I'm going to spare you the picture of how many books I have stacked up and ready to go for the challenge. No, really, I am. If I only read 16 books last year, I'm not sure why I'm being so downright optimistic about this year. Still, one can always strive to reach the "impossible dream" (and by that, I mean to actually have read all of the books I have in my house).
When it comes down to, it would be too embarrassing to admit how much I plan and look forward to this weekend. Something you might realize if you saw all of my books.
Okay, this is not my pile of books. Just a picture of our book drop after being closed a couple of days for the blizzards last year. Whew! What a lot of check ins!
And, my charity has been chosen! I looked around (okay, flying into a panic today because I hadn't figured out who to donate to though I did have some thoughts running around in my mind, trust me) and I decided to stay local. This year, I am going to support QACCA Our Haven Shelter, which is my county's homeless shelter. I think that this will be a nice balance with my co-worker Erin who is also doing the challenge (she also makes delicious cookies, believe me). Her chosen charity, Animal Resource Foundation (ARF) is an animal rescue organization. Aren't we both upstanding citizens of our county?
So, for every book I read, I will donate $3. For every comment I receive during the reading challenge, I will donate $.25. Run with that!
Now off to clean my bathroom. I managed to burn out my vacuum cleaner tonight attempting to clean the carpet in my bedroom. It is of some difficult type of carpeting that refuses to be cleaned. Excessive vacuuming is obviously not what it needs (which is why I then go around picking up lint bits by hand). Except now I'll have to do the entire apartment that way until I can get a replacement. Oh dear!
...your moldy books? Ok, maybe not. But that is one of the things we have to deal with at the library on, if not a daily basis, at least once in a while. Myself, I have been accused of being a a right terror because I am generally spot water or otherwise damaged books from a mile away.
Today, we had a patron come in with five bags of books asking if we were taking donations. As our library director had recently run an ad in the local paper that we were accepting donations, I said "yes". Perhaps most unwisely. The patron then went on to say that the vast majority of the books were ones pulled from the trash that Hospice had deemed unacceptable. He didn't understand why, as obviously we would want them. Reader, some of them were moldy clear through. Others were soggy. Um, ew. Generally there is a reason why books end up in the dump. Needless to say that as soon as they weren't looking, I marched out to our dumpster to dispose of the evidence (and the smell).
Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Liberty Smith at Ford's Theatre from the front row. It has been a while since attending a performance there as a patron (since seeing Meet John Doe for my birthday four years ago). I actually usher there, so I do see their productions all of the time. As an usher, you do get one free ticket per show that you usher (except for A Christmas Carol). This was just the first time my friend and I had taken them up on the offer.
Liberty Smith is about an orphan named Liberty Smith (Geoff Packard) who grows up in pre-Revolutionary War era Virginia. He is childhood friends with George Washington and is also in love with Martha Dandruff (I mean Dandridge). She, of course, looks down on him and tells him that the only way she would marry him would be if he managed to free the thirteen colonies of British tyranny. He goes galloping off to Philadelphia where he becomes Benjamin Franklin's apprentice, meets a more worthy object of affection played by Kelly Karbacz (though he doesn't realize that until act two) and her aunt Betsy Ross, the villainous Benedict Arnold, and eventually finds himself in the midst of Boston during the tea party and Paul Revere's (or should I say Liberty Smith's) midnight ride. Yes, he was there for all of it, but we just never knew about him because he never ended up in the history books.
Here's a preview:
The musical was actually originally written to be an animated movie musical and you can really see that whilst watching it. They don't hesitate to make modern references so it is filled with one liners. All said and done, it was quite the fun night of musical theatre (especially when one considers I typically see more dramatic pieces of art where people die all over the place). The only time it got a bit morose was for the end of Act One/beginning of the second act when all I could do was picture Liberty Smith listlessly counting bullets like Marius in the fabulous 1930s French Les Miserables movie. That said, I am a big fan of his "fort". My one quibble? Why in the world was Martha Dandridge dressed in a regency dress and spencer for part of the show? The other costumes were great and period correct. But that? Why?
And for the record, I took pictures. Of the set. Because we now can. Hehe. I can't tell you how many times I have had to ask people to delete pictures of the set because of copyright issues and now they finally gave up and we don't have to scold patrons anymore. How freeing! Well, except for when there are actors about. Then you still cannot. Don't worry, I didn't try to do that!
Ok, for a while there, I didn't think I could change my template. Apparently, I can. I just can't do it from home. It just sits there and loads and loads and does nothing. Very uninspiring. So, I played with it a little this morning at work and switched templates. Then I came home and created a new header. I'm not sure if I like it or not. Obviously, it does not work well with the present colours, but they can be changed. Let's just say that pink was so four years ago, and I really needed a change to actually match the title of the blog. Though, in reality, simply "Castell Glas" (or "Blue Castle") is the title. I love me some Welsh and some L.M. Montgomery.
I received today a commendation for using the least amount of sick leave last year. I have a certificate as proof. I find it all quite hilarious. Especially when you consider it all just collects and one day I am bound to go on a spree and use up all 50+ days of sick leave I have accumulated. Why don't I use it? Because my parents instructed me from a young age that one was never to call out sick unless one was sick enough to go to the doctor's. And who wants that? No thank you.
I finished Blackveil by Kristen Britain this afternoon. Hello, cliffhanger ending! The only characters you feel any relief knowing what has happened to them are the dead ones (::sniffsniff::). Everyone else? Well, it is going to take another how many years (and forgotten memories) to figure out what has happened to them. I actually felt for the length of the book, some of the subplots that were left hanging did not seem to be well developed at all (Amberhill much?). So, I will say that I enjoyed it, with reservations. The first book in the series, Green Rider, is still my favorite. Now, with all the "love triangles" blossoming, bits of it are turning into quite the little soap opera. What happened to the simple lives these characters once lead? Totally gone, I suppose!
