Butterbeers Are On Me

"Tasted like cream soda. It was somewhat thick, and it was really sweet, and then it got salty as you swallowed it, like butterscotch."

- Sabrina Sampson, age 11, describing butterbeer at the Harry Potter Theme Park

The Summer Reading Challenge 2010

I stumbled across this challenge a little late but I'm going to participate regardless.

Hosted by Coconut Library, this challenge just asks it's participants to read 3,000 pages in three months. I like this challenge because my reading tends to slow down in the summer and hopefully this will keep me motivated:

What: A challenge to get you reading all through the season.

Why: So that you will have motivation to keep those pages turning!

When: 12 a.m., June 1st - 11:59 p.m., August 31st

Where: On your couch, at the beach, on a plane or a train... anywhere you can read. Check back here to let us know your progress. We can keep each other motivated by doing it together!

How: This season your goal is to finish 3,000 pages in the course of three months.

Rules

• All pages counted must be from a book (no magazines, newspapers, etc). If you are reading from an e-reader or an audiobook check a book-selling site to find the official number of pages in the book. Use the Trade Paperback (regular paperback) format to count page numbers to add to your total pages. If the book has not yet been published as paperback, use the Hardcover page number count. No Mass Market (smallest versions of books, also soft covers) page counts allowed. E-mail or leave a comment if you have questions about this.
• You can split the number of pages however you like. You can read twelve 250 page books, or three 1,000 page books (or any other type of combination -- it's up to you).
• You may combine this challenge with other challenges you are doing.

My progress:

Since the challange started June 1st I am going to count the pages of each book I have read so far in June.

Wurthering Heights: 400 pages

Memories of My Meloncholy Whores: 128 pages

The Angel's Game: 544 pages

Total: 1,072

Woohoo! I am already a third of the way through the challenge, which works out kind of perfectly since the challenge is a third of the way through as of tomorrow.

Shelter of Hate

Reading now: Rabbit, Run by John Updike

"...hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate, he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, and the rigidty of hatred makes a kind of shelter for him."

So far this book is depressing me.  It follows Rabbit, an unsatisfied 26-year-old who, on a whim, runs away from his wife and child with hopes of finding what is missing from his life. I'm not invested in any of the characters and am hoping they change into more respectable and admirable people. I'm preparing myself to be let down.

Bookends!

You've got to love these super unique book ends.

Via the Huffington Post.

Friday Finds

A few of my favorite things from the inter-webs I happened upon this week:

Russell Smith responds to the controversy around David Davidar's termination from Penguin Canada in "The Truth About Publishing: It's Full of Hotties". Don't let the title fool you. Smith is one of those guys who actually gets it: "But I have never in my whole career made a real pass at one of my colleagues or, I think, been flirtatious to the point of making someone seriously worried about my attention. Even when I was single. Perhaps I’m getting old, but believe it or not, I actually value my colleagues’ professional abilities more than their beauty. " How refreshing.

A big thank you goes to Carolyn Kellogg for writing such a great response to Lee Siegel's claim that fiction is dead. This article is full of solid arguments and witty responses; a must read. She picks apart Siegel's claims sentence by sentence. "Siegel: It is only when an artistic genre becomes small and static enough to scrutinize that a compensating abundance of commentary on that genre springs into existence." If writing critically about an art form indicates that it is in its decline, that means there hasn't been a rock song worth listening to since critic Lester Bangs died in 1982, and that filmmaking ended with the 1965 publication of Pauline Kael's "I Lost It At the Movies."

If you've ever had an intimate relationship with the slush pile (those of you who have know what I'm talking about) you will love Slush Pile Hell, where a literary agent posts the funniest bits of inquires and comments on them. My favorite so far:

Do you ever get the feeling that we are all machines being controlled by someone or something beyond our control?

Katie Holmes, I’m just a literary agent. I can’t help you with your husband issues.

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

If I Ever Meet Paulo Coelho...

If I ever meet Paulo Coelho I will congratulate him for writing a piece of crap book that became hugely successful despite it's constant repetition and simplification of a story line. But, I will be able to pronounce his name correctly thanks to this handy guide.

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I've mentioned before how much I loved Shadow of the Wind, Zafon's first novel translated into English. The prequel, The Angel's Game (which was published after Shadow of the Wind) is equally as compelling, albeit much darker. What makes the The Angel's Game so good is the story, which isn't to say it's not well-written because it is. But for me it was the story that sucked me in. Chapter by chapter I just wanted to know what would happen next.

We meet David Martin when is a struggling writer living in Barcelona circa 1917. Within the first page Martin states, "A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story... A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price." As the story unfolds, Martin is commissioned to write a book for a mysterious publisher of religious texts and eventually realizes that by accepting this work he has in fact put a price on his soul.

Like I said, the story itself will suck you in. Zafon is an amazing story teller. His novel is filled with intrigue, suspense and murder (which make it a great summer read) but also offers much more than that. The Angel's Game speaks to the power of literature and it's importance. We are taken to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books where Martin says, "This place is a mystery. A sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands, a new spirit...". If you are a reader who loves the idea of books - a reader who loves the smell and the feel of books and the notion that they can offer everything from understanding to compassion to an entirely new outlook of the world - then you will like this book. There were also many literary allusions throughout the novel, from Great Expectations to Jane Eyre, which, as a book lover, I really enjoyed.

I also want to mention that this book offers a strong sense of place, by which I mean the city of Barcelona is almost like a character itself. The backdrop of this city adds a lot to the novel, both in terms of beauty, uniqueness and mystery. As far as places go, this seems like a great one.

All in all I really liked this book. However, I think I liked The Shadow of the Wind more. So, if you haven't read either I suggest you start with the ladder. Each offer two unique story lines that focus on two different yet connected generations, but one isn't necessary to understand the other.

The New York Times also did a nice review of the book that you can read here. I enjoyed the ending, when they say, "The pleasures of “The Angel’s Game” are guilty ones. As he did in “The Shadow of the Wind,” Ruiz Zafón provides, along with sex and death, a nice slide show of old Barcelona, a handful of affectionate riffs on favorite books (among them that other, very different mysterious- benefactor tale “Great Expectations”) and a pervasive sense of the childish joy of credulity — of surrendering to a story and letting it take you where it will, whatever the consequences."

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Year of First Edition: 2009

Tornados and The Angel's Game

I would just like to say that as I am finishing the last 50 pages of The Angel's Game - right as everything is proving itself to be evil and tormented, and I am deliciously consumed in the devilish plot - a crazy thunderstorm rolls through, followed by tornado sirens, followed by my power going out.

Here I am finishing this book, flashlight in hand surrounded by candlelight, sitting in my basement hoping my roof and I don't get sucked into oblivion. What a perfect way to finish this ominous novel.