my cup of tea and a novel while the rain taps against my window.

Side note! In my last post I mentioned Children's books and my pregnant sister-in-law. Well she is due on the 14th! That is only a few days away! I can't believe it! There are these weird contradictory feelings going through my mind that they just announced they were expecting and at the same time that she has been pregnant forever! I am so excited. So freaking excited. I am the youngest in my immediate family and out of my biological cousins. I've never welcomed a family member into the world that could possibly be anything like me. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but regardless I'm so excited about this baby. I found out earlier this week that if the baby is a girl (they haven't found out the sex yet) they plan to give her my middle name (Helene which I share with my lovely mother). How cool is that?! I guess they kinda like my mom and I a little bit! I can't wait to be an Auntie!!! (Lets all start hoping it is a girl!! hehe)

Update Book 49: When Will There Be Good News? By Kate Atkinson
I judge a book by several things, but I'm not ashamed to say that two of those things are it's cover and it's title. This book definitely had both title and cover going for it. The first chapter of "When Will There Be Good New?" begins with a very shocking and violent scene. This act of violence sets up the plot for the rest of the story. This is another book that changes narrators from chapter-to-chapter. In this instance it works. You don't realize how the characters are connected until pretty far into the story, so you need to know how they think for it to make sense. I liked this book, I didn't love it. The characters were interesting, but a few of the pieces at the end didn't add up for me. I did enjoy the style of writing, it flowed the same way as thoughts do (which is very different from the way we speak or how most writers write books.) I'd recommend it for a beach vacation. Here is a favorite excerpt:
"He was Irish, which always helped. A man with an Irish accent could sound wise and poetic and interesting even when he wasn't."

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