Devourer of Books

This time of year fills my Google Reader with posts about holiday-themed books.  Now I love Christmas, Christmas music (after Thanksgiving only!), Christmas movies, Christmas decorations, and Christmas cookies(!).  I am simply not, however, at all interested in Christmas/holiday lit.  I’ve been seeing lots of reviews from reviewers whose opinions I trust like Swapna, Kathy, Julie, and Amy, but I just can’t get excited about them at all.  It seems odd, because I did enjoy reading spooky books and gothic novels around Halloween.  Do these Christmas books tend to be in genres I don’t read as often (cozy mysteries, chick lit, and Christian fiction)?  Am I just a Grinch?

How do you feel about holiday-related books?  Do you love them?  Hate them?  Read them for some holidays and not for others?  I want to know!

In case you haven’t heard, Galleysmith is hosting Seriespalooza this week, it is an opportunity concentrate on books in series you are reading or are planning on reading.

The only series I’m really in the middle of right now is Harry Potter, which I’m listening to on my Ipod.  In addition to listening to that this week, I’m also starting the “Life As We Knew It” series by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  I’ll be reading both “Life As We Knew It” and “The Dead and the Gone.”

If I finish both of them, I won’t be starting any new series, but I did want to participate in Seriespalooza at least this much!

Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms by Jane Doiron

When I had the opportunity to review “Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms” I jumped at it.  After all, my mom and I were planning to make some meals to freeze while she was here over Thanksgiving.  We made three recipes from a book she brought that solely concentrates on recipes to freeze and one recipe from this book.  ”Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms”  does not focus on meals to freeze, but has a variety of make-ahead options, from freezing, to things you can prepare the day before or the morning of to make dinner preparation go much smoother.

I really liked that Doiron included a variety of recipes for different types of meals that moms might need to make: breakfasts, soups, main and side dishes, and desserts.  I thought the number of desserts was a bit excessive, though.  Nearly 50 pages of a book that is just over 200 pages long!  I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t need that many dessert recipes in a cookbook that is meant to be a day-to-day sort of thing.  That being said, the stuffed shells were SO GOOD.  I really didn’t think I’d like them that well, not that it wasn’t a good recipe, but because I usually only sort of like this sort of thing, but I LOVED them.  They might be a little involved to do regularly – after all, you have to stuff the shells – they they weren’t difficult and they were very easy to make once unfrozen.  A great dish to take to a potluck or serve when you have people over, make it ahead at your leisure and look awesome when you serve it!

So yes, I would have liked to see more main dishes, but the one I made so far was delicious!  I’m looking forward to using this cookbook more,

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the author.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Okay, before I go adding a bunch of challenges (which I’m about to do in a second, you just wait!) I wanted to wrap up the Clear Off Your Shelves Challenge, hosted by Swapna.  My goal was to make sure that at least 30% of my reading during October and November came from my shelves.  Out of the 42 books I read in those two months, 13 of them were TBR books, which is about 31%.  Here is a list of the books I read, with links to reviews where they exist (most have not been posted):

Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdulla
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Black Stallion Returns by Walter Farley
The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson
Swimming with Strangers by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum
Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble The Seance by John Harwood
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The House on Tradd Street by Karen White
Hate List by Jennifer Brown
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Adding Challenges:

That’s How I Blog

I will be joining the That’s How I Blog! Twenty Minute Book Club Challenge, since so far I’ve been trying to read most of all of the books anyway.

I’m going for broke on this one and signing up for the Diamond level – 39 books(!), I can substitute 7 from 2009, so I’m really looking at 32 books.  Sorry Nicole, not going for Platinum (all 52 books).

By the way, if you don’t know about That’s How I Blog, you should check it out!  Nicole interviews a different book blogger each Tuesday on Blog Talk Radio.  Here’s the schedule.

Historical Reading Challenge

I’ll be joining the Historical Reading Challenge at the highest level possible – Obsessed, which means reading 20 books.

Actually even at 20 books I’m not sure this will be much of a challenge, so this will be my ‘gimme’ challenge for the year.

I will not be listing my books ahead of time, because I don’t think it will be a problem to read just under 2 historical fiction novels per month.

Audio Book Challenge

Another Challenge from the ladies at Royal Reviews, I will be joining the Audio Book Challenge.

I’m really going for it with this one and going for the Obsessed level – 20 audio books.  This year I read 25 (26 if i finish Harry Potter).  I’ll be spending less time commuting this year than I did at the beginning of last year, but I basically didn’t listen to any audio books for 2-3 months when Daniel was first born, so I think it will even out.

Cybils Awards Challenge

The Cybils are a set of awards for books for children and young adults.  This challenge is being hosted by Michelle at Galleysmith.

I’d love to be able to sign up for the Categorically Speaking level for one of the selections of YA books, but that’s over 100 books, and I’d never be able to read anything that wasn’t for a challenge.  Instead I’m planning on reading for the Shorties Rule level for both Fantasy & Science Fiction YA and the general YA category.  Based on past short lists I’m guessing that will be about 15 books.

