Decades 2009 Challenge

Michelle of 1More Chapter is again hosting the Decades Challenge for 2009. Details for the challenge can be found here. Here are my picks:





1910's: Anne of the Island by Lucy Maude Montgomery
1920's: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1930's: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940's: All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren, or The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1950's: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1960's: The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
1970's: Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1980's: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, or Beloved by Toni Morrison
1990's: Possession by A.S. Byatt

The Countdown Challenge

The goal of this challenge hosted by Michelle from 1 More Chapter is to read the number of books first published in a given year that corresponds to the last digit of each year in the 2000s — 9 books from 2009, 8 books from 2008, etc. The total number of books requiredis 45.
More details can be found here.

This challenge is retroactive back to August 1, 2008, so I actually have a few done! For this one I will just be filling in as I go, and keeping track of my progress with links to reviews in my right sidebar.

What's In a Name 2009

Annie is hosting a second year of the What's in a Name Reading Challenge. This was one of my favorites of last year. I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to one book for some of the categories, but here are my possible choices so far:

Profession: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, or Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Time of Day: Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie
Relative: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Body Part: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson, or A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, or Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Building: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday, or Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Medical Condition: Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Plague by Albert Camus, or Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Thank you Annie from Words by Annie for hosting this challenge!

9 Books for 2009 Challenge

It's challenges like this that keep me hangin' on--for better or worse--to the pursuit of blogging. Despite previous thoughts of quitting, I have at least 10 challenges I cannot resist joining. I refuse to take personal responsibility for my actions--these challenge hosts make it impossible to pass up such fun and creative themes!

This challenge (details and rules can be found at the challenge blog) was like a scavenger hunt for me. It was fun looking through my bookshelves for books that fit the different categories. Here are my picks:

Free (gift, ARC, etc.): Trespassers Will Be Baptized by Elizabeth Emerson Hancock
Dusty (had it for 3 years or more): Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Used (bought it used): The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum
Long (whatever you consider long): Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke
Letter (your name and book share a letter): Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Strange (Out of your comfort zone): The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Cover (prettiest or ugliest): Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Alive or Not (Nominated or won an award): A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Distance (author's birthplace or setting over 1,000 miles away): Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Thank you, Isabel from Books and Other Stuff for hosting this challenge!

Dicey's Song

Author: Cynthia Voigt

Originally Published: 1982
Length: 196 pages
Award: Newbery Medal
Personal Enjoyment Rating: 4.5/5
Amazon Rating: 4/5

Dicey's Song picks up right where Homecoming leaves off--the Tillerman children tentatively settled in with a brusque and independent grandmother who has cut herself off from the surrounding community. Gram warily (but deep inside lovingly) welcomes her grandchildren, who have come with their own experiences of being shunned by their peers in the past for having an unconventional family situation. Gram and the children come to meet a whole cast of characters in the novel who are likewise loners or unusual in some way. Obviously, this theme is woven throughout the book, and I egocentrically love it because I can identify with it. And I would imagine that most people have felt at sometime or other that they just didn't "fit in." I grew up in a loving home in which they query was often made, "Was she switched at birth?" I took an online personality test as an adult with these results: "People who know you can only desribe you as possibly being from a different planet or universe." My mother wholeheartedly agreed. I have come to neither love nor hate whatever it is that makes me different, but accepting that it just IS, and it is not an excuse or reason to be antisocial. I think this is one of the lessons Dicey learns as she gradually opens herself up to others, despite the very real fear of vulnerability. She also learns the tricky art of "give and take" in relationships. In attempts to reach out to others and receive in return, the results are rarely neat and tidy, but necessary all the same. As Gram has learned through her own mistakes:

"I got to thinking—when it was too late—you have to reach out to people. To your family, too. You can't just let them sit there, you should put your hand out. If they slap it back, well you reach out again if you care enough. If you don't care enough, you forget about them, if you can."

Weekly Geeks #27 - Remembering Dewey

When I first read the sad news of Dewey's passing, I thought of this post of hers:

"The other day, I came across this short conversation from January of this year. Obviously, I censored people’s names.

Friend 1: Say, Friend 2, I think we may have discussed this before but are you a strictly nonfiction type of person, or is that just what you’re reading right now?

Friend 2: I basically don’t have time to read fiction.

Dewey: I would give up sleep, food, and conversation with other humans before fiction. I would almost definitely choose being homeless before choosing to be fictionless. I’m thinking about water. That would give me only three remaining days for fiction, but could be worth it."

I sometimes have wondered if I knew I only had a few months or a year to live, would I spend so much time reading or would I want to do other things? I don't really have an answer for that yet, but Dewey seems to have known that reading and bringing other book lovers together is what brought joy into her life, and it makes me happy to know that she spent her last time in this life doing what she loved.

I have only been a visitor to Dewey's blog for about six months or so, but I will miss an extraordinary blog author who so unabashedly reveled in geekhood, organized a hundred or more insane readers to read for 24 consecutive hours twice a year, and ingeniously organized the Bookworms Carnival for the blogging community to share their reviews. This is a picture she had chosen for one of her latest giveaway posts, and to me it is a beautiful visual representation of what she has accomplished:

Becky, who organized this Weekly Geeks tribute, has a list of links to other posts here.

Giveaway Winner

Earlier this month I posted about friends of mine who are trying to adopt, and coupled it with an Amazon gift card giveaway in hopes of increasing the chances of them finding a baby. The winner of the gift card is

Samantha of Sam's Book Blog.


I'll be sending the gift card via e-mail momentarily. Enjoy, Samantha!

And again, here is the link to Cindy and Kevin's website.