Unfortunately, not all of my spring break plans revolve around lazing in the sun with a good book. I recently went to the dentist complaining of some sharp pain in one of my molars. The verdict? No cavities, but it’s time for my wisdom teeth to be taken out. My top wisdom teeth have been in for years now, hanging low and generally being a pain to keep clean. My bottoms are just now starting to come in, which is apparently what was making my tooth hurt. My bottoms are laying almost completely horizontal rather than vertical, so “coming in” really translates to “ramming into the rest of my teeth.” Ow, in other words.

So as to not miss any classes due to pain medication or other such issues, I’m scheduled to have them out on Monday, the 22nd – the first real day of spring break. What a way to celebrate, no?

I’m nervous about it; the dentist told me that as long as I do what they tell me to, it won’t be too bad. Of course, on the flipside of things, whenever I’ve told anyone else about getting the teeth removed, their first response is a grimace, followed by something like “I had mine out when I was X years old, it was awful.” Thanks for the encouragement, folks.

My other, more enjoyable plan for spring break is to read The Third Reich at War by Evans. It’s the follow-up to The Third Reich in Power, which I thought was excellent. The Third Reich at War comes out on the 19th, but for some reason, a number of libraries in the OhioLINK system already have copies. I’ve already requested one.

What are your plans for the opening weeks of spring?

Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?

No, not really. Basically, as far back as my memory goes, I remember reading. As I’ve gotten older, the obsession love has grown. The idea of not reading baffles me.

What are some books you read as a child?

I recall reading lots and lots of those horrible Goosebump books by R. L. Stein. They were all pretty much the same, and the writing was truly terrible. I remember I read one of my mom’s Mary Higgins Clark books when I was 8 or 9, and only then realized how very pathetic Goosebump books were. But hey, they got a lot of kids reading, so…

What is your favourite genre?

What, I have to choose one? History, then. But fantasy and science fiction come in at a close second and third. And, generally, I like to cast my net wide, and see what I catch. While I do stay away from romance novels, if it has words on a printed page, I’ll usually read it.

Do you have a favourite novel?

Lord of the Rings, as it ended up shaping my character a great deal. It led to my interest in history, languages, as well as (obviously) the fantasy genre.

Where do you usually read?

Anywhere and everywhere. Regardless of where I am, I typically have a book on hand. I read in bed, sitting around the house, in classrooms before my classes start, at the library reference desk where I work, waiting in line at the post office… Like I said, just about anywhere.

When do you usually read?

Pretty much anytime I can. I don’t really have any set times for when I read, but I do have a few time slots that are fairly regular: before bed, and before classes. I’m quite weird about making sure I’m early for classes, often half an hour or so early; I typically use that time to read.

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?

Not “usually”, but always. I’ve accepted that I’m incapable of sticking to one book at a time. This leads to it taking me months to finish some books, but that’s fine by me. If someone offers me prize money for getting through books more quickly, I’ll consider changing my reading habits. Until then: the more the merrier, I say.

Do you read non-fiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?

I don’t read it in a different place, but I do read it a bit differently. With fiction books, I can lay them down at any time, knowing that I can pick it up hours or days later, and be able to pick up the thread quickly. I’m unable to do this with a lot of my non-fiction books, particularly history. There’s just too many strands, names, dates, concepts etc. in the text for me to be able to stop mid-paragraph. When reading non-fiction (especially history), I really prefer to stop at breaks in the text which the author has inserted.

I also will occasionally take notes while reading non-fiction, something I don’t do very often at all with fiction.

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?

A mix of the first, last, and one other path: book mooching. I’ll buy books or mooch them, but usually only after I’ve checked them out from the library to see if I really want my own copy. I’d say at this point in my life, the balance is tipping towards “library”; by using OhioLINK through my school, I can get pretty much whatever I want for free. Throw in 4 renewals, and I can keep books for months on end if I want.

Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?

Most of them, yes. Due to how I go about deciding on what books I’m going to purchase, I don’t really end up owning a lot of books that I don’t want. Those that do fit that description, though, end up going to Bookmooch.

