Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge

I'm signing up for this challenge hosted by Carrie of Reading to Know because I have been reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my two youngest, and I'm hoping we might be able to get to one more. Even though I read several of the books to my two oldest, they never really got into them, so I'm trying to see if I have any luck with the other two. There's no reason any of them have to love Narnia, but it was just such a big part of my own childhood, I guess I'm trying to somehow relive my life through them. My girls are loving it so far!
This challenge wraps up on July 17, while we're on vacation, so I'm not sure how successful I will be at a wrap up post, but I'll try.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Author: Michael Pollan
Narrated by: Scott Brick

Originally published : 2006 (Penguin Audiobooks)
Length: 16 hours
Personal Enjoyment Rating: 4/5
Amazon Rating: 4.5/5 (515 Customer Reviews)
Goodreads: 18,391 ratings, 4.39 average rating

It has been a while since I listened to this, and the book is so dang popular I can never get it from the library to skim over to review. But I figured this seven-word review would cover the basics of what I thought about it:

Corn: Fascinating
Grass: Interesting
Hunting/gathering: Boring

My interest level sort of went downhill throughout the course of the book. Nevertheless, I would love to reread this and take notes someday. If you don't think you're bound to take the time to read it, consider watching King Corn, a very entertaining documentary that I believe was inspired by Pollan's chapters on corn.

Bloggiesta Goals

The Bloggiesta begins! My goal is to participate for 18 hours over the next couple of days. I think my brain may be fried by the end. I'm mostly focusing on getting reviews done (I don't even understand half of the other ideas listed, maybe I'll spend some time learning some new blogging/social networking vocabulary). I'm just going to cross off tasks as I finish them on this post:

High Priority Reviews
Dear Mr. Henshaw
A Visit to William Blake's Inn
A Gathering of Days
Ginger Pye
Monique and the Mango Rains (to be published Tuesday, June 23)
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (to be published Wednesday June 24)
Ireland (to be published Monday, June 22)
Omnivore's Dilemma
So Brave, Young and Handsome
Briar Rose
(Post reviews on Newbery challenge site)

Lower Priority
Officially sign up for a couple of challenges I've been eying:
Narnia Challenge
Summer Reading Challenge (scheduled to publish Sunday, June 21)
Take a Chance

Update challenges on sidebar

Other reviews:
Larklight
Sammy Keyes books
Anne of Avonlea
Ten Star Trek episode reviews for 42 Challenge
Exercise DVD review for fitness blog

Housekeeping
Change name of book blog?
Figure out how to get the date back on family blog
Change layout of family blog
Update garden blog

Challenges Completed
Clean up your feedreader (Book Lady's Blog)
Grade Your Blog (Bookish Ruth)
Opinions and Lists (Beth Fish Reads)
Go Forth and Comment (Fizzy Thoughts)
Update a key page or post (Devourer of Books)

Bloggiesta Ole! Event

Natasha at Maw Books is hosting this timely event aimed at catching up on things or improving your blogs, social network profiles etc. Check out the challenge post for details on the many things you can do with this. It's very open ended, and will run this coming weekend, starting Friday at 8 a.m. and ending Sunday at 8 a.m. (your time). The idea is to work 18-24 hours sometime within the 48 hour time frame.
My blog is pretty much all review posts (I use that term very loosely), and things have been so busy I'm very much behind on reviews, so I'm going to focus on catching up on those. I'm so happy that I don't have a lot going on this weekend, I just need to make sure I'm prepared for Father's Day before it starts. It nearly killed me to not to participate in MotherReader's 48-Hour-Readathon. I had literal pain in my gut every time I read someone's update post who was doing it. (Maybe that's a warning sign of blog addiction?)
I will make a to-do list at the beginning of the event, and cross off things as I go.

Once Upon a Time III Challenge Complete!

What I read (nice short ones, or else I may not have finished):

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
High Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks
The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien

My favorite was The Graveyard Book.

Also, a part of Quest the Third was to read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I just read it yesterday and found it laugh-out-loud entertaining. It was the easiest Shakespearean play I've read (I've only read five or six, so that might not be saying much.) I loved the set of "actors" and their interpretations of their play. I couldn't help but picture Steve Carell as Bottom, with his word choice mistakes and skewed perception of his talents. It had Michael Scott written all over it. I've got the 1999 movie coming from Netflix soon that I'm excited to see.

Thank you Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting this challenge!

Award and Spotlight on The Zen Leaf

Yay! I got another award! I'm going to cheat again and just spotlight the super nice blogger that sent it to me, Amanda from The Zen Leaf.

You may be familiar with Amanda from the group blog 5-Squared. She recently decided to go it solo with The Zen Leaf, which is already organized with all of her reviews of the past couple of years. This is the place you want to go if you really want the scoop on a book! As I state on my blog, I'm pretty easy to please and like most anything. Amanda, on the other hand, is much more discriminating, and really delves into the good, the bad and the ugly of the novels she reads. I'm always enlightened and get a perspective I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

I am in awe, and a bit jealous, of her reading list thus far this year. Check out her Books Read in 2009 list and see if you've read any of the same ones. I know some of my favorites are on there.

Thanks for the award, Amanda!

Heartfelt Award

I'm so excited to have gotten an award despite my lack of posts for a couple of weeks! We all get busy don't we? I was determined to take an official blog vacation for about a month to get some other projects done, but so far haven't been able to commit to such extreme measures. Mostly this is because I wanted to catch up on all my reviews, but I haven't managed to do that yet. "The best laid plans of mice and men" and all that.

But I was excited to get the Heartfelt Award from Jeane of Dog Ear Diary. Like Jeane, I didn't have any success getting the cute graphic to upload, but if you want a peek, check out The Book Resort. I may just be motivated enough to sneak in another review in the next couple of days.

I really had good intentions to pass this award along to nine others, but when I looked at my list there were just too many. So I'm just going to tell you what I like about Dog Ear Diary! If you check out the list of books by genre in Jeane's sidebar, you will notice the variety and the many books about animals. There are some books that I will probably never read, so I like to learn a little bit from her reviews. But she also has a lot of Sci-Fi/Fantasy which I love, so it's fun to read about her perspective on those. As an added bonus, there are often giveaways for beautiful bookmarks that she creates. And if you love cats, there's a cute picture of a new kitten, Numa. If you aren't already familiar with Dog Ear Diary, check it out!

Thanks for the award, Jeane!