A book by Beth Kephart that I haven't read ~ yet

My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera ~ by Beth Kephart, 2023, memoir, 336 pages

I just learned about this book, which was just published last November.  I've loved all of her books that I've read, but my library doesn't have a copy of this one.  Hmm, do I want it enough to pay full price?  Or maybe inter-library loan?  I haven't decided.  Have any of you read it?  Here's what Amazon says about it:

Paper both shapes and defines us. Baby books, diaries, sewing patterns, diplomas, resumes, letters, death certificates — we find our stories in them.  My Life in Paper is Beth Kephart’s memoiristic exploration of the paper legacies we forge and leave.

Kephart’s obsession with paper began in the wake of her father’s death, when she began to handcraft books and make and marble paper in his memory.  But it was when she read My Life with Paper, an autobiography by the late renowned paper hunter and historian Dard Hunter, that she felt she had found a kindred spirit, someone to whom she might address a series of one-sided letters about life and how we live it.  Remembering and crafting, wanting and loving, doubting and forgetting — the spine and weave of My Life in Paper came into view.

Paper, for Kephart, provides proof of our yearning, proof of our failure, proof of the people who loved us and the people we have lost.  It offers, too, a counterweight to the fickle state of memory.  My Life in Paper, illustrated by the author herself, is an intimate and poignant meditation on life’s most pressing questions.

Thursday Thoughts

I got a couple of photos one minute apart the other day, that show how the sky seemed to open up and dump rain on us.  I laughed because I had just read these lines on page 168 of The Great Upending by Beth Kephart (2020, YA fiction, 288 pages, 9/10):

"I think it will rain."

"I thought the skies had forgotten how."

"I don't think the skies think," I say.

"Wish I didn't have to think," he says.

I had to laugh at such a coincidence.  I love Beth Kephart's writing!

Word of the Day

co·in·ci·dence / noun = 1.  a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.  2.  correspondence in nature or in time of occurrence.  Example:  "By coincidence, a heavy rain started shortly after I read those words."

Musing about Amelia Bedelia

I didn't pick up my book bag that the library delivered last Thursday, because I knew I'd be moving the next day.  I was afraid the books would be misplaced during the move.  So today, I went downstairs to our new office in this new building and picked up my book bag.  In it were three books about Amelia Bedelia and one book by Beth Kephart.

So here I sit in my easy chair in the corner of my new living room, thinking that after the stress of moving, three children's books are about all I can deal with.  Yeah, I'm smiling as I say that.  Here's the first book in the series:

Amelia Bedelia ~ by Peggy Parish, illustrated by Fritz Siebel, 1963, children's picture book, 63 pages

From dressing the chicken to drawing the drapes, Amelia Bedelia does exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Rogers tell her to do.  If things get a bit mixed up, well, that's okay.  When Amelia Bedelia is involved, everything always turns out perfectly in the end!  This book is for kids who read on their own, but still need a little help.  The stories help kids take their next steps toward reading success.

I recently wrote about the other two Amelia Bedelia books HERE and the book by Beth Kephart HERE.

Library Loot

The Great Upending ~ by Beth Kephart, 2020, children's YA fiction, 288 pages

When a troubled children’s book author moves to their farm, two kids with troubles of their own hatch a scheme to swipe the ending of the final book in a bestselling series to get a reward from the book’s publisher.  Twelve-year-old Sara and her brother Hawk are told that they are not to bother the man — The Mister — who just moved into the silo apartment on their farm.  It doesn’t matter that they know nothing about him and they think they ought to know something.  It doesn’t matter that he’s always riding that unicycle around.  Mama told them no way, no how are they to bother The Mister unless they want to be in a mess of trouble.

Trouble is the last thing Sara and her brother need.  Sara’s got a condition:  Marfan syndrome.  And that Marfan syndrome is causing her heart to have problems, the kind of problems that require surgery.  But the family already has problems.  The drought has dried up their crops and their funds, which means they can’t afford any more problems, let alone a surgery to fix those problems.  Sara can feel the weight of her family’s worry, and the weight of her time running out, but what can a pair of kids do?  Well, it all starts with — bothering The Mister.

I always love reading Beth Kephart's books.  She is an excellent writer.  Since I don't know anything about the condition, I also look forward to learning about Marfan syndrome.  If you have read this book, tell us what you thought and maybe your rating.  Here is a link in case you want to share your own Library Loot, which means the books that you got from the library.

