The W's of Reading: Reading Anxiety

I hate to admit it, but books have been causing me anxiety lately!  Tell me if any of these sound familiar to you:

• There are so many good books coming out, that I feel like I can never die because of all the stories or sequels I'd miss.
• My TBR (too be read) pile and "wishlists" on different sites have grown to the point where I feel stymied by all I NEED to read.
• When I'm reading a book, I can stress myself out by anxiously looking at what page I'm on, over and over again.  A friend of mine in graduate school used sticky notes once to cover the page numbers in a book we were reading.  I've since thought that might be a good idea in some cases!
• Work doesn't leave me enough time to read for several hours, only snippets here or there.
• I see new books coming out, so I jump to reserve them at the library, only to get them and have to return them because I can't read them before they need to be returned!  Then, I'm back at the end of that monstrous wait list again. *sigh*
• Sometimes I feel like there are books I "should" read, but I keep breaking off to read things I want to read, only because I deep down resent the "should" reads?  Yea, this one makes me feel really nuts.
• If someone gifts me a book, it can take me up to a year to read it, only leaving me feeling guilty and needing to explain the whole TBR pile to them so they aren't hurt!
• Since I read more than one book at once, sometimes I feel like it takes me forever to get through the books I'm reading (which is true).  My chunksters make me feel like the slowest reader on earth!
• I carry a book around so that I can read at any given moment that might relinquish a few minutes to read, which never happens.  Then, when I DO need one, I don't have it with me!  Thank goodness for my Kindle application on my iPhone there, or this one would really drive me crazy.
• I plan out books I'll read over vacations and holidays, knowing that there are certain books that just have to be read in one sitting and not over a number of days.

I'm sure I could go on.  You get the picture.  Maybe I need a bit of book therapy?  Actually, all I need is a couple of good hours a day of reading to help me feel less book/reading anxiety.  Is that too much to ask?  Am I alone in having a case of Reading Anxiety? Is there anything about reading that can cause you anxiety?

Review: Emma volumes 6 & 7

For the manga faint of heart, these might just be the ticket.  Told in Victorian England, with a very upstairs--downstairs tale, the story of Emma is interesting and engaging.  I'm new to reading manga, but have really enjoyed this series!  Just a warning, there are *SPOILERS* ahead!

Synopsis #6:  Emma and William are now writing one another, since they are separated not only by class, but also by distance.  Although William loves Emma, conflict arises as his family and the people around him get wind of his attachment to a servant.  In the end, are his family and friends conniving enough to keep the two apart?

Review:  This is a gap piece in the series, but still very entertaining.  The tension has shifted to the distance separating William and Emma, and not whether they actually like one another (although that is still pretty understated).  You can't help but feel for Emma as she toils away at her job.  She just seems to be so good!  Maybe she's a bit too good to be true?  I also have to admit that with her big eyes and glasses, I keep thinking they will reveal she has magic in those glasses somehow.  Strange, I know, but I can't help but think the author will spring that on me!

Synopsis #7:  In this installment, Emma has been swept away to America as a drastic measure to separate her from William.  This doesn't dissuade William, who follows her there to save her.  Facing the disapproval of his upper class neighbors and friends, William brings Emma back to England with him, despite what they all think or say.

Review:  I have to say that this installment was a bit of a head scratcher for me.  I would think that taking a jaunt over to America in that time period would not be some casual endeavor, and yet that is how it is approached.  My assumption is that Emma would be in America for months before William could find her, but the story makes it seem as if everything happened in a matter of days.  Yes, it's all very hero-saves-the-day sorts of romantic, but seemed a bit implausible to me.  It's still a good story, but this installment was a bit odd.  I guess I got too caught up in the logistics and specific details of things to enjoy how the story unfurled.  I'm still off to read the next installment though!

*FTC Disclosure:  This review was based off of library copies of the stories.