What’s In A Name 3

1. A book with a food in the title: ex: Clockwork Orange, Grapes of Wrath, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
2. A book with a body of water in the title: ex: A River Runs through It, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, The Lake House
3. A book with a title (queen, president) in the title: ex: The Murder of King Tut, The Count of Monte Cristo, Lady Susan
4. A book with a plant in the title: ex: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Wind in the Willows, The Name of the Rose
5. A book with a place name (city, country) in the title: ex: Out of Africa; London; Between, Georgia
6. A book with a music term in the title: ex: Song of Solomon, Ragtime, The Piano Teacher

Support Your Local Library

This was a bit of a difficult choice, but I think I’m going to sign up for the Just My Size level – 50 books.  It was a bit hard to choose between this and Stepping It Up, which is 75 books, but I’m not sure whether the moving around we’ll be doing this year will mean I’m reading MORE library books or FEWER library books, so I want to keep it a little bit safe.  Since I get most of my audio books from the library and I’m trying to read 20 of those, 50 should be do-able.

Social Justice Challenge

With the Social Justice Challenge I am committing to participate every month, with at least three months as an ‘activist’ and no more than 2 months as an ‘observer’.  We’ll see how this one goes, but I think this is a very important thing, so I’m excited to be able to participate.

South Asian Author Challenge

Swapna is hosting this challenge.  Books must by BY South Asian authors and ABOUT South Asia in some way.

I will be signing up for the lowest level of this challenge – 3 books, mostly because I’m wondering how on earth I’m going to read all of these books!

TwentyTen

I love this challenge put together by Bart’s Books.  In fact, I’m going to mostly keep his suggested categories for myself, I think I’m only changing one of them.

1. Young Adult
   Any book classified as young adult or featuring a teenage protagonist counts for this category.
2. T.B.R. **
   Intended to help reduce the old T.B.R. pile. Books for this category must be already residents of your bookshelves as of 1/11/09.
3. Shiny & New
   Bought a book NEW during 2010 from a bookstore, online, or a supermarket? Then it counts for this category. Second-hand books do not count for this one, but, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts or won in a giveaway also count!
4. Bad Blogger’s ***
   Books in this category, should be ones you’ve picked up purely on the recommendation of another blogger count for this category (any reviews you post should also link to the post that convinced you give the book ago).
   *** Bad Bloggers: Is hosted by Chris of Stuff as Dreams are Made on.
5. Charity BookMooch
   Support your local charity shops with this category, by picking up books from one of their shops. Again, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts also count, as long as they were bought from a charity shop. Books that came from BookMooch
6. New in 2010
   This category is for those books newly published in 2010 (whether it be the first time it is has been released, or you had to wait for it to be published in your country, it counts for this one!)
7. Older Than You
   Read two books that were published before you were born, whether that be the day before or 100 years prior!
8. Win! Win!
   Have a couple of books you need to read for another challenge? Then this is the category to use, as long that is, you don’t break the rules of the other challenge by doing so! 
9. Who Are You Again?
   This one isn’t just for authors you’ve never read before, this is for those authors you have never even heard of before!
10. Up to You!
    The requirements for this category are up to you! Want to challenge yourself to read some graphic novels? A genre outside your comfort zone? Something completely wild and wacky? Then this is the category to you. The only requirement is that you state it in your sign-up post. – I haven’t decided on this one yet.  We’ll see…

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

So last Saturday I went to the library to check out (hehe, check out! get it?) the renovation of the 2nd floor.  Everything looked great.  It isn’t flashy, but it all looked very nice.  They have great new study rooms, and a computer lab they never had before (in addition to the computers scattered here and there throughout the library).  I also got a chance to check out the new (I think) ‘Recently Returned’ section.

I grabbed some books, audio books, and a dvd.  Without further ado:

Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King – from the ‘Recently Returned’ section
Georgia’s Greatness and Jackie’s Jokes by Lauren Baratz-Logsted, books 3&4 in the “Sisters 8″ series – because the author asked me to take a look at these books if I got  a chance, and mention them if I liked them.  I’ll be talking about them later in the week, because I loved them
Going Bovine by Libba Bray – because Justine Larbalestier talked about this book at her signing.  The paper version in particular because last week I tried to listen to the audio and hated the narrator so much that I stopped after 7 minutes
Eli the Good by Silas House – because SuziQoregon from Whimpulsive was raving about it recently
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton – because it was the last book he finished before he died

And the audios:

The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots by Carolly Erickson – because it caught my eye on the audiobook shelf
The Invisible Mountain by Carolina de Robertis – because I didn’t get to the book when I took it from the library, thought I’d try for the audio
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott – because of how Betsy raved about it in Betsy in Spite of Herself
Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow – because I haven’t read any E. L. Doctorow and want to

I also took out Season 6 of NCIS on DVD

Any good library loot for you this week?  Have you read any of these books?