Challenges that Breathless mind found that found that I think I'll do as well

RYOB challenge Read your own books. Those books you have around that you haven't read yet but mean to. in 2009 I think I'll try to get through, like Jen at Breathless Mind I'll try for ten leaving the last 4 blank so that I can check my shelves and floor for more..
1) Scaramouche- Rafael Sabatini
2) The Crystal Cave- Mary Stewart
3) Picture of Dorian Grey- Wilde (Yes Jen I know I commented that it's boring but if you can I'll try)
4) Treasure Island- Robert Louis Stevenson
5) Robinson Crusoe- no idea
6) ....

Casual Classics.
Between Jan 1 and Dec 31, supposed to be four but... I want more!!!!
1) finish The Inferno
2) Purgatorio
3) Paradisio- AKA 1-3= Dante's Divine Comedy
4) Canterbury Tales- Chaucer
5) From the Earth to the Moon- Jules Verne
6) The Mysterious Island- Jules Verne
7) Trust me I'll think of more...



Also two more challenges (and I think this is all of them)
Christian Books and Review all books read between Jan 1 and Dec 31 of next year. I'm not going to do that but only because so many of the books I read are romances but I'll try to get it...

Christian books is between Jan 1st and April 30th.
1) Christians and Jews (Yes that's the title)
2) I've got a couple others and I'll check the libraries
3) retry Inferno!
4) Heavenly Discourse- all these Gods not just mine got from grandparent's bookstore last year for Christmas looked really funny
Probably got a couple others
Four should be enough don't you think?

Inferno update

I've made it through to the fifth circle of Hell, the Wraithful and the Sullen they hang out in the muck at the sides and bottoms of a river or something.

I don't know if I'm going to make it through the two books I have in the two weeks I have them for, they take a bit of disciphering!

But I'm really enjoying it. 

Only four more circles (all with many levels according to the table of contents) and then on to Purgatorio.

Booking Through Thursday from Breathless Mind, struck my fancy

Have you ever felt pressured to read something because ‘everyone else’ was reading it? Have you ever given in and read the book(s) in question or do you resist? If you are a reviewer, etc, do you feel it’s your duty to keep up on current trends?

I don't believe in doing what "everyone else" is doing. I'm still a die hard Christian in a world where Atheism is gaining rapidly. I'm mostly conservative on a personal level, while allowing you to make your own choices on a more public level. I believe that animals were put here for us. We are irrefutably the top of the food chain (unless you mess with a grizzly bear, a mountain lion, a shark or your areas equivalent). Nothing to do with books but I like to talk about me so...

I read the Harry Potter books 1-4 because I liked them 5-7 because I get invested in characters and HAVE to know what happens to them. I'm still pissed that Rowling killed Snape, I loved that icky slimeball! I still love him! And think she should write a series focusing on him...

To a certain extent I like to keep up with the current trends I read the Eragon books. I'm (eventually) going to finish the first Twilight book, although if I have to read about teen vampires, I'd rather read Amelia Atwater-Rhodes.

As to my personal taste in books, it's fairly easy to ascertain from the content of this blog.

I like my Sci-Fi/Fantasy (lackey/Mallory/Showalter{posts on Showalter's books forth coming in the next few weeks}). I love my classics (Verne/Dumas/Wilde,{I suppose Poe and Lyly poems are classics as well, also Sabatini}). I also love Mitch Albom, and really enjoyed Stone Butch Blues, again, post forth coming in the next month or so.

Mostly I will read anything you put in front of me from Romance to murder mysteries to classics to religious texts and poetry. Oh I also LOVE Coville's Unicorn books.

When I finally find a copy, Dante's Divine Comedy books will be the oldest writings in my collection, other than my Lutheran modern language Bible. Which I want to have read by the time I'm 25. I'm probably not going to hit that one.

My taste in books is eclectic. As is my taste in music. (off topic but I've wanted to talk about it for so long).

I love Beethoven, and the religious stuff from the Middle Ages. I love country, punk, rock, oldies, folk, and death metal I pretty much love it all, except most pop, rap and hip hop, just because it kind of annoys me.

Obviously, I am a reviewer, take a look at my blog!

another good poem found in an old poetry book given to me years ago

John Lyly. 1553–1606

Cards and Kisses

CUPID and my Campaspe play'd
At cards for kisses—Cupid paid:
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws	5
The coral of his lips, the rose
Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.	10
At last he set her both his eyes—
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this for thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

I love cobleskill..

