I'll readily admit that Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances are my escapist reading. When I’m looking for a literary treat, I’ll pick up one of her novels. I love the Regency world. Even though Heyer’s characters are far removed from the sphere of Jane Austen, the wit and sparkle is very reminiscent of her.

One of the books I’ve treated myself to was These Old Shades, the first of three books about the Alastair family. My mother lent me her copy, knowing that I would get around to reading it before she would. In fact, based on my recommendations, my mother has bought several Heyer novels – but has yet to read any, if I remember correctly. What treasures lurk in to-be-read piles!

These Old Shades takes place mostly in Paris. Justin Alastair, the Duke of Avon, is walking home late one night when a boy crashes into him. The boy is running away from his brother. Justin spontaneously decides to purchase him and make him his page. This earns the boy’s undying gratitude and an extreme amount of loyalty. The boy, Leon, begins his life as Justin’s page, but Justin soons discovers that Leon is not exactly who – or what – he seems. This book is a mystery and a romance, giving insights into the not-so-wholesome life of the nobility and glimpses of Versailles under Louis XV. The climax is suspenseful and dramatic, but leads (as you would expect from Heyer) to a happy ending for the characters you have come to love.

If I told you any more about the plot, I would spoil the mystery! Suffice it to say that the characters are endearing (even Justin – eventually), the plot is twisty, and the wit is present as always. Heyer delivers a very enjoyable tale again – the perfect escape for, well, just about anytime you’d like an escape!

P.S. Does anyone know what the phrase “make a leg” means? The male characters were constantly “making a leg” to another character. Of the many Heyer books I’ve read, I don’t remember seeing this phrase before. Is it a type of a bow? That was the best explanation I could come up with. Anyone got another??

Alas, spring break is over, and it's back to school time. I'll gladly admit that I missed my students, although I loved being able to sleep in and read as much as I wanted!

Reading Rewards (Have you ever rewarded yourself for reading a book or books? Join the conversation!)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett - Review
Used Book Sale Haul

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer (A spring break treat!)
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Okay, as I write this, I haven't technically finished reading this book. But I'm close enough I'm going to count it as read!)

Side-by-side P.G. Wodehouse. My Man Jeeves, which I'm actually listening to as an audiobook, is the April selection for the Reading to Know Book Club. It's the first book in the Jeeves series. Then I just so happen to own the last book in the Jeeves series - Aunts Aren't Gentlemen - so I thought I'd read that and compare. I love Wodehouse's British sense of humor!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (The third meeting of my brand new book club is coming up soon, so I should probably get around to reading the book!)

There's a church in the area that has a giant used book sale as a fundraiser for their ministries every year. And if I'm lucky, it happens during my spring break, so I can spend hours browsing. I was lucky this year! Tuesday afternoon was spent finding books, helping my brother go car shopping, and eating Chinese food with my family. Who could ask for a better day?

In past years, I've brought a box with me to this book sale. And I've filled it up every time. (Although last year, that was because I got an entire classroom set - 27 books! - of Strider by Beverly Cleary. So that doesn't really count.) This year, I tried to be good and I just brought the bookish tote bag that I got for Christmas.

I own so many books that I haven't read yet. I'm doing my best to read some of those this year, but it doesn't help if I just load up again at every used book sale I run across! So this was my way of trying to limit myself. It sort of worked. You'd be surprised how many books you can cram in one tote bag. . .

Cheshire decided to check them out, too. So without further ado, here are the amazing books I brought home:

Fudge-a-Mania by Judy Blume (I read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to my fourth graders, and they absolutely love it. Now I've just got to collect the rest of the books in the series for them.)
Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel & Leah by Orson Scott Card (The idea of Biblical novels written by a sci-fi author intrigued me so much that I ended up grabbing all three books in the series.)
The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse (Reading about journalists fascinates me.)
Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech (Another book for my classroom library.)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (This one is on my Classics Club list, so it doesn't hurt to grab a copy when I can.)
The Reluctant Tuscan by Phil Doran (I can't resist books set in Italy.)
The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig (I've already read this one, but I'm in the process of collecting the whole series.)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (I just saw this one at Barnes & Noble over the weekend, and it looked interesting. And just like that, now I own a copy!)
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Sounded interesting)
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (This is on our book club list, so I figured it I should pick up a copy when I see one.)
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (I've been eyeing this book for awhile, but had never committed to buying it. But for $1, how could I resist? This is also a book my husband would enjoy, so really I'm just helping him out. :)
Affairs at Thrush Green by Miss Read (A series my mom enjoys. I haven't read much of it, but I know I'll enjoy it when I do.)
Sent by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Somehow every book in this series made it into my classroom except for book 2. I was very excited to find it at this book sale, especially since it was the only one in the series they had!)
The Gawgon and the Boy by Lloyd Alexander (I reread the Prydain Chronicles many times as a kid. And here's a book by Lloyd Alexander I haven't read yet! I just may have to read this one before it enters my classroom library.)
A Class Apart by Alec Klein (The story of Stuyvesant High School. Since I'm a teacher myself, it's hard to pass up these sort of books.)

