A Walk in the Woods: Who knew a hiking memoir could be so awesome?

Oh, Bill Bryson. You intrigued me with your A Short History of Nearly Everything. It took me a couple of months to get through it, but I felt like a better, more enlightened, and more amused person after having read it. So I decided to try another book you wrote on the recommendations of my book club friends. I chose A Walk in the Woods because it featured Virginia in some parts of it, and I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, spitting distance from your subject matter of the Appalachain Trail. My friends, they did not do justice to how awesome this book is.

Imagine, if you will, a middle-aged, slightly overweight guy living in New England. He's pretty happy with his life, but some part of him wants a new challenge. Don't we all go through that with some regularity? Don't we all want to do something different from time to time so we don't stagnate? Well, Bill Bryson is perhaps more ambitious than most. He decides he's going to hike the Appalachain Trail (or as you'll come to know it in the book, the AT). All 2,000-some miles of it, from Georgia to Maine. He's an amateur hiker at best; a Sunday walker at worst. He has no training and no real idea of what the AT is like when he decides it. After he starts his research, he begins to get very nervous - but he's now told everyone he knows that he's going to do it, so he feels bound to complete the mission. At the last minute, an old buddy asks if he can come along. An old buddy who has driven him insane on previous trips, who is incredibly overweight and out of shape, who is prone to complaining about less-than-ideal conditions. Bryson is so thankful not to have to do it alone that he gleefully welcomes this companion. And the adventures begin.

I loved this book. Every blessed minute of it. It could have me in stitches one second and contemplating earth conservation the next. Bryson is an absolute genius at weaving together hysterical personal anecdotes with meticulous research and poignant observations. My absolute favorite moment of the book comes early - when he is in a camping store purchasing all of his equipment to make the trip. His description of meeting with the store owner, an experienced AT hiker, going through the list of supplies the owner tells him he'll need, complete with items that sound to him like he's going on a moon excursion instead of hiking in the woods. I also learned a great deal, about the history of the AT and how it's currently maintained, about the history of native flora and fauna all along the Appalachains and how they have fared, and how our dear National Parks Service has been responsible for completely eradicating several species of both plants and animals from the area.

The book is both educational and a complete riot. It's like Thoreau and Dave Barry rolled together with a famous biologist (sorry, I was never good at biology, and Darwin seems too cliche!). It works brilliantly. Five stars.

The Magicians: Not So Magical as I'd Hoped

I am so, so far behind. I know this. It's just that the blog, which I do for fun and not profit, is the first thing to drop from my schedule when life gets hectic. You know, as it tends to do this time of year. In good news, all my gifts are bought and wrapped and all cards are mailed, and I have been going to the gym regularly and doing everything I am supposed to do except write on this blog and clean my house. This comes before cleaning the house :)

The Magicians was my book club's pick for our October discussion. I admit, I was not particularly excited about it from the description, so I did not want to buy it. Unfortunately, BookMooch has a waiting list 300 miles long for this book. I did, however, find a recent review on Goodreads that indicated the reviewer had a copy to sell or swap. I contacted the guy and he was happy to mail me his copy, an ARC he'd received as a librarian, if I'd just pay the postage. He was kind enough to trust me and sent me the book first, and I sent him the postage by PayPal when I received the book.

The book is described as a coming-of-age story about a guy, Quentin, who is invited to attend a magical college when he is a senior in high school because he has some inherent ability to do magic - which of course he never believed in or knew existed until his entry exam when he somehow managed to do a little magic with no instruction. It's normal college - alcohol, sex, etc. - just the students are studying magic. He and his friends graduate with little to no direction in life until they find out the magical land of Fillory from their favorite childhood books is real, and is in trouble, and they decide to go save it.

If the description sounds a little familiar, that's because Lev Grossman borrowed from Harry Potter and from the Chronicles of Narnia, the latter heavily and intentionally, and added an emo, postmodern tone. The Fillory books mirror the Chronicles of Narnia pretty much identically, changing just enough to not incur any legal issues. And the heart of the story is really about Quentin learning that his beloved Fillory is no more clear-cut than anything in the "real" world - there's corruption, power-grubbing, mixed motives, good intentions accomplished through wicked methods, etc. And it deflates him. While I found it easy to read the book and went through it very quickly without ever feeling it was a labor, I ultimately found it depressing. The moral of the story essentially seemed to be that when you grow up, you realize life sucks and people are hateful and corrupt, and you would be better off to just accept it and settle down to the rest of your dull, miserable, disappointing life. I suppose the last scene of the book could be interpreted as hope of some kind, but it felt more like Quentin leaves his job to go off with some of his friends to Fillory again - to claim the four crowns of the land that can only be held by humans - because he has nothing better to do and being a king might at least be better than what he's doing now.

