my first love was a novel

Though of course I can't remember which one.
Perhaps I could say it was Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, because that's the first book I recall reading that I would consider a novel.
I was nine years old, and Mom had been trying to get me to read the Anne books. Just the first one, she coaxed. I refused, because it seemed to me in my headstrong brain that any book my mother recommended wasn't something I would enjoy. Eventually, I ran out of books to read, so I secretly started reading Anne of Green Gables. So secretly in fact, that I was hiding the book in the kitchen cabinet by the phone. Not even kidding. I also don't know why, fifteen years later, I can remember this with such clarity. Actually, maybe I do. It was my entry into the world of classic novels and absolutely beautiful worlds. Plus, Anne Shirley is definitely the first character I came across that made me want to be a redhead.

I never did finish the Anne series; I reread the first three a few times, though. I've read other books by L.M. Montgomery, too. Such an idyllic world, there on Prince Edward Island. I have a feeling it's also Anne Shirley's fault that I'm in love with the Victorian and Edwardian eras. (And the Betsy-Tacy series.)

So, my first love was a novel. (Incidentally, age nine was also when I had my first real crush on a boy...which lasted until we were fifteen.) Since then, there have been many other novels I fell in love with. On this Valentine's Day, let me share with you a list of novels that I love and are, incidentally, kind of about love. And not just the romantic kind. Friendship love is just as important!

• Persuasion, Jane Austen (and her other novels, but this one is the sweetest, I think.)
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (this is one of my favorite novels of all time.)
• Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (NOT a woman. this book is a great story about intense friendship and love and how they can entangle themselves in ways that aren't good.)
• Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
• To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (more about friendship and acceptance.)
• Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (just a powerful tome all around.)
• A Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter (more about familial love, and heart-wrenching, too.)
• I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith (I liken this a bit to Brideshead Revisited in theme.)

There you have a short list. I will add one honorable mention, because it's one of my favorite novels ever and should have "classic" status: The Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter. Published in 1809, this is a highly Romanticized version of the Scottish fight for freedom with William Wallace and Robert Bruce (who I might be related to!), but oh, so excellent. I made it an honorable mention because the love story between Wallace and his wife is so incredible, Biblical, and pure.

So, what are you favorite novels (classic or modern) about love? And why?

Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident

Mmkay, so I read this entire book yesterday.
It was just one of those days.

In Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, we see the same cast of characters returning, though not for all the same reasons. This time it isn't Artemis attacking the fairies. Well, not attacking, exactly, but at any rate it isn't his fault. Captain Holly Short, with a score to settle, thinks the thirteen year old criminal mastermind is behind the goblin uprising (clearly someone is doing weapons trading), and Commander Root believes her. They kidnap Artemis and his bodyguard, Butler, and bring them belowground, where it is quickly discovered that the kid had nothing to do with the goblins. But he could probably help.

The result is that Root and Holly end up assisting Artemis to rescue his father, who is apparently alive (though not quite well) and being held captive in Murmansk, Russia. Fairies hate the cold, and they don't handle radiation well at all. So this is a big thing.

Naturally, both problems become entangled when the goblins stage a revolution in Haven, the fairy capital city, and attempt to assassinate Root and Holly in northern Russia. Yeah. It isn't pretty. And by the end of the story, everything is resolved (as usual). But this time Artemis and the fairies part on good terms After all, they did help save Artemis Fowl the First. It seems that perhaps Artemis isn't destined to be an enemy to the magic folk for all time....

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Again, short and slightly convoluted summary. Colfer's writing wasn't really any better in this book, either. And I think the editors for the edition I read were not doing their job. SO MANY SPELLING MISTAKES AND MISSING LETTERS. Erm. Yeah. It was really incredibly annoying. But it's cool to see the relationship between Artemis and Holly going somewhere. I don't mean romantically; I think they could genuinely have a friendship in the near future. They've seen the best and worst of each other already.

Artemis Fowl

My youngest sister (she's almost 13) has been bugging me to read the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer for oh, at least two years now. I think. Being free of college at last (which was almost two years ago...), I have the freedom to read for leisure. But I kept forgetting about dear little Artemis. Sure, I read the first book about four or five years ago while I was working at the library. But that's as far as I got. So I have now taken it upon myself to read the entire series before winter is over. Not a huge problem, since the books aren't that long.