Review: From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

I'm pretty hard pressed to remember where I'm at in this series half the time.  If I didn't keep a book log as well as this blog, I'd be lost!  Since I'm up to my eyebrows in grading right now, and just have a lot on my mind, the Sookie Stackhouse series has been a strange little escape from it all.  I recently finished reading From Dead to Worse and am still struggling to figure out what Harris was doing with this book.  This was a good book, but maybe a bit more of a transitional book than forwarding the story much?  I'm still not sure.

Synopsis:  Since I struggle a bit to identify this book, forgive me as I rely on Goodreads for a tidy summary:

"The supernatural community in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is reeling from two hard blows - the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the man-made horror of the explosion at the vampire summit the month before in the up-north city of Rhodes. Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, yearning for things to get back to normal. But that's just not happening. Too many vampires - some friends, some not - were killed or injured, and her weretiger boyfriend, Quinn, is among the missing.
 
It's clear that things are changing, whether the Weres and vamps of her corner of Louisiana like it or not. And Sookie - friend of the pack and blood-bonded to Eric Northman, the leader of the local vampire community - is caught up in the changes.

In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, death... and, once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood flowing, her world will be forever altered."

Review:  I really liked this eighth installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series, as it seemed to get back to Sookie living her life in Bon Temps.  I sometimes find myself frustrated when Sookie becomes the target of a bunch of bad guys that she then needs protecting from.  That's not to say there wasn't some of that in this book, and maybe I'm just growing immune to the lighter variety threats, but these felt less dangerous than some of the previous snares Sookie has been involved in.  Thankfully, Quinn is out of the picture.  Yes, I think he was a nice, protective diversion for Sookie, but I wasn't a huge fan and felt that he might be pretty short-lived as a romantic interest.  Obviously, with a stronger connection to Eric that has been established over the course of the previous seven books, we know that he will probably be popping up a bit more.  I can't say that will be a disappointment!

Although there is a shifting of power going on in book eight, and there is a new king that Eric has to pander to, this book felt more about regrouping.  With the big catastrophe in Rhodes, from the previous book, that left the paranormal community rocking (and many dead), and also the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, this book seemed more about seeing where all our characters were at and how they were doing.  To me, this seemed like a slower-paced storyline that helped the reader retrace everything.  I enjoyed this regrouping and appreciate the continued strength that Sookie goes on to show.  Also, Sookie draws closer to family in this book, which adds an interesting twist to the story that had me reaching for book nine pretty quickly!  

If you haven't read this series, or started it and felt frustrated, I say continue on.  Looking back, I struggled through books two through four.  Once I got past that initial slump, I've been eager to find out what would happen in each book since!

As I mentioned in my review, I felt this book was a bit of a bridge.  Do you ever feel that there are books in a series that are there to bridge to a new twist in the story rather than to really add or continue what was started?  Are these books necessary, or at least necessary to that degree?

Library Loot: Sunday Blatherings

What a nice week.  Working three days out of seven seems the perfect answer to a full-time job, right? Actually, we've been off from school for "Fall Break," which is actually UEA weekend.  Technically, they run a state conference on Thursday and Friday, but the district didn't really even advertise it, nor call our break UEA weekend.  Considering that our district purchased a new grading system and we're being asked to turn in all of our grades, finished, by the day before the term ends (in two short weeks), I've been using this break to grade, grade, grade.  I'm almost half way through a stack of 115 essays and see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Next week I go in for surgery.  I can't say it's not serious, but I do feel confident that it should be all right.  In preparation to be gone for a few days, I've had to move my "serious" units and teaching until after I get back.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'll have a voice and the energy to really hit them  hard when I do return!  I'm kind of excited though, since I'll be starting Oedipus with my juniors and studying language structures and foreshadowing.  With my AP students, we'll be starting Beowulf before I leave.  I have this great couple of lessons on linguistics and the history of the English language that the students get pretty sucked into.  It's fun times!  As for my Popular Fiction class, we're fully into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.  Helping students who haven't read the first six get up to speed has been a lot trickier than I originally thought!  We've had to spend about a week talking about different elements of the story so they can read book seven.  Honestly though, most of them have seen the films, so they should get the gist of the story.  Now it's time for them to just start reading!