Collecting my thoughts for Thursday

1.  Advice for the new year:  The best way to find something that is lost among your stuff ("It's gotta be here somewhere") is to buy another one.  When you get the new one, I can almost guarantee that you'll find the old one that same day.  Maybe within minutes.

2.  Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee:  My friend Debra took this photo of my favorite falls on January 1, 2022.  Fall Creek Falls is the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River, according to Wikipedia.  The height is 256 feet (78 m).  Thanks for the memories, Debra!

3.  Sticker shock:  To help you understand why seniors have a hard time dealing with prices these days, here's what I used to earn.  As a teenager, I made 75-cents an hour as a file clerk working in an office in downtown Chattanooga in the afternoon, after school was out.  In my first full-time job in 1959, I made $1 an hour.  That's $40 a week, which equals $2,080 a year before taxes were taken out.

4.  Now let's look at rent:  Compare that $2,080 annual salary in #3 with this statistic I found using Google:  "The average asking rent is now $1,900 — with single-family houses averaging $2,018 a month."  It blows my mind!

5.  Does this make cents?  Yes, I spelled it correctly.  When I typed #3 above, I needed the "cent" sign.  Typewriters used to have that cent-symbol "back in my day."  My laptop doesn't have any such thing!  Is that because a cent is almost worthless these days?

6.  On the other hand:  I learned to type on a typewriter like this clunky Underwood.  Although I can't focus in on it here, I'm sure this big typewriter has the symbol for cent over the 6, as in the slightly more modern keyboard in this photo below.

7.  More on the cent symbol:  I tried several ways different people said I could use to make the cent sign, but none worked.  Here's my solution:  I simply found one that somebody else had made and copied it.  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  That was easy!

8.  Nickels aren't worth much, either:  On Sunday, I considered a new occupation, until I realized that nickels aren't worth what they were back in my day, either.  So apparently, paper money is worth more than "hard" currency (unless it's collectible, like a buffalo nickel, also called an Indian Head nickel).

9.  Word of the Day:  clunk·y /ˈkləNGkē / adjective INFORMAL = awkwardly solid, heavy, and outdated.  Example:  "Even last year's laptops look clunky."  (See #6 above.)

10.  Do you have a system?  Before I leave my apartment, I count what's in my pockets (jeans with pockets are my retirement uniform):

• pen and paper
• pills and phone
• keys and comb
• clippers and Kleenex
• mask and money
• plus calendar and Kindle, if I take my cart  (too big for my pockets)

11.  The last thing I did in 2022:  I changed the calendar on the bulletin board beside the elevator on my floor.  Oh, wait!  No, I came home from changing the calendar and fed Clawdia.  She was eating as fireworks hailed a (hopefully less pandemic-y) New Year.

12.  I'm still wearing masks because of my age and being immunocompromised.  Is anyone else still masking up?

13.  I have decided I won't stop at an arbitrary number just because Colleen has done a Thursday Thirteen for years.  So I'll keep sharing until it's time to post my thoughts.

14.  Library books checked out:  I've blogged about how many books I had checked out of the library at any one time:  one, four, seven, fourteen, etc.  One (very unusual) time, I had ZERO books checked out.  The shocker, even to me, is that I now have 26 books checked out.  Yes, that number is 26.  That's proof I'm a "bookie," isn't it?

15.  I have a conundrum:  Why don't the words tough, cough, and dough rhyme?  On the other hand, these words DO rhyme:  dew, do, and due.  Why?  Can you explain it?

16.  Word of the Day (see # 15)

co·nun·drum / kəˈnəndrəm / noun = a confusing and difficult problem or question.

17.  We can now officially end sentences with prepositions if we want to.  (So I just did!)

18.  Do you "follow" any authors?  I see that I follow eight Amazon authors:

• Richard Bach
• Roberta C. Bondi — my former professor
• Lisa Genova — whose book Remember I just downloaded onto my Kindle
• Beth Kephart
• Stephen J. Patterson
• John Pavlovitz
• Jodi Picoult — whom I've meet in person
• Joan Uda, who's my best friend — so I picked up my phone and called her.  (The photo shows Joan and me when I visited her in 2019.)

