53 thoughts on “30 Fun Days: Day Four”

  1. Ooh, I did that today too. I’m just getting over a cold and, really, I don’t feel that bad anymore. I should’ve done the dishes, but The Baby (finally!) went down for a nap and I decided to give myself one more hour to take it easy and recover.

    I’m reading “Black Boy” by Richard Wright and “Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health” by David Michaels (I’m kind of a nerd), and Bram Stroker’s “Dracula” (which I’m reading to my oldest son).

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  2. I just finished reading Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold (part of the Vorkosigan Saga), it was excellent! I think I’ll start Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins this evening.

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  3. Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman, Planting Dandelions by fellow blogger Kyran Pittman, a lot of beach reading by Elin Hilderbrand and A Visit from the Good Squad by Jennifer Egan.

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  4. I like this “fun every day” thing.

    I read the amazing State of Wonder by Ann Patchett; 22 Brittania Road by Amanda Hodgkinson (good); Among Others by Jo Walton (odd but very good for my inner nerd); the new Kate Christensen, The Astral (she’s a genius though this is not my favorite of hers); and The Slap, a novel set in Australia by Christos Tsiolkas that was phenomenal.

    I don’t usually blog about books, but I listed a few more favorites here:

    http://www.hilarity-in-shoes.com/2011/02/02/all-time-favorite-books/

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  5. If you want a laugh, check out Jonathan Tropper’s “This is Where I Leave You.” It’s comedic, literary fiction, and it’s hilarious (and quite inappropriate).

    I am reading some Margaret Atwood, “The Tiger’s Wife” by Tea Obreht, Bill Bryson, and a YA novel coming out in the fall called “Wildwood.” It’s written by the Colin Meloy, lead guitarist for The Decemberists, and illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis (who illustrated the Lemony Snicket books).

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  7. I’m reading Game of Thrones now. Just finished a Sookie Stackhouse mystery. I am apparently in the candy phase of summer reading. Gearing up to read the final book in Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series but that takes a lot of brain power and time and there’s too much going on in life right now, it needs to wait a little bit.

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  10. The Condition by Jennifer Haigh which was lovely. She has a new novel that I believe just came out which I will be looking into.
    Just finished The Hobbit in anticipation for the movie which will hopefully be coming out next year, fingers crossed!
    And I just ordered Austenland which I have heard good things about and is also being made into a film starring the lovely Keri Russell. I have high hopes for this book too and perhaps it will get me in the mood for an actual Austen novel or some literary classic which is a genre on my bookshelf that has been sorely neglected since the temperature outside has been in the 80s and 90s 🙂

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  12. Currently (belatedly) reading Moneyball, which if you’re a baseball fan, is a must.

    I recently read Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and it was AMAZING. If you love British novels, this was super.

    And I am on a quest to get everyone I know to read The Age of Innocence. This should include you! Why not?

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  14. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I loved this series and I’m hungrily awaiting the next novel. As suggested a couple times already, you should definitely read The Hunger Games series too. It kept me hooked all the way through!

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  16. I’m reading Slam by Nick Hornby (just realized I’ve read almost all of his books and loved them all). A recent read that had me walking on air was Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos and the sequel, Belong to Me. What a writer.

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  18. I’m currently reading “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer. It’s not the most uplifting thing to read before falling asleep each night, but it’s good. Another one I recently enjoyed is “Marry Me! Courtships and Proposals of Legendary Couples” by Wendy Goldberg and Betty Goodwin.

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  20. I’m almost done with “The Cactus Eaters” by Dan White. Its memoir about a guy and his girlfriend who hike the Pacific Crest Trail. It took me a bit to get into, but now I can’t put it down, but now I frequently have to because I don’t want it to end.

    Also an awesome book that I can’t stop recommending is “Farm City” by Novella Carpenter. That book made me want to go dumpster dive at night to feed my pigs.

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  26. I have this thing where I have to have several books going at once, depending on mood. So I’m reading Gavin de Becker’s “Protecting the Gift”; Paul Johnson’s “Modern Times”; “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” and I just picked up “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.” Also, I have a book of Irish Short Stories for when I want to read but don’t have a big chunk of time.

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  27. I am currently in re-read mode:

    “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World”, Eric Weiner

    “HP and the Deathly Hallows”, J.K. Rowling

    “Shopgirl”, Steve Martin

    When people ask me why I love my Nook, this is the main reason. Reading 3-4 books at once gets heavy after a time!

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  28. “Tar Baby”, and “Longitude”, and “It Sucked, and Then I Cried.”

