Just an Update

Hello all. After that less-than-cheerful review of Mockingjay, I wanted to do a (hopefully) light summary of my life recently and in the near future in terms of reading.

Books I’ve Read in 2011

Well, 10 books in 14 days isn’t too shabby (except that they’re not all done). I want to write reviews for most of these soon because I enjoyed them, and I think it was a great bunch to start off the year. I like how they balance each other out, which is one of my (minor) goals for this year – not to read too much of 1 type of book in a short time.

Also, is anyone else still getting used to writing 2011 instead of 2010? I don’t know if you can see in this picture, but about half of the 2011s have whiteout under the 11. My chances of making a mistake are greatly increased by the fact that I like to write down that I’ve started a book once I’m a few chapters in rather than if I’m about to pick it up. (I don’t know why- it’s just one of my random quirks.) This tends to be somewhere in the 11pm area, since I don’t start reading until I finish my homework and am getting into bed. Anyway, moving on…

The Nightstand

Frankenstein and Pompeii have both been officially moved from the nightstand to the I’ll-read-it-someday pile on my desk.

The books on my nightstand itself have been dwindling in number, especially since I plan to finish Across the Universe tonight or tomorrow morning. This brings me to my next topic…

Coming Soon
I bought Across the Universe on the 11th (it arrived and I began reading it yesterday) at the suggestion of Heather Zundel, AKA WriterGirl. After I realized how much I liked Across the Universe, I bought another book that she recommended to me, Little Sister by Kara Dalkey.

Arriving a few days after that is Diana Wynne Jones’ Castle in the Air, the sequel / companion to Howl’s Moving Castle.

Also, after reading The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler, which is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, I pre-ordered A True Princess by the same author, a retelling of the Princess and the Pea. It will be published in early February, so I don’t have long to wait.

I have some other pre-ordered stuff, but it’s mostly coming in April, May, and June, so it’ll be a while before I get those, so I won’t bother listing them now.

Because I no longer have such a large stack of books to be read, I am planning on rereading some old favorites as well as beginning to tackle the I’ll-read-it-someday pile. At school, the new semester starts in about two weeks, and we’ll be reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Other Stories in English, and Antigone (a reread for me) in Greek (the class, not the language).

In Conclusion
That didn’t turn out quite as brief as I wanted it to be, but it was fun to write and not nearly as stressful as writing the Mockingjay review, where I had to simultaneously figure out how to put my thoughts into words and make sure not to give anything away (or be extremely vague when I do!) Anyway, goodnight and have a good weekend. Fun things are in store for next week!