19.  On New Year's Day, I read a children's book while waiting for someone:  Henry and Mudge and Annie's Perfect Pet ~ by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Suçie Stevenson, 2000, 40 pages.  I rate it 10/10.  Annie needs a pet that's soft and dry and doesn't fly — one that's quiet and careful, just like Annie.  (Spoiler:  it's a soft white rabbit, but you won't find a rabbit among the animals shown on the cover.)

20.  Study the cover carefully (as a child might do), and tell me what pets you find.

Beginning ~ with his hair and eyes

Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World ~ by Beth Kephart, 2004, memoir

This is what he looks like:  dark lustrous hair and big curious eyes, cinnamon or chocolate eyes, eyes like phosphorescence.

That's the first sentence of the first paragraph, but I much prefer the first sentence of the second paragraph.

The night he was conceived, it rained.

That sentence made me smile.  I have liked Beth Kephart's writing for years.  Although I got this book from the library once before, I had to return it before I got around to reading it.  Here's what it's about:

Kids today seem to be under more competitive pressure than ever, while studies show that reading, writing, and the arts in schools are suffering.  Is there any place for imagination in kids' lives anymore?  In a dog-eat-dog world, why dream things that aren't there?  Through personal stories, Beth Kephart resoundingly affirms the imagination as the heart of our ability to empathize with others, to appreciate the world, and to envision possibilities for the future.  The star of her story is once again her son, Jeremy (as in her National Book Award-nominated A Slant of Sun), now fourteen years old ― a child who at first resists storytelling, preferring more objective and orderly pursuits, but later leads a neighborhood book club/writing group and aspires to follow Steven Spielberg into moviemaking.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Beginning ~ with a torn photograph, sepia stained

The tear runs like a river through a map, hurtling down toward his right shoulder, veering threateningly at his neck, then diverting south only to again pivot east at the fifth brass button of his captain's uniform.  Below the tear, two more brass buttons and the clasp of his hands, and below all that, the military saber; the loosening creases on his pants; the shoes with their reflections of the snap of camera light.  He is one of three in a sepia-colored portrait, and someone had to think to save his face. Someone had to put the photo back together — re-adhere the northeast quadrant of this map with three trapezoids of tape so that his left hand would fall again from his left elbow and he would still belong to us. We suppose he is the best man at a wedding. We suppose that it was eighty years ago, before the matanza, before he was jailed and then set free, before he saved the money to buy the land that became St. Anthony's Farm.

This is the first paragraph of Still Love in Strange Places, a 2002 memoir by Beth Kephart about falling in love with an artist from "an exotic coffee farm high in the jungle hills of El Salvador," according to the dust jacket.  The photo above shows the artist's grandfather, whose likeness could have been lost when it was torn from the photo.  I was so fascinated by the description of the photo that I went online to see if I could find a copy.  I did — on the author's website, where she quotes much more of the beginning than I did here.  If you click that link and continue reading, you'll learn that the artist — who became her husband — looks like his grandfather.

By the way, I gave a synopsis of the book in a recent library loot post.

Would the first few lines of your book make you want to read on?  If you want to share the first lines of a book you are reading, click on the link and visit Katy at A Few More Pages.  (Today's list.)  Browse there to find interesting books for your own reading list.  And don’t forget that Katy and all the contributors to this meme (including me) love comments.

Library Loot ~ November 9-15

The Old Woman Who Named Things ~ by Cynthia Rylant, 1996, children's, 9/10

How does an old woman who has outlived all her friends keep from being lonely?  By naming the things in her life she knows she will never outlive — like her house, Franklin, and her bed, Roxanne.  When a shy brown puppy appears at her front gate, the old woman won’t name it, because it might not outlive her.  Tender watercolors capture the charm of this heartwarming story of an old woman who doesn’t know she’s lonely until she meets a plucky puppy who needs a name — and someone to love.

My Petition for More Space ~ by John Hersey, 1974, dystopian fiction (Connecticut)

A street in New Haven.  A line of people, blocks long, more closely packed than the rush-hour subways of the good old times.  Poyner has been on the line since before dawn, as are thousands of others, pressed together, waiting their turns at the window to present their individual petitions.  His is for more space — a notion so preposterous that when it is discovered it shocks, reverberates down the line, almost triggering violent reactions.  In front of Poynter, so tightly jammed against him that he can see no more than the side of her face, is a girl petitioning to change her job.  And, locked together in this fearful proximity, they talk, explore their predicaments, and perhaps fall in love.  The world has grown so crowded that dissent is an inconceivable crime and acquiescence the law of survival.

