I learned a very important lesson today about keeping track of the chapter and page count as I'm reading the books. Usually I do keep track, but for some reason I didn't this week, which resulted in forty-five minutes spent on various book websites trying to figure it out. I'm so glad that some websites have that "Search inside this book" feature (thank you amazon.com for making it easier for me to be a negligent blogger).
For the week:
CHAPTERS - 165
PAGES - 2,165 - (I'm really amazed that the number this week is so high. I guess those shooting pains I got in my wrist from reading really heavy books wasn't all for nothing.)
For the year so far:
CHAPTERS - 2,533
PAGES - 33,267 - (Wow, for the first time in my adult life the number of pages I've read has finally surpassed the number of hours of television I've watched.)
And now it's that magical time again dear readers - the time when I shamelessly try to inflate the number of page loads my blog registers per day by providing links to past blog entries. Here are the entries that go along with my favorite books for the year:
January: Something From the Oven - I love reading books about food, it combines my two favorite things: reading and cooking (that is, my two favorite non-TV activities). http://abookaday09.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-from-oven.html
February: House Lust by Daniel McGinn - I think one of the big reasons why I liked this book so much is because I really miss TV and this book reminded me so much of one of my favorite channels, HGTV. http://abookaday09.blogspot.com/2009/02/house-lust.html
March: Father of the Bride by Edward Streeter - I love old movies, and I recently discovered that a lot of my favorites were based on books. So that's become my newest book obsession, searching all over the Internet for the books that my favorites were based on, most of which are out of print. http://abookaday09.blogspot.com/2009/03/father-of-bride.html
April: Please Don't Eat The Daisies by Jean Kerr - This is another book that was made into one of my favorite movies. http://abookaday09.blogspot.com/2009/04/please-dont-eat-daisies.html
Today's book; "The summer of '65 sizzles for high school sophomore-to-be Paul and his rural Minnesota family. They are members of a nondenominational Christian sect that practices communal farm work and fellowship. At his mother's urging, Paul lands a job in town at the Shell station where assorted bamboozlers give his worldview a whack upside the head."
This book was a total snooze fest. It got really good customer reviews on amazon, which was why I decided to read it. But I just cannot agree with Richie from California or Teenreads from New York - this book was not interesting to me at all. There were actually moments when I was struggling to stay awake. I would strongly advise you to skip this book dear readers, unless of course you're the kind of person who enjoys books that make you look back with nostalgia on the science films you were forced to watch in Elementary school - in which case, fine, go ahead and read it, see if I care. Rebel against my advise if you must, but one day you're going to look back and appreciate the way I've tried to save you from reading boring books. . . and I'm doing this for your own good.
There was only one part that was slightly interesting (and when I say slightly, I mean business), and that was the part where the main character (whose name I can't even remember because he was so boring it didn't even register in my brain) was on his way to get his driver's license with his mother who is a bit of a backseat driver. And the only reason why that part was even mildly entertaining was because it reminded me of how melodramatic my Mother was when I was learning to drive. I actually only went driving with her in the car once because I knew I couldn't handle one more minute of hearing, "You are going to stop at that stop sign aren't you?" To which I would reply, "Oh you mean the stop sign that's 500 feet away. Yes, I was planning on stopping at that stop sign. . . when I get to it." Then of course there was the way she would gasp and say, "You're not going to hit that child are you?" Can you really blame me dear readers for responding, "Yes Mother, I was planning on running her over." My Dad's driving lesson approach was the complete opposite - he paid absolutely no attention to anything that I was doing and spent the whole time sightseeing and saying things like, "Would you look at that mower that guy has, that's a nice mower." And then when I pointed out that he was supposed to be paying attention to what I was doing so he could tell me what I was supposed to be doing he would always respond with, "Oh, you're fine." The only instruction he ever gave was to say, "Ping. Ping. That's the sound of the mailbox you almost hit," every time I got a little too close to the curb, and of course there was his advice on gently changing lanes; "I should be able to close my eyes and not be able to tell you're changing lanes."
Sorry for telling more family stories dear readers (I've been told I do that too much), but trust me, that story was way better than anything I would have had to say about the actual book.