A Bibliophile's Holiday Gift Guide

Man! I lose at being a diligent blogger. I totally blew you guys off over the long holiday weekend after I said I wanted to catch up on my posts! I really do have about eight book reviews I need to write in order to get caught up - yikes! I'll get to them. I really will. There are a few fantastic books among those reviews, so stay tuned. My online class has now ended and the next one in the series doesn't start until January, so I'm not bogged down trying to keep up with homework. Hopefully this means I will be a better blogger in December, but we all know how those kinds of promises go...

Today, instead of catching up on my book reviews, I have a treat for you! I am offering my first ever holiday gift guide - book-centered, of course! Since it's my first one, I've had the luxury of selected some of my favorites of all time. Next year I'm going to have to work harder and pay attention to some of the better new books for kids and teens that I don't necessarily pay strict attention to normally because I don't have kids and I don't teach any more. I've broken the guide into four sections, with four selections in each (very symmetrical, which appeals to my OCD). The sections are guided by age groups, so there are gift ideas for babies, kids, teens, and adults. SO! Without further ado...

Babies
As I mentioned, I do not have children. I do, however, have a niece and many friends with children. I have a lot of experience picking out books for babies and kids, and I think I've given every single book in the Babies and Kids sections of this guide as a gift to a child in my life at some point.

The Monster at the End of This Book: An absolute classic. Who can resist Grover?

Boynton's Greatest Hits: Vol. 1 (Moo, Baa, La La La!; A to Z; Doggies; Blue Hat, Green Hat): A HUUUUUUGE hit with babies and their parents. Sandra Boynton is a modern-day classic in board books, and they teach the kind of things babies love to learn, like animal sounds and letters and colors, with great illustrations. And they're board books, so they're hard to destroy.

Richard Scarry's Biggest Word Book Ever: Right when babies start talking, they're fascinated with words and language, making this book fantastic. Plus it's Richard Scarry, who was a childhood favorite of almost everyone I know. Be warned, though, they're not kidding that it's the biggest book - it's HUGE. It's an open-it-on-the-dining-room-table kind of book. Don't ship it unless you can get free shipping!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?: This book explores colors and animals with rhyming words and gorgeous artwork. This is a guaranteed winner with both babies and parents.

Kids
As I said, I don't have kids, but I still read (and buy) kids books! Again, I've given all of these as gifts, and I think I might even own them all myself!

20th Century Children's Book Treasury: This book is incredible. It has a BUNCH of classic children's picture books all bound together. There's Goodnight, Moon, Stellaluna, Amelia Bedelia, Guess How Much I Love You...and a ton of others. You cannot beat this book for the price - it's like giving a child 40 pictures books for the price of 2 or 3.

Piggie Pie: A fantastic read-aloud story about a witch who needs a piggie to make piggie pie and is frustrated at every turn when she can't manage to get one. This one will keep adults and kids alike giggling.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales: Fairy tales turned on their heads. The feature story about the Stinky Cheese Man is a parody of the classic story about the Gingerbread Man - only nobody wants to catch the Stinky Cheese Man. This book is hysterical, even as a grown-up, and kids familiar with the usual fairy tales will love hearing them given the funny treatment.

Where the Sidewalk Ends: Who did not adore this book as a child (or as an adult if you were grown when it was first published)? I wore out the library copy of both the book and the cassette tape of Shel Silverstein reading selections from the book until my mom finally gave in and bought me my own copy. I still have it. I still get the poems stuck in my head sometimes. The man was a genius. Added bonus: it teaches lessons, too, about not watching too much TV (or you'll turn out like Jimmy Jet!) and other things kids need a little prodding about.

Teens
I was, once upon a time, a middle school teacher. I also just kind of like reading young adult (YA) literature from time to time because it can be just as good as adult literature. So these were pretty easy for me to come up with, but this is the age when boys and girls tend to be attracted to different types of books, so I've tried to include books that will appeal to both genders, and I'll discuss gender preferences in my description of each.

Ender's Game: I just re-read this for my book club, so a review is forthcoming, but generally - wow. This is a definite sci-fi story, but there's a heavy focus on the pressure that bright kids are under from adults to perform as expected. Smart kids REALLY identify with this - both genders - and any kid into science fiction will probably love it. More likely to appeal to boys than girls, but a large number of girls I taught also loved this book.

Uglies: Another sci-fi story, and again for either gender, but I'd say that this probably appeals to girls more than boys. In the future, people undergo surgery around age 16 to make them beautiful, no matter what their original features are - they become Pretties. All of the Uglies (children who haven't yet had the surgery) live together and dream of the day they become Pretties. Until some of the kids start to question the practice, and learn about a community far away where people have shunned this practice, believing that more than appearance is changed in the surgery and that people are fine just the way they are born. I've read the two books in the series following this, and they're all good, but Uglies is definitely the best one.

