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Circumreading the World - Walking the Bible

12/9/2016

Premise of the book: Feiler explores the setting of the Bible, specifically the first five books of Moses (the Pentateuch - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). This takes him from Israel to Egypt to Jordan and many places in between. Along the way, he talks to many experts in Scripture and archaeology to get their views on the historical accuracy of the Bible and its place in the world today.

Random Facts Learned By Reading This Book:

Mount Ararat (of Noah's Ark fame) is the highest mountain in the Middle East.
Flood stories are found in 217 cultures, the vast majority of which talk about a global flood.
The Dead Sea is six times saltier than the ocean. The area around it has a really thick atmosphere which keeps UV rays from reaching the ground.
The Nile River is 4,180 miles long, one-sixth of the earth's circumference. It's longer than the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Colorado combined.
Cairo, Egypt has more vehicles than the Nile River has fish. It has been the biggest city in Africa for nearly a millennium.
The largest of the Great Pyramids covers the same amount of space as seven blocks in midtown Manhattan.
The average rainfall in the Sinai Peninsula is an inch and a half.
Camels can go for two weeks without water in the summer and two months in the winter. The water is stored in their cells and tissue, not their humps, and they increase their body temperature so that they don't need extra water to cool themselves down.
The per capita consumption of water in Jordan is 200 cubic meters a year. The United States' is 110,000 cubic meters.

General thoughts on the book: This book is really well done. Anytime you have a religious topic, the potential for offense is present. Feiler treats the Bible and everyone's opinions on it with respect. He does tend to believe the archaeologists over the Bible when it comes to the minutiae (which I disagree with), but overall, he does a great job of balancing the two sides. As someone who has always wanted to visit the Holy Land but probably won't get a chance to (at least not for a long time), I found this book provided a fascinating picture of that part of the world.

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Introducing the Newbery Reading Challenge 2017!

12/7/2016

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Welcome to the fourth year of the Newbery Reading Challenge! Newbery and Caldecott books are fun to read - whether it's our first time experiencing them, or we're revisiting them from our childhood. If you want to challenge yourself to read more Newbery and Caldecott books this year, then you have found the right place!

Here are the rules:
Each book you read is worth points. You get:

3 points for a Newbery Medal Winner
2 points for a Newbery Honor Book
1 point for a Caldecott Book (Both Medal winners and Honor books are worth a point this year!)

In addition to that, you pick a level to aim for:

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

You can get to this level with any combination of points you want. You can read all Newbery Medal winners. You can throw in a few Honor Books. If you want, you can even read 75 Caldecott Medal winners! How you get to your point level is totally up to you.

Also, anywhere in the point range for your level counts as completing that level. So for example, if you signed up for the Avi level and read 46 points' worth of books, then you have completed that level!

List of Newbery Medal Winners & Honor Books
List of Caldecott Medal Winners & Honor Books

Challenge Guidelines:

Rereads count (because you were probably a kid when you read it last, and your perspective on the story just might have changed since then).
Audiobooks and ebooks count.
And paper books count, too. :)
All books must be read between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017. Books begun before January 1 don’t count.
Books can be used for other challenges as well.
You don’t have to have a blog to participate. You can link up reviews from Amazon, Goodreads, etc., or just hang out with us in the comments!
Reviews are encouraged, but not necessary. There will be a headquarters page for you to link up your reviews if you want to share your thoughts.
Choose your point level. You can always aim for a higher point level, but you can't move to a lower one.

To join the Newbery Reading Challenge:

Write a post (or a comment) stating your intention to join. Choose your point level. You can find the challenge image above to use in your post.
Add your link to the Linky at the bottom of this post. Make sure you include the link to your sign-up post, not just your homepage.

Sign Up for the Newbery Reading Challenge 2017

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

12/5/2016

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This weekly chance to add to your reading list is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date.

Yesterday was our Christmas concert for our church and school. I sing in the church choir and direct the adult handbells, so it's a pretty busy day for me. It's so much fun, though. And it's the perfect start to the Christmas season!

My Recent Posts

2016 Newbery Reading Challenge - Post your wrap-ups here!
Circumreading the World: Istanbul - Memories and the City

What I Read Last Week

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures by Jackson Pearce & Maggie Stiefvater (This book is awesome. You should read it.)

What I'm Reading Now

Walking the Bible: A Journey By Land through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler (This book is absolutely fascinating.)
The Iliad by Homer (Almost 75% complete!!)

What's Coming Up Next

Drinking Arak Off the Ayatollah's Beard by Nicholar Jubber (Continuing my trek around the world!)

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Circumreading the World - Istanbul: Memories and the City

12/2/2016

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Premise of the book: Orhan Pamuk has lived in Istanbul his whole life. In fact, he is now living in the family apartment building that he grew up in. In this book, he attempts to give the reader a picture of what life was like in Istanbul in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as how it is today.

Random Facts Learned By Reading This Book:

One of the things Istanbul is known for is the packs of wild dogs roaming the streets that have resisted all governmental efforts to remove them.
The Turkish word for Bosphorus (the river that runs through Istanbul) is the same as the word for "throat."
There was an Alphabet Revolution of 1928, where Ataturk declared that Turkish would now use the Latin alphabet. There are 29 letters in the modern Turkish alphabet, 8 of which are vowels.
The Turkish film industry in the middle of the 20th century was the second largest in the world. (India was first.)
The population of Istanbul grew rapidly during the 20th century. In the 1920s, it was about half a million. By 1960, it was around a million. By 2000, it was over ten million.
You can tell whether you're in the East or West area of Istanbul by how they discuss the events of May 29, 1453 (when the Ottoman army took over the area) - to Westerners, it's the Fall of Constantinople; to Easterners, it's the Conquest of Istanbul.

General thoughts on the book: The writing in this book was exquisite. There are also tons of pictures scattered throughout the book that really enhance the reading experience. It's really more of a memoir than a travel narrative, so there weren't many facts I could pull out for the above list. But it puts you in the city and surrounds you with the atmosphere of Istanbul from the eyes of one of its sons.