callen610's 75 Book Challenge-2010

I've decided to "bump up" and join you all in the fabulous 75 group this year! I'm going to just barely make 50 for 2009, but some of my goals this year are to read more short stories, young adult fiction, and to finish more of what I start (or at least abandon what I'm not into a lot earlier!) - so I think I have a shot at making it.

My 50 Book Challenge for 2009 is here.
My 10/10/10 Challenge is here, with these categories:

10. Ten Short Stories
9. Nine Young Adult
8. Eight CNY Women's Book Club
7. Seven Non-fiction
6. Six Bonus Books
5. Five Audio Books
4. Four Recommendations by family/friends/LT members
3. Three Fairy Tales/Myths/Legends
2. Two From my Shelves
1. One Dickens

Books read in 2010:

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett, ★★★★★ (1/11)
2. Frankly My Dear: "Gone with the Wind Revisited" by Molly Haskell, ★★★1/2 (1/22)
3. The Wednesday Wars (Audio) by Gary D. Shmidt, ★★★★★ (1/31)
4. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, ★★★★ (2/08)
5. The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, ★★★★1/2 (2/11)
6. Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching by Robyn R. Jackson, ★★★★★ (2/13)
7. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, ★★★★1/2 (3/19)
8. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Audio) by Richard Dawkins, ★★★★★ (3/26)
9. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, ★★★★ (4/11)
10. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, ★★★★★ (4/18)
11. Soulless by Gail Carriger, ★★★★ (4/30)
12. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, ★★★★★ (5/20)
13. The Lacuna (Audio) by Barbara Kingsolver, ★★★★★ (5/30)
14. The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Jane Austen by Carol Adams, ★★★1/2 (6/30)
15. Jane Austen: A Life by David Nokes, ★★★★ (7/24)
16. The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam, ★★★★1/2, (8/3)
17. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, ★★★★1/2, (8/10)

Welcome to the group!

Welcome!

Good luck with your challenge! I can't decide if I should come here or stay with the 50-book challenge... I'll finish 2009 with 64, but I doubt I'll match that in 2010. I starred your thread, so I'll be back!

Starry starred, now to your 1010... thanks for the link across, I'd hate to lose anybody for the new year!

Enjoying TONS of snow here in Central New York - and the last few hours of my Holiday Break before heading back to my lovely 6th graders tomorrow. Our "snow family" created by my husband and 2 1/2 year old:

How fun! Starred your thread, looking forward to your ya picks.

Nice snowmen! I made a family of snowmen once but they all looked like ET... Oh, and last year I made an OK-ish one, but then his head fell off when I tried to make his eyes!

Hey, Callen! Glad to see you hear and can't wait to see what you read this year. Where in Central NY are you? I'm in Binghamton.

#10 - I'm just west of Syracuse (Camillus) - just up 81 from you!

Book 1: The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2009)
Information: Fiction, CNY Women's Book Club, 451 pages
Read: December 30, 2009 - January 11, 2010
Rating: ★★★★★



This was such a pleasure to read! Stockett does an amazing job of differentiating between each of the three women narrating (Aibileen, Minny & Skeeter) - their speech patterns wormed their way into my head and I found myself thinking in their dialect - and even calling my daughters "Baby Girl". :-) Stockett was also wonderful at building the tension in one section and then having the consequences play out in another character's chapters, so that you got to have another perspective. The story takes place in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi - the small snippets of history are enjoyable (the introduction of zip codes, Kennedy's assassination, sit-ins, MLK, etc..). Two of the women are African American maids, and the third (Miss Skeeter) is a white 22-year-old who becomes involved in a secret project. My favorite character was Minnie - I just loved her sass-mouthing! Another book where I was disappointed to say good-bye.

So glad you enjoyed The Help! It was one of my favorite reads last year. What a great way to start your reading year!

#12: That one is already in the BlackHole due to numerous good reviews here on LT. Glad to see you enjoyed it too, Corrina.

