The weather has been absolutely beautiful here this past week! 75 and sunny - at the end of September. That's certainly not normal. And all that sunshine is beginning to turn our trees bright red and orange. I love fall! Especially when it's still warm enough to read outside!

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Samson - Review
Newbery Reading Challenge - Mini-Challenge #4
Saturday Snapshot - Pisa, Italy

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (I finished it! It took me two weeks, but it was worth it. I don't realize how much I miss reading the classics until I read one. I guess that means I should get cracking on my Classics Club list. . .)

The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley (I really enjoyed The Lavender Garden by this author, so I'm looking forward to reading another one of her books.)

Good question. I'm only about two pages into The Orchid House, and I haven't thought ahead to my next read, for once. At some point in October, I need to read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt for my November book club meeting. But first, I have to get my hands on a copy of it!

In our trip to Italy this past summer, visiting Pisa was a must. My engineer husband is fascinated by the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and rightly so. It's hard to comprehend just how much it leans - no matter how many pictures you've seen or books you've read - until you're standing right next to it. Seriously, how is it still standing?

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is actually the bell tower for the city. It is in the same area as the Cathedral, the Baptistery, and the Campo Santo (the cemetery). The leaning tower leans because it's essentially built on marshland. Which means that all of the surrounding buildings lean slightly, too. It's just not as obvious. This picture shows all four of those buildings. The Baptistery is the round building. The Campo Santo cemetery is the low building in the left-hand corner. And the Cathedral is the building with the silver dome.

The Leaning Tower is hollow inside, with a spiral staircase surrounding the hollow center. The grooves on the staircase are worn on different sides, depending on the lean of the tower. You can definitely feel the lean as you are climbing the stairs and standing on the top. When you reach the top, you can see the bells. This bell is hung straight, but because the tower leans so much, one side is touching the wall.

This is my favorite picture of our trip to Pisa. This is the Cathedral, with a Leaning Tower photobomb. :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their reading so far for the Newbery Reading Challenge. We're getting closer to the finish line, so another mini-challenge might be just what you need to push you to complete the challenge. Good thing it's time for another Mini-Challenge! Mini-challenges are great ways to get a few extra points along the way. 

We've had three mini-challenges announced so far. You can check out all the details here:
Mini-challenge #1
Mini-challenge #2
Mini-challenge #3

If you remember way back when you signed up for this challenge, you picked a level to complete. These were your options:

• L'Engle: 15 - 29 points
• Spinelli: 30 - 44 points
• Avi: 45 - 59 points
• Lowry: 60 - 74 points
• Konigsburg: 75+ points

So here's the mini-challenge: Any book you read by the author whose level you picked is worth one extra point. So if you are aiming for the L'Engle level and you read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, then that book would be worth 4 points instead of 3. Newbery Honor books by the author whose level you are working on would be worth 3 points instead of 2.

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

This is the last mini-challenge for the year. The place to link up your wrap-up posts will be coming on December 2. Happy reading!

What self-respecting bibliophile wouldn’t pick up a book titled The Case of the Missing Books?  I actually picked it up at the library, decided I was already checking out too many books, put it back on the shelf – and then ended up checking it out anyway. The cover and title were just too good to resist.

Israel Armstrong is a librarian who hasn’t had a lot going for him so far. His girlfriend is only semi-committed to the relationship, and he’s stuck working at a bookstore in a mall when he dreams of being the head librarian at a prestigious university. So when he gets a job as the librarian of the Tumdrum and District Public Library in Northern Ireland, he decides this is the chance of a lifetime. And then he arrives to discover that the library branch has been closed. His job is now to drive the mobile library around. Except there are no books in the mobile library. What's a librarian to do?

Israel as a detective in an Irish town where he doesn’t know a soul is extremely amusing. The townspeople are not exactly inclined to be helpful. You definitely feel for Israel as he enters one ridiculous situation after another. Anyone who loves books or has been in an awkward situation will relate to Israel’s attempts to do his job. And every character you meet adds to your enjoyment of this book. My one complaint is that it was rather more down-to-earth than I was hoping for. I was looking for a romantic, idealized view of life in Ireland, while this book provides a more realistic view. This is really my own fault more than anything, but it did keep me from completely loving the book.

Israel’s adventures continue in other books in this series, since he is still far from being comfortable in Tumdrum, Northern Ireland. One can hope that he will soon feel at home (for his sake), and yet continue to be out of his element (for our sake) as his career as a librarian continues.

Find it on: Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Better World Books

Author Event - Kathleen Flinn (author of Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good)
Bloggiesta Sign-Up and Updates

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom (Review will be posted tomorrow!)