The town not the college. In said sleepy little hicktown, there is a used book store. In said store, works a nice older man (he didn't charge me the marked price on the books I got), this man sells Sabatibi's work, I got The Lion Skin, the first Sabatini to join the firey depths of the barbecue list. I also got Scaramouche, to which there is a link in the sidebar. I could have gotten a cheaper one than I did but I got the one that matches the 1st edition The Fortunes of Captain Blood my parents gave me for Christmas. I also got a new book about New York Ghosts. And three books of fairy tales all for less than 4o bucks.

other new book news: I love my older brother he sent me money for my b-day.. part of it became my very own copy of Sabatini's the Sea Hawk(finally!!!). also preordered a new Christine Feehan, the 3rd in the Inheritance series Brsinger and Dark Whispers Bruce Coville. My brother rocks.

Captain Blood Rafael Sabatini

For a book that was written in 1922 (or there about) this book is amazing.

Of course I love Sabatini's work, his Sea-Hawk is probably my favorite book of all time (at the moment).

This book is about a doctor (Peter Blood) turned soldier, turned doctor again, he saves a rebel's life and for that is convicted of treason and sentenced to death. King James converts his and a bunch of others sentences to ten years of slavery in Barbados.

After his talent as a surgeon is discovered he is allowed to medicate the people of the island.

Then the Spanish raid the island. He (and some buddies) steal a ship, kidnap the guy who owns them and escape to Tortuga. I know fascinating right?

It gets better but because I think people need to read more Sabatini, I'm not going to tell you how it ends. You can read it for yourself.

** for people who are related to me (and like to buy books for me): here's a hint: you can't go wrong with Sabatini.... (mom that was for you;)
ps mom you are so reading this book....

Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising

I've finished all but the very last book (I'm waiting 'til I have plenty of time to enjoy it). This is a series of five books.

Over Sea, Under Stone

The Dark is Rising

Greenwitch

The Grey King

Silver on the Tree

I bought myself a box set (I felt, as I often do, that I ddeserved to be pampered.) Mom is currently reading the Grey King, or at least she has the book.
These books are about a young boy (The Dark is Rising) who on his eleventh birthday discovers, he isn't quite human. He is the last born of the Old Ones a race of immortals whose job it is to save the Light from Dark.
While the series starts with Over Sea Under Stone, I started with The Dark is Rising, OSUS involves a group of regular kids searching for the grail (yes exactly the one you're thinking, Arthur/Round Table), the only character from thet book that is in The Dark is Rising is the old dude. He's pretty cool actually.
And no mom I'm not posting this from CITA 110. I swear I wouldn't do that.
All in all very good books. Well written and simple to understand. Probably the best books I've read since Sabatini's Sea-Hawk.
BTW, later I'll do individual posts on each of the books, for now this will have to be good, Greenlees is heading my way gotta open Access.

Daddy-Long-Legs

I love this book. It was written by Mark Twain's grandniece. It's really amazing.
It's about a young orphan who is put through college by a rich "older" gentleman. All he asks in return is one letter a month outlining her progress.
She is told by the supervisor of the orphanage she lives in that the man a) is rich, b) hates girls and c) is to be referred to only as Mr. John Smith.
As she writes her first letter she says she can't call him Mr. Smith, it has no personality. Mr. Rich Man is insulting to him, and Mr. Girl-Hater well same reason. As he left the supervisors office she saw his shadow on the wall it reminded her of a Daddy-Long-Legs spider. So that's what she calls him.
It's a wonderful story. From beginning to end. The sequel Dear Enemy isn't any where near as good. But then again I read it immediately after DDL, so it could just have been that the style was getting dull. If you don't like books written as letters you won't like these. I happen to enjoy that approach.
Obviously I'm not going to tell you how it ends. That would ruin it but I will say, it's a very sweet ending.