As for my own reading, I can say that I've been doing a lot.  Most of it has been centered around still trying to finish up the Harry Potter series.  I still have about 1/3 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to read, so I'll need to really keep reading as much as I can.  My biggest issue is that I have to bounce around a bit.  I have been reading other things as well, so I haven't solely been reading just Harry Potter. 

Many of the books I currently have on hold at the library are books that they are ordering or processing, so I didn't have many to pick up this week.  In fact, I only had the two:  The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig and Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.  Both should be great reads though!  (FYI, Library Loot is a meme hosted by Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader.)

Well, I have nothing else great nor exciting to report.  I'm happily rested, my house is clean, and I know what I'll be doing at school for my lessons (that's over half the battle).  In short, I'm doing well right now.  How about you?

Review: Tumbling Through Time by Gwyn Cready

It's pretty ironic that on this Fall Break 2010 that I would be reviewing a book by the same author that I read two years ago at this time.  Being the big Jane Austen fanatic that I've finally acknowledged that I am, based mainly off the number of reviews I've posted on Austen-related material, I picked up Seducing Mr. Darcy.  Yes, for purists this could seem the grandest of sacrilege to place Darcy in a romance novel.  I couldn't help myself though, and had to see how in the world someone could take this on.  Honestly, I thought Cready's style was snarky and flat out hilarious.  My original thoughts on Mr. Darcy were not abolished, nor affected at all. 

This past summer I was asked to read Cready's newest novel that came out in March, Flirting With Forever, and which I still have to review.  However, I had already picked up a copy of her first novel, Tumbling Through Time and wanted to read that before I tackled her newest installment.  Interestingly enough, Cready just put out a fourth novel in September, Aching For Always.  I don't know if I'll be reading her newest as well, but we'll see.  I'm hoping that her characteristic "snarky" style carries out, which I'll see when I read that third novel.

Synopsis:  From Goodreads, "Wandering the Pittsburgh airport before a business trip, Seph decides to kill time with some preflight shopping -- anything to get her mind off Tom Fraser, her irresistible, dimple-chinned coworker turned travel buddy. So when a pair of to-die-for pink stilettos calls her name from a store window, she tries them on -- only to be swiftly transported back to the eighteenth century and flung aboard a turbulent ship sailing the Mediterranean!
There, Seph is stunned to meet Phillip Drummond, an arrogant British pirate and the spitting image of Tom. Phillip has summoned her back in time to straighten out his complete mess of a life -- for he is the burly hero in the romance novel she someday hopes to write, and she is responsible for his destiny. But in the midst of turning things right so she can get back to reality, Seph starts to fall for the smoulderingly sexy Phillip. And when Tom is thrown into the mix, she doesn't know what -- or who -- she wants. Seph soon realizes that spotting the perfect pair of shoes may be easy, but finding the perfect man can be a real trip."

Review:  Having read Cready's Seducing Mr. Darcy, and genuinely getting a good laugh out of the premise, I was eager to go back and pick up her first published novel.  Cready's tongue-in-cheek style and sarcastic come backs are still, delightfully present in this story of Seph, Tom, and Phillip.  I still laughed, smiled, and even rolled my eyes a bit at the main character's antics.  The idea of going back in time and creating out of the main hero the love interest in your present day is pretty cute.  Outside of the personal voice that I enjoy (could that be because I've developed a good deal of snarkiness in teaching teens?), I have to say that I actually got mixed up a good deal in the plot.  It wasn't an easy story to follow for me, as it went from present day to the past, with two different male leads.  I mainly got mixed up in the past when it delved into the history that Phillip was caught up in.  Seph had the stress of trying to save her male lead's life, literally, through the way they shaped time (you know, like in Back to the Future).  This made for a somewhat confusing storyline for me, and one that I didn't connect to very quickly. 