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (My Classics Club spin book)

Waverley is taking me awhile to get through. I've been reading it for a week, and I'm only 200 pages in. 400 still to go, so I'll be working my way through this one for awhile!

It's Saturday night, and I'm just now getting started on this whole Bloggiesta thing. I finally got everything else done that I needed to do this weekend. Now the fun begins!

My to-do list (it's actually gotten slightly longer since my sign-up post. That's not supposed to be how it works, I know.):

• Catch up on writing reviews (Complete!)
• Update reading challenge page with my progress (Complete!)
• Update reading challenge page with links to posted reviews (Complete!)
• Add two more quotes to the banner at the top of my home page (Complete!)
• Try a couple mini-challenges (I joined Riffle, and I created a book map. Lots of fun! - Complete!)
• Start cross-posting reviews on Goodreads (I got 10 posted. That's enough to count as Complete!)
• Figure out how to become a Better World Books affiliate (Complete!)
• Clean up email inbox (Complete!)

I finished my list! I can't believe I got through everything, since I only started Saturday evening. I guess a Sunday afternoon dedicated to book blogging will do that. I think I need a Bloggiesta every weekend! And I'll most definitely be participating in the next one that comes around!

I have never yet participated in a Bloggiesta weekend, but I always need a chance to update my blog and reading-type things. And what better way to do that than with a whole bunch of other bloggers? Isn't that the best part of any reading event?

Bloggiesta starts today, but I honestly won't do anything blog-like until tomorrow, most likely. (It's that whole teaching-and-grading-papers thing getting in the way again.) Here's my to-do list, in hopes that I can get much accomplished this weekend!

I'm finally starting to cross things off! You can find my update post here.

I've been seeing the book Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good make the rounds on many book blogs over the past few weeks. So when I learned that the author, Kathleen Flinn, would be visiting a library not too terribly far from me, I decided to go hear her speak.

And am I ever glad I did! The first thing she did was feed us chicken! She had 100 pieces of Crispy Cornflake Chicken made (recipe can be found in the book), and the event started with a feast. I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that the chicken was absolutely delicious.

And Kathleen Flinn is absolutely delightful. Witty, yet self-effacing, she made us laugh repeatedly. She told us stories from her life, her parents' lives, and her grandparents' lives. She read an excerpt from her book. And she did a cooking demonstration, showing us how to make the absolutely delicious chicken she had fed us at the beginning of the event. By the end of the afternoon, I felt like she was a friend I had just had coffee with.

I haven't had a chance to read Kathleen Flinn's book yet, but I know exactly what to expect, having met her. It will be funny, it will be touch your heart, and it will make your mouth water. I can't wait to read it!

Fall is beginning! Cooler temperatures have arrived. I had my first hot chocolate of the season on Saturday. School is settling into a routine. A few leaves have just started to turn. As much as I love reading out in the heat on my front porch during the summer, I also enjoy curling up in my library with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. Hooray for fall!

Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell (An interesting hypothesis about Mozart's life, beautifully told)
Jerusalem Vigil by Bodie & Brock Thoene (An impressive book, but way too much violence for me)

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom (A cute read about a hapless mobile librarian in Northern Ireland)

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (Once I finish The Case of the Missing Books, I'll finally be done with all of the library books I checked out in August. Waverley is my Classic Club Spin book, so now I just have to finish it before October 6!)

I love the phrase "shiver language." It so aptly describes what it is - languages, words, phrases that send a shiver down your spine because they are so well-written or because they show the world in a way that you would otherwise never have seen it. (The traditional phrase for this is "figurative language", but that doesn't strike me as particularly descriptive. Figurative language makes you do what - figurate?)

Occasionally, I run across a book that is full of shiver language. When that happens, I highlight (if the book is mine) or scribble down page numbers (if it isn't). My copy of The Book Thief is covered in purple highlighter. (If you want to read my shiver language post, you can find it here.)

I recently discovered another book full of shiver language - The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. These are just some of the quotes I found that sent a shiver down my spine. I hope you enjoy reading them.

"That is how Clara read, with borrowed eyes."
"We were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams."
"Dusk fell almost surreptitiously, with a cold breeze and a mantle of purple light that slid between the gaps in the streets."
"The city was asleep, and the bookshop felt like a boat adrift in a sea of silence and shadows."
"I remained glued to the fire, watching the steam rise from my clothes like a fleeing soul."
"I lost sight of the car that was taking Bea away, two dots of light sinking into a well of darkness."
"He continued to pursue the shadow of his own words."
"It had started to snow, and the sky was melting into slow tears of light that seemed to lie on my breath before fading away."
"The art of reading is an intimate ritual; a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us; when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind."
"I leafed through the pages, inhaling the enchanted scent of promise that comes with all new books."