Stop in the Name of Pants: Review Haiku

Oh, Georgia, Georgia,
you're so bloody boring now
and yet I can't stop.

Stop in the Name of Pants (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series) by Louise Rennison. Harper, 2008,

The Adoration of Jenna Fox: Review Haiku

Teen goes Anakin
in troubling look at modern
medical ethics.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. Holt, 2008, 272 pages.

My Dad's a Birdman: Review Haiku

Gorgeous nonsense by
English geniuses with a
knack for flighty fun.

My Dad's a Birdman by David Almond, illustrated by Polly Dunbar. Candlewick, 2008, 115 pages.

Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Moving Day: Review Haiku

Meet Allie Finkle:
what Meg Cabot sounded like
at nine, more or less.

Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls #1: Moving Day by Meg Cabot. Scholastic, 2008, 228 pages.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Currently on vacation, reading a lot and trying to stay mostly disconnected. Will post fairly regularly, but I'm pacing myself.

I Shall Not Want: Review Haiku

Clare and Russ at last
get hot under the collar.
Packs a holy punch.

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming. St. Martin's, 2008, 336 pages.

Lock and Key: Review Haiku

What is family?
The ones who leave, or the ones
you won't leave behind?

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2008, 422 pages.

No Talking: Review Haiku

Typical Clements:
Thoughtful kids, complex teachers,
lessons learned at end.

No Talking by Andrew Clements. S&S, 2007, 146 pages.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes: Review Haiku

Crutcher's classic shows
lots of ways to be ugly --
and brave and kind, too.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher. Greenwillow, 1993, 216 pages. #38 on The LIST.

Big Read, Big Books quiz

I have the feeling I've taken this or a very similar quiz before, but as [expletive] United Airlines ruined my plans to go home for my uncle's funeral yesterday (and consequently make a little progress on the reading front along the way), I have nothing new to post. So a tip of the bloggy hat to Sarah Miller, from whom I shamelessly swiped this list.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list. The instructions: Look at the list and:

• Bold those you have read.
• Italicize those you intend to read.
• Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (Great American Novel #1)
6. The Bible (I actually did read the whole damn thing in college.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (Most depressing book EVER.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (Okay, I have not read Cymbeline or Troilus and Cressida, but pretty much everything else.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (taught it; and let me tell ya how much my 12th graders loved it when I read the "f*** you" part at the end)
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great American Novel #2)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (gaaaaak)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I gave you two weeks of my life with Anna Frakking Karenina, and that's all you get)
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (tried; failed)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (train couldn't come fast enough)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis (counting this since I read #36 below)
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (would you like some allegory with your tea, missus?)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (tried; failed)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (read once; on The LIST to read again)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan (got through 50 pages and wanted to throw it across the room)

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (on The LIST)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (read once; on The LIST to read again)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (get a job, loser)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (I take that back: THIS is the most depressing book ever.)
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (HATE)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White (Great American Novel #3)
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams (silflay hraka, my 10th grade English teacher)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (not part of #14?)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I got 53, with 9 intentions. Not bad.

Little Brother: Review Haiku

Government gone wild!
Terrifying take on tech,
terror, and freedom.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Tor, 2008, 382 pages.

The Mouse and His Child: Review Haiku

A clockwork fam'ly
braves villains, defeats, and time
to find their true home.

The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban, illustrated by David Small. Levine/Scholastic, 2001, 244 pages. Originally published 1967.

#37 on The LIST.

Swindle: Review Haiku

The Man with the Plan
makes vigilante justice
a group effort. Score!

Swindle by Gordon Korman. Scholastic, 2008, 252 pages.

P.S. Yankees suck.

Pitch Perfect: Review Haiku

Doopsie drama rocks!
But Rapkin wears his contempt
on his snarky sleeve.

Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin. Gotham, 2008, 275 pages.

P.S. Seriously, did no one read this book? "Competetion"? "Songrwriters"? "Cecilia" spelled two different ways IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH?

How to Build a House: Review Haiku

House as metaphor:
When your foundation crumbles,
it's time to rebuild.

How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt. Lamb/Random, 2008, 227 pages.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Review Haiku

Sedaris with boobs:
Crosley riffs on ponies, locks,
evil butterflies.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. Riverhead, 2008, 230 pages.

The Titan's Curse: Review Haiku

Fight evil monsters,
ride cross-country, save the world:
All in a day's work.

The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #3) by Rick Riordan. Hyperion, 2007, 320 pages.

The Book of Vice: Review Haiku

Sagal lets readers
indulge in naughty pasttimes
vicariously.

The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) by Peter Sagal. Harper, 2007, 254 pages.

Predictably Irrational: Review Haiku

Ec 10 meets Psych 101.
Think you know why you
do things? Think again.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely. Harper, 2008, 280 pages.