Teaser Tuesdays: The Catcher in the Rye

This week I'm taking my teaser lines from a book that I'm not actually reading at the moment, although I've read it several times in the past. Since this is Banned Books Week, I thought I'd use a little snippet from one of the most frequently banned and challenged modern classics, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. The book has been a target ever since its publication in 1951, and it continues to stir up controversy in libraries and school districts all over the country.

This excerpt is from page 24, and has the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, thinking about his literary preferences (sorry - more than two lines again):

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.... What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

No, it doesn't, does it? I remember that when I first read the book at about age sixteen or so (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I was pretty much in total agreement with Holden's thoughts, and really would have liked to call up J.D. Salinger and tell him how much I liked his book. Strange that someone with such reclusive tendencies could have written those lines, but I guess the younger Salinger might not have been such a hermit.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in a comment here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Not much to say here. I'm still reading the same books I was reading last week. (And Stephen King is still giving me nightmares.) Afraid I got sidetracked by some family history work last week and didn't get to spend quite as much time with my reading as I'd planned. Didn't finish any books or get any reviews written.

The only thing that's changed this week is that I'm going to try to blast through George Orwell's Animal Farm, in honor of Banned Books Week. Don't know how I've managed to avoid the book all these years, especially as most baby boomers read it in high school back in the day. So I'm adding that to the list from last week. Should be a quick read (I hope).



It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.

Booking Through Thursday: Current Reading

I love easy questions. This week Deb at BTT asks: "What are you reading right now? What made you choose it? Are you enjoying it? Would you recommend it?"

As usual for me, I've got several books going at the moment. So I'll just do a little list.

• The Dark Half. Stephen King
  Reading for the RIP V Challenge. I chose it because it's perfect for the challenge, and it's been a long time since I've read anything by Stephen King. Also because I recently saw the movie made from the book, and wanted to see how similar they were. I'm only about halfway through it, and I'm enjoying it, with reservations. King can be a mesmerizing story-teller, but some of the book is a little intense even for someone like me who loves thrillers and scary tales. I actually had nightmares last night, after reading the book at bedtime. So I'd recommend it, but it should probably come with a warning label attached.
  
  
• Cards on the Table. Agatha Christie
  Also reading for the RIP V Challenge. Also chosen because it's been quite a while since I read anything by the author (who is one of my favorites). I wanted to read something by Christie for RIP/V, and I chose this one because it features (in addition to its star, Hercule Poirot) Mrs. Ariadne Oliver (my favorite Christie character). I'm planning to read (or reread) all the novels with Ariadne appearing in them, and I believe this was the first. I'm enjoying it enormously and I probably would have finished it long ago if I hadn't been seduced by Stephen King. And of course I'd recommend it. How can you go wrong with Agatha Christie?
  
  
• The House Next Door. Anne Rivers Siddons
  And one more for the RIP V (I love this reading challenge). Also a book chosen because I had seen the movie recently and even though it wasn't great, the story seemed very intriguing. And I had never read anything by Siddons, so I thought this might be a good time to try one of her books (although this one is very different from her usual output). I've only read a couple of chapters, but I'm enjoying it so far. But I'll have to wait until I'm done with it to know if I'd recommend it.
  
  
• Juliet. Anne Fortier
  This is an advance copy, which I actually received before the book was released. I think it's been out for a couple of months now, so I've sort of missed the boat on this one. It hasn't dazzled me as much as I was expecting it to, but I'm enjoying it enough to keep going. It's a bit of a chunkster, though; so it might take me a while to finish. Again, I'll wait until I'm a little further along before I do any recommending.
  
  

And that's it. Now, what are you reading? Anything to recommend? I'm always looking for books to add to my already enormous TBR list, so feel free to tell me about your current reads in a comment. Or head on over to Booking Through Thursday and join in.

Fall Into Reading 2010

It's that time of year again. School is back in session. Leaves are starting to change color and drift toward the pavement. New TV shows are already being canceled. Footballs are flying all over the place. It must be fall! Time for one of my favorite seasonal events - the Fall Into Reading Challenge, hosted annually by Katrina at Callapidder Days.

