Happy Easter! Happy Springtime!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Once Upon A Time III Challenge

The second of two new springtime challenges I'm joining is the eagerly-awaited Once Upon a Time III Challenge, hosted by Carl V. of Stainless Steel Droppings (the first was the Spring Reading Thing 2009). The OUT Challenge has become an annual event, and it was one of my favorite challenges from last year. Once again, Carl is offering several different levels of commitment, or rather several Quests to choose from. Everything is explained on the challenge announcement page.

I'm signing on for the Journey level this year. I'll probably read more than one book, but I'm not sure I'll manage to work in as many as four or five. Also I'm not really good at assigning books to different categories, and with the journey I won't have to worry about that. And I'm much more drawn to fantasy in its broad and various forms than to folklore or traditional fairy tales and mythology. This year I think I'd like to explore some books that use fantasy or mythic themes in new and different ways. Some of the books I'm looking at for this one:

Solstice Wood or Winter Rose, by Patricia A. McKillip
Mortal Love or Waking the Moon, by Elizabeth Hand
The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton
All the Bells on Earth, by James P. Blaylock
The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers
The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly
Faerie Tale, by Raymond Feist
Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke

There are also a number of Edward Eager's magic fantasies for young people that I'd like to read. And I still have one book to finish in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence (Silver on the Tree); I read the first four books in the sequence last year, three of the them for last year's Once Upon a Time II Challenge. So I've obviously got a lot of good reading to choose from as I start out on my springtime Journey.

Spring Reading Thing 2009

Well, when you finish one reading challenge, what is there to do? Sign up for more, right? The Winter Reading Challenge ends today (see my wrap-up post), and Spring begins. What better time to start thinking about new books to read? And I've found a new challenge that should help me get into a springtime reading mood.

The Spring Reading Thing 2009 Challenge, hosted by Katrina over at Callapidder Days, runs from today through June 20, and it's a very easy-to-do challenge: no minimum or maximum number of books, no categories, not many rules. Just make a tentative list of however many books you think you might like to read, and post it on your blog. Then head over to the SRT/2009 announcement page, and sign up. Oh, and you can change your list whenever you want, over the course of the challenge. See – I said it was easy.

Right now, my list for this one is pretty much in flux. I've already got about a dozen or so books earmarked for other challenges, between now and the end of June, but I'd like to add at least one or two new titles for SRT/2009. So these are some of the books I'm looking at:

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper, by Harriet Scott Chessman
Solstice Wood, by Patricia A. McKillip
Loop Group, by Larry McMurtry
The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton
The Way Through the Woods, or The Wench Is Dead, by Colin Dexter
The Women, by T.C. Boyle
Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan

I seem to have a sort of Frank Lloyd Wright thing going with those last two titles, don't I? Well, we'll see what develops – I'm sure I'll be adjusting/adding to the list as time goes on. Now I just have to decide if I want to sign on for the Once Upon a Time III Challenge, as well.

Sunday Salon

I just recently discovered The Sunday Salon and signed up yesterday, so this was my first official Sunday of salon-ing, and naturally it turned out to be a day when I wasn't really able to get much reading done. Must try to do better in the future.

I did spend some time reading a lot of other people's blogs, and I've really enjoyed sampling those. Otherwise, my reading activity today so far has been confined to the New York Times Book Review during breakfast. But later tonight, I'm hoping to finish up The Concord Quartet, which I've been reading as part of my Winter Reading Challenge line-up – and for pleasure, of course.

Sunday is usually our "errand" day, and reading gets put off until after dinner. But it was a great day for being out and about, so I can't complain. Still cold out – definitely still winter here in Northern Virginia. But we had lots of sun today, especially with this being the first daylight-savings day. I love daylight savings time – wish we could go on "saving daylight" all year long.

While we were out running around, I noticed the forsythia is finally starting to bloom. And this morning, two purple finches, male and female, came and hopped around on our balcony for a while, poking into the empty pots and baskets out there. Last year we had a pot of dried-up ivy plants on the balcony, and the finches came and harvested nesting material from it. Could these two possibly be remembering that stash from last year? That would make them an old married couple – a nice thought even if a ditsy one.

So spring is on its way, even though it seems to be slow in coming this year. Soon, the cherry blossoms will be out – right on time, this year, so the predictions tell us. And then the swallows and the tourists will swoop back in, and it'll be summer before I know it! Wow, here I was thinking the year was just getting started and it's already nearly over!