Ulysses Read-along, anyone?

You know that monster of a book that everyone's always afraid to pick up? The one that gives you anxiety just thinking about it? The one that you know you should read, but just can't seem to find the time for?

For me, that book is Ulysses. I read portions of it in college and loved it, and the full book has been sitting on my shelf for the past four years.

Well, I say, NO MORE!!

I'm going to do something about that book sitting on my shelf, taunting me. I'm going to break it down into smaller, more manageable sections. Anyone who wants to tackle this is more than welcome to join me!

Starting August 1, I will be hosting a read-along of Ulysses. I'll lay out a (manageable!) schedule sometime in July, hopefully around 100 pages per week or so, and we can discuss each section. I'll also have an annotation of the book (It's nearly as long as the book itself!) available, so feel free to ask questions!

Who's in?

Review and Blog Tour: Life, in Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer

Title: Life, in Spite of Me: Extraordinary Hope after a Fatal Choice

Author: Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer

Pages: 204

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge (Challenge #5: Title Word Count)

First Sentence: "Numb. The cold Illinois wind chilled my body."

Summary (From book flap):

Overwhelmed by wave after wave of emotional trauma, Kristen Anderson no longer wanted to live. One January night, determined to end her pain once and for all, the seventeen-year-old lay across train tracks not far from her home and waited to die.

Instead of peace, she found herself immersed in a whole new nightmare.

Before the engineer could bring the train to a stop, thirty-three freight cars passed over her at fifty-five miles per hour. After the train stopped and Kristen realized she was still alive, she looked around -- and saw her legs ten feet away.

Surviving her suicide attempt but losing her legs launched Kristen into an even deeper battle with depression and suicidal thoughts as well as unrelenting physical pain -- all from the seat of a wheelchair.

But in the midst of her darkest days, Kristen discovered the way to real life and a purpose for living.

Life, in Spite of Me recounts in riveting detail the trauma of her suicide attempt, the miracle of her survival, and the life-transforming power of hope in Christ.

For anyone struggling to find the strength to go on, the message of this heart-wrenching yet hope-building book is clear:
God loves you more than you can imagine.
He has good plans for your future.
Life is a gift.

An extraordinary reminder that even when we give up on life, God doesn't give up on us.

My Two Cents:

I've never read an inspirational memoir before, so this was a new experience for me.

I think this book could do people in a certain place in life a lot of good. Anyone, teens especially, struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts could easily relate to Kristen's story. She gives a glimpse of what her life was like following her suicide attempt, such as a party she attends shortly after leaving the hospital, but I would have liked to see more of her daily struggles from that standpoint. We see a lot of how she struggles with depressive thoughts and wishing she were dead, but not a lot about the day-to-day problems she faced after losing her legs.

Her message is one of hope. She had these problems and she tried to do something about them, but God saved her for a higher purpose. It's a great message, and one with which a lot of people can identify. But, I also think her faith may have come a little too easily. Perhaps it's because she already was raised Christian, but Kristen just didn't seem to have the same struggles and questions a lot of new Christians have. I wondered if she really did just accept God that easily (If so, awesome for her!) or if she just left those things out of the book.

Either way, this was a really quick read and I would recommend it to anyone struggling with similar issues or anyone who wants to read a story of God working in a person's life.




I received a free copy of this book courtesy of WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group,

Review and Book Tour: Play Dead by Ryan Brown

Title: Play Dead

Author: Ryan Brown

Pages: 344

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "The drums outside beat hard enough to form ripples in the water."

Summary (From book flap):

For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Baders. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits' bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident -- given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach's clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory ... in a final showdown where the stakes aren't just life or death -- but damnation or salvation.

My Two Cents:

At first, I was skeptical about this book. Anyone who knows me knows that football and I are like cats and water: There's not a whole lot of love there. But, when I saw there were zombies, I had to read it. I so love zombies.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Sure, there was way more football than I would have liked, but a football game in a football-crazed town was the perfect setting for a team of undead teenagers. I would've liked to see more zombie fun, but, well, I'm used to playing Left 4 Dead, so brain-eating is kind of second-nature to me.