It was really incredible - I only wish the author had other books to read! Soooo...here's hoping to a long, healthy, and productive life for Kathryn Stockett. ;-) I'm onto The Reader now and it has me sucked in immediately. Plus, it's fairly short so I know it won't be a huge time commitment since I have Lacuna sitting on my end table and the time is ticking on that one......

Thank you for spelling out Aibileen's name. I listened the book and always wondered how her name was spelled. This book was a great pleasure to listen to.

>11 callen610:, Cool! Maybe we can carpool to the Stasia Visits the Northeast Event in PA this summer. ;)

Book 2: Frankly, My Dear: "Gone With the Wind" Revisited by Molly Haskell (2009)
Information: Non-fiction, 272 pages
Read: January 11, 2010 - January 31, 2010
Rating: ★★★1/2



I haven't read GWTW since I was a teenager, but it has a place on my bookshelf and the movie is a favorite in my family. (My mom and I are always tossing silly quotes around - "Well, if Aunt Fran says it's alright then it IS alright!") So...I was slightly disappointed by this book. Somehow I got the feeling that the author was holding out - that she knew more than she was revealing. For example, there are allusions to some Leigh/Olivier events that I wish she would have just SAID rather than leave you guessing. I found the backstory of Margaret Mitchell really interesting and also the KKK controversies. It had just enough new tidbits to keep me reading but not enough to leave me satisfied.

#18: I think I will give that one a pass, Corrina. I hope your next read is more to your taste!

Book 3: The Wednesday Wars (Audio) by Gary D. Schmidt (2009)
Information: Fiction, Young Adult, Audio
Read: January 7, 2010 - January 31, 2010
Rating: ★★★★★



As much as I loved this novel, it's another Young Adult Newbery Honor book that I doubt many actual young adults will like. The few middle school students who I know started it, put it down again after a few chapters. I think the humor is too sophisticated and the content - Shakespeare/the Vietnam War, etc... too beyond their level of interest. It is almost as if this is an adult book, but told from the point of view of a younger person and with somewhat simpler vocabulary and bigger font. The reader, Joel Johnstone, is worth mentioning - he was EXCELLENT!

#20: I loved The Wednesday Wars when I read it last year, but I see your point about it not appealing to middle school students. I thought that it was more geared to older kids myself - say 16+.

ETA: I am really not a good judge of guessing ages for books. I am not a teacher (although I home school I do not have a wide enough exposure to kids in general).

Alcottacre: Yes, I think 16+ is a more appropriate target audience for this book. Did you feel inspired to read Shakespeare when you were done with it? I enjoyed the "bats, beetles, and toads" stuff and I really felt that I have neglected a big part of literature.

Book 4: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (1998)
Information: Fiction, CNY Women's Book Club, 218 pages
Read: January 30, 2010- February 8, 2010
Rating: ★★★★



I ended this book with much to mull over. It's the story of a teenage boy (14? 15? - I can't quite recall) who becomes the lover of a woman in her late 30s (Hanna). It takes place in post-WWII Germany over a period of about 30 years. What needled at me was that I wasn't bothered by the age difference between the boy and Hanna, and if it had been the other way around I'm sure I would have been. Societal training? Also - Hanna never seems to be taking advantage of him, really. It was originally published in Germany, and I found that perspective refreshing. Of course, there are abandonments and secrets that are eventually uncovered - but not the ones I had anticipated.

Shouldn't 16+ be about the age that so called Young Adult fiction is aimed at? Younger teenagers might well be interested in the same things and enjoy some actual grown up books, but a 13 year old isn't actually a young adult....

I was quite shocked to see in US bookstores that some seemed to label everything in chapters young adult, including things like the earlier Little House on the Prairie books (that designation makes some sense for books like These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years but Little House in the Big Woods is about a 5 year old, and I think it's written to be read to/by children.

