BleakAlong: Post the Second-and-Third

I can't even believe you guys are still reading this book. I mean, the characters are all bland and the story is boring. Also Lolita needed to go further into the "juicy stuff."

Can we talk about the SUPREMELY DISMAL parenting going on in this book? I am fairly sure that it's on purpose, given Dickens's first examples of motherhood are 1) the horrible godmother/aunt 2) Mrs. Jellyby and 3) Mrs. Pardiggle.

And then we have Mr. Turveydrop, whose deportment is the envy of us all I am sure, but sir,

Although while he's a trial to everyone around him and will expect Caddy and Prince to wait on him hand and foot until he expires in a cloud of lavender water, he's not as emotionally manipulative as the horrid Mrs. Jellyby being snide and ridiculous and so dismissive of her daughter and the things she wants. PARENTING, you guys. I know it's not easy but seriously, get your shit together. And you, Rick. Yeesh.

Mrs Rachel from back-in-the-day is Mrs. Chadband? Ugh he is so gross and his utterly nonsensical "sermons" give me the giggles.

"When this young heathen now among us - who is now, my friends, asleep..."

Hah. But I love how Dickens just throws the detail of the Chadbands in as if it's not important - she just walks up in the middle of an unrelated chapter and is all, "hey, remember me? I made your childhood a living hell. Also I married a guy you don't yet know you hate. Peace."

I'm sure that won't come back around later. Anyway, the bird imagery continues, have you noticed? And Hortense comes in and begs Esther for a job but does it in a very interesting manner. The kind of manner where she promises to do anything... she's very hot-blooded being from France, you know... she'll take care of Esther better than anyone could ever...

Auld Lang Syne, the 2013 Edition

2012 was an emotional clusterfuck, but it brought me some serious Character Building moments, not to mention YOU, my beloved book blogging friends.

I love not camping.

My friend Jasmin chooses words every year to focus her ambitions, and I've been joining her in this endeavor since 2009. She's a very skilled knitter (and mother and friend), so usually our words have to do with our mutual textile obsession and are then expanded into the rest of our lives. 2012's emotional rollercoaster meant that I hadn't knitted for almost a year, so for 2013 I had just one word: Heal. I've done a lot of that, as well as a lot of growing. Now, in 2014, I'm ready for some new words, and those are: 

Do What Scares You. 

For textiles, this means tackling the projects I've avoided - sweaters because I'm afraid they won't fit, finishing big projects because what if they turn out awful? (they're never awful), trading/selling the stashed yarn I no longer have a taste for, and learning to spin with more regularity, intention, and control. 

In life, this means being bolder about my choices.

But it's still 2013 for 12 more hours! Did I do awesome stuff this year? Yes. I went to some swanky parties, moved into what promises to be an awesome living situation, traveled a bunch, got much better at my job, and lived pretty excellently. Is it time for a photo montage? I THINK SO. 

My mom and I honored her mother's passing appropriately.

Megs and I hung out TWICE! (Alice and KAO and I hung out too, but there are no pictures of us?!?)

My brothers and I (plus Heather!) visited my Grandma Alicia twice as well.

I spent quality Tweedle Hunting time withe the Best Nieces

And then there were the BOOKISH things! The formation of the GIF Admiration Society, two utterly delightful Minithons that led up to Dewey's 24-hour Readathon in October, and innumerable hilarious discussions about books, authors, shipping, and Life-in-General via gChat. ANOTHER MONTAGE:

Long live the Potteralong.

I kissed a handsome man.

Rainbow Rowell is adorable.

AND:

Let's do this, 2014.

(On January 11) It Will Be That Time Again

It has been a YEAR since our first Minithon! Can you believe that? Obviously we're going to celebrate in accepted GIF Admiration Society style: with another Minithon.

Standard "rules" apply:

1) Books (and snacks) should have the theme of "mini." What does that mean to you? Be ready to tell us! The more of a stretch the better, especially since we're going to be reading all day and that's the only kind of stretching we're into.