Fall Into Reading 2010 runs from today through December 20th, and it's a very low-pressure challenge, with almost no rules (but you can read all about that on the challenge page here). And it's a wonderful way to help reduce the size of that frighteningly enormous TBR pile.

My reading list is definitely subject to change and unrealistically long, but these are some of the books I'm thinking of reading this fall:

Afternoon Men. Anthony Powell
Alice I Have Been. Melanie Benjamin
Animal Farm. George Orwell
Bad Boy. Peter Robinson
Cards on the Table. Agatha Christie (reading now)
The Dark Half. Stephen King (reading now)
Dead Man's Folly. Agatha Christie
The House Next Door. Anne Rivers Siddons
The House on Tradd Street. Karen White
I Am Madame X. Gioia Diliberto
Juliet. Anne Fortier (reading now)
Moonlight Mile. Dennis Lehane
Mr. Murder. Dean Koontz
Mrs. McGinty's Dead. Agatha Christie
The Prince of Mist. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Relic. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Room. Emma Donoghue
The Sign of the Book. John Dunning
Spider Web. Penelope Lively
A Stir of Echoes. Richard Matheson
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise. Julia Stuart
We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Shirley Jackson
The Women. T.C. Boyle
One of the Mrs. Murphy mysteries by Rita Mae Brown
Something by Nina Bawden
Something by Muriel Spark

So, that's the tentative book list. There is, of course, no way I could get through all those titles in the next three months. But whatever develops, I'll be updating my progress on my challenge blog during the run of the challenge.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Dark Half

This week my teaser lines come from The Dark Half, Stephen King's nightmarish thriller from 1989 (very appropriate, it happens, as today is Mr. King's birthday). I'm only a few chapters into this one, but so far I'm enjoying it much more than I thought I would. It's been a long time since I read anything by King and I had forgotten how expertly he can draw you into his ghastly tales. These lines come from page 49 where Sheriff Alan Pangborn is thinking about the various kinds of crime he's seen in his little town of Castle Rock:

Small-town murder in real life, he had found, rarely bore any likeness to the small-town murders in Agatha Christie novels, where seven people all took a turn at stabbing wicked old Colonel Storping-Goiter at his country house in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh during a moody winter storm.... As a rule, small-town murder in real life was simple, brutal, and stupid.

This snippet caught my eye because at the moment, in addition to the King book, I'm also reading Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table, featuring Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. Christie and King are two crime writers who could not be more different, of course. And I have to admit, although they each have their attractions, Dame Agatha seems to be more my speed (or make that my cup of Earl Grey).


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in a comment here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Well, I think I'm getting back into the reading groove again, even though I only finished one book last week. Of course, I had a birthday last week too, and birthdays always slow me down (all that hand-wringing, hair-pulling, and searching for new wrinkles takes an enormous amount of time and energy) - so I'm still not performing at top efficiency. But the change of seasons is usually good inspiration for reading, and I'm hoping to do a little better in the coming weeks.

Or not. We'll see. Anyway, here's how things stand right now:

• Last week -
  
  Read The Convent, by Panos Karnezis. This was an Early Reviewer book from Library Thing, and I've put up a short review over there. I'll be putting it on my blog a little closer to its release date (in the US) in November.
  
  
• This week -
  
  I've got several books going right now: The Dark Half by Stephen King, and Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie (both for the RIP/V Challenge); also still reading Juliet by Anne Fortier. I just might be able to finish all those in a week's time, if I really make myself behave.
  
  
• In the wings -
  
  Several ARCs I need to get to, including the 30th Anniversary edition of The Tree by John Fowles, and Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane. And, of course, lots of reviews to catch up on - I've been really bad about that lately. Must mend my ways.
  

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.

Booking Through Thursday: Day and Night

This week's BTT question is about timing: "Do you divide your books into day and night reads? How do you decide?"

Had to stop and think about this one for a while, but I don't think I do divide my reading up by different times of day (or night). At least not consciously. I generally have two or three books going at the same time, and read one or the other as the mood strikes me. But I usually do most of my reading in the evening and at bedtime, so I guess most of my reads are night reads.