Elkiedee - I agree! There seems to be a huge range of books that are marketed to teens. I teach in a middle school, so our library carries everything from picture books to Twilight to Stephen King. 11-14 year olds can be a tough bunch to recommend books to. There are so many variables to consider - reading level, interest, maturity - and some parents are still very invested in trying to guide reading choices, so that's another thing to take into account. Even the author isn't always a guide. Jerry Spinelli for example has several books (like Loser) that are for kids about 8-11 and then there's Milkweed, which is more 12-16, or so. And many authors now like Neil Gaiman and Carl Hiaason have written both adult and young adult/chapter books.

Okay...time to catch up on my posts! I am woefully behind schedule in my reading....

Book 5: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (2003)
Information: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Read: January 4, 2010- February 11, 2010
Rating: ★★★★1/2



Such a terrific book! I've taught this book every year since 2005 and I notice more and more things about it each time. It relates to so much that is happening in our society now - limited resources, secrecy of government, belief vs. nonbelief.... It's a bit tougher now, though, since many more kids have seen the movie and know the "secret" and usually reveal it to all the others before they can figure it out themselves. I wish the movie were better, but I can see how they felt they needed to add more action. Solving a shredded message on paper may not be as thrilling visually as giant attacking moles.

#27: My youngest daughter really likes that one. I am going to have to give it a try some time.

I think it has an adult appeal as well - my Mom read the entire series and she's not usually one to delve into YA lit. I also liked the two sequels - The People of Sparks and The Diamond of Darkhold, but the prequel, The Prophet of Yonwood, was disappointing.

I have City of Ember on my shelf, but haven't read it yet. Maybe I'll give it a go sooner than later. I'll avoid the film, though! :)

I think avoiding the film beforehand is usually a good idea, but especially so in this case! I hate it when they "glam up" a good book with a lot of violence and action to make it more appealing to a certain audience. But then...maybe some movies would never get made otherwise.

Book 16: The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam (2010)
Information: Non-fiction, Science
Read: July 24, 2010 - August 3, 2010
Rating: ★★★★1/2



You certainly won't think about your "thinking" in the same way after reading this book! I was in turns amazed and disturbed by how much bias and faulty processing we mistake as reasoned judgments. However, Vendantam explains well how those "short cuts" have helped us evolve. Assigning negative traits to minorities and following the herd in emergencies have helped us survive, even if it's not "nice" or accurate in a modern setting. This book is very readable, the examples are clear and it doesn't belabor the point. I particularly like the author's analogy of his experience swimming with the current and mistaking it for evidence of his own athletic prowess to highlight how we can all feel our success is all our own doing without realizing that some of the credit must go to race/gender/height/beauty/background/chance all being in our favor. It's not until we experience "going against the current" that we even realize the current was there.

The author is featured on the Diane Rehm Show here:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-01-26

>32 callen610:: Sounds terrific! Is he one of the researchers who's behind the online test you can do to test your bias?

Oops! Accidentally posted twice. I hate that! Going to the link now.

>32 callen610:--Thanks for the review. I immediately went to the library website and requested it for my husband, and possibly for myself. He has recently read The Female Brain and The Male Brain. From what you've written, it sounds like The Hidden Brain needs to be part of that reading arc as well. I haven't read these two books, but my husband enjoyed them. What I really enjoyed was the cleverness of the covers. The "brain" on The Female Brain was a tangled mass of phone cord. The "brain" on The Male Brain was a tangled mass of duct tape. I know, that's stereotyping, but there is a reason for the stereotypes, right??

#33 (and 34!) (bonniebooks): Vendantam references the bias test, but I don't think he developed it. To be honest, I was scared to go and see my results! I haven't done it yet, but would like to. I think this is the site:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

#35 (lbradf): I checked out those covers - funny! I'll have to check those out when I'm ready again for some science. Right now I need to throw in a fun summer read.

Thanks for stopping by!

#32: Adding The Hidden Brain to the BlackHole. Maybe I can find where mine has been all these years :)