Whew! Thanks for listening as I babbled on about my used book sale finds. It's always fun to share treasures with other readers. Now I just need to find places for these books on my bookshelves. Hmm. . .

I’ve decided that I’m too young to truly do justice to a review of this book. I didn’t live in the 1960s. I’ve never lived in the South. In my memory, normal has been happily coexisting with people of all races. And yet, maybe it’s people like me that need to read this book the most.

If you’re not familiar with the storyline of The Help, here’s the basics. It follows three women in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. Two of them, Aibileen and Minny are black women, maids to the white women of the city. The third is one of those white women – Skeeter Phelan, whose plan for her own life is very different from her mother’s. She wants to be a reporter, a real writer. When a New York publisher tells her to write about something that bothers her, she comes up with the idea to write a book telling the maids’ stories. What is it like to work for the white women of Jackson? To be told that you are diseased so you can’t use the indoors bathroom? To be expected to clean the house perfectly while taking care of the children? Aibileen and Minny know how dangerous this project will be, while Skeeter is discovering a whole new side to what she thought was reality.

I grew up in a time and place where racism wasn’t really a problem. I know our country isn’t perfect now when it comes to this area. But I just was blown away by how far we’ve come in the past fifty years. I have no doubt that this was these women’s reality. They feared for their lives and for their families if they spoke out. I can’t imagine living like that, and I have so much respect for those that did.

The Help brings this time period to life for those of us who didn’t live through it. Kathryn Stockett views the issue of racism through so many people’s eyes – the fresh college graduate determined to change the world, the older generation that can’t see anything wrong with the way things are, the younger generation determined to keep the status quo no matter what, the maids who give their lives to these families only to be treated like nothing, the maids who love the white children as their own, and all who were determined to take a stand despite the danger and their fear. It was really this that sold me on this book. It’s not a one-sided look at life in the South in the 1960s. It covers as much ground and as many perspectives as it can. This is one of the many reasons why reading this book is most definitely worth your time. And there is no doubt of that – reading this book is most definitely worth your time. Everyone can learn something from this book, whether you lived through the 1960s or not. Kathryn Stockett’s story is one that needs to be read.

Everyone has a point in their lives where they need motivation to do something. Mine is reading books from my own library. I LOVE buying books (especially used ones because you just never know what treasures you will find). Unfortunately, these are the books that take a backseat to library books or the next exciting book to come across my path.

I thought I had a solution for this. I signed up for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge this year. Last year, I barely made my goal of reading 12 of my own books. This year, I thought I would be challenging yet safe, and aim for 24 books. Then at the last minute, I decided to really challenge myself and commit to reading 36 of my own books this year. I had it all planned out - 6 books per month. I'd be done by June. Just in time for summer and library book season.

It hasn't quite worked out like that. Here we are in April, and I've only read twelve of my own books. That's not precisely where I had hoped to be at this point.

Which leads me to the title of this blog post - reading rewards! I recently purchased a brand new copy of Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen. This is big for me. I never pay full price for brand new books. (But it's a brand new book by Sarah Addison Allen!  How could I not buy it?) However, instead of getting home and immediately devouring it, I've decided to use it as motivation.

When I complete half of my Mount TBR Challenge - that's reading 18 books off my own shelves - then I will allow myself to read Lost Lake. It's going to be tough, but so far, it's working. Looks like reading works as a reward for reading!

Have you ever had to set a reward for yourself to stay on the right reading track?

This week is spring break!! Time to get stuff done (garden is already cleaned out and ready for spring)! Time to relax! And time to read!! Can you tell I'm excited?

My 2014 Reading Thus Far
Mini-Challenge #2 for the Newbery Reading Challenge
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - Review

The Constantine Codex by Paul Maier (Definitely worth the second chance I gave it. I'm glad I decided to reread it!)