2) Hashtag #minithon on Twitter, which none of us will be on because we will be reading, right? Right.

3) Plan for a starting, mid-thon, and wrap-up post. Unless we decide to bail on the mid-thon one because we were all ignoring "rule" #2 and napping because mini-snacks go down so easily.

So grab your mini-themed books, your threadbare excuses, and your mini-snacks; we're a go on Saturday January 11 at 8:00am*, Pacific time for eight WHOLE HOURS. Is there anything I've missed?
Sign up here!
*Megs and I are the only people in this glorious California time zone and most of you have been agitating for an earlier start time because you want us to be undercaffeinated, you selfish things. What time is good for you? [edit: starting at 8am since no one complained. Whew!]

The 2013 TBR Pile Challenge!

Adam over at Roofbeam Reader is hosting the annual TBR Pile Challenge, in which we choose 12 books from our TBR Piles and read them over the course of the year. But before we talk about all the books I want to read (and will genuinely try to finish but let's be honest,

I'mma tell you a story.

Soooooo last year around this time, I tore through my library and put little pink Post-it Flags on the spines of all the books I have not yet read. There were over 100 of them.

And in June I packed everything into boxes and into storage with the secret hope that the flags would all magically disappear, which would have been awesome and a little creepy. But alas, when I unpacked the library in my new place, they were still there.

But then as I was putting the books on the shelves, I realized that the next best thing had happened: some of the flags had fallen off or gotten stuck on books I had, in fact read, making the WHOLE SYSTEM ineffective. And there's nothing I loathe more than an ineffective system (Reason #45198 that I decided not to become a teacher and/or a parent).

SO, I took all the flags off and felt vaguely guilty about it, since I really should read the books I buy.

And then, along came Adam's challenge!

I'm joining to alleviate my post-Post-it flag guilt, is basically what I'm saying. Behold my tentative list (complete with commentary, por supuesto):

1. Moby-Dick by Hermann Melville (This title still makes me giggle like a 13-year-old. Dick. Haha.)
2. Wings of the Dove by Henry James (I heart you even though you talk shit about other authors, HENRY.)
3. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I am a HUGE Hardy fan, maybe because I've never read this?)
4. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (Oh, EVELYN. Be my melancholy gay friend! /sigh)
5. Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (I... have never read any Eliot. I KNOW.)
6. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (ditto)
7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (I bet Anna closed her mouth occasionally, but to see KK play her YOU'D NEVER KNOW.)
8. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseni (handsome local author! I have an unread signed 1st edition. Go me.)
9. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton (Eeedith! Let's hang with Evelyn and be fabulous together.)
10. Inside the Victorian Home by Judith Flanders (is that non-fiction you see? I must be growing as a human being...)
11. How Fiction Works by James Wood (yep, clearly I'm growing.)
12. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (Because I haven't grown THAT much. Dick. Haha.)

Alternates:
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace

Grapes of Wrath RAL - The Annoyance

Well helloooooo, Steinbeck, you old stick! We haven't spent as much time together as some other people ::coughEveryoneinthisread-a-longcough::, but I'm sure you'll forgive me. You see, I got distracted by being in California's wine country, which I'm sure you will agree is an acceptable reason not to read anything except terrible romance novels. I'm not sure how this book will end - although people keep threatening tears - and I really canNOT handle tears while I'm drinking wine.

SO. Let's discuss your first three two* chapters and overlook the fact that I am obviously still That Girl in class who never did the reading and got an A anyway. My future PhD in Lit Crit is virtually assured by my ability to bullshit my way through just about any literary discussion using the double-barrelled shotgun that is Betty Friedan and Sylvia Plath. But I digress (shocking)!

CHAPTER 1:

In which things are grey and dreary and pre-Oz black-and-white, and then there's this amazing, almost Biblical description of  how people survive under such conditions without some ruby shoes:

"Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often, And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men - to feel whether this time the men would break." 