A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage ~ by Beth Kephart, 1998, memoir

Nearly one in five children grow up facing a developmental or behavioral challenge, and like them, Beth Kephart's son, Jeremy, showed early signs of being different: language eluded him, he preferred playing alone to an afternoon on the jungle gym. Doctors diagnosed Jeremy with a mild form of autism called Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. A Slant of Sun is a passionate memoir about how Kephart, guided by the twin tools of intuition and imagination, helped lead her son toward wholeness.

Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things that Matter ~ by Beth Kephart, 2000, memoir

Kephart is concerned with the haphazard ways we find one another, the tragedy, boredom, and sheer carelessness that break us apart, the myriad reasons people stay together and grow.  What is friendship, and what is its secret calculus?  Telling stories to illuminate this question, she also engages us in an essential dialogue about what it means to be fully alive.

Still Love in Strange Places ~ by Beth Kephart, 2002, memoir

When Beth Kephart met and fell in love with the artist who would become her husband, she had little knowledge of the place he came from — an exotic coffee farm high in the jungle hills of El Salvador, a place of terrifying myths and even more frightening realities, of civil war and devastating earthquakes.  Yet, marriage, she finds, means taking in not only the stranger who is one's lover but also a stranger's history — in this case, a country, language, people, and culture utterly foreign to a young American woman.

Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World ~ by Beth Kephart, 2004, memoir

Kids today seem to be under more competitive pressure than ever, while studies show that reading, writing, and the arts in schools are suffering.  Is there any place for imagination in kids' lives anymore?  In a dog-eat-dog world, why dream things that aren't there?

Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self ~ by Beth Kephart, 2005, memoir

Kephart writes about questions we all ask ourselves:  How do we remember who we used to be?  How do we imagine who we'll become?  Have we lived our lives as we set out to do?  What legacies do we wish to leave behind?

Dangerous Neighbors ~ by Beth Kephart, 2010, YA fiction

It is 1876, the year of the Centennial in Philadelphia.  Katherine has lost her twin sister Anna in a tragic skating accident.  One wickedly hot September day, Katherine sets out for the exhibition grounds to cut short the haunted life she no longer wants to live.

Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.  Claire has the Mister Linky this week, if you'd like to share a list of the loot you brought home.  You may submit your list any time during the week.

Caturday Contest ~ no, not mine

Bonnie's busy nano'ing, which means writing.  So I'll tell you about a contest by Beth Kephart, the author.  Here's what she said yesterday:

I am running a contest.  I am seeking, from the NaNo writers, this:  A single sentence as it was first written in the heat of a NaNo moment, and that same sentence after it has been reconsidered, revised.  Please send your entries to kephartblog AT comcast DOT net before December 20.  I will list my favorite transformations here and give the winner a signed copy of either a You Are My Only hardcover or an ARC of Small Damages, my novel due out from Philomel next July.  (The winner will choose.)

I told Bonnie about this contest, but I don't know if she'll do it.  I myself am not crazy enough to try to write thousands of words during a single month, so I won't ever be a Wrimo, like Bonnie.  If you are interested in this contest, go for it.  I'm going back to my nap.

Kiki Cat, signing off

Beth Kephart's treasure hunt

You Are My Only ~ by Beth Kephart, 2011, YA fiction

Have you read this book yet?  Because of NaNoWriMo and writing at least 1,667 words a day, I haven't gotten around to telling the world I received this great temptation in the mail this week, from the author herself.  Thanks, Beth!  I call it a temptation because it's lots more fun to read what an excellent writer has already published than to sit here typing a story without a clue where I'll take it.  Mine starts with a couple of folks named Martha and Gary, and I didn't even pick their names.  (More about that later.) Beth's book — this particular one, I mean — is about Emmy and Sophie, and I have no idea how she came up with those names.

A missing child.
A devastated young mother.
Two girls.
One traumatic event.

That's from the dust jacket.  Read more about this book that I posted during a treasure hunt devised by the author, leading up to the publication of the book last week.  I entered the contest, and I was one of the winners.  (I think we all won.)

