My Spice of Life “Feast”: A Pool of Books to Chose From

I don’t usually write up a post for each new challenge I join; I just put my pool of books on my current challenges page. But, as I’m running the Spice of Life Challenge, I hope my list of hopefully delectable books will tempt you to join.

There are three levels of participation: “A Taste” (read just two books in any category); “A Sampler” (read four books, one in each category”); and “A Feast” (read six books from at least three categories).  To sign up, get some more information here.

Below, then, is my personal pool of books from which I will chose between six and eight for this challenge. These are just the ones I’m most likely to pick up in the next six months; there are dozens more I’d love to get to, of course. I posted a few much longer lists on the challenge site (link to by clicking the picture). Continue reading »

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington

In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington attempts to define the post-Cold War world. His conclusion is that, instead of an “us” and “them” approach to world politics, we must view the world as that of many civilizations, including mainly the West (generally Christian), Sinic (Chinese), Islamic, Hindu (Indian), and Japanese civilizations. Observing the world and predicting future encounters, therefore, revolves around the dynamic political relationships among these civilizations.

While this was an incredibly challenging book for me to get through*, I am incredibly glad I persevered. While I of course was familiar with the Cold War relations between USSR and the USA, I hadn’t seriously considered the state of the world after the Cold War. Huntington’s book is quite interesting, although it is dated. Because it was written in 1995, I found myself wondering many times how 9/11 changed the face of the world in terms of his philosophies. Continue reading »

Martel-Haper Challenge (2009 3rd Quarter)

It’s time to sign up for the third quarter 2009 Martel-Harper Challenge. This challenge is to read two books during the quarter from the list that Yann Martel sends Stephen Harper.

Because Martel sends Harper a book every two weeks, this list is always growing! If you haven’t looked at it for a long time, you should glance through it, because there may be a few books you want to read. The list has fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s books on it, not to mention classics old and new. He even has recently sent a movie and piano music too. All the works are intended to help produce “stillness” in our lives.

To join for third quarter 2009, commit to read and review two books from the Martel-Harper challenge list between July 1, 2009 and September 30, 2009 by letting us know in the comments. You can choose the books now (in a pool of a few possible choices or two specific books) or you can choose the two books as you go this quarter. Because the list is growing every two weeks, you are free to change your choices at a later point in the quarter if you want.

A hub page for this challenge can be found here on Rebecca Reads; I will keep that updated with links to the current quarter’s challenge posts. Feel free to use one of the buttons above to promote the challenge.

When you have read a work and written a review, leave a link below in the comments on this post. (Note: I previously had a separate post for reviews, but I think it would work just on this post.)

The Spice of Life Challenge

I’m going to be hosting a new challenge for the last six months of 2009. It’s all about food. Go check it out.

I have a list of books to share with you to tempt you in to this, but putting up that site took a lot longer than I thought. List will come another day.

I’m hoping other people want to join me in the feast of good “foodie” books, but if not, I’ll be reading by myself. I’m trying to bridge my hobbies of reading and cooking. (I’m a wannabe cook.)

I’ve got to go eat. All this talk of food made me very hungry…

Reading Journal (June 24): Learning to Read Better

I realized last week that I’m not a very good reader.

For example, I am still struggling with The Arabian Nights, and many people find it a breezy read. In fact, it’s taken me so long thus far, I had to return it to the library this week. It has to be returned to its home library and then it will come back to me again. So I have a few days without it. I did have about an hour the other day before I returned it where I was able to sit and work my way through a full story cycle (about 45 pages) and I found myself laughing out loud. There are funny parts amid the rubble of frustrating prose.

But that’s not all I struggle to read. I’ve also been struggling with The Clash of Civilizations, a nonfiction book examining post-Cold War U.S. foreign relations. I told my husband, who was an economics and political science undergraduate and who read this book when it was first published in 1995, that it is poorly written.

He responded, “Maybe you’re just not used to academic writing.”