Looking for Alaska: A boy goes to boarding school and becomes fascinated by his weird, wild classmate, Alaska. She clearly has some issues, but he has the instinct to both have fun with and to protect her. An interesting twist on the familiar old boarding school books, and highly recommended for both boys and girls.

Dangerous Angels: This is almost exclusively for the girls, I must admit, and be fore-warned that there is sex and foul language throughout. That said, this book (or rather this collection of the Weetzie Bat books) is both a coming-of-age and a somewhat supernatural story without dumbing anything down just because it was written for teens. I would have worshipped this book had I found it as a teenager; instead, I had my gifted middle school students introduce me to it and I strongly liked it as an adult. But I can absolutely see how a teenager would identify enormously with the story and bond with the characters.

Adults
Obviously, I have some knowledge of adult books. I've again tried to consider what might appeal to the different genders, but honestly, by the time most people grow up I find that a good book is just a good book, regardless of whether a man or a woman is reading it. So here are four of my all-time, five-star favorites.

The Thirteenth Tale: A spooky, gothic tale just custom-made for book-lovers. Everyone in my book club - all ages, all genders - adored this book and gave it top marks. I have personally read it twice in the last 12 months.

Water for Elephants: I gave this to my mother for her birthday this year, and she says it's the best book she's ever read. It's story about a guy in a circus, and his life from joining the circus to being an elderly man. It's dripping with plot and character and language.

Between, Georgia: This is probably my personal favorite book of all time. It's the story of a war between families, and of enduring love between families, and of how crazy and wonderful Southern people in a small town can be. It's definitely set firmly in the South, and it's hilarious and heart-breaking at the same time. I think of Joshilyn Jackson as a modern-day Carson McCullers.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: Well, this book won the Pulitzer a few years ago, and deservedly so, in my opinion. It's a long one - almost 700 pages, I think - but the story sweeps you up. It's about two Jewish cousins in New York - one of whom is a refugee from the Europe, fleeing the Nazis - who team up to create comic books in a time when they were first coming to popularity. Chabon is an incredible storyteller.

And that's it! Holiday Gift Guide done! What are some of your favorite books to give as gifts? No really, I'm always looking for ideas, especially for the kids!

Awesome Giveaway over at the Bibliophilic Book Blog!

Hey, guys - the Bibliophilic Book Blog is giving away a Sony Pocket eReader! Plus two runner-up prizes! WOO-HOO! Here's the direct link to the giveaway post. Now get on over there and see if you can snag yourself some delightfully bookish loot!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I have so many posts that I need to write and get out into the world, but today I just wanted to list some things for which I'm thankful on this day our country chooses to devote to appreciating the good things we have in life. I'm just going to list the most important things; otherwise, I could be here all night!

• My husband, who not only puts up with my little habits and hobbies and idiosyncracies but even loves me for them
• My family, who has always shown me love and support and spoiled me rotten and called me on my bullshit and generally just made my life good and me a better person
• My husband's family, who acted from the start as though I were their own, with whom I can laugh and play games and joke around and have fun and just be myself
• My dog, who is the most adorable dog ever and makes me feel better whenever I'm sad or angry
• Our friends, who are awesome and funny and good people (and most of whom seem to be making cute babies lately)
• All the good food in the world: sweet potatoes, pizza, peanut butter, bananas, chocolate, wine, rosemary pork chops, pastry, pies, french fries, pancakes......
• Books, the world's best form of entertainment
• The internet, the world's second best form of entertainment
• My own little editing business, which keeps me entertained and brings in a little extra money
• Trips to all of my favorite vacation spots: London, Chicago, Phoenix, Austin, New Orleans, and more coming as I visit more places :)
• Firepits
• Kashi Vive
• The best purse I've ever owned (a Maruca Worker Bee)
• Danskos
• Curel Itch Relief Lotion
• Amazon.com
• My education, both at William & Mary and in life afterward
• Excedrin Migraine
• Hulu and Netflix
• Two good jobs, two driveable and paid for cars, a house with central heat and air, plenty of food to eat, good doctors and easy-to-obtain medicine

We are truly blessed. I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving and find you have lots to be thankful for.

I Got an Award!

My friend Carrie over at Dog-Eared and Well-Read passed on a Kreativ Blogger award to me! I don't know what on earth I did to deserve it, but apparently she likes reading my book reviews or something :) She's a much better blogger than I am, but thanks for thinking of me, Carrie! There are rules to go with the Kreativ Blogger award:

1. Copy the picture and post it on your blog.
2. Thank the person that gave it to you and link to their blog.
3. Write 7 things about yourself we don’t know.
4. Choose 7 other bloggers to pass the award to.
5. Link to those 7 other bloggers.
6. Notify your 7 bloggers.