While I can't say that I particularly loved Tumbling Through Time, I do like Cready's personal voice, which comes through her main female lead characters in this novel and Seducing Mr. Darcy.  If you're interested in a funny time travel sort of romance, I'd try her Darcy story first.

*FTC Disclosure:  This review based off of a personal ebook copy of the novel.

Film Review: Doctor Zhivago (2002)

Growing up, I somehow decided that "real love" had some sort of tragedy involved.  In fact, I didn't think it was romantic or a deep love if tragedy didn't separate the couple in some way.  I know.  As an adult I now realize how sick I was (and am), and that I've set myself up for a repetition of my own sick ways.  I won't go into my own love life, but I will say that tragedy was involved.  Do I think that was real love?  Yes, but I can't say that it is "romantic," nor a way to spend one's life.  Thankfully I have realized that's not the best form of love, but I do still, strangely, like tragedy!

Having backed up my view on tragedy, I have to precede my review of Doctor Zhivago with a quick explanation.  I grew up on musicals and old movies.  An 8-Track of Camelot piped through our house on Saturday mornings while we cleaned--in fact, I can't hear the song "Camelot" without feeling like I need to pick up a dust rag!  Although Doctor Zhivago isn't a musical, "Lara's Theme" is haunting and fits the film.  Yes, the film is sad and tragic, but I have loved it for a very long time.  This is why I had to watch the new, updated version with Keira Knightley that came out in 2002.

Synopsis:  From Amazon.com, "A man torn between two women amid the chaos and brutality of the Russian Revolution.  One of the world’s most famous love stories and half a century of Russian history come to life in this adaptation of Pasternak’s masterpiece by celebrated screenwriter Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Pride and Prejudice). War and revolution bring poet and physician Yury Zhivago (Hans Matheson) together with the beautiful Lara (Keira Knightley), his muse and all-consuming passion. But both are haunted--Yury by guilt over his betrayal of Tonya, his beloved wife, and Lara by fear of Komarovsky (Sam Neill), the powerful man who means to have her any way he can."
  
Review:  This mini-series was good, but just didn't reach the epic scale of the 1965 film version of the story.  The acting in the series was surprisingly good, as well as the sets, and I thought that their demonstration of the conflict in Russia to be necessary.  Having said that, I somehow couldn't get past Keira Knightley as Lara.  I think that Knightley is beautiful and an amazing actress, but have to admit that I missed our more vulnerable Lara in Julie Christie.  Zhivago was also hard for me to take in Hans Matheson, mainly because his roles in other films have been so diverse as to distract me and remind me of his other characters.  For instance, he has played Marius in the film version of  Les Miserables, but also the dastardly scoundrel Alec D'Urberville in the amazing new adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  Honestly, I saw him more as Alec, so couldn't sympathize as much with him.  Yes, he is a great actor, and one that I think has amazing talent to have me so riled up at his individual performances, but will admit that I'm overly influenced by these other parts he has played.

If you are a fan of the original Doctor Zhivago, I say you really must watch this version.  If you are not familiar with it, have a culturally iconic flashback moment and watch the older version of the film.  Actually, they are both are worth your time.  Let me be honest in saying that the story is sad and tragic, but is interesting in its treatment of love and marriage.  This movie haunts me, and to this day has me wondering if the loss in the film is worth it for that chance to have loved at all?  As the adage goes, "It's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."  In the case of this film, we encounter that adage up close, and I'm still not sure if that's true.  All I know is that I hope that's not my own destiny!

By the way, although the novel is dense with Russian politics that can be confusing, this is also a great novel.

What do you think?  Do you think it's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all? 

Book Give Away Winners: In the Arms of Mr. Darcy

Congratulations to:

Christy F.

and 

Cynthia W.

Both of the winner's numbers were drawn and will be receiving a copy of Sharon Lathan's newest novel, In the Arms of Mr. Darcy.  I have forwarded your address to Sourcebooks.

Thanks again for stopping by to join in on this giveaway!