GUEST POST - The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

Note: this post is a guest post from my husband, based on our personal challenge that started April 1, 2011. I forced him into doing this blog post to commemorate this - hee hee. I chose The Hunger Games for him because I thought it was a good, fast read that would cause him to request more books for this "challenge" and not make him regret this idea! PS - he ended up reading the entire trilogy in a matter of days! :)

My wife and I had this deal called "forced read.*" The idea is to ensure we read something that we might not otherwise pick up and read. My wife's first choice in the "forced read" was The Hunger Games. It was was very simple read but very enjoyable. It stimulated my basic primal needs of survival. I also enjoyed the ethical dilemmas that were brought up in the book: do we protect the weak at our own expense or do we just protect ourselves?

I think this book allows us to evaluate our own internal battle on how we would personally act in a total survival mode. It allows us to judge ourselves on who we are and lets us ponder our true character.

I enjoyed the book--as a general read with a little self reflection thrown in.  

* this was the rather negative name we gave to our idea of choosing books for the other person - it is our amusing name for this ongoing challenge! :) 

June - This Month in Reading

It's hard to believe I have been at this for six months!

At the end of May, I needed to read the last four Harry Potter books, plus read at least three books with the theme of "fight or flight" to get the full points for a Hogwarts Challenge mini-challenge - I had to try my best for Hufflepuff!  I managed both of these things, and in the end I have a total of 354 points for the challenge, which ends tonight. Special thanks to Bunnitaz for hosting this fun challenge! I know I didn't get a ton of points compared to some people who entered the challenge, and of course I would have liked to read more, but I did my best and all I can do is hope that we at least come in second to Slytherin, since they win at any cost :) 


I had banned the library for the month of June but then a couple books I had put on hold ages ago came in, so I went ahead and borrowed some others. (Yes, I am addicted.) I also discovered NetGalley, and got a bunch of interesting looking books, some of which I have already read and raved about in an embarrassing fashion (and I can hardly wait for September to purchase a "hard" copy of this book - on top of the holiday shopping that has now been 100% simplified for all my book loving pals - come on autumn, my favorite season!). So despite a slow start to June because of some out-of-town guests at the beginning of the month, I managed to read a respectable  23 books this month. Whew! 


For July, I am going to have a special reading theme, and it's been killing me to keep it a secret this long! All will be revealed first thing tomorrow. I still have hope of forcing Mr. K into a guest blog post about the first book(s) I chose for him since April 1 tonight, so you never know, June might not be over yet!

Lieutenant Hornblower - C.S. Forester

Another book full of puzzling nautical terminology and an interesting story underneath. Strangely, this book was told from the third-person point of view of a character other than Hornblower. It was entertaining enough and I might keep reading the series at some point just to prove to my husband that I liked it (as much as I can like books of this type).

The Lake - Banana Yoshimoto

I first encountered Banana Yoshimoto in the early 1990s when some friends and I read and enjoyed her novel Kitchen, and I have subsequently read other books she has written, although I hadn't read any in a while. I was thrilled to find this book on NetGalley and get reacquainted with her. This book didn't disappoint; I felt like it was very personal and character driven, and I enjoyed being able to become acquainted with the main characters and see how this portion of their lives unfolds. The book is kind of meditative and unfolds in a very logical way that is also roundabout, making it very realistic - it seems to be written in such a way as to mimic the way life unfolds. I need to catch up on any of her books I may have missed!

This Girl Is Different - J.J. Johnson

This was a well written YA novel and I enjoyed some of the details: the East Indian characters, the sustainable house, the liking of snakes, etc. I also liked the main character as a person, but I have to say the hippy-dippy Baby Boomer ideals got on my nerves. I was not a popular high school student or anything, so I don't come at so-called "non-conformity" from that angle, but sometimes it seems like that 1960s/hippie/Baby Boomer mindset is always trying to find something, anything, to fight against, even if they are really stretching. It's one thing to fight actual oppression or wrongdoing and another to create a battle over simple school rules under the rubric of "constitutional rights" and equalizing all of society's wrongs. There are many ideas that are wonderful in theory, but because we human beings are what we are, the ideas don't work in reality, because "some animals are [always] more equal than others." So I enjoyed the book overall and it got me thinking, which I am sure was one of the goals of the author, even if I do not wholeheartedly agree with the points of view of the main character.

Stranger Room - Frederick Ramsay

I always think it's a shame when an author thanks their proofreader/copy editor at the beginning of a book and I then find hundreds of errors that should have been easily caught by that person. I wish I had been the copy editor here, I am not perfect but for Pete's sake, I would have made sure the characters' names were consistently spelled properly, for one thing. There are also places where I would have liked to smooth out the writing slightly - trim a word here and there, etc. So not the most elegantly written series, but serviceable books with decent mysteries, and I still enjoy the books overall.

This book series would actually make a great short-run TV series. They could call it "Picketsville" and then each season could be one of the books, consisting of about 10 - 13 episodes. Hollywood can't seem to come up with too many better ideas, so they can have that one for free, although I wouldn't say no to an "Executive Producer" credit, ha ha.

Buffalo Mountain - Frederick Ramsay

The third Ike Schwartz mystery. I enjoy these books but occasionally there is some religion shoehorned in -  not enough to totally annoy me, but more than I might otherwise like. One of the subplots in this book seemed a little out of place and I know why it was there, but I still am not sure it was necessary. Overall though these are enjoyable mysteries.

Between Shades of Gray - Ruta Sepetys

What a difficult story this must have been to write - it's such a forgotten part of history, what Stalin did and the horrors he perpetrated. That must have been a terrible time for the people of the Baltic states and it's a wonder that they were able to remain strong and hopeful through all of that hardship.

Co. Aytch - Sam R. Watkins

A memoir from a foot soldier in the US Civil War that seems to capture the experience of a regular soldier, as opposed to that of the officers who often get all the credit. Not something I might read on my own, although I prefer to hear about how people really lived in the past than read general history books.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Newt Scamander

Another quick, fun read from J.K. Rowling for Hogwarts Challenge points.