A Little Bookclub

Slamming Tim Tams this Christmas Eve! on Flickr.

alittlestorybook — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 18:56:44 -0500

Slamming Tim Tams this Christmas Eve! on Flickr.

well...about "Blood Meridian" and James...I've read on The finding Franco page that they were to make this one but they changed their minds and now he is propably making Cormac's "Child of God"...:P

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:21:13 -0400

ah, bummer… still, I’d pay to see anything written by McCarthy and directed by Franco- even if it’s not Blood Meridian. thanks for the info!

what.

alittlestorybook — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:32:10 -0400

I just found out that James Franco might direct a movie based on Blood Meridian. Is this news to anyone else?

I love James Franco. I love Cormac McCarthy. So, man. If this rumor is true, I am EXCITED. Maybe I can even finagle a way to see it with my homegirl? And then we can both get married to James Franco and read books to each other over our fabulous vegan dinner table and have lots of cute babies together. #dreams

p.s. totally kidding. I’d miss my sweet husband too much. but I am most definitely not kidding about seeing my bess fran. that’s serious business.

GLORY HALLELUJAH

alittlestorybook — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:21:01 -0400

so, I finished Blood Meridian. I know, right? It’s taken me forever to read it. and yes, I know this is a book club and I need to get my act together. it’ll happen. sometime. :)

Anyway, I can’t wait to write/talk about it as soon as I wrap my head around some of the core themes. (and detox off of all that gore. geez.)

In the meantime,

Sarah

new favorite website

alittlestorybook — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:43:32 -0400

International Children’s Library. Have you heard of it? It houses digital versions of hundreds of gorgeously illustrated, age-appropriate children’s books. My favorite part of it is the library’s mission to provide representation for every culture and language.

I’ve already spent hours devouring books in Arabic, Korean, Italian, et al (for which the ICL provides quality English translations). Now I’m scheming of ways to expose my library classes to these rich texts….

Love.

xo,

Sarah

philipchircop: LEAVING PIECES OF YOUR LIFE She left pieces of...

simplysety — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:24:00 -0400

philipchircop:

LEAVING PIECES OF YOUR LIFE

She left pieces of her life behind her everywhere she went. It’s easier to feel the sunlight without them, she said. |from Story People by Brian Andreas

fuckyeahtattoos: this is from the book “the bell jar”. one of...

simplysety — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:47:40 -0400

fuckyeahtattoos:

this is from the book “the bell jar”. one of my favorite quotes.

I love lit tattoos! I only wish I could decide on the words that I want. :)

Photo

simplysety — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:34:01 -0400

I like big craniums and I cannot lie ;)

simplysety — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:15:06 -0400

I like big craniums and I cannot lie ;)

♥

simplysety — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 02:05:57 -0400

♥

Lovely!

simplysety — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:56:16 -0400

Lovely!

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain..."

simplysety — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:49:38 -0400

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner (via starstoned)

update

alittlestorybook — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:30:51 -0400

we’re all just getting started reading Blood Meridian. I’m about halfway through it. I’ve found it’s pretty intense (blood! scalping! emotional distance!) so I did take a break from reading it while my mother-in-law was visiting. I’m ready to get it in gear, though, and finish it by this Friday. (I’ve also been reading many potty training + child development books for my job as a nanny, so it’s tricky to balance reading for pleasure with reading for professional development. y’know?)

Anyway, I hope you all are reading some great books out there! Let us know if you’d like to sign on as a participant on this blog. We’d love to get more contributing book reviews.

xo,

Sarah

pretty pretty.

alittlestorybook — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:24:17 -0400

pretty pretty.

and this is why I feel so passionately about reopening public...

alittlestorybook — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:26:43 -0400

and this is why I feel so passionately about reopening public school libraries here.

xo,

Sarah

"If only she could be oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it."

alittlestorybook — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:09:30 -0400

“If only she could be oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it.”

-

- The Book Thief

(via abitlovely)

Finished reading The Road the other day, and can I just say how...

simplysety — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:29:41 -0400

Finished reading The Road the other day, and can I just say how amazing it was? I was a little worried (as I always am) since it is such a popular book, that I’d be disappointed. Though it took me a while to really get into it, by the end of the book I was nearly moved to tears. It was heartbreaking, haunting, and somehow remained hopeful. If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up. Now. :)

p.s. excited to receive my copy of Blood Meridian!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

simplysety — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:24:21 -0400

The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

Oh goodness! I am so excited for the movie version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower! :)

Pretty neat. Thought you guys might enjoy this...

jennyarenz — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:19:28 -0400

Pretty neat. Thought you guys might enjoy this :]

vintageanchor:

“How to Read 70+ Books in a Year” by Scott H. Young

Over the past two years I’ve read over 120 books. If you add up partial books I read for specific segments, that number would be well over 140. But only four years ago I would have read 10-12 books per year. Although reading at least seventy books a year sounds difficult, it doesn’t require a huge investment of time.

Here’s how I did it:

Step One: Learn to Speed Read

Some people see speed reading as a magical technique to ingest thousands of pages per hour. Therefore it tends to divide those people who are mystified by it and those who think it is a complete fraud. I’d like to argue that speed reading is neither. The term “speed reading” itself is a bit off.

The real idea behind speed reading is that you know how (and when) to speed up and when to slow down. With a few basic techniques you can get a sizable increase on your maximum speed.