Sea Hawk- Raphael Sabatini

All I can say is WOW! Normally, I like pirates and all (who hasn't seen Pirates of the Caribbean and loved Jack Sparrow?) how else could you explain my love for Captain Nemo and his Nautilus? Then there's that one Canadian movie George's Island, the one guy, Jellybee, sooo cool. Yes, Mom, I know you like him too. He's so um, I think maybe idiotic is the word I'm looking for, you can't help but like the guy.
Anyway, this book is about a man who originally took to piracy to salvage his families holdings in England, but stopped when he fell in love with a girl. Oh yeah, for once I'm not bashing romance you just can't have pirates without it.
Anyway her brother doesn't approve of the match, mostly because of the long feud between the families and the man's father's reputation. Oh, and the fact that the father spent the families entire holdings into massive debt. Oliver (main character later know as the Muslim corsair, Sakr-el-Bahr) promises as his father is dying to look out for his younger brother Lionel, who has his father's same habits.
Anyway, Peter the girl's older brother issues many challenges, which pirate man ignores. Eventually, Peter hits him with a riding crop marking him in public, so Oliver goes to well, you know, hunt him down and slay the evil beast. Yet he decides not to because he promised his girl he wouldn't harm her brother because he was basically the only family she had.
That same night Oliver's brother engaged in a duel with Peter killing him, and ending up with only a slight but bloody wound himself. The wound left a trail of blood to Oliver's front door. Oliver is accused, no one suspects the younger brother yadda yadda yadda. Eventually, when Oliver sets about clearing his name, Lionel (brother) decides that not only will he be hung if Oliver tells the truth, but if he takes Oliver out of the picture, he inherits the wealth Oliver has earned through that piracy sanctioned by the Queen of England. So he has him kidnapped, intending to have the man he hired to do the deed sell him into slavery instead, the man tell good Ol' Oliver that for the same price the brother paid, he'll return him to England and testify that he was paid to remove him. no such luck on the way back they are captured by the Spanish. Who in the midst of the Inquisition force a conversion to Catholicism. Then banish Oliver to work as a galley slave (oarsman on the large Spanish war ships) where he is later rescued by a Muslim corsair. Who takes him in and converts him yet again this time to Islam.
He spends five years working through the ranks, then he hears that his lady friend is set to marry his brother bad plan Lionel, so he kidnaps both his brother and the girl. This is as much as I'm going to tell you, you can read the book, it'll do you good... That which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
I give this book two thumbs way, way up. I loved it. It was fast paced and well written, at 366 pages long it took me just over a day and a half to finish. Considering I still haven't finished the maybe 200 pages of Treasure Island, that's pretty good. It is rather bloody but no more so than King Solomon's Mines or 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. The details on pirating are particularly interesting as are the little bits on sailing and the slave trade.
Lovely book, I'm about to go and try to find more Sabatini in the local library system. Fingers crossed, because if I find Captain Blood, I can cross not one but two books off my LXG list. Oh, yes this is one of the many.

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Technically this is a short story but I like it so...
We read this Senior year in high school. For Folk, Fairy, and Fantasy. It's on my book barbecue list simply because, yes I said I liked it, but I think I would get in trouble for burning a teacher even in effigy.
Mr. Treglia was our student teacher. He was the kind of guy who was sweet but stupid. First, I'm a nice person so when he asked for volunteers to read out loud I offered. Okay so it was only because I was sick of people butchering words that apparently only I had ever come into contact with.
Then he asked me to define cobbler, which is a shoe maker. He tried to tell me I was wrong that it was the person who put down cobble stone streets (where did he go to school?). He went from telling me to think about peach cobbler, which by the way confused me, what did a shoe maker have to do with peach cobbler? Then he tells me his definition. I didn't argue with him. Our teacher was looking rather shocked and when I looked at her she just rolled her eyes I think she was as shocked as I was. Plus the entire class of about 30 was laughing at him. I may not have been voted Class Bookworm, but I certainly knew what I was talking about. And the rest of the class knew it, too. For God's sake I was the source they used for books that were quick and easy to read whenever we had been assigned a book report for years. Not that quick for me was necessarily quick for them but..
And I was also the one who routinely looked up words in the dictionary if she didn't understand them. Both in French and in English, depending on the class. The only reason I never looked up words in Spanish was because Spanish is very similar to French and I could pretty well figure things out. Plus all the people in my grade who had taken Spanish before were happy to finally be able to help me with homework rather than having me help them with history. Yeah I was one of those odd kids that seems to know every thing and you hate because she never opened the book but her history grade is a 90.
Any way after class was over, I'm still confused as to how this guy managed to get through college, and one of the girls in my class, that I didn't get along with came up and asked me if I was the one that was right. Of course I was, Mom looked it up later so she could post on it on her blog.
Then when we had the quiz on the darned thing he had the nerve to take off points because I put down a big monkey to answer the question on who was the murderer. Yes I gave it away but come on who didn't have to read that for school at some point.
Then because it took him a month to get through that,in stead of us reading it on our own it all had to be read aloud during class, we didn't get to read the Hobbit. Well we read a chapter in the beginning, middle and the end. We watched an animated movie instead. For god's sake we're Seniors in high school and we can't read The Hobbit? How much easier can a book get? Not that I hadn't already read it, but it would have been nice to get credit for it. Rather than getting tested on a movie, I didn't watch (I reread the Hobbit instead).
Man, did I hate that guy.
Um yeah, book was good but just because it makes me think of that idiot, I'm so going to barbecue it.
The only reason i posted on this was sitting in the lounge yesterday waiting for one of my classes to start some one was reading it and it made me remember Sr. English... Good times. Good times.

King Solomon's Mines- H. Rider Haggard

Yes, Mother, I know I just got it in the mail yesterday. (I LOVE Wal-Mart online;) I've also only read about 30 pages of tiny tiny print. But WOW.
This guy, according to the back of my paperback copy that cost me a total of $4.16, made a a bet with someone that he could write a better adventure story than Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Once I finish this and get Mom to finish with my got-it-in-a-library-sale copy of T.I., I'll be sure to give my opinion on which is better.
I've tried T.I. before and was a little bored by it so the early favorite is Solomon.... Sorry, Robbie.
* I finished KSM in less than twenty-four hours and have just started TI. So, tomorrow I should be done with that.
KSM is very very good. From elephant hunts to psycho tribal witches it's lots of fun.

