= Excellent
= Good/Very Good
= Okay read
= Not recommended
= Ugh! Don't waste your time.
Archive for September 21st, 2008
Sunday, September 21st, 2008Sunday Salon - September 21, 2008
September 21, 2008
11:15AM
Good morning! I’m a little behind today in my Sunday Salon post - I’ve been spending the morning catching up on emails, updating A Novel Challenge, and browsing my Google Reader. But it’s time now to talk books.
This was an incredibly busy week for me in more ways than one. My Friend Amy hosted Book Bloggers Appreciation Week and it was filled with author interviews, daily blog posts, giveaways, and awards. I am still working my way through the huge list of participating blogs and am adding many to my Google Reader. I was thrilled to win the award for Best Literary Fiction blog - thank you to those readers who voted for me! And congratulations to Amy for a job well done.
Aside from blogging, my work schedule was packed this week, and I am also getting ready for Triple Creek Ranch’s annual fund raising event to help individuals with disability. But despite all these commitments, I did find some time to creep away into a corner and read.
I finished reading Guernica (read my review) and loved it. If you are a fan of historical fiction, you will not want to miss this one. Dave Boling is a talented writer and I’ll be looking forward to more from him in the future.
I also breezed through a non fiction book called Ships Without A Shore (read my review) which was quite interesting. I didn’t always agree with the author, but the book was well written and provocative.
I’ve been immersing myself in my first Joyce Carol Oate’s novel: A Garden of Earthly Delights. This was one of Oates’ first novels (written in the 1960s) and it was nominated for the National Book Award. She wrote three other novels connected to this one and all four books comprise the Wonderland Quartet. I’m about half way through A Garden of Earthly Delights. It is an intense book - very dark and somewhat depressing. The dialogue is harsh and realistic. Oates is clearly a gifted writer, but I’m not sure how I feel about the story itself. So far I am not liking any of the characters … but, I am also oddly compelled to keep reading. I’ll be posting a review of this book mid-week.
Finally, I continue to read from The View from Castle Rock. I’ve really been enjoying these stories which are part fiction and part autobiographical. I’m expecting to finish this book by the end of the week and will be posting a review at that time.
This week I’m going to do some re-organizing of my TBR mountain and re-assessment of my reading challenges. Fall always seems like the perfect time to take stock of where I’m at…how about you? Do you find yourself compelled to organize when the temperatures drop and the days get shorter?