I reread the first book, to reacquaint myself with the characters. Artemis is likeable in a sad way; you feel sorry for him at the beginning -- a missing father (presumed dead) and a very sick mother because of that. Artemis' bodyguard, Butler, doesn't have too much of a personality in this book, but he's quite impressive. The fairies we meet in the first book are rather hilarious. I love Captain Holly Short for her spunk and willingness to disobey orders when they are dumb. Which, let's face it, many of the orders coming from Commander Julius Root are dumb. Root is absolutely hilarious, and I'm sure Colfer meant him to be. Always about to blow his top, it's a wonder that he's in charge at LEP at all! And there's Foaly, the paranoid centaur who controls all the techie stuff. Oh, and we can't forget Mulch Diggums, kleptomaniac extraordinaire. I'm not kidding. He's quite the convict.

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As far as the story goes, it's a decent one. Fairies have hidden underground from humans, which they call Mud Men, for many centuries now. They go aboveground for few things, one being to renew their magic. This is how Holly gets captured by Artemis, who has an uncanny knowledge of the fairies. Commander Root stages an attack on Fowl Manor, they discover that Artemis has a copy of the Book, the fairies' holy writ, as it were, and things don't go so hot after that.

That's a simple summary.

The problem I had with this book is that Eoin Colfer is good with weaving a plot but he's kind of a terrible writer. So much of his grammar was bad. Plus, he doesn't use POV and omniscient narrator very well. There were more than a few pages where I couldn't figure out who was saying and/or thinking what.

I gave the book 3 stars because though it's badly written, it's amusing and a clever story.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I like books.
I like food.
So it stands to reason that I would like a book about food.
Right?

The thing is, I don't read much nonfiction.
I just have a hard time with it.
At least I used to.
But The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, was one of the most fascinating nonfiction books I have ever read.
Not even kidding.

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Journalist Michael Pollan sets out to capture the essence of the food industry in modern America. The book is divided into three sections, Industrial: Corn, Pastoral: Grass, and Personal: The Forest. In these three sections, Pollan travels the United States, examining how food comes to the table. It is an incredible journey, and one I admire greatly.

The first section documents the food industry, mainly corn. It amazes me how much corn is in the processed foods we consume. And not even just the processed, boxed foods on the supermarket shelves; even most of the meat we consume has been eating corn (among other disgusting things...) for most of its short and horrible feedlot life. Pollan concludes this section with a McDonald's meal that he discovers is almost 100% genetically modified processed corn. GROSS.

The second section documents the organic food industry, which basically comes down to food that is mass-produced, but without pesticides and antibiotics, etc. The question that he asks himself is this: Is this really what the organic movement was all about? The answer isn't exactly clear-cut, but I agree with him when he says that it shouldn't really be this way, but that it's better than the food in the first section of the book. But in this same section, Pollan visits Polyface Farm, run by Joel Salatin who is a champion of the "beyond organic" movement. His farm was incredible. I can't even begin to do it justice, so you'll just have to read the book. At any rate, I now wish to only consume grass-fed meats and eggs from pastured hens.

The third section, and probably the most fascinating, documents the food foraging that still goes on today. Pollan learns how to shoot a gun, gets himself a license, and goes with a friend to hunt wild pig in Northern California. He talks about the ethics and how he felt about the whole process. He also goes mushroom hunting, which sounds like a huge lesson in patience. And he explores the whole idea of gathering the food you eat, which culminates in a mouthwatering meal.

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This is a book that I couldn't really review in detail without giving away some of the surprises within Pollan's story. But his journey and experiences are inspiring in more ways than one. If you read this book (and I encourage you to do so), I guarantee you'll change your mind about the way you eat. At the very least, you might think a little bit more before stopping at McDonald's or buying that prepackaged TV dinner. And please, for the love of everything truly delicious, stop drinking so much soda!!

My 2013 Reading List

It's nearly a new year and you know what that means: My 2013 Reading List!
To be perfectly honest, I love making lists, but have a hard time sticking to them.
This is especially the case with books because I so easily get distracted by another book.
And another book.
And another book.
And so on.
But.
I'm hoping that this year I will be a little better about it.
For my Summer of the Classics, I did actually read a few of the ones on my list!
I was VERY happy with myself.
So now, I am keeping the books on my summer list that I didn't read, and adding to it for this year.
Since this is a year long list rather than just for summer, maybe I'll actually read most of these!
The first book I really should finish is The Casual Vancancy.

