Friday, April 15, 2016

Book Beginnings and Friday 56, Friday, April 15th, and a Quick Introduction



This week I decided to participate in two Friday memes: Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader, and Friday 56, hosted by Freda's Voice.

Currently, I am reading Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey.

Ways to Disappear

Book Beginning:

"In a crumbling park in the crumbling back end of Copacabana, a woman stopped under an almond tree with a suitcase and a cigar. She was a round woman with a knob of gray hair pinned at the nape of her neck. After staring for a minute up into the tree, she into her cigar, lifted her suitcase onto the lowest branch, and climbed up after it."

P. 56:

"From now on, if I let you go, you will be bleeding."

Oddly, I am on p. 57 of this book right now, so for my Friday 56, I chose the last sentence that I had read on the previous page. It conveys such a sense of menace that is not really present in the book!


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...And now for some housekeeping...

Ideally, I would post reviews or some bookish thoughts on Thursdays. Yesterday, I was busy frantically reading the book for my evening parent-child book group at the library that I host. Whoops! I had intended to introduce myself and tell a little bit about my reading preferences.

So, briefly, I am a stay-at-home mom of 2 boys that are both in school now. The oldest is in middle school, while the youngest still has a few years of elementary school to go. Literary fiction is my first love with a slight preference for books by women, but when my oldest son started reading books on his own, I would read them too. I wanted to get a feel for what he was reading and kind of keep an eye on content and difficulty. I discovered that I couldn't keep up with him pretty much right away. He used to finish a book a day in first and second grade! They were pretty short books, but still.

About a year and a half ago (fall 2014), I got a part-time job at a local library as a substitute clerk, also known as an Access Specialist I. Don't you just love fancy job titles? I am one of the few employees with school-age children, so I have taken it upon myself to become more familiar with middle-grade fiction in order to better serve our customers. What this means is that I started reading girl books too. The horrors!  I had already enjoyed a teen book now and then, but I make a greater effort now to read more broadly. This year, I had a goal of reading all of the Missouri Association of School Librarians' nominees for their reader awards for grades 4 and up. I have read 11/12 of the Mark Twain nominees (grades 4-6), 11/12 Truman nominees (grades 6-8), and 11/15 Gateway nominees (grades 9+).

Anyway, so that's me. 

What kind of books do you like to read? 

6 comments:

  1. My son is in second grade and reads like your oldest son did! Is he still a big reader?

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    1. Yes! He got home from school a half an hour ago and after a quick snack has been upstairs reading. But, I don't allow screen time during the week. My youngest son participates in too many competitive sports and can barely fit in 20 minutes of reading some days. It was just too hard when he felt he deserved daily screen time too, so they are both cut off for now.

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  2. I have this book on my TBR list. I have a daughter who just started middle school but she never got into the typical girl marketed books. That's great that you have that job. That would be a dream job for me! Happy Reading!

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  3. That's great you're making an effort to read books your kids are reading! My kids are still young, but I'm looking forward to doing that a bit when they're older.

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  4. I'm quite intrigued by the 56.... makes you want to know more. Happy Sunday!!

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