Post Holiday Wrap-Up

One of the great mistakes one can make is to put themselves in a position of vulnerability. When you are a writing professor, the ultimate position of vulnerability is letting anyone stumble across your blog of writing and reading.

I made such a mistake, and then promptly got caught up in a Fall semester of way too much moving and packing, just the right amount of frenzied reading, and all the other detritus that comes from getting sucked into books and keeping the magic all for myself rather than thinking about it on paper in addition to in my head.

Every semester, I give my students one hugely general assignment -- they have to read. It isn't a lot (well, they think it is, but I hold it isn't) -- 25 pages a week of something, anything. It has to be a book and it has to be in English. Other than that, they are free to choose anything they find interesting.

To my new students, or any from last semester who called me on my lack of posts, students who have completed my classes at Mount Ida have come to me to tell me how not overwhelmed they are by the reading requirements of their literature classes. Ah! Proof of the goal behind such torture. If you are a new student reading this, it DOES get better.

I promise, on the other hand, to read 25 pages a week from something, anything, PER class I teach (6). This means that while they "suffer" through 25 pages, I "force" myself to get through 125 pages a week. No, I don't stop for holidays.

This semester, I will do my best to keep track of my own readings, much as I do theirs. I'll start with "What I Read over Summer Vacation" and go from there.

Christmas holidays means a nice long break from grading and the like, but it also means a 16+ hour drive from the tundra to the Ponderosa in SC. During the semester, I commute over an hour each way. This means that in addition to my reading reading, from which my 125 pages a week is entirely composed, there is also an audio component to these entries.

So here's the list since December 21st:

Audio (mostly on the trip down and back, but since as well):

City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau -- Wicked awesome. Fun YA novel.
City of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau -- Sequel to City of Ember -- also cool. Will check out the rest of the series from the library when it is in.
Hissy Fit by Mark Kay Andrews -- it killed time on the drive. I won't be expanding on her writing until the next 16+ hour drive.
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell -- Hours of my life I will never get back. Skip it and see the movie, unless the movie sucks too

Books (in the order I put them into FB, not necessarily the order in which I finished, or heaven help me, started them):

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi -- Fantabulous. Student Fair Warning -- this is now a part of my curriculum if I have to change my curriculum to make it fit.
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart -- I thought it was cute. The puzzles were fun. A little too young to interest my students. I gave it to my neice with hopeful expectations.
Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix -- I waited a LONG time for this one to come out in paperback. I adore MPH. I finished it, and my nephew scooped it up the very next day and had it almost finished by Christmas. Good stuff.
The Angel Experiment by James Patterson -- My first free download to my kindle. Worth free.
School's Out Forever by James Patterson -- 2nd in the series and the third is hurtling toward my local library as we speak
Already Dead by Charlie Huston -- another free Kindle download. Worth free, and maybe a little more. Nice Vampire/ turf war kind of thing.
Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent -- free kindle download. Maybe I need to start paying for downloads. This kind of bit, but it didn't take long to get through.

Currently Reading:

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession Among Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis -- this is my albatross. I am forcing myself to read at least some every day until I finally damn finish it. It started great and then I lost my taste for it. I just stopped caring, and I don't know why.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan -- I'm loving it so far. A colleague lent it to me. The only problem that keeps me from being cuddled up right now with it is that she loaned me one with a slightly torn cover and I have to handle it gently to avoid harming it further. It's always on my mind when I'm reading it. Otherwise, highly delightful and will download or get the rest from the library. Long, for those for whom that matters (not me!).
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell -- Terrific, but one I'm reading in spurts which is funny since it has no chapters (the main reason why I didn't assign it as group read this semester).
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson -- why have I not read this before? Bill is totally my boy.
Hacking Harvard by Robin Wasserman -- my current YA of Choice. Good so far -- nice description of Harvard Sqaure as Disneyland made me laugh out loud.
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations by Clay Shirky -- If Scrabble is my albatross, this is my Everest. I've read almost all of this but keep getting turned around by other more interesting things. That said, I actually use the second chapter in my AWD classes. My goal is to kill this one and Scrabble by Valentine's Day.
Life After Genius by M. Anne Jacoby -- started at Christmas and working my way through. It's too soon to tell, but it's looking good so far.

I'll leave the list of what's on the shelf for when it gets off the shelf, but I have to finish something before I get into all that.

So, there you have it. A Christmas spent in the service of reading. Not a bad way to spend a month under the snow. There will be more soon, let's hope.