The Three Musketeers

Normally, I don't advocate leaving off reading a book and watching the movie instead. This is one that I will agree the movie(s) is/ are better than the book (there have been sooo many). Like so much of Dumas' work this is very dry in keeping with the style of the time.
It's actually part of a series, you remember the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Man in the Iron Mask right? That's part of one of the other books. I must admit I'm still not clear on the order or the spacing of the books, I just remember the fact that I was shocked there was another one.
I also remember my French teacher yelling at me for asking her to translate something from the book. She didn't get that I was actually reading The Three Musketeers for amusement not to kiss up. I didn't need to kiss up. I could have passed French with my eyes closed. It was an easy class. For God's sake the woman gave you the answers to the tests if you called her over to help translate something during one. Anyway, she wasn't real helpful. Don't get me wrong she's a great teacher after all we had one kid ace the Regents and I got a 94, not too shabby considering I never did any homework. Hmm, maybe that's what set it off. I was willing to read one of the most difficult books ever written but not write a single essay for class. Oh well.
Book's not easy, but if you suffer from severe insomnia it'll put anyone to sleep.

Dracula- Bram Stoker

Okay, first the last time a vampire book scared me, half as much as this one did, was Thirsty in 5th grade.
This is, as far as I know, the first book published dealing directly with blood sucking ex-human parasites. Although I could be wrong feel free to correct me.
As I said in a previous post this book is very dry. If you have a lot of time on your hands, during daylight hours, try it. I don't recommend reading it after dark and certainly not if you want to sleep. I also wouldn't let small children anywhere near it.
The story line is okay, but then again I only read about half of it. Most of the beginning and part of the middle and one chapter at the end. (I still don't know exactly what happened, but normally I like the vampires, I hated Dracula{character as well as the actual book})
It says a lot when I can't finish a book. Of course my copy is about 40 years old and the cover was replaced by a file folder when I was in 10th grade. Needless to say my biology teacher got a kick out of the yellow cover. Bright yellow. Almost the color of the flame that will eat it when I finally barbecue books. Oh yeah this is on that list..

Around the World in 80 Days

Yep, another Jules Verne book. What can I say? I like what the man wrote plus I could cross another book off the LXG list.
This has been done as a movie plenty of times, none of which did I bother to watch.
Anyway, parts of it are annoying, but then again something about every book I read annoys me.
You can't help but like Phillius Fogg, wealthy guy with too much time on his hands. He makes a bet with the men in his club after seeing a timetable in the newspaper outlining a trip around the globe in 80 days. He bets half of his forutne on it, planning to use the rest to get around the world.
I'm begining to think Verne was an amateur anthropologist because of how well he portrayed other cultures. The parts in India are particularly good. I was fascinated by the thing in India where the widow was about to be burned so that she could accompany her husband to the after life, apparently they believe that you can't part even after death. Fun, fun, fun. Oh don't worry Fogg and his manservant save her, with their guide. Um I feel kinda bad that I don't remember their names...
All in all the book was very good and if I remember correctly, some woman a few years after it came out, followed the exact same route for a column for her newspaper, she made it in 79 days. (that's from my 11th grade English regents, so I don't know how accurate it is).

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

For a lawyer turned one of the first sci-fi authors, he did a very good job.
Originally, I tried to read this for my French Four class in high school. I got through the first chapter. Mostly because I had better, faster paced books out of the library at the same time. Plus it was a hard cover in one of the many fonts that just gives me a head ache. As well as the fact that I really hated French homework, (I did just enough to pass).
So when Alpert, the French teacher, said we had to read something by a French author, genius that I am, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and read a book on my very long list of LXG books to read.
Bad plan. I got a seventy five on the final based on said book, and read the first chapter.
Last summer, in the 'give-the-library-ten-cents-for-an-eight-dollar-book' sale, I found a grubby, old paper back copy of the book. Needless to say I bought it.
I don't like hardcover books, I always feel guilty writing in the margins, paperbacks no such issues. They all end up in hard shape from being stuck in my tiny little purses for extended amounts of time anyway.
Yeah back to the book, it was really good. i'm talking full five stars here. At least once you got to Nemo and his submarine thinger there.
Verne who had little real experience with marine life except what was in French museums at the time did an amazing job with his underseas world. One thing that can be said about 19th century books is that the detail is amazing. somtimes it's a bad thing (Dracula) in the case of 20,000, it's a VERY good thing.