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Smiling Shelves

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

10/30/2017

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This weekly chance to add to your reading list is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.
Fall weather has certainly arrived in Michigan! And of course, we picked the coldest day yet to visit a corn maze on Saturday. It was fun to watch my little guy explore the maze. We let him pick which direction to go at the intersections, which meant it took us a lot of time to get through the maze. Lots of fun - until he decided he was done walking and wanted to be carried the rest of the way. Our arms were quite tired by the end!

What I Read Last Week

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The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (My first reread of this Fforde young adult book. It was just as fun as I remembered!)

What I'm Reading Now

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From Heaven Lake by Vikram Seth (I found a book set in a place that starts with X!!)
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (27% complete)
Inferno by Dante Alighieri (37% complete)

What's Coming Up Next

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Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (Another Newbery winner!)
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (I'm doing a buddy read with Christine from Buckling Bookshelves starting Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to this one!)
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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

10/23/2017

12 Comments

 
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This weekly chance to add to your reading list is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.
Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon was this past Saturday! Did you participate? I had so much fun! I also spent two hours at my library book sale gathering a stash for my Little Free Library. I came home with nine bags! (The volunteers said I won the prize for the day.) There will be a forthcoming post about the many books, once I have a chance to sort through them. Such a fun day!

What I Read Last Week

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The Bark of the Bog Owl by Jonathan Rogers (I slipped this quick middle grade read into the beginning of the week. It was really good.)
The Prime of MIss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (The only book I completely finished during the readathon. It helped that it was only 127 pages.)
Edge of Extinction: Code Name Flood by Laura Martin (This one was even better than the first. SO GOOD!)

What I'm Reading Now

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The Harvest Raise by Katie Schuermann (If you like Jan Karon's Mitford, you will love this series.)
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (My Classics Club deadline is the end of August next year, and I still have 12 books to read. Yikes. Serial Reader will hopefully help me get most of those titles read in time. This one is currently 9% complete.)
Inferno by Dante Alighieri (Ditto above explanation. 15% complete.)

What's Coming Up Next

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The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (I was hoping to get to my monthly Fforde reread during the readathon, but I didn't. I've still got a week to fit it in before the month ends!)
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Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon Updates - October 2017

10/21/2017

6 Comments

 
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Dewey's Readathon is finally here! As I mentioned in my prepping post, I've got some time dedicated to my library book sale this afternoon. But other than that, it's a day of reading!

​Opening Survey

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Michigan, where the leaves are colorful and gorgeous, and it's supposed to be 75 and sunny today. At least the crazy Michigan weather is working in my favor this time.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Code Name Flood by Laura Martin. I LOVED the first book in the series, and I can't wait to read the sequel.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
I don't have tons of snacks planned, but I am going out to lunch and planning to get a bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. So good!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm a stay-at-home mom with my son who is a year and a half. My favorite day of the week is Wednesday when we volunteer at our school library.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today?
I try to keep this day as unscheduled as possible, but this year, it coincided with my library book sale. I just couldn't pass that up!

Hour Nine Update​

Time spent reading: Two hours and 29 minutes
Number of pages read so far: 80
Book I'm reading from: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Book I'm listening to:​ Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
Number of bags of books that I bought at my library book sale:​ Nine

​Hour Fifteen Update

Time spent reading: Five hours and 2 minutes
Number of pages read so far: 344
Book I'm reading from: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark; Code Name Flood by Laura Martin
Book I'm listening to:​ Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
Number of books I've finished:​ One (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)
It's time for bed for now, but I'll be able to get a bit more reading in before church tomorrow. Sometimes it pays to set the alarm for 6 a.m.!

​Final Readathon Numbers

Time spent reading: Five hours and 20 minutes
Number of pages read: 390
Number of books finished:​ One
Another great year! Can't wait for next time!
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Preparing for Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

10/19/2017

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The next Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon is this coming Saturday! These are some of my favorite days all year. My husband has usually taken charge of our little guy for the day so that I could relax and read. This time around, we're enlisting my in-laws to help a little so that my husband can spend the day taking our chimney down (sounds like fun, right?) I'm also meeting my mom for lunch, and then we're spending some time at our library book sale. Saturday is $5-a-bag day, and I'm hoping to find some treasures for myself, as well as a lot of books to cycle through my Little Free Library. It will be a very bookish day, although it won't include quite as much reading as it normally would.

Because of that, I'm keeping my stack small:​
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  • The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (Really short, and I can check another one off my Classics Club list)
  • The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (My Fforde reread for October. Plus Jasper Fforde books are perfect for readathons)
  • Edge of Extinction:​ Code Name Flood by Laura Martin (Can't forget a middle grade pick! I'm sure it won't take me long to devour this one. The first book in the series was awesome.)
I don't have much planned in the way of special food. Last time, I loaded up on snacks and my husband was like, "But I thought this was about reading?". Reading and snacks are both important to the day! I'm going out to lunch and trying to make pizza with a low-carb crust for supper. That sounds pretty special to me (assuming the pizza turns out okay. . .​)!
Anyone else joining in on the fun on Saturday? What are your plans?
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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

10/16/2017

2 Comments

 
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This weekly chance to add to your reading list is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.
I had the most amazing experience yesterday. This year is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Since I'm Lutheran, this anniversary is kind of a big deal for me. Yesterday, I sang in a choir of over 1,000 people at a worship service attended by over 14,000 people at the Breslin Center at Michigan State University. I have no words to describe how incredible that was. A taste of heaven!