If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child?

Due to his interests, most of the books I’ve read to my son have involved bulldozers, tractors, and other such things. I still have a few books from my childhood, though, that I read to him: one is a compilation of 3 stories: 1 about firemen, 1 about cars and other vehicles, and Scruffy the Tugboat. (Yes, the first two have titles, I just can’t remember them off the top of my head.)

He’s also fallen in love with a book I got for him from the library, Take Care, Good Knight.

What are you reading now?

• The Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans
• The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop
• Europe in the Central Middle Ages, 962-1154 by Christopher Brooke
• A bunch of foreign language books – Assimil’s French with Ease, Assimil’s Russisch ohne Mühe (Russian without Toil in German), New Penguin Russian Course
• The Human Mosaic: A Thematic Introduction to Cultural Geography (for a class)
• A compilation of literature from the beginning of history to the Renaissance period (also for a class)

Do you keep a “To Be Read” list?

Nope, not in any concrete form. I’ve tried to keep them in the past, but they just grew to be monstrous in size, and ultimately unhelpful. I decide I’m going to read when I’m reading to start something new.

What’s next to be read?

I don’t know. I’m not ready to start something new yet.

What books would you like to reread?

Most of my history books; Lord of the Rings, which I reread every few years. Other than Lord of the Rings, though, it probably won’t happen. I tend to not reread many things, as there are too many books that I want to read that I’ve not yet read.

Who are your favourite authors?

Tolkien; Terry Pratchett; Iain Banks; Antony Beevor; Stephen King.

I’ve thus far finished the first book of the Dark Elf Trilogy, Homeland. It was a fun read, but it could have been better; there were some things in it that drove me a bit bonkers, to be honest. One in particular? Salvatore’s (over)usage of varied tag lines in dialogue. In a short guide for writing dialogue, the guide at fictionwriting.about.com wrote:

6. Don’t try too hard to vary your tag lines when writing dialogue.
Veering too much beyond “he said/she said” only draws attention to the tags. Readers tend to read over these phrases anyway, whereas obvious efforts to insert variety, through words such as “interjected,” “counseled,” or “conceded,” draw the reader out of the action. If the writer is doing his or her work, the reader is already aware that the speaker is interjecting, counseling, or conceding. The writer won’t have to say it again in the tag.

I’ve seen this advice elsewhere on the ‘net, and it’s true – while you’d think “he / she said” over and over would get old, it really doesn’t. We’re used to it, we see it, we skim it, it’s gone – all we’re really taking in are the words that the characters are speaking. This is infinitely better than the reader stumbling over different (and at times peculiar!) tag words repeatedly.

Salvatore’s evil dark elf characters “said” a lot, but they also “grumbled” and “mumbled” a good deal. The two tag words that topped the charts, though? Snapped and growled. While I’m sure my perception of them was exaggerated due to some mild frustration on my part, I would have swore that one of these words adorned every single page of the book. Had they been used once or twice in the whole book, they would have caught my attention and given weight to the dialogue. Instead, due to how often I saw them, I started to think – do dark elves have a bit of canine DNA in them or something? They sure do growl and snap a lot…

I’m 15 pages or so into Exile, book 2 of the trilogy; we’ll see if the growls and snaps scare me away. Please, future fiction writers – go easy on such things.

1. Yes, I’ve played these before. No, my love affair with them will never truly end
2. The Forgotten Realms is one of the Dungeons and Dragons settings. More info can be had here.

I realized that while I was very familiar with the tale of the Viking’s attack, I wasn’t sure where exactly Lindisfarne Island was. I had it in my head that it was on the west coast of the England, but this ended up being wrong. Wikipedia informed me that it’s actually on the northeast coast of England. The article also told me that Lindisfarne is a tidal island. I wanted to get a better overall feel of the area, so I looked up the island on Google Maps, and in playing around with the zoom, I realized that one shot that was in use had caught the island during high tide; the other, during low tide. It’s actually pretty neat to see:

Lindisfarne at high tide

Lindisfarne at low tide

While you can see the differences here, it’s actually easier to see it at Google Maps, where you can zoom in and out to see the transition. Just punch in these coords at Google Maps: 55.679°N, 1.808°W (or just click here).