UGGGHHHHH the bleakness and the stillness and the general depressiveness gives me a pre-emptive sad because technically NOTHING HAS HAPPENED YET.

Bring it, JStein.

CHAPTER 2:

In which a guy skilfully entraps a truck driver into giving him a ride in a truck that says, "No Rides" right on the window, and then reveals that he (the hitchhiker) is a murderer, sentenced to 7 years but "sprung in four for keepin' my nose clean."

Okay, Steinbeck. You got me. I skimmed through the first 19 pages again today in order to write this post, and found myself stopping to actually read over and over again. I was planning to play video games tonight because it's Tuesday, but I think instead...

*I opened my book to my bookmark and found it in the first page of chapter 3, meaning I stopped 19 pages in and didn't even get to the land turtle. Honestly, this is just embarrassing.

Grapes of Wrath - The Perplexment

The Cult of Wilkie is branching out into other authors (I KNOW!) and Laura over at Devouring Texts is hosting and I am, as per usual, late to the party even though I have been anticipating this read-a-long for weeks and Laura and Alice have been reminding me via Twitter that I need to buy the book.

Which I did! And only at the Best Bookstore Ever, thankyouverymuch.

And while at that bookstore I also bought some other cool stuff like more books and a blank notebook with a snarky quote by Oscar Wilde (is there any other kind?) which I then crammed into my suitcase and squished the dress I wore to my cousin's wedding, which I then had to IRON!

But it's okay because some guy at the wedding said I looked amazing in polka dots (I was wearing stripes) and then stared at my boobs the entire time we danced, which was most of the night because everyone else was already married.

Clearly the ironing was worth it.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about how we feel about STEINBECK!* I'm hedging mightily because it turns out I managed to avoid Steinbeck in both high school and college, and so my opinions can mostly be summed up as "I went to Cannery Row in Monterey once and got drunk with my best friend."

It was a positive experience and I have a soft spot for Monterey because my mom lived in a teeeeeeny tiny red house there when she was "my age" (meaning before she married my dad and had kids, which means around 22. I am no longer 22).

Laura has promised that this book will rock my world. My hooks: they are tentered.

Tenterhooks!

*I was originally going to read all the rest of your posts and then poach from them, but I thought that would be lame and make my post late(r). Also, I just got back from the aforementioned wedding and had 500 meetings to schedule instead of blogging at work. Don't they understand I have a blogging calendar to maintain? RUDE!

The Classics Club - Everyone in the Pool

The more book blogs I read, the more The Classics Club comes up, and the more I think, "I can do that... I should totally do that." And then I look at other peoples' lists and get all excitable and want to read errrrthing. Except... that's not really true because I am what you call a Book Snob. But I digress.

What I really like is organization and direction. This is why I am excellent at my job: I really like to check things off of lists. And what better list than a book list? Plus, as my friend Tex is always telling me, I'm very buttoned-up and Victorian myself,* and 19th c. Tika would totally have joined a Classics Club. She would also have kept a better diary. You know - for posterity.

And speaking of posterity, I've been talking (via Twitter! @tikabelle) with Rayna over at Libereading about our choices and how it's so hard you guys to get up a classics list that involves an appropriate amount of female/minority authors because if you think your first world problems are bad, consider being Other in an English-speaking country 150 years ago and getting a book published. And then couple that with being Me in 2012 and having a decided preference for giant-foreheaded white male authors with whiskers and you come up with a list that is highly alphabetical but singularly lacking in the wimminz and the non-white people.