Anyway, my signed copy of the book arrived a couple of days ago, and I've been remiss about letting Beth know.  Is it okay to blame NaNoWriMo?  Probably not, but I do hope Beth knows how much I look forward to reading this one.  I've already read three of her earlier books.  I've read reviews, though, that let me know this latest one is the best.  I can hardly wait.

Beginning ~ with a mauve flyer

It was a sign thumbtacked high on the corkboard of the local Acme.  A flyer, really — quick-copy-shop mauve and nothing fancy.  The headline read TWO WEEKS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE — another famous preposterous promise, and so I stopped to read it.

This is the beginning of Chapter One (page 7), and it does intrigue me.  However, there is also a Prologue (page 1), which is equally intriguing.  Put them together and what I've got is The Heart Is Not a Size by Beth Kephart, 2010, YA fiction. I am so totally hooked!

What I remember now is the bunch of them running:  from the tins, which were their houses.  Up the whte streets, which were the color of bone.

  If you want to play along, this meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages. Share the first sentence or two of the book you are reading. (Sometimes it takes several sentences to get the full thought.) Then, share your impressions of that beginning.  Click this link to see what others say about the books they are reading this week.

Dewey's Read-a-Thon (October 2011)

For the October 2011 Read-a-Thon:
442 readers and 69 cheerleaders have signed up!

Completed

Title:  Smiles to Go
Author:  Jerry Spinelli
Genre:  YA fiction
Pages:  248
Format:  hardback

Completed

Title:  Close Your Eyes
Author:  Amanda Eyre Ward
Genre:  fiction (set in Texas)
Pages:  251
Format:  hardback

Readers I visited

1)  Alison @ So Many Books, So Little Time
2)  Jan @ Yearning for God
3)  Helen @ Helen's Book Blog
4)  Wendy @ Caribousmom
5)  Erin @ Erin Reads
6)  Chris @ Chrisbookarama
7) Sheila @ Book Journey

Memes and Mini-Challenges

Hour 1 (8am):  Introduction Meme

1)  Where are you reading from today?  My recliner in Chattanooga, Tennessee
2)  Three random facts about me… From yesterday's meme:  I am a piano player, a great-grandmother, and an ordained minister.
3)  How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?  Seven (click to see my list)
4)  Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?  Complete two books, maybe three
5)  If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?  Pick easier books, ones that read quickly, if possible

Hour 2 (9am):  Character Photo

Take a photo of something that represents a character in one of the books you are reading for the readathon.  (I call this "web personality screen shot." That's my reading lamp reflected in the corner of the screen.)

The boyfriend calls himself a web personality

Hour 3 (10am):  Book Puzzle

Create a Book Puzzle.  Essentially, this is a series of pictures, graphics, or photos that you put together that will describe a book title.

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 4 (11am):  State Settings

Name three books (fiction or nonfiction) that are good representations of the USA state in which they are set.

1)  Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, by Joe Coomer ~ New Hampshire
2)  Forever, by Pete Hamill ~ New York
3)  A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley ~ Iowa

Hour 5 (12noon):  Sharing the Joy of Books
Tell us your favorite way to share a book - brief description, picture, poem or even a link to a previous blog post - anything that expresses how you share your love of reading.

I talk about books all the time, even occasionally handing out "business" cards that include my blog URL. I have a book blog to share books I'm reading and also a book club blog to discuss books. I started a Banned Books blog which has hundreds of visitors every day during Banned Books Week at the end of September. And I join read-a-thons like this! Just call me a Bookie.

Hour 6 (1pm):  Top Five

What are the five books you are looking forward to in the next few months or really into next year.  (I don't look ahead very far -- in this case, these are the ones set aside for this readathon.)

1)  Bitsy's Bait and BBQ ~ by Pamela Morsi, 2007, fiction (Missouri)
2)  House of Dance ~ by Beth Kephart, 2008, YA fiction
3)  Smiles to Go ~ by Jerry Spinelli, 2008, YA fiction
4)  The Heart Is Not a Size ~ by Beth Kephart, 2010, YA fiction
5)  Undercover ~ by Beth Kephart, 2007, YA fiction

Hour 7 (2pm):  AKA -- Also Known As

Have you ever read a book and then found out that the author has written other books using a different name?  I have, and pseudonyms can be a bit confusing.  For this challenge, see if you know who the authors I've listed are AKA.