I realized he was probably right. It’s been so long since I’ve had to read that type of writing, I have to reacquaint myself with the style. The author is not trying to be “pretty.” He’s trying to share political and historical facts. Nonetheless, I’m going slowly with that as well.

The frustration with my “poor” reading ability reminds me of one of my goals when I started my blog and, more specifically, when I started my HTR&W project a year ago. I realize now, of course, that Harold Bloom’s book isn’t going to help me solve any problems, but I would hope that reading a variety of books and reading more carefully (as I’ve tried to do in the past year), would lessen the time I spend struggling to read.

I guess it goes back to Bloom’s phrase “difficult pleasure”: reading well doesn’t always mean “reading easily.” Bloom also isn’t talking about academic reading or archaic really old classics reading. So maybe I can give myself a break.

What do you think? How does one train to be a better reader? That may be a rhetorical question with no answers. Continue reading »

Bloggiesta Progress

So, it turns out my 1 a.m. Friday night goals are lot more ambitious than my Saturday-morning-and-it’s-sunny ability to finish them. Continue reading »

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (In Chancery and To Let)

While I still enjoyed In Chancery and To Let, the second two novels of The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy felt less developed, less powerful, and less important. In essence, to me they felt like merely sequels to a powerful novel. My thoughts on the first novel of the trilogy were complimentary; these thoughts are a bit more mixed.

Galsworthy’s writing was just as beautiful and the stories were just as interesting in terms of the social history they tell, but I failed to relate to or enjoy the characters as much as I enjoyed The Man of Property. In a sense, the first novel was powerful because of the strong emotions the main characters faced. As the characters became less likable (first Soames, and then his daughter Fleur), I also felt like I could not relate to their emotions as much. In fact, in the third novel (To Let) I only felt a strong emotional draw in the very last scene as Soames reflects on his life. Continue reading »

Bloggiesta!

I didn’t think I had anything to do for Maw Books Blog’s Bloggiesta! this weekend. I’m mostly caught up with my reviews this week. But I do have some blog projects and tweaking that I haven’t finished. I’m also totally behind on reading. (Yes, I know that doesn’t “count.”) Continue reading »

Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts

I like history and I always want to know more about American History. But in all the nonfiction and fiction about the Revolutionary War, it’s rather limited to dead white guys who fought the battles and otherwise founded our nation.

Enter: Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts. In a conversational tone, Roberts shares some of the stories about the women who founded the country. She, too, had been tired of hearing about how remarkable the men were founded the country: what about the women? This, then, is full of some of their stories. Roberts’ conclusion was (interestingly) that the women behind those men were no more extraordinary than you and I: they simply did what was asked of them.

The book had plenty of flaws. Most of the author’s asides and explanations were rather distracting, and it sometimes felt rambling and off-topic. I do wish it was better written or at least better organized. The casual tone made me feel like I was listening to random anecdotes rather than a comprehensive historical account. It didn’t feel comprehensive, nor did it feel like a true historical record. It was a collection of stories about women, full of sometimes extraneous detail. And there were a lot of women!

However, because I was listening to the audiobook in short intervals, such an anecdotal format was okay for me. And the details did make it interesting.

Continue reading »

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

To my relief, I was not the only one at the book club meeting that didn’t love this month’s choice!

I don’t usually read modern fiction; it’s just not my thing, and I can’t really say way. Maybe I’m just always reading the “wrong” modern fiction and so it has a bad rap in my mind. I did try to have an open mind when I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. I think discussing it with others did help me to give it more of a chance. I probably wouldn’t have finished it, despite its brevity, if I didn’t know the book club meeting was coming up.

In the end, I thought the writing trite and the underlying message saccharine. The author was aiming for a specific religious agenda, and it seemed forced and inappropriate to me. Besides, the back cover of The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo claims, “Every few decades a book comes along that changes the lives of its readers forever.” I guess that just meant that I expected more from it. Continue reading »