My 2013 Reading List

• Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray (I am going to start this one over....)
• House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
• Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
• Anthony Adverse, by Hervey Allen
• From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne
• Now or Never or, The Adventures of Bobby Bright, by Oliver Optic
• Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
• The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
• Quo Vadis: a narrative of the time of Nero, by Henryk Sienkiewicz
• Ulysses, by James Joyce (Okay, this is more wishful thinking, because I have tried reading this before and just couldn't get into it....but I am so willing to try again!)
• Utopia, by Thomas More
• History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding
• Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte
• Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
• The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe
• The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux
• Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

• A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin
• A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin
• A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin
• A Song of Ice and Fire: A Dance with Dragons, by George R.R. Martin
• Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer
• The Arctic Incident, by Eoin Colfer
• The Eternity Code, by Eoin Colfer
• The Opal Deception, by Eoin Colfer
• The Lost Colony, by Eoin Colfer
• The Time Paradox, by Eoin Colfer
• The Atlantis Complex, by Eoin Colfer
• The Last Guardian, by Eoin Colfer
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
• Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
• The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
• The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey
• The Time-Traveling Fashionista, by Bianca Turetsky
• The Time-Traveling Fashionista at the Palace of Marie Antoinette, by Bianca Turetsky
• Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami
• Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming (James Bond)

• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester
• The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
• The Science of Star Wars, by Jeanne Cavelos
• Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky
• Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis, by Michael Ward
• The Fire and the Staff: Lutheran Theology in Practice, by Klemet Preus
• Jane Austen: A Life, by Claire Tomalin
• Wanderlust: A History of Walking, by Rebecca Solnit
• Tea: The Drink that Changed the World, by Laura C. Martin
• The German Genius, by Peter Watson (A continuation of reading...)

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Note that I have separated the books out into sections. The top section is classics and old books. The middle is newer fiction, and the bottom is non-fiction. I have challenged myself to read ten non-fiction books in 2013. This will be difficult, because I have a really hard time reading non-fiction. But my list is all things that should really, really interest me.

The Legend of Holly Claus

When Christmastime rolls around, I break out what have become my favorite books and movies. I don't know about you, but those old movies get me every time. So good. And then there are those books that I adore reading at this time of year, as well. For obvious reasons, I read the Holy Bible; can't forget the Reason for the season, Jesus Christ.

But beyond that, my two favorites are A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittany Ryan. The first one is for obvious reasons, the second is a book that I discovered while working at the library and I fell in love with it.

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In the land of Forever, Santa and Mrs. Claus have no children. After all, this is the land of the Immortals. No children have ever been born there. But then, in Victorian New York, a young boy writes a letter to Santa that changes everything. Soon, Holly is born. A huge celebration ensues. But, alas, not all is joyful. An evil magician/warlock puts a curse on Holly. She, of course, once she learns of this curse, is determined to break it, and to do a good deed that will once and for all earn her her place in the land of Forever.
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Okay, so that last bit smacks of works-righteousness. But it's a story. And the land of Forever isn't heaven, no matter what anyone might try to say. The point is that this is a gorgeous book that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside and really want to do good. And that's certainly a good thing. Helping others is a wonderful thing to do.

I re-read this book every single December. Not only do I love the story, but it's set in the Victorian Era, and what with that, Christmas, and magic...well, the only thing that would make this book more perfect would be if part of it took place in London instead of New York City. :)

December Classics Club Meme

The Classics Club monthly meme is another way to bring members of The Classics Club together. The post for the month will go up on the main page of this blog on the 2nd of the month, and you’ll have all month to respond over at your blog.

Q: What is your favorite memory of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Have you ever read it? If not, will you? Why should others read it rather than relying on the film adaptions?


A: I suppose I ought to say that my favorite memory of A Christmas Carol is actually from many years ago when my aunt and uncle took my sister and me to see the play adaptation in downtown Milwaukee. That is the first big memory I have of the story, at any rate. Since then, I have watched multiple film adaptations and read the book at least once every Christmas. I have also listened to the audiobook. 
Everyone should read the book rather than relying on the film adaptations because the essence of what Charles Dickens is saying tends to be lost on film, especially in the more recent adaptations. Christmas is more than consumerism and stress; it is a time to celebrate family and friends. And of course, the real Reason for the season should never be forgotten.

So this my first time linking up to The Classics Club. I hope it won't be my last and that this helps get more traffic on this blog! :)