Eleanor Druse
A.M. Barnard
George Eliot
Jenny Carroll
Steffie Hall
Erin St. Claire
William Jefferies
Evan Hunter

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 8 (3pm):  A Music Bath

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body."

1)  What song does the book I’m reading right now remind me of?
2)  What song does my favorite book remind me of?
3)  Can I find a connection between one of my favorite songs and a story I like?

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 9 (4pm):  Book Sentence

Using the books you have in your home, make a complete sentence out of the book titles.

Somewhere in time, the lady and the unicorn rescue Mrs. Dalloway.

Somewhere in Time ~ by Richard Matheson, 1975, speculative fiction
The Lady and the Unicorn ~ by Tracy Chevalier, 2004, fiction
Rescue ~ by Anita Shreve, 2010, fiction
Mrs. Dalloway ~ by Virginia Woolf, 1925, fiction

Hour 10 (5pm):  My Perfect Anthology

Tell me which authors you’d like to see together in an anthology, and create a theme for the book!  Creating a name for it is totally optional!

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Winner!  Hey, I just got an email from Lisa @ Lisa's World of Books (see Hour 6, above), which was also announced on the Hour 10 post on the Dewey's Read-a-Thon blog.

You are my Top 5 Winner!  Congrats!  Please send me your address.

Hour 11 (6pm):  Book Trailer

Share a book trailer with us. It could be your favorite book trailer, it can be a trailer of your favorite book, or it can be a trailer for a book you want to read.

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.

Hour 12 (7pm):  Hodge-Podge Proposals

List (1) the first name of any character in the book you’re currently reading or just finished, (2) the make or model of your current car, and (3) a job you think would be especially fascinating.  Numbers 1 and 2 become the first and last name of your new character, and 3 is his or her occupation. Now briefly pitch me a new series in the genre of your choice based on this hodge-podge character!

Lauren Maxima seems an unlikely candidate to become queen of the world, but that's her goal.  For now, she'll settle for president of her fifth grade class.  (Hmm, this needs more thought before I submit it.  If, I submit it.)

Hour 13 (8pm):  Mid-Event Survey

1.  What are you reading right now?  Close Your Eyes ~ by Amanda Eyre Ward
2.  How many books have you read so far?  Half of this one
3.  What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?  Finishing this one and starting another
4.  Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?  The only thing holding me back from reading is my desire to look at what everyone else is doing and joining all the mini-challenges I can
5.  Have you had many interruptions?  How did you deal with those?  I got one phone call, and my cat seems to think feeding her is more important than reading books
6.  What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?  Like every one I've done before, I'm surprised that the time seems to be flying by, and I'm reading blogs instead of books
7.  Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  Nope
8.  What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?  Nothing, except it would make my stats look better if I chose children's picture books instead of regular ole adult-sized novels
9.  Are you getting tired yet?  Not yet
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?  Surely someone among these 442 readers has already discovered everything

Hour 14 (9pm):  Feed Me, Seymour

Stand up, head into the kitchen, and rustle up something delicious. Then come back and tell us what you put down your hatch.

I made a salad, a nice counter-point to everything else I've eaten today.  However, I plan to follow up with a bowl of butter pecan ice cream.

Hour 15 (10pm):  Friendship

Share a memorable friendship forming moment in any of the books you've read in your life. The moment when two people click, and they knew they were going to be friends for ever.

(I'm thinking.)

Hour 16 (11pm): Re-reading

List your top favorite rereads of all time. You know, those books that you can go to time and time again for comfort and escape.  (I do very little reading for comfort and escape, more for the ideas in a book, even a novel.  Both of these are novels.)

Herland ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915) is one I re-read about every ten years.

This utopian novel describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction).  The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict, and domination.

Time and Again ~ by Jack Finney (1970) is my favorite time travel story.

"Sleep. And when you awake everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind.  Tonight is January 21, 1882.  There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television.  'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary.  You have never heard the name Richard Nixon."  Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night — right into the winter of 1882?  The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed — or did it?

Hour 17 (12midnight):  Song Identity

Represent yourself, your country, or your people with one song, and provide a link or video and tiny explanation.  ("I Am Woman" represents me.)

Hour 18 (1am):  Charities

The mini-challenge for Hour 18 is for those raising money for charity during the readathon.

