March 2010 Reading Wrap-Up

Apr 022010

I did pretty well in March, finishing 17 books, including 4 audio books for a total of 5,172 pages and 2.35 days of audio. I’m sort of surprised, because most of my weeks seemed slow, but I guess they added up pretty well.

After my list of what I read this month, you’ll find a list of the other reviews I posted this month, as well as an update of how I’m doing in my challenges.

What I Read:

Fiction
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian (audio) – review pending
Double Fault by Lionel Shriver
Still Life by Louise Penny
The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry – review pending
The House of Tomorrow by Peter Borgnanni
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (audio) – review pending
The Language of Secrets by Diane Dixon
The Anthologist by Nicholas Baker

Young Adult/Middle Grades Fiction
Beautiful Dead: Jonas by Eden Maguire

Historical Fiction
The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick
The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham
Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen
Shadow of the King by Helen Hollick
The Queen’s Governess by Karen Harper

Nonfiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (audio) – review pendi

Pick of the Month:

“The House of Tomorrow” by Peter Bognanni is the quirky and heartfelt story of punk rock and the friendship between two young boys.

What I Posted:

Discussions/Announcements
Say Yes to the Book
Blogger Bookmarks

Guest Posts
“Writing Believable Historical Women” by Helen Hollick
“From Self-Publishing to Sourcebooks“ by Susan Higginbotham
“Researching the Medieval Period” by Elizabeth Chadwick
“Real Life in Fiction“ by Pam Jenoff

Fiction
The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen
Almost Home by Pam Jenoff

Historical Fiction
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Nonfiction/Memoir
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
A Year of Blind Dates by Megan Carson

The Anthologist – National Poetry Month for the Poetically Uninclined

Apr 012010

The Anthologist by Nicholas Baker

April is National Poetry Month!

Paul Chowder is trying unsuccessfully to write the introduction to his new anthology of rhyming poetry. The situation is not helped by the fact that his girlfriend has left him out of frustration with his inability to buckle down and get to work writing his introduction. So, that’s the basic plot of “The Anthologist,” but not what it really is. ”The Anthologist” is basically a stream-of-consciousness (but with punctuation) love letter to poetry from someone without people skills.

Now, let me just say, I’m not totally in love with poetry, except for that written for grade schoolers. Give me Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, and Jack Prelutzky any day. 250 pages of talk about modern poetry, with discussion of rhyming versus free verse poems and iambic pentameter versus the four beat line? Wow, that sounds boring.

Except, it wasn’t.

Paul Chowder was a seriously bizarre character. I must have stopped and said, “huh?” 10 times in the first four pages. Not to mention the fact that he couldn’t seem to tell his story without going off on strange tangents. He was, however, very interesting and well-written and I ended up enjoying the book overall.

If you want to do something for National Poetry Month, but don’t really want to read a bunch of poetry to do it, I recommend “The Anthologist” for you to feel you’re appreciating poetry without actually doing it.

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