And now back to the cleaning I ought to have been doing hours ago. These piles of books are not going to get sorted by themselves!
Am I the only one who eagerly anticipates this time of year? Perhaps so. My poor co-workers have to put up with me perusing the list of books I have on Goodreads of my potential "books to read" for this challenge and trying to match them with ILL orders (because our library is small, there is no chance all the books I want will be purchased). This demands perfect timing for them to arrive not too early, but then again, not too late. Some are still too new so I will have to wait until next year. Though I ask myself, why do I go and order so many books when I have absolutely piles of them sitting under the table in my living room (not to mention actually on my recently rearranged bookshelves?). But, I never can think that having a greater variety can be bad.
More exciting news? Our library purchased a few eBook readers for staff to use in order to educate ourselves about them in order to better assist our patrons when it comes to downloading books from Overdrive and the like (or even just how to turn them on). I've become particularly attached to the Sony Reader we have. As in, I have yet to return it! (Don't worry, I dutifully check it in when it is due, but nobody else has laid claim on it yet so I check it right back out). I intend to put it to good use during the challenge. It is so nice and light for those late nights and will stay open perfectly well when I'm reading and eating at the table. Plus, I've fallen in love with Netgalley because I can get my ARCs in eBook format through them, they have a return date, and then don't take up any space in my apartment. How sweet is that?
Now my own mini-challenge of the month will be to blog more often here. Must get into practice again!
What am I currently reading: Blackveil by Kristen Britain. There, that makes this post even more bookish.
What have I been reading? Yes, that's right. Jean Webster's The Wheat Princess. Back when I first started to read her books (I love Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy), I never picked up on some of the iffy things. Like dealing with the mentally handicapped children at the orphanage. In this book, there was a comment about how one of the characters tried to "assist the Negroes in the United States but found they were too lazy to bother to work for assistance". This book is not moving along as snappily as her others and I'm not sure if it is worth the effort to finish it. We'll see.
Why do patrons have to keep bothering me when I'm trying to read/write?
Here's another picture one. From a book I read recently and loved!
Let's give this a try-out. I'm not sure how much reading will be accomplished as I am currently at work at the library. Thank goodness for GoogleBooks! I can do my reading online for the moment. I was going to start with Jean Webster's Dear Enemy, but Google Books actually opened The Wheat Princess, so we will see what that leads to.
Otherwise, I am reading First Rider Call by Kristin Britain on my eBook reader.
And answers to the questions:
1) I am currently reading at the libray. Should move home after work.
2) Three random facts: I am under 5 feet tall, hail from upstate New York, and am a new type 1 diabetic. Actually, that was part of the reason why I wanted to do this one. I'm used to the 48-hour Read-a-Thon, and thought this would be a good way to follow my BS levels throughout the day. I don't want to stress out my non-existant pancreas too much!
3) Hundreds? It never ends, does it?
4) To not cause my BS levels to spike. We'll see about that.
5) Plan ahead. This means books and meals. Walk around whilst reading. Don't let your legs go all veiny. And, most of all, have fun. Because if you can't have fun it isn't worth it!
I just recently read Kathryn Lasky's Ashes, and, as a librarian, I have to say it hit home, mainly because of the strong focus on books. Ashes is about a thirteen-year-old German girl growing up in Berlin just as Adolf Hitler is coming into power. Gabriella Schramm's father is the chairman of the Department of Photoastonoy at the University of Berlin. Her mother is a pianist, and her sister Ulla, also a gifted musician, has recently turned away from her studies to focus more on boys. The world is changing around Gaby just as she is beginning to grow up. The years 1932-1933 thrust her into moments of adulthood which she writes about in her Diary of Shame. Moments that either made her feel uncomfortable, or times when she thought she could have reacted better to a situation. Most of those situations dealt with something to do with the growth of the Nazi party in Germany.
Gaby spends much of her time reading books that the Nazis will soon label as being subversive. Soon both her beloved books and her Jewish friends, including Albert Einstein, are under attack. While some might claim the book burning to be the defining moment, I focused more on the librarian Frau Grumbach, and her refusal to hand over the names of students who checked out "questionable" books to Fraulein Hofstadt. Frau Grumbach disappeared the next day and was never seen again. As a librarian myself, of course that was going to make me think of my own responsibility towards my patrons. And wondering if I would have the guts to make a stand about something I know is fundamentally wrong, or would I go along with it in order to cause the least harm to myself by not standing out. Oo, ethics. Of course, I can really just hope that I'm never in that situation.
I also enjoyed that this book was written from a gentile's perspective from that time period. It always seemed like the books I read about World War II when I was a child/young adult mainly featured Jewish or other persecuted people. I think there should be more like this. It was like how I learned at a young age from Bette Greene's Summer of My German Soldier that not all German people were evil Nazis (besides, who wouldn't get a youthful crush on Anton).
I am participating in Centreville's teen summer reading program this year as they are doing "Team Teen" vs "Team Adult" where as Kent Island is doing the middle schoolers vs the high schoolers. I'm kind of glad that I'm not doing it in Kent Island because the high schoolers already have over 4000 pages read-and that was done by just one girl this past week! I would so lose to her.
I am getting ready to have our first adult summer reading book discussion this Tuesday evening. I hope it goes well! I'm not the best at public speaking, so hopefully I will as all the right questions to get the discussion humming and I won't have to talk again. I wish! The book we are doing this time is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Later in the summer it is The Hunger Games. I'm quite looking forward to that one. If anyone will actually show up for them.
