Castle in the Clouds

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars An excellent start I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy. I think Atwood is a genius storyteller who is able to take modern concerns and see them through to their darkest ends. The world of Snowman (Jimmy), Oryx, and Crake is frightening and fascinating, a place of marvels and unimaginable horrors. View all my reviews

Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love books.  I am never without one.  At home, I have shelves of to-be-read titles.  On my Kindle I have an ever-growing multitude - so many freebies! With the Kindle Cloud Reader, I can access my e-books from my phone or iPad, which are always within arms reach. To say I read a lot is not an exaggeration.  If I had to provide a very unscientific average of the number of books I read in a year, I'd say it's somewhere around 50.  That's something like four books a month.  And that's in a slow year.  There have been years when I've read closer to 75 books.   Imagine how many books would be read if I'd give up television! Last night, for example, I might have caught up to my co-readers of the MaddAddam trilogy if I hadn't decided to watch the X-Files and then Castle with the family.  My decision to veg on the couch for those two hours seriously cut into my reading, which left me conflicted b...

I've always enjoyed playing video games.  I remember fighting with my brothers for my fair share of playing time with our rather limited Atari collection.  I don't even remember the games.  PacMan, maybe.  Space Invaders.  Centipede.  Pong. I don't quite remember the year we got the Atari system, but I'm thinking I had to have been anywhere between ten and thirteen.  In my memories, my brothers are young.   They're sitting in the dining room, chairs in front of the small tv my dad had let us hook the thing up to.  The big TV in the living room was reserved for his viewing pleasure.   At least, these are what my rather diminished memories recall.  My brother, BJ, has an elephant's memory and can likely paint a more complete picture, but I'm not about to call him and ask.  We'll just go with I was young and we had a small collection of games we all like to play. Not my photo.  Click here to go to original locat...

Yes, it's another post about books! The only people who won't find this dreadfully boring are the other book lovers out there.  Although, let's be honest, they might be bored by this, too, because I'm going to be talking about my reading goals and not theirs.   Oh well and onward... I've got a couple of different reading goals this year that will all feed into meeting my overall Goodreads goal, which is to read 75 books in 2016.  I'm rather impressed with the fact that it's not even a full week into 2016 and I already have two books counted toward this goal (arguably four as one of the texts was a three-in-one deal that contained an entire trilogy, but whatever).  2016 Reading Challenge Krista has read 2 books toward her goal of 75 books. hide 2 of 75 (2%) view books So there's the overall goal.  Seventy-five books. The other reading goals that I've set for ...

I both love and hate Facebook for what it brings into my life. The Positives: I've been able to reconnect with long-distance friends and family members.  There are the high school friends that I haven't seen since graduation.  Then there are the aunt and uncles, the cousins, that I might only see at sporadic family reunions, weddings, or funerals.   I really appreciate that I get to learn about their daily interests, their struggles and triumphs. It makes me feel connected to those I wish I did a better of job of interacting with on a daily (weekly?  monthly? yearly?) basis.  I get to keep in daily contact with the people I do see on a regular basis. Apparently, I just can't get enough of them!   Pictures.  Oh, how I love pictures! I get to see newborn babies, adorable pets, messy kids, sassy teenagers, sunsets, sunrises, beaches, mountains...oh, the list goes on and I am glad that it does.  Silly memes.  Funny memes.  Go...

This post was inspired by a Book Riot post . Given my love of both wine and books, I thought I'd poke a little fun at myself. The first glass of wine.... I'll probably go with something safe because I will still be sober.  I'll try to persuade my brother- and sister-in-law to read this science fiction book because its 80s pop culture references are not only fun, they're a bit nostalgic.  Also, there's a puzzle to be solved and who doesn't love puzzles! The second glass of wine.... I'll still be sober. After finding out if they're watching the new Super Girl television program, I'll move on to other iconic female characters, which would remind me of a book I read recently that retold some of the most famous princess stories. The SIL will humor me, while her hubby wonders if the wine has already gone to my head when I try to persuade him to read it, too. The third glass of wine... I'm going to be feeling this one.  Wine is po...

Over on Book Riot they have a 2015 Read Harder Challenge that I decided to join.  In the spirit of the thing, I also joined their Goodread's group where I am one voice among many recording my reading accomplishments.  Those posts get lost, though, so I thought I'd create a blog entry to highlight the challenges I completed. Spoiler alert:  I completed all of the challenges! Challenge:  Read a Collection of Short Stories For this task I selected Sherman Alexie 's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-Fight in Heaven .  I had picked up this Kindle version a few months prior and thought of it as soon as I read the challenge.  If double-counting a book were allowed, I could also use this to satisfy the "Read a Book by or About an Indigenous Person".  Instead, I've elected to count it toward my short story reading goal. I've read Sherman Alexie's work before and quite enjoyed it.  This time was no different.  The stories were interesting...