Recent Post

Some of My Favorite Middle Grade Books

What I Read Last Week

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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (Ugh. There were a few profound moments I liked, but mostly ugh. And blech. I hate saying it, but don't read this book.)

What I'm Reading Now

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Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (This is better than I feared. I'm a Jane Austen purist, so I don't know why I'm even reading a modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice, but I was intrigued. Some of the modern twists are pretty clever. I'm only halfway through, though, so we'll see what happens with Liz and Darcy.)
Utopia by Thomas More (I should be finishing this one up in the next day or two!)

What's Coming Up Next

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The Harvest Raise by Katie Schuermann (This is the last book in the Anthems of Zion trilogy, and I am so excited to read it!!)
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Some of My Favorite Middle Grade Books

10/12/2017

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Middle grade novels are one of my favorite genres. The middle grade section always holds the most temptations for me both in the library and the bookstore. (Especially in the library, because they should be fast reads, right? So it's okay if I come home with ten or so, isn't it?) Jade over at Reading with Jade had a post this week about reading middle grade novels as an adult, which really resonated with me. And it inspired me to come up with a list of some of my favorite middle grade books/series.
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  • Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  • The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series by Maryrose Wood
  • The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall
  • The Edge of Extinction series by Laura Martin
  • The Mr. Lemoncello's Library series by Chris Grabenstein
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  • The 100 Cupboards series by N.D. Wilson
  • The Books of Beginning by John Stephens
  • The Story Thieves series by James Riley
  • The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson
  • The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton
  • The Menagerie series by Tui & Kari Sutherland
I highly recommend every book on this list (even if I haven't read every book in every series yet - I will someday soon!). I hope you try one out, because middle grade novels are amazing. Let me know if you do! Enjoy!
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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

10/9/2017

7 Comments

 
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This weekly chance to add to your reading list is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.
Saturday, I got to participate in a really fun experience. My church hosted an event called Walk, Learn, Pray on our local Rail Trail. My station was to teach about the Michigan state symbols (did you know we have a state fossil?). The weather was 80 degrees and sunny (What, Michigan?!). And when nobody was walking by my station, I got to sit and read a book. It was such a fun and peaceful afternoon!

Recent Post

Third Quarter Wrap-Up

What I Read Last Week

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Minders of Make Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature by Leonard S. Marcus (This was a thoroughly fascinating book.)
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt (I really enjoyed this Newbery book.)
Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin (I loved this one just as much as I expected to!)

What I'm Reading Now

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The Unseen Guest by Maryrose Wood (This is the third book in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series, and it's just as delightful as the first two so far.)
Utopia by Thomas More (Chipping away at my Classics Club list. Hooray for the Serial Reader app!)

What's Coming Up Next

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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (Isn't that a great title?)
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2017 Third Quarter Wrap-Up

10/5/2017

0 Comments

 
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Okay, let's try this again. I wrote and scheduled this post last week, but when it published, all that was there was the picture. So. . .​ take two!
Books read: 44
Pages read: 11,222
Fiction: 80%
Nonfiction: 20%
Male authors: 48%
Female authors: 52%
Books I own: ​42%
From the library:​ 58%
Favorite books this quarter: ​On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson and First Impressions by Charlie Lovett. It's always too hard to just pick one book.
Reading Challenge Progress
Read the Books You Buy - 9/36 read - current percentage is 25% (21-40% is my goal)
Show Your Shelves Some Love - 24/30
Beat the Backlist - 30+/30
Full House - 22/25
European - 4/5
Picture Book - 87/102
Newbery - 29/30 points
Where Are You Reading? - 24/26
​Color Coded - 9/9
Cross your fingers and hope that this one actually posts correctly this time! As for my challenge progress, as always, I need to read more of the books I own. Last year, the Read the Books You Buy challenge really helped me limit the number of books I bought. Not so much this year. Now I just need to get reading them!
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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

10/2/2017

2 Comments

 
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This weekly chance to add to your reading list is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.
Happy October! I can't say that I really have a favorite month, but this one is close to the top. To celebrate, here's a video of an instrumental piece called "October" by my favorite living composer, Eric Whitacre.

What I Read Last Week

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Frogkisser! by Garth Nix (This was a cute book. I liked it on audio.)

What I'm Reading Now

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Minders of Make Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature by Leonard S. Marcus (This is a fascinating read, but certainly not a fast one. I've been working on it since Tuesday, and I'm only two thirds through. It's so interesting, though, that I'm not feeling the impatience to be finished and onto the next book like I normally would.)
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt (My next Newbery read.)

What's Coming Up Next

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Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin (I've been wanting to get to this one for a long time. And hey, I'm reading another book I own!)
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    My name is Julie, and I own a lot of books. As in, they are stacked on the floor because I've run out of room on the shelves. And those shelves? There are so many books on them that they smile -- not sag; smile. This blog will cover book reviews and all manner of other bookish things.

    You can contact me at julie@smilingshelves.com.

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