Hour 19 (2am):  Pet Love
1)  Leave a minimum of  two sentences and max of 2 paragraphs of  how your pets have helped or hindered your reading.
2)  Share a picture (or two or three) of your pet with us.

Kiki is a very loving cat and couldn't understand why I didn't want her to sit on me all day with her face in my face.  She pushed her head up under my hands, wanting to be petted or brushed.  She made it clear at her mealtimes (twice a day) that I should put down the book and feed her.  She made it perfectly clear to me that, even though she likes to read (and blog) too, my obsession with reading was not a good thing at all.


Hour 20 (3am):  Yoga

Try it for as little as five minutes, as long as fifteen (or more if you are really getting into it.) When you have completed your mini-yoga session, write about the length of time, poses you did, and a note about your experience.

The poses I tried were (1) legs-up-the-wall, (2) child's pose, (3) downward-facing-dog, (4) goddess pose, and (5) relaxation corpse pose.  There are no photos, because I cannot pose and take a photo of myself, and nobody here is awake at 3:00 a.m. my time, except me.  I'm 71 and spent only 10-12 minutes going from one pose to the next, even though I used to do yoga at the YMCA in my younger years.  However, you may have gotten me back into yoga (after 35 years) -- I had forgotten how much of a workout it can be.

Hour 21 (4am):  Reading Zombies

Take a book you've read during the Readathon and "zombify" or "vampirize" it in the style of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. You can do this by either zombifying the cover, or providing a synopsis of the zombified adaptation.

I skipped this mini-challenge to continue reading.  (I absolutely don't understand the fascination.  Just as well, since I had allowed myself to sleep about an hour and a half around this time.)

Hour 22 (5am):  Get Up Offa That Thang!
Stand up right this minute.  Set your mp3 player/radio/iTunes playlist to play three dance-worthy songs back-to-back.  Dance like a maniac.  Tell us the three songs that you chose.

I found YouTube versions of (1) Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley (appropriate at this hour of the readathon), (2) Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry, and (3) Be-Bop-A-Lula by John Lennon.  By the way, the cat thinks I've gone crazy!



Hour 23 (6am):  My Posterity Library

Imagine we live in a bizarre, post-apocalyptic world, wherein only ONE copy of every book remains in existence, and the technology (electronic, print, or otherwise) to make copies has been destroyed.  You are given the golden opportunity to select 5 books to build a Posterity Library, a small collection of treasured literary material that will remain in your family, passed down from generation to generation.  Now, think carefully – only ONE copy of every book ever written still exists.  Be sure to provide the names of the books, author (if applicable) and your reason for choosing each book.  The winner will be the one who can best argue why the 5 books they have chosen are most important, valuable, or significant – either to themselves, their family, and/or future generations.  Leave the name of the book you will choose from The Book Depository (’cause I’m curious!).

1)  The Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong offers guidelines for a spiritual practice designed to make humanity a kinder and saner species.  If we have a chance to start over, let's do it right next time.
2)  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a book that shows us what to avoid in our relationships with others, especially those who are different from the dominant group.
3)  The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein gives us a dog's view of life and what it means to be human.
4)  Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish is a feel-good book filled with humor, even though it looks at what unrelated friends learn together about their mutual friend Annie after her death.
5)  Epaminondas and His Auntie by Sara Cone Bryant is a 1907 children's book about a little boy who is very literal in his understanding of his mother's instructions, helping even adults to be more careful of what they say and how they say it.

Book I would choose from The Book Depository:  That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back ~ by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, 2011

Hour 24 (7am):  End of Event Meme

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?  Around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. (Hours 20 and 21), I allowed myself to sleep about an hour and a haf.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? No, I don't know what's "high-interest" to most folks.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  Make sure the links to mini-challenges work and are in place on time.
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  The whole thing gets better every year -- Dewey would be proud of the organizers.
5. How many books did you read?  Two.
6. What were the names of the books you read?  Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward and Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli
7. Which book did you enjoy most?  Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli
8. Which did you enjoy least?  Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?  N/A
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again?  What role would you be likely to take next time?  I'm very likely to be a reader again, even though I visited a few readers (see above) to see how they were doing and a left messages cheering them on.