Summary tips for speed reading:

1.Use your forefinger to follow the line on the page. This focuses your vision onto a specific part of the text.
2.Practice read textbooks faster than you can comprehend. This isn’t actual reading but it will make you familiar with using your finger and slowly increase your maximum speed.
3.State your purpose before starting to read. This will allow you to focus on information you need and reject information you don’t.

Step Two: Always Have a Book

This one may sound obvious, but the best way to increase the amount of books you read is to always have a book. Gaps of a few weeks without any reading material means several less books you can read each year. Worse, time spent without a book breaks down your reading habits so it can be harder to start again.

If always having a book to read sounds to constrictive, maybe you’re reading the wrong article. You need a passion for finding new ideas and learning. Outside pressure won’t help.

Step Three: One Book at a Time

I strive to never read more than one book at a time. There are a couple reasons for this:

1.You can’t read two books simultaneously, so having two books partially completed isn’t going to accelerate the amount you are reading.
2.Each book uses up your mental RAM, making it more likely to forget critical details when switching between books.
3.You keep reading a bad book instead of tossing it. Either keep reading a book or get rid of it. Don’t put it on “hold” while you skim through other books.
4.Reading one book keeps you focused.

Step Four: Fill Gap Time With Reading

Gap time is the small windows of five to ten minutes you can’t schedule activities in. This could be waiting in line at the dentist, a spare ten minutes hanging on the end of your lunch break or a fifteen minute gap between classes. Reading is the perfect filler for gap time.

Usually I can find a total of twenty to thirty minutes each day just in gap time. With that amount you can read at least forty books a year on gap time alone. That means you could get over three dozen books read annually – without investing extra time.

The only requirement to utilize gap time is that you carry a book with you.

Step Five: Cut the Television and Web-Surfing

The next way to grab a bit more reading time is to cut background noise. Background noise is the activities you do when you don’t have anything to do. Usually television or web-surfing, this often means watching programs that have zero entertainment value or rechecking your RSS feeds for the fiftieth time today.

Create the habit of reading whenever you don’t have something planned. Television and internet usage can be great, if you are watching shows you enjoy or making good use of the net. But if the shows aren’t adding anything to your day, turn them off and pick up your book.

Step Six: Keep a To-Read List

My to-read list is a perpetual Amazon shopping cart filled with books recommended to me. Motivating yourself to read a current book is as simple as having books after it to read. My to-read list motivates me to finish a current book because I’m interested in searching through the one after it.

Keeping a to-read list also takes the effort out of tracking books. I almost never need to go into the bookstore and just browse. Whenever I get a link for an interesting book, I add it to my Amazon shopping cart in advance.

Getting Started

I don’t need to tell you the benefits of reading books. As a kid you probably saw tacky motivational posters in your school informing you that, “Reading is Power!” The motivation to read seventy books a year needs to come from within. External pressures like getting good grades, pride from considering yourself more academic than your friends or hoping to find that perfect answer at the bottom of a self-help bin aren’t going to cut it.

vintageanchor: What 10 Classic Books Were Almost Called ...

jennyarenz — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:19:00 -0400

vintageanchor:

What 10 Classic Books Were Almost Called

Remember when your high school summer reading list included Atticus, Fiesta, and The Last Man in Europe? You will once you see what these books were renamed before they hit bookshelves.

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald went through quite a few titles for his most well-known book before deciding on The Great Gatsby. If he hadn’t arrived at that title, high school kids would be pondering the themes of Trimalchio in West Egg; Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; On the Road to West Egg; Under the Red, White, and Blue; Gold-Hatted Gatsby; and The High-Bouncing Lover.

2. George Orwell’s publisher didn’t feel the title to Orwell’s novel The Last Man in Europe was terribly commercial and recommended using the other title he had been kicking around—1984.

3. Before it was Atlas Shrugged, it was The Strike, which is how Ayn Rand referred to her magnum opus for quite some time. In 1956, a year before the book was released, she decided the title gave away too much plot detail. Her husband suggested Atlas Shrugged and it stuck.

4. The title of Bram Stoker’s famous Gothic novel sounded more like a spoof before he landed on Dracula—one of the names Stoker considered was The Dead Un-Dead.

5. Ernest Hemingway’s original title for The Sun Also Rises was used for foreign-language editions—Fiesta. He changed the American English version to The Sun Also Rises at the behest of his publisher.

6. It’s because of Frank Sinatra that we use the phrase “Catch-22” today. Well, sort of. Author Joseph Heller tried out Catch-11, but because the original Ocean’s Eleven movie was newly in theaters, it was scrapped to avoid confusion. He also wanted Catch-18, but, again, a recent publication made him switch titles to avoid confusion: Leon Uris’ Mila 18. The number 22 was finally chosen because it was 11 doubled.

7. To Kill a Mockingbird was simply Atticus before Harper Lee decided the title focused too narrowly on one character.

8. An apt precursor to the Pride and Prejudice title Jane Austen finally decided on: First Impressions.

9. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Secretly, apparently. Mistress Mary, taken from the classic nursery rhyme, was the working title for Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.

10. Originally called Ulysses in Dublin, James Joyce’s Dubliners featured characters that would later appear in his epic Ulysses a few years later.

—brought to you by Stacy Conradt, mental_floss!