I finished reading Mort a couple of days ago, and perhaps the way to best indicate how much I enjoyed it is to say that I’ve already requested Reaper Man, book 2 in the Death series. I had a lot of fun reading this one.

The book focuses in on the Death character of Discworld, who looks like your basic Grim Reaper – skeleton, black hooded robe, scythe and sword. At the beginning of the book, Mort is “all elbows and knees”, and his father believes that he thinks too much. For this reason, his father ends up taking Mort to the village, in the hopes of Mort finding an apprenticeship. Death obliges, and takes Mort under his wing – or robe, as it were. When Death takes a day off and gives Mort a couple of jobs, Mort of course makes a mess of things. He has a crush on the young princess he’s supposed to be “ushering into the next world”, and so instead he kills the princess’s assassin. The rest of the book deals with how Mort tries to “fix” history, which continues to trundle along as if the princess were dead, and how Death tries to get in touch with his, er, human side.

While I enjoyed Mort’s character, what really made this book for me was the character of Death. There were some scenes in the book that literally had me laughing out loud, something I don’t do that often when reading a book. Many of the scenes that made me laugh were ones which dealt with Death’s peculiar character. He’s a mix between a humorless, all-work-and-no-play god, and a small child who is clueless of how the world works, due to his rather abnormal working conditions. This becomes readily apparent when he tries to do things that humans do, like going to the bar:

“I don’t see the point,” the stranger said. [Death]
“Sorry?”
“What is supposed to happen?”
“How many drinks have you had?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Just about anything, then,” said the barman. . . .

I burst out laughing at “Forty-seven.” In the book, Death also has a soft spot for kittens – go figure.

I loved this book, but a word of caution to those who might be inclined to read it after reading my post here: if you don’t like silliness mixed in with your fantasy, don’t read this. I’ve read that the Discworld series has developed over the years to not have such large amounts of gag humor in it, but this being one of the early Discworld novels, it runneth over with silliness. There’s a lot of stuff that just makes no sense, and if you’re someone who’s going to get caught up going “that’s silly” or “that wouldn’t work like that”, you probably won’t enjoy this.

However, if you think you’d like a kitten-loving Death, or a world that is held up by four giant elephants riding a 10,000 mile long turtle who’s floating through space, you’ll love this. Read it.

For anyone who was keeping track, I fell woefully short of the 52 book mark, ending the year having read 36 books (and started 4 others, which weren’t completed when my clock clicked over to 2008). I think I ended up not reaching 52 total because I got hung up on some of the books near the end – specifically, the books for classes, most of which were history, which typically take me longer than a week to read. I suppose it goes without saying that the time and mental effort it takes to read a Harry Potter book is a bit less than that needed to read A History of India.

Am I going to do it again? No, I don’t think so. It made reading for pleasure too much like work for me. With school, I have enough deadlines to meet without creating more for myself. As can be seen by looking at the 2007 list, I skipped writing posts for quite a few books, and most of those ended up being books I read for university courses. For most of those books, I had to write responses / papers on them for class – the last thing I wanted to do was turn around and write a blog entry for them. But more importantly, like I said, the 52 books in 52 weeks thing just made pleasure reading too much like work. If I fell behind, I felt crappy about it, which generally just made me fall more behind. The more I fell behind, the more nasty the idea of rushing through a dozen books to “catch up” sounded. I didn’t want to rush through books I was reading for fun – I wanted to take them at whatever pace seemed appropriate.

Perhaps – indeed, I’d say almost certainly – I’ve taken this, and blown it out of proportion. But ultimately, I didn’t like setting myself a goal – even if it was as silly as reading 1 book a week and blogging about it – and then falling short of it. I’m going to obviously continue reading books, and I’ll continue to blog about them. But no more scheduled reading for me, unless the schedule is handed to me by someone I usually address as “professor.”