Winner!  Hey, it's Sunday afternoon now (the 23rd), and I just got an email from Kimberly @ Fancy Terrible Reviews telling me I've won a hand-knitted bookmark.  And all because I did get up offa that thang at Hour 22 and danced.  Kimberly went back to her original post and added this:

****Update: The winner of the Get Up Offa That Thang mini-challenge is Bonnie @ bonniesbooks.blogspot.com. Congratulations, you really know how to get down! We’ll email you shortly and get you your prize.****

Winner!  Hey, it's Monday morning (the 24th), and I just read on the Dewey's Read-a-Thon page that I was one of the winners of the yoga mini-challenge (Hour 20).  What fun!

Readathon ~ my reading plan

Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-Thon starts this morning at 8:00 a.m. my time.  My plan is to read as many pages in these books as possible, when I'm not bouncing around the blogosphere, that is.

Smiles to Go ~ by Jerry Spinelli, 2008, YA fiction

Summary:  "Will Tuppence's life has always been ruled by science and common sense, but in ninth grade, shaken up by the discovery that protons decay, he begins to see the entire world differently and gains new perspective on his relationships with his little sister and two close friends."

Maniac Magee, a Newbery Medal winner, was the first Spinelli book I read.  I've discovered that short books are better for the Readathon because I enjoy spending much of the day doing the challenges that come up every few hours, checking blog reports from other participants, and generally looking at all the interesting stuff going on around the world.

Other books in the stack

Undercover ~ by Beth Kephart, 2007, YA fiction
House of Dance ~ by Beth Kephart, 2008, YA fiction
The Heart Is Not a Size ~ by Beth Kephart, 2010, YA fiction
Close Your Eyes ~ by Amanda Eyre Ward, 2011, fiction
I Am the Messenger ~ by Markus Zusak, 2005, YA fiction
Bitsy's Bait and BBQ ~ by Pamela Morsi, 2007, fiction (Missouri)

No, of course I don't expect to read all of these in one day.  But when I get tired of one, I'll have several to choose from.  Two are due back at the library soon, having already been extended another seven days, so I'll start there.  Several are YA (young adult) novels, which I can read faster than literary novels.  Maybe I'll be able to finish a couple of books and still be able to visit around the other blogs.

Library Loot ~ October 19-25

Joy for Beginners ~ Erica Bauermeister, 2011, fiction

At an intimate, festive dinner party in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate's recovery from cancer.  Wineglass in hand, Kate strikes a bargain with them.  To celebrate her new lease on life, she'll do the one thing that's always terrified her:  white-water rafting.  But if she goes, all of them will also do something they always swore they'd never do — and Kate is going to choose their adventures.

I started reading and fell in love with how Kate felt after a year when doctors had been in control of her body.

"Now the medical professionals had declared it hers again, handing it back like an overdue and slightly scuffed library book" (p. 2).

Don't you love that image?  Especially for a library loot post.  I made a list of the friends as they arrived at Kate's house and what they brought to the meal:  Kate herself (green cloth napkins, sour cream and enchiladas with roasted chicken and carmelized onions), Caroline (salad and champagne), Marion (tomatoes from her garden), Sara (cake), Hadley (loaf of bread), Daria (wine).  It made me want to be there with them.

"Daria and Marion were sisters, Sara and Hadley neighbors, Kate and Caroline had met when their children were in preschool..." (p. 5).

And then Ava arrived, late.  Who's Ava?


Undercover ~ by Beth Kephart, 2007, YA fiction

Summary:  High school sophomore Elisa is used to observing while going unnoticed except when classmates ask her to write love notes from them, but a teacher's recognition of her talent, a "client's" desire for her friendship, a love of ice-skating, and her parents' marital problems draw her out of herself.

House of Dance ~ by Beth Kephart, 2008, YA fiction

Summary: During one of her daily visits across town to visit her dying grandfather, fifteen-year-old Rosie discovers a dance studio that helps her find a way to give her grandfather one last gift.

The Heart Is Not a Size ~ by Beth Kephart, 2010, YA fiction

Summary:  Fifteen-year-old Georgia learns a great deal about herself and her troubled best friend, Riley, when they become part of a group of suburban Pennsylvania teenagers who go to Anapra, a squatters' village in the border town of Juarez, Mexico, to undertake a community construction project.

Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.  If you would like to share a list of the loot you brought home from the library, Marg has the Mister Linky this week.