Well, numbers 1 and 2 are accomplished, and I'm about to give you number 3. Numbers 4, 5 and 6 are coming in a future post. I'm way backed up on book reviews, too, AND I have a book-based holiday gift guide to share with you! Because of all of that, I am hoping to make a post every day I'm on Thanksgiving holiday. No promises, but I'm going to try to get caught up :)

Okay, now I'll move on to telling you 7 things about myself that you (probably) don't know:

1. I am a giant, enoromous sap. My husband calls me a Weeple. I have a few tears on my face right now because I'm watching an episode of Designing Women. I have cried at commercials, at blog posts, at What Not to Wear, at bad movies and good movies, at bad books and good books... I can't help it. I think my interpersonal intelligence is overdeveloped :)
2. During one summer in college, I had a job delivering drugs. I love saying that; it totally cracks me up. I really did, but it was nothing illegal - I delivered regular Rx orders (and special one-time orders) to nursing homes and other health care facilities. It was actually one of the best summer jobs I ever had - I spent most of the time driving around listening to the radio in between stops.
3. I hate seafood/fish. Except tuna - I do like canned tuna, tuna steaks, raw tuna... Otherwise, though, no thanks. I try it every now and again to make sure my tastes haven't changed, but so far, it just tastes gross to me.
4. I dated the same guy from the time I was 16 until I was 21. I was crazy about him and ignored our obvious incompatibilities. I was young, and stupid, and I got my heart broken. And it made me a better person and a better partner, despite the missed years of prime dating opportunities.
5. I eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich at least once a week (and three times so far this week). It's been my favorite sandwich for as long as I can remember and at least since I was 5. I prefer Jif Extra-Chunky and a perfectly ripe banana, just before it starts to go brown. The addition of honey to the concoction is also acceptable.
6. I have a not-so-secret but guilty love of La Femme Nikita. The TV show, not the movie. I mean, the movie is actually quite good, and I do like it, but that's not what I'm talking about - there's no embarrassment in that. The TV show is terrible, and I love it anyway.
7. I love kitsch and cult. Those awful, awful horror B-movies from the '50s and '60s? Love 'em. I got to see John Waters give a talk a few weeks ago - was enthralled. I once owned a pair of red velvet-covered cat-eye sunglasses with rhinestones on them. I seek out the weirdest Christmas music I can find and just revel in it (I get the song "Santa Claus Is a Black Man" stuck in my head all the time, all year round). I have been to Graceland and thought it was loads of fun. My family sneaks pink flamingos onto one another's property as a joke. I don't decorate with it - I'd call our home decorating style "classic eclectic library" - but I do adore the weird and wonderful.

Thanks, ya'll! I'll try to get a review to you tomorrow.

Lottery

Now that my book club has met to discuss this book, I can write about it. I picked up Lottery on the cheap from the Green Valley Book Fair a few months ago. It's about Perry, a man who is NOT retarded, he is just slow. Perry lives with his grandmother, who has raised him and homeschooled him. They love each other and they understand each other. Perry works a job he really enjoys at the fishing shop down the street from his house with his boss, Gary, who appreciates his hard-working attitude, and his best friend, Keith, who has never treated Perry any differently than he treats anyone else. Perry's life isn't perfect; he is constantly made uncomfortable when people get angry or violent, and he gets upset when people treat him as though he's retarded. His brothers make him call them his cousins, his father ran off to who knows where when he was a child, his mother only comes around when she wants something, and his beloved grandfather, who taught him everything there is to know about boats, died a few years ago. On top of all of that, he's in love with Cherry, the cashier at the convenience store he frequents, but he can't tell her. Still, he's pretty happy.

Then his grandmother dies. His cousin-brothers and his mother swoop in, kick him out of his house, sell it and give him his share - all of $500, according to them. Gary lets him move into an apartment over the store, which Perry thinks is pretty cool. He misses his Gram, but he still hears her voice in sticky situations, and he still does his five words a day, and he still buys a lottery ticket every week just like they used to do together. Then a funny thing happens: Perry wins the lottery. The big jackpot. His cousin-brothers and his mother, who make him very uncomfortable, keep coming around, talking about his Power and how he needs to give it to them. And things change - some things for the good, some for the bad.

I really liked this book. It was a little bit of a pat, happy ending - but sometimes I really want a happy ending. And in this book, I really wanted a happy ending. I thought Patricia Wood nailed the voice of Perry. It was very believeable to me, and I liked Perry very much. I also liked Keith and Gary and Gram, and while I was clearly meant to hate Perry's brothers and his mom, they were realistic characters to hate - I know too many people like them. I'm even related to some, too. I definitely thought this was a worthwhile read. 4 of 5 stars.