Brown is a skilled writer who knows how to pace his story properly. Things don't move too slowly or too quickly. He also adds a generous amount of humor, which is the mark of any good off-the-wall zombie concept in my book. I'd be interested to see what he comes up with next.

For me, this book wasn't so much about characters as what happened. Sure, I liked Cole and Savannah and Coach Hickman well enough, and I loathed the opposing team the proper amount, but the story was much more what propelled me through this book. I think I finished the whole thing in a few hours' time.

If you like zombies, or if you (Heaven forbid!) like football, I'd recommend this book to you. It's well worth it!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?; May 17, 2010

Hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books, It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly bookish meme whereby bloggers share their reading for the past week.

This week, I read:
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This One Is Mine by Maria Semple
A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
Play Dead by Ryan Brown


This week, I reviewed (Click on the title to read my review):
Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and Curiouser by William Irwin and Richard Brian Davis, eds.
Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Burned (House of Night #7) by P.C. and Kristin Cast

This week, I'm reading:
Life, in Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

This week, I hope to begin reading:
The Fiddler of the Reels and Other Stories by Thomas Hardy
She's So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott
The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens

What are you reading this week?

Review: Burned (House of Night #7) by P.C. and Kristin Cast

Title: Burned (House of Night #7)

Authors: P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Pages: 384

Source: Library

Rating: 5/10

Challenge: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: *I had to give this to a patron before writing the review, so no first sentence!*

Summary (From Amazon/book flap):

Things have turned black at the House of Night. Zoey Redbird’s soul has shattered. With everything she’s ever stood for falling apart, and a broken heart making her want to stay in the Otherworld forever, Zoey’s fading fast. It’s seeming more and more doubtful that she will be able pull herself back together in time to rejoin her friends and set the world to rights. As the only living person who can reach her, Stark must find a way to get to her.  But how?  He will have to die to do so, the Vampyre High Council stipulates.  And then Zoey will give up for sure. There are only 7 days left…

Enter BFF Stevie Rae.  She wants to help Z but she has massive problems of her own.  The rogue Red Fledglings are acting up, and this time not even Stevie Rae can protect them from the consequences.  Her kinda boyfriend, Dallas, is sweet but too nosy for his own good.  The truth is, Stevie Rae’s hiding a secret that might be the key to getting Zoey home but also threatens to explode her whole world.

In the middle of the whole mess is Aphrodite: ex-Fledgling, trust-fund baby, total hag from Hell (and proud of it).  She’s always been blessed (if you could call it that) with visions that can reveal the future, but now it seems Nyx has decided to speak through her with the goddess’s own voice, whether she wants it or not.  Aphrodite’s loyalty can swing a lot of different ways, but right now Zoey’s fate hangs in the balance.

Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned.

My Two Cents:

Well. I really enjoyed the early portion of this series. I thought it was a great take on vampire lore and showed a lot of potential. That being said, I was way less than impressed with this installment.

First, the book just lacked any of the cohesiveness and charm of the earlier books. I think the problem has a lot to do with the fact that Zoey is pretty much not present for about 90 percent of the book. It was just really hard to read; it took me nearly four days to read a book that should have taken me maybe a day. I just wasn't feeling it.

Along the same lines, everything that I liked and everything that was fun about the characters earlier in the series was just gone. There was no spark, no interesting people propelling the story forward. It just kind of hung there.

One of the things that's always bugged me about this series is the way the characters talk. The Casts seem to be trying so hard to reproduce "authentic" teen dialogue that they jump immediately into stereotypes. That's true with this installment, too, but the profanity was ratcheted up about 10,000,000 notches. Now, I'm no prude, and swearing in books usually doesn't bother me, but I was getting annoyed with all the profanity about 10 pages in. Then, I started counting the swear words. A few pages later, I stopped counting at about 25. It was so distracting that, sometimes, I couldn't even pay attention to what was going on in the story because I was so busy cringing at yet another swear word. It was just too much, and I really think it has no business being that prevalent in a young adult book. People talk so much about how "awful" teens are and how bad their mouths are, and this book is just another encouragement of that stereotype. OK. Rant over.

I was really surprised with how little I actually liked this book. It seemed to be one big place-filler because not much really happened. Unless you like the earlier books in this series, I would suggest staying away from this one. 