1. Adams, Douglas The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1979
2. Aeschylus The Oresteia 458 BCE
3. Aristophanes The Frogs 405 BCE
4. Aristophanes Lysistrata 411 BCE
5. Atwood, Margaret The Handmaid's Tale 1985
6. Austen, Jane The Big Six 18**
7. Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan 1911
8. Boccaccio, Giovanni The Decameron 1351
9. Bronte, Anne The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 1848
10. Bronte, Charlotte Jane Eyre 1847
11. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Aurora Leigh 1856
12. Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth 1931
13. Bulgakov, Mikhail The Master and Margarita 1967
14. Card, Orson Scott Ender's Game 1985
15. Cervantes, Miguel Don Quixote 1605
16. Collins, Wilkie Poor Miss Finch 1872
17. Collins, Wilkie Armadale 1866
18. Collins, Wilkie Antonina 1850
19. Dante The Divine Comedy 1321
20. de Laclos, Pierre Choderlos Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1782
21. Dickens, Charles Bleak House 1852
22. Dickens, Charles Pickwick Papers 1837
23. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Crime and Punishment 1866
24. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor The Brothers Karamazov 1880
25. Dreiser, Theodore Sister Carrie 1900
26. Eliot, George Middlemarch 1871
27. Eliot, George Mill on the Floss 1860
28. Euripedes Medea 431 BCE
29. Euripedes The Trojan Women 415 BCE
30. Fitzgerald, F. Scott The Great Gatsby 1925
31. Flaubert, Gustave Madame Bovary 1857
32. Forster, E.M. Howard's End 1910
33. Fowles, John The French Lieutenant's Woman 1969
34. Galsworthy, John The Forsyte Saga 1921
35. Gaskell, Elizabeth Wives and Daughters 1865
36. Gaskell, Elizabeth North and South 1854
37. Hardy, Thomas Jude the Obscure 1895
38. Hardy, Thomas The Mayor of Casterbridge 1886
39. Hardy, Thomas Tess of the D'Urbervilles 1891
40. Hardy, Thomas Under the Greenwood Tree 1872
41. Hemingway, Ernest A Moveable Feast 1964
42. Herbert, Frank Dune 1965
43. Hugo, Victor Les Miserables 1862
44. James, Henry Portrait of a Lady 1881
45. James, Henry The Wings of the Dove 1902
46. Lawrence, D.H. Lady Chatterly's Lover 1928
47. Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea 1968
48. Lewis, M.G. The Monk 1796
49. Lindgren, Astrid Pippi Longstocking 1945
50. Melville, Henry Moby Dick 1851
51. Mitford, Nancy The Pursuit of Love 1945
52. Nabokov, Vladimir Lolita 1955
53. Naylor, Gloria The Women of Brewster Place 1982
54. Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar 1963
55. Proust, Marcel Swann's Way 1913
56. Richardson, Samuel Clarissa 1747
57. Smith, Betty A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 1943
58. Smith, Zadie On Beauty 2005
59. Sophocles The Theban Plays 470 BCE
60. Steinbeck, John Cannery Row 1945
61. Steinbeck, John The Winter of our Discontent 1961
62. Steinbeck, John Grapes of Wrath 1939
63. Steinbeck, John East of Eden 1952
64. Sterne, Lawrence Tristram Shandy 1767
65. Tolstoy, Leo Anna Karenina 1877
66. Tolstoy, Leo War and Peace 1869
67. Voltaire Candide 1759
68. Waugh, Evelyn Brideshead, Revisited 1945
69. Waugh, Evelyn The Complete Stories 2000
70. Waugh, Evelyn Decline and Fall 1928
71. Waugh, Evelyn A Handful of Dust 1934
72. Waugh, Evelyn The Loved One 1948
73. Wharton, Edith The Custom of the Country 1913
74. Wharton, Edith Ethan Frome 1911
75. White, T.H. The Once and Future King 1958
76. Whitman, Walt Leaves of Grass 1855
77. Wollstonecraft, Mary A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792
78. Woolf, Virginia To the Lighthouse 1927
79. Xuequin, Cao The Story of the Stone 1760

That's roughly 38,500 pages worth of classic books - why yes, I did add them all up via spreadsheet, thank you for asking! - and I'll have finished reading them by... let me see... August 31, 2017. BAM!

*I am not certain this is a compliment, but I'm going to assume so as it's almost always followed by, "and then you go and tell me THAT story!"

Edit 9/5 to add various Greeks, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hemingway, and others.