Travels in the Greater Yellowstone by Jack Turner (This is a bit more soapbox-y than I'd like, but it's still an interesting look at Yellowstone National Park and the areas that surround it.)

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer (In honor of spring break, I thought I would indulge myself with one of my favorite authors. Time for a vacation in Regency England!)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain was not at all what I expected, which is entirely my own fault. So right up front, I'll admit the presumptions I had when I started reading:

1. It's by Mark Twain. His one-liners are witty and pithy, and surely all of his books should be extremely amusing.
2. I loved watching the movie A Kid in King Arthur's Court when I was a kid. I knew the movie was based on this book, so I expected some of the silliness and buffoonery of the movie to be present in the book.

Turns out I was wrong on both accounts. Instead of being a fool, the main character is a brilliant engineer and scientist. And instead of being laugh-out-loud funny, Twain's humor is subtle and satirical. Hank Morgan has no intention of molding to Camelot's culture. Rather, he wants to turn the sixth century into the nineteenth - railways, telephones, advertisements, and all. But more than industry, he wants to revolutionize their social structure. Knights should not rule, simply because they are strong. Slavery should absolutely be illegal.

In this book, Mark Twain essentially presents his plan for an ideal society. Through the main character's plans for the England of the time, Twain describes what he desires America to be like. There are political and social and moral overtones and undertones. This book went way beyond the simple "good story" I was expecting. By the time I realized how much deeper this book was, I had missed too much. This book deserves much more thought than I gave it, and it may end up as a reread at some point in my life. I should have remembered my experience with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school - Mark Twain doesn't write anything accidentally. It's all there for some purpose.

So considering what this book really is a vehicle for, it tells an awfully good story. And it is amusing (sorry if I made it sound dry before). King Arthur is certainly not the strong leader we always think of him as (if there's any buffoon in this story, it's Arthur). And I knew about the eclipse plot device before, but I had no idea it came from this book. It's amazing how stuff like that can enter our culture without our knowing its origin. (Although seriously - this bugs me - who has all the exact times and dates of eclipses throughout history memorized??)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a great read for fans of Mark Twain, Camelot, or social commentaries. Just don't expect a simple surface-level story, because this book holds so much more!

I hope everyone is enjoying their reading so far for the Newbery Reading Challenge. And now, it's time for another Mini-Challenge! Mini-challenges are great ways to get a few extra points along the way. They just might be what pushes you to aim for the next level!

Mini-Challenge #1 was announced in February. You earn one bonus point for each book you read from the 2014 winners. You can check out more about Mini-Challenge #1 by clicking here.

Mini-Challenge #2 is a little bit different. If you read all of the medal winners and honor books from one year, you get 2 bonus points. For example, in 2004, the Newbery Medal winner was The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. The Honor Books were Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes and An American Plague by Jim Murphy. If you read all three of these books, you would normally get 7 points (3 + 2 + 2). But because they are all from the same year, you would also get 2 bonus points - which means reading three books would earn you a total of 9 points!

Enjoy your reading! And enjoy boosting your points!

As always, check out the Newbery Reading Challenge headquarters for all details on this challenge. This is also where you can post your reviews.

And stay tuned for Mini-Challenge #3, coming on July 24!

We are three months into 2014 already (how did that happen?). I haven't posted any monthly wrap-up posts, because I decided to do quarterly ones instead. 2014 is one quarter over (again, how did that happen?). And here's my reading progress so far:

Books read: 28
Pages read: 8,797
Fiction: 82%
Nonfiction: 18%
Male authors: 36%
Female authors: 64%

The percentages pretty much line up with my totals from all of last year. I guess I'm a pretty consistent reader!

Favorite book so far: The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde

Mount TBR: 11/36     31%
I Love Library Books: 11/50     22%
Newbery: 5/30 points     17%
Color Coded: 5/9     56%
Full House: 14/25     56%
What's In a Name?: 1/5     20%
Nonfiction: 5/25     20%
European: 3/10     30%
Global: 2/7     29%
Around the World: 2/12     17%
Read It Again, Sam: 3/12     25%
You Read How Many Books?: 28/100     28%
Chunkster: 3/8     38%
Alphabet Soup: 11/26     42%

In case you can't tell, I love reading challenges! I think I'm finally done signing up for 2014 reading challenges, so I'm going to make this my sign-up post as a Reading Challenge Addict. I'm aiming for the In Flight level, which is 11-15 reading challenges completed. I've signed up for 14, and I'm in decent shape for most of them. This should be doable!

I'm looking forward to many good books to come this year. How's your 2014 reading going so far?