Review: Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Title: Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Pages: 435

Source: Personal library

Rating: 10/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "'I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,' said Holmes, as we sat together to our breakfast one morning."

Summary (From back of book):

No characters in English literature since those in the great Dickens gallery have taken so firm a hold upon the British and American imagination as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. They have indeed been elevated above the level of fiction and into the realm of mythology where the learned and the simple meet on an equal footing.

The present selection draws the best stories from the several Sherlock Holmes volumes, including one of the longer books, The Sign of Four, in its logical place among the other chosen tales: "Silver Blaze," "The Speckled Band," "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Naval Treaty," "The Blue Carbuncle," "The Greek Interpreter," "The Red-Headed League," "The Empty House," "The Missing Three-Quarter," and "His Last Bow."

My Two Cents:

I absolutely love the Sherlock Holmes stories, and have for quite some time. I love how Holmes almost always knows the solution to a mystery from very early on, to the complete surprise of Watson and everyone else. I wish I had his skill for deductive reasoning.

My two favorite stories in this collection, both of which I've read before, are "The Speckled Band," in which Holmes and Watson try to solve the mysterious death of a young woman's sister, and "The Red-Headed League," in which a man joins a mysterious society only to have all trace of the other members disappear suddenly. Both these mysteries have an air of the completely mysterious and unsolvable, and in both Holmes maintains his characteristic calm as he basically tries to find evidence to match his theory.

Doyle's writing is, as always, superb. It's very indicative of the style of writing in 1890s British literature, and it only takes some minor getting used to if you've never read something of his before.

Holmes is, as with everyone else, my favorite character. I wish I knew a Holmes (Well, maybe minus the cocaine and opium use...). He's got a very subtle sense of humor, but it's there, and it shows when necessary. I just love how he's able to tell lots of little details about a person just by looking at articles of clothing or their possessions. In one of the stories, he is able to deduce that a man is down on his luck, uses lime cream in his hair and has a poor servant simply by looking at his hat. If only all detectives were like Holmes, there wouldn't be as many unsolved crimes!

If you like mysteries which start out strange, but make perfect sense once the solution is discovered, or you like reading about late-19th century England, you need to give Sherlock Holmes a try.

Review: Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy by William Irwin and Richard Brian Davis, eds.

Title: Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and Curiouser

Author: William Irwin and Richard Brian Davis, eds.

Pages: 218

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Summary (From back of book):

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has fascinated children and adults alike for generations. Why does Lewis Carroll introduce us to such oddities as a blue caterpillar who smokes a hookah, a cat whose grin remains after its head has faded away, and a White Queen who lives backward and remembers forward? Is it all just nonsense? Was Carroll under the influence? This book probes the deeper underlying meaning in the Alice books and reveals a world rich with philosophical life lessons. Tapping into some of the greatest philosophical minds that ever lived -- Aristotle, Hume, Hobbes, and Nietzsche -- Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy explores life's ultimate questions through the eyes of perhaps the most endearing heroine in all of literature.

My Two Cents:

I'm a big fan of scholarly books that look at some of the most beloved stories and series in popular culture. I practically lived with another publisher's Lord of the Rings and Philosophy while working on a thesis my senior year in college. I love that there are other people in the world who think deeply about the books and movies and TV shows which others take as pure entertainment.

So, when I was asked to review this book, I jumped at the chance. I love Alice in Wonderland and have often thought about how Carroll, an Oxford don and logician, turned his own scholarly work into a children's story more complex than it often seems.

There are a lot of interesting points made in this book. My favorite chapter was "Nuclear Strategists in Wonderland" by Ron Hirschbein, in which the author explores how those who worked toward building the United States' arms cache during the Cold War used euphemism, jargon and faulty logic -- all of which are found in Wonderland -- to justify their actions.

One thing that kind of bothered me, though, was that it seemed as if there were chapters that just repeated one another. There were a couple of essays which used the same quotes from the Alice books and the same philosophers' theories to prove basically the same point. I think this would have been a stronger book overall if some of the essays were cut out and others extended.

I really did enjoy looking at the Alice stories in some new ways and think that anyone who is a fan of them and has ever wondered, "Are these just stories of nonsense?" would like this book, as well.

This series also has several other titles, many of which interested me, including South Park and Philosophy and Terminator and Philosophy.