Incidentally, while I don’t plan on forcing myself to stick to a reading schedule, the 52 books in 52 weeks experiment did lead to me seeing how many books I can read, if I stick to (mostly) one at a time, and focus on getting through it. Certainly, 2007 is the year in which I’ve read the most books thus far.

When I first started reading it, I thought it was decent – it was no “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”, but it wasn’t atrocious, either. But the more I read, the more bored I became – I felt like I could see through the 300 pages between me and the ending, right to the ending. There was no suspense, no intrigue, no interestingness. Young boy finds dragon egg; dragon egg hatches, dragon chooses boy; bad guys come and level boy’s home; mysterious old bearded man takes young boy under wing and starts training him, while hiding his real identity for no good reason. Yes, yes, and in the end, the young boy grows up a bit and wins a huge battle against the evil King of the Empire, right, while helping the rebels? Well, yes, actually, that’s exactly right (I cheated and read the plot summary at Wikipedia after throwing in the towel.)

I knew as I read through it that much of it was stuff lifted straight from other books, but I didn’t realize how much near-outright theft had taken place until I explored some of the amazon.com reviews. Paolini stole (admittedly, probably unintentionally) from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Pern, and other stuff to put together his work. His heavy borrowing from other works definitely shows, with the story (the half of it I plowed through, anyway) feeling extremely generic.

As many of the amazon.com reviewers remarked, hopefully Paolini’s parents self-publishing his book for him (before a big publisher picked it up) hasn’t led to an over-inflated ego. His huge commercial success might have already led to him thinking he wrote something truly great – which he didn’t. The book is mediocre at best, extremely bad at worst, not to mention full of borderline plagiarism (just look at the names!). I hope he reads the criticism and takes it to heart; he’s got a long way to go before he’s a good writer.

Now that I’ve tossed Eragon aside, I’ve moved on to The Crow Road by Iain Banks, which Cas sent to me as a gift. I’m only about 30 pages into it, but so far, it’s excellent. It’s got a feel to it I’ve not encountered before in a book, and I’m digging the Scottish bent it has.

Finally! After much chipping away at this mountain of a book, I finished it last night. It took me much longer to finish this one, mostly thanks to school. The bulk of my reading during the day has been for class, and so Potter and Co. had to be relegated to bedtime reading. A major negative point about it taking me so long to finish this one up is that, truth be told, I can’t remember much from the beginning at all! Anyway:

Like all of the other Potter books, I quite enjoyed this one. It’s been enjoyable to watch Harry and friends age through the series – even if not all of the characteristics that have come forth from that aging have been, shall we say, positive. I mentioned something to my friend Joshua almost right away when I started reading Order of the Phoenix: Harry is becoming more and more whiney. Sure, he has reasons to be a bit grumpy at times, but damn does he have a temper. There were a few points in the book where I wished Ron or Hermione would give him a good slap, to snap him out of his raging about like a baffoon. I get that Rowling was trying to show his “coming of age” and the associated hormonal – issues? – but I think it was a bit over the top.

Other assorted, bullet-point style thoughts:

• Hagrid really topped himself this time. Dragging home a giant, and hiding it in the forest – nice. Hagrid is definitely one of those characters I wish were real, so I could hang out with him. Great guy, great fun.
• Umbridge! Argh! Bitch of a woman! She definitely got was coming to her near the end of the book. There was definitely a point in the book at which I thought she was going to get away with being horrible, and not have to pay any consequences for it. Luckily, the centaurs took care of that.
• Definitely saw a darkening of the overall mood of the series in this book. It seems that more and more talk of death and murder came up in this one, along with other general nastiness. Filch, for example, clamoring to whip Fred and George? I can’t really imagine that being in the first book.
• I chuckled a great deal with how Rowling dealt with the students’ emerging relationship interests. I loved how Ron and Hermione (who I know “get together” later on) were constantly bickering like a married couple. I also laughed a bit at how Harry’s struggles with Cho were described.
• The prophecy about Voldemort and Harry explained a great deal (and it was about time!) I can definitely see why Harry and Voldemort both end up dying (grumble, grumble about stumbling on that spoiler!)
• This note is specifically at Cas: nope, sorry! The more I read, the less and less I picture Dumbledore as the Michael Gambon version. Richard Harris’ version was (in my opinion, obviously!) much, much better. Michael Gambon is just too weird with the part. His portrayal makes Dumbledore look like some wizard who is persistently high or something. Oh well. Not like we have much choice, seeing as Harris is dead.
• I can’t believe Sirius is dead. As I get closer to the end of the series, I expect people to start dying – it’s inevitable – but I did not expect Sirius to die. Is that weird archway thing that he fell through explained in Half Prince or Deathly Hallows?
• Noseblood Nougats sound so disgusting. Makes me want to never eat a candy bar with nougat in it again. Puking Pastilles don’t bother me much, for some reason.

