Blog Hop

The question this week is:
We want to see what you look like! Take a pic with you and your current read!

Here is what I look like and my current read:

Literary Blog Hop: November 3-6

This month The Blue Bookcase asks:

To what extent do you analyze literature? Are you more analytical in your reading if you know you're going to review the book? Is analysis useful in helping you understand and appreciate literature, or does it detract from your readerly experience? 

I think I tend to over analyze literature and tends to detract from any sort of readerly experience.  I experienced this recently with The Night Circus.  Now I had issues with the format of the book to start with, but I did find that I was over analyzing it as I was reading the book, hoping to find something in it that I clearly wasn't and was making my reading experience with the book not a good one.  Its not that I don't enjoy reading, I do.  But I find that I tend to over analyze and therefore it affects how I end up viewing the book, unless of course I get the book done quickly and out of the way.  It seems that I can't just sit down and read a book and enjoy it and therefore get something out of it and therefore I am back in the vicious cycle that I didn't want to be in. 

When I don't over analyze a book, I seem to get the most of the book and can therefore make a better assessment of the book.  Its a vicious cycle, isn't it? 

Booking Through Thursday - Harder

Booking Through Thursday asks this week:
All other thing being equal, would you rather read a book that’s hard/challenging/rewarding or light/enjoyable/easy?

I would probably want a mixture of both because it would depend on my mood.  If I really did have to choose, I would probably have to choose a book that is a combination of both.

WWW Wednesdays

This is a weekly book meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you'll be reading next?

My Answers:

What are you currently reading?

Rebel Angels

What did you recently finish reading?
Captivity, Frankenstein, and Little House in the Big Woods

What do you think you'll be reading next?
Either The Night Stranger or Crime and Punishment

Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder

Title: Little House in the Big Woods
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Pages: 238
Published: 2004 (first published 1932)
Genre: Classics, Historical fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5

Wolves and panthers and bears roam the deep Wisconsin woods in the late 1870's. In those same woods, Laura lives with Pa and Ma, and her sisters, Mary and Baby Carrie, in a snug little house built of logs. Pa hunts and traps. Ma makes her own cheese and butter. All night long, the wind howls lonesomely, but Pa plays the fiddle and sings, keeping the family safe and cozy. 

Thoughts: This is one of those books that you read when you were young and you come back later and read, either to your own child or by yourself.  While it reminds oneself how much simpler life was almost 140 years ago, it also reminds one that it was also a much harder existence because one had to make everything one ate and wore; there was no grocery store to get butter, cheese, milk and bread and one couldn't just hop in ones car to go and get a new outfit at the local store.  Its an enjoyable read at any age.

13835 / 15000 pages. 92% done!

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

Title: Frankenstein
Author: Mary Shelley
Pages: 210
Published: 2000 (originally published 1818)
Genre: Classics, Gothic, Horror
Rating: 4/5

Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel presents the epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. (via Amazon.com)

Thoughts: I quite enjoyed it.  I think that this book should serve as a cautionary tale about creating something that can get beyond our control and that man's selfishness often creates things that makes us feel as though we are god-like.

13597 / 15000 pages. 91% done!

First Chapter - First Paragaph(s) - Tuesday Intros

This week's choice:

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

Orignially published December 26, 2006

Herein lies the faithful and true account of my last sixty days, by Kartik, brother of Amar, loyal son of the Rakshana, and of the strange visitation I received that has left me wary on this cold English night.  To begin at the beginning, I must go back to the middle days of October, after the misfortune that occurred.