Thursday, May 26, 2011

Readin'!!!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!! Are you excited for the extra day to relax/sleep in/have fun/travel/etc? Woo!

I've been reading a lot, currently on my 50th for the year! It's funny; I was reading nothing but YA for a few months. So in April I told myself I should read at least one 'grown-up' book per month. And then I read nothing *but* grown-up books for a solid month!

One that I loved was The Eyre Affair, a fun, alternate-reality filled with wordplay, and none of the fuss of dystopia or vampire shit. Thursday Next (what a freaking awesome name!) is featured in a bunch more books; I've requested them from my neighborhood library!

One that I didn't love was 1984. I read half of it years ago and found it fascinating. I bought it later and it's been on my shelf ever since. My book club decided to read that (and Brave New World, which I read in 2007 while in Amsterdam) this month, so I picked it up and read the whole thing. Blaaaaahhhh I was bored silly for the first half (and a little alarmed at the misogyny at the beginning!). Then things finally picked up. It got super boring for about fifteen straight pages and then a little more interesting at the end. Overall, I was kind of underwhelmed. Is that wrong? I don't know, I'm just kind of over that genre. Everyone and their mom is publishing dystopian fiction lately and UGH. Anyway, I wrote a haiku to summarize the book!

Pessimist author
The man always keeps us down
There is never hope

Gosh, that's depressing, sorry! :)

Here's a happy for you though: check out these fun bookshelves (via Neatorama)!

My favorite is this one:



Makes sense, seeing as how I seem to keep acquiring books (having friends in publishing is bad news for one's bookshelves!) and running out of room!

Sidebar: Recently I followed a link to a blog called Unclutterer, which has me inspired to start eyeing things that are extra and unneeded. Actually, just this afternoon I did another sweep of my shelves and cleared out almost two feet of books that will go on the street/to the laundry room bookswap shelf. So my imaginary twin bookshelf would be going in, not out. :)

Finally, (as seen again on Neatorama) Amazon published an "official" list of the most well-read cities in the US, based on their sales (totally objective!).
  1. Cambridge, Mass.
  2. Alexandria, Va.
  3. Berkeley, Calif.
  4. Ann Arbor, Mich.
  5. Boulder, Colo.
  6. Miami
  7. Salt Lake City
  8. Gainesville, Fla.
  9. Seattle
  10. Arlington, Va.
  11. Knoxville, Tenn.
  12. Orlando, Fla.
  13. Pittsburgh
  14. Washington, D.C.
  15. Bellevue, Wash.
  16. Columbia, S.C.
  17. St. Louis, Mo.
  18. Cincinnati
  19. Portland, Ore.
  20. Atlanta
New York City is not on there at all! What do you think? Weird, considering all the universities and publishing companies here!

Anyway, hope you get some good reading in on this long weekend!

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