    And “Effect of Simulation Methodology on Solder Joint Crack Growth Correlation and Fatigue Life Prediction.”

    Stupid Thesis.

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  29. Just finished Jane Eyre too. C. Bronte~wow. Completely different reading experience as an adult.

    Inspired to pick up The Bell Jar again.

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  30. I flew through “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. I am now inching through “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ve heard it’s great, but it hasn’t sucked me in yet.

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  31. Just finished “Enough About Love” and enjoyed escaping to Paris through it. Before that I really loved “A Visit from the Goon Squad” and “Super Sad True Love Story”. Now I’m waiting for “The Silent Land” to come in at the library.

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  33. Just finished the new George R.R. Martin (disappointing, now waiting for the next one since he’s got the weight of this one off his shoulders), and started a lovely Georgette Heyer mystery I bought for 20p at a jumble sale in Lyme today. Vacationing in England is awesome.

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  34. I’m an avid reader so I’m in the middle of a few different books right now: While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes (really great spy / mystery writer); Venice by Peter Ackroyd (nonfiction about the history of the city, etc.); the Sloane Crosley book, How Did You Get This Number (absolutely hilarious); and my book club book, The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue, which has been sort of compared to The Lovely Bones but far less gruesome and has a great main character.

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  35. I love the thirty days of fun idea! I am hooked on the Outlander series as well. Paullina Simon’s ‘ The Bronze Horseman’ is one of those books that makes me ignore housework, barely feed my family and just read, read, read until the last page.

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  36. I am reading Big Machine by Victor LaValle. It has great parts (esp a fictitious town near Oakland with parts that are very Oaklandlike) but kinda ran off the rails after the first third. That said, it made me realize that it’s the first book I’ve read in a very long time where all the main characters are present day black americans.

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  37. I am not reading this now, but I recommend that everyone read Colm Toibin’s books. You probably heard of Brooklyn last year, when it came out. It was good, but The Story of the Night, The Heather Blazing, and Blackwater Lightship are three of the best books I’ve ever read. Jhumpa Lahiri is pretty is pretty amazing too.

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  39. I just really like that I saw your comment as present tense, then realized that you probably meant you spent a whole day reading. Those are my favorite sort of days, I try to have them as often as possible!

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  40. I am in the middle of Room by Emma Donoghue and it is outstanding. I just finished This Life Is in Your Hands, a memoir by Melissa Coleman (our book club pick for July) and also The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee which was absolutely fascinating. Next up: The Postmistress.

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  41. I’m having such a great time with my summer reading list. So far, my favorites have been: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Up next is Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace (may he RIP).

    Right now I’m reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which is so lush and quirky and evocative, with the character and charm you expect from the South – except even better, more imaginative, and with local color that makes you wish it was possible to teleport to Savannah, GA on a whim. I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a summer read that veers off the beaten path into strange but lovable territory; it dwells in this interstitial space where nonfiction and fiction meet to create something like a twist on magical realism. I love that.

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  43. I am reading The Art of Racing in the Rain, but I just received my next two novels, Backseat Saints, and Long Drive Home. I can’t wait to delve into them! My previous selection was Water for Elephants which I loved, loved, loved.

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  44. Just read two books, one I hated and one I loved. “The Mermaid Chair” by Sue Monk Kidd- terrible, wanted to throw it into the ocean from my beach chair.
    “The Last Time They Met” by Anita Shreve- I want to read it again already. The prose is gorgeous- it made me want to go explore Africa, which I have never wanted to do.

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  45. “Bossypants,” and it was such a fun book! The only not-fun thing about it was my sadness at having finished it because I enjoyed it so much.

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  47. I finished East of Eden for the first time last week. It is (one of my) favourite books.

    I’m reading Moneyball right now too! It is really interesting. Liking baseball might help getting into it at first, but the ideas about value and transitions to new ways of looking at a world are front and centre too.

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  49. I’ve just discovered Elizabeth Jane Howard, a British writer who wrote novels some of which are about women’s stories in post WWII England. I’ve read the first of her 4 book Cazalet Chronicles: The Light Years. And I’ve finally got the next one in my hot little hands. It’s a multigenerational family saga with great dialogue and thoughts about how everyone fits in with issues of class, education and everything else. Deeper than Upstairs Downstairs but still entertaining and a great read. Ahh.

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  50. I never thought of doing something like this. This is really fun looking, I think I might borrow the idea and adapt it! Thanks so much for reminding me that life can be fun every day!

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