I’ve already started reading Half-Blood Prince (indeed, I’m already 150 pages into it), and I must say: dirty, slimey bastard! Snape’s been spying on Dumbledore all this time! And I liked him! Ugh!

So, what have I been doing? Well, naturally, going to class, for one! I’ve also been reading an awful lot – just a lot less of stuff I “want” to read, and more stuff that I “have” to read. I’ve not written posts about them yet (obviously…), but I finished Myne Owne Ground about a week ago, and The Odin Brotherhood at about the same time. (If you’re curious about the latter: I’m in an alternative religions and cults class.) I’m halfway through The Indians’ New World, which I’ve got to have finished by Monday. I’ve also been slowly working through A History of India, going slowly simply because we’re only covering a chapter a week, and I have enough other things to read without plowing on ahead in this book. A World of Art is also on my reading plate, along with Politics and Culture in the Developing World. I’ve still two books for my alternative religions class that I have to read, as well as two more books for history of the American south. In short, since classes started, my life has become even more book filled than it was previously.

While on the topic of books, I’m sure some of you are wondering: “Are you still readingthe Potter series? It’s been forever since I wrote about one!” In answer, yes, I’m still reading the series. The going has just been a lot slower, what with most of my reading time being devoted to school stuff. I generally only get to visit Harry and Co. at bedtime, for 10 or 15 minutes, before going to sleep. I’m now about 375 pages into the Order of the Phoenix. I’ll certainly finish the series, but at this rate, it may take me the next decade. At least Rowling isn’t putting out anymore; if she were like Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time series, I’d probably never finish.

A few more of my precious hours have been taken away by work. I started working at the university libary during the summer, and continue to do so. It’s a nice job – they let me read and do homework while at the reference counter, or browse the net, or – ahem – blog. Having a bit of extra money is always nice, too…

I suppose that those things really sum up what I’ve been doing lately: going to class, reading (and reading and reading…), and work. Thankfully, besides response papers for the chapters we read in my ancient Indian culture class, I’ve had little to no homework outside of reading. If I did, I’d probably have to hunt down a time machine, or perhaps a Time Turner.

1. I finished The Pale Horseman by Cornwell, just a few minutes ago in fact. Despite some of his writing quirks being a bit irksome, I still loved the book. Medieval history, blended with a good tale, with likeable but flawed characters? What’s not to like? Oh, and, of course – Vikings. I’ll be writing up a longer entry on the book, perhaps today. Looking at Cornwell’s site, it looks like the next book in the series is Lords of the North; another one, Sword Song, will be released in the States in January of ’08.

2. And now, the sadness bit. A few days ago I was poking around on amazon.com, probably looking at potential bookmooch items. I saw a link to a forum discussion about great fantasy books, thought it sounded interesting, and clicked on it. I had scrolled down a mere 3 messages when the text struck my eyes: “Oh, well, I wasn’t disappointed that Harry died in the final book.” So, there you have it. I accidentally spoiled the ending of book 7 for myself, when I’m only halfway through book 4.

Stumbling across the spoiler definitely dampened my vigor for reading book 4. Everytime I pick it up, while reading, I seem to constantly think “it doesn’t matter, this here – Harry ultimately dies!”I don’t know if I’m going to finish reading the series or not.

What would you Potter fans recommend? Is it worth continuing on, now that I’ve ruined the final ending for myself?