48 Hour Book Challenge: The End Results!

I am now done the Forty-Eight Hour Book Challenge! I have accomplished:

• 860 minutes reading
• 355 minutes blogging
• 90 minutes networking

Sum total: 21 hours, 45 minutes, 3334 pages, and 14 books! I read,:

• Castration Celebration by Jake Wizner
• Sea Change by Aimee Friedman
• Death in the Air by Shane Peacock
• The War of Jenkins’ Ear by Michael Morpurgo
• Frost by Nicole Luiken
• Yesterday’s Magic by Pamela F. Service
• Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach
• Inferno by Robin Stevenson
• Wart by Anna Myers
• The Blue Helmet by William Bell
• Sister Wife by Shelley Hrdlitschka
• Daughter of the Flames by Zoe Marriott
• Five Minutes More by Darlene Ryan
• The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

And here’s a visual or two:

This is my first year, and I think I’ll definitely try it again next year! I hope to be organized enough to donate to a charity per either hours or books read, too. I decided to sign up at the last minute Friday night, and to use just the books I already had at home.

It’s an eclectic mix of books, and only about a third of it is things that I’ve deliberately chosen. All of the library books I have out right now are adult, not kids or YA (which is very unusual for me, considering which department I run!) but I’ve just come off the heavy duty reading of being part of a local book award committee. After six months of a near-steady diet of new Canadian middle school fiction and nonfiction, the lack of restriction is a giddy thing (but don’t get me wrong, there were some fantastic books!). Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to read books that have been waiting for me at home, and library books I’ve had out for a while before bringing home everything else that’s been piling up on my mental to-read list, so that factored into what I had on hand. I also had a pile of YA ARCs that are going to end up in the teen prize bag at my library this summer, so those also got added to the mix, and were a big chunk of what I read. Next year, I think I’ll try to assemble a stack of books I’ve been dying to read but haven’t go to yet, and see what that does to my numbers.

I’ve known for a long time that I read ridiculously fast. *shrug* It’s not speed-reading, just my natural pace. I think it’s some fluke of genetics, because I always have. And it used to annoy me as a kid, because I couldn’t understand why people wouldn’t believe that I’d finished that book already. I don’t think my retention is quite as high as some people who read slower, but I have a pretty lousy head for straight memorization and recall on random facts in general. It does mean I re-read books I love multiple times, which a lot of people don’t quite get.

And apparently, comparing my blogging time to my reading time, I write slow. It’s not my typing speed, either. This challenge has been good for me in forcing me to sit down and blog. I find it’s really (really) easy to slide into a habit of thinking, oh, I’ll write about that later, because the reading is the easy part. Now to just make sure I blog about those last five books… but not tonight!

 

48HBC: The Home Stretch…. and we’re done!

I got a late start this morning, but was aiming for another four or five book dent in my pile! I slept in–I have no illusions about winning, since I am not giving up sleep. (I needed catch-up time this weeekend if I’m going to make it through next week.) I do admit to standing in the middle of the kitchen, making coffee and waiting for toast with a book in my hand, however.

11:45 -1:00 Blogging (15 min) and networking (60 min). I needed to spend some time wandering about online and checking out everyone else’s blogs, and let my brain digest the books I read last night.

1:00 – 1:35 The Blue Helmet by William Bell (oh so good! nuanced look at the inherent concept of violence)

2:00 – 3:15 Blogging (some breaks for food and fiddling with my itunes playlist beforehand).

3:15 – 4:10 Sister Wife (also amazing! child brides, fictional story loosely based on Bountiful, BC)

4:25 – 4:45, 5:45 – 6:50 Daughter of Flames by Zoe Marriott (solid fantasy with a kick-ass girl leader to save the day)

7:00 – 7:15 Networking break!

7:15 – 7:45 Five Minutes More by Darlene Ryan (relentlessly painful look at a girl whose father has just died.)

7:45 – 8:15, 8:45-10:15, The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan (Totally targeted at the Supernatural crowd, but a surprisingly good brothers-who-fight-demons story)

Annnnd I’m done! Summary post to follow when I have caught my breathe.

 

Wart by Anna Myers

Book nine of the 48-hour Book Challenge binge!

You could say that it started when Stewar’s cousin declared that he needed to be popular, but would have to ditch his long-time friends Ham and Rachel to do it. But things really started to change when Stewart and Ham’s art teacher showed up hiding in the supply closet, and had to take some time off. Because that’s when Wanda Gibbs, the subsitute came to town. And now she’s a) stuck Stewart with the nickname Wart, b) is dating his dad, and c) is probably a witch who turns her own son Ozgood into a frog periodically to punish him. She’s helped him get a spot on the basketball team, but is brainwashing his little sister. Thanks to her intervention, the most popular girl in the school is interested in him, but now she’s probably going to marry his dad. What’s a guy to do?

It took me a bit to get into this one, but it was a pretty funny, solid middle school read, all things considered. The plot plays off the is-she-or-isn’t-she-a-witch uncertainty quite well right up until the end, Stewart’s geeky friends are awesome in their right–Ham is kind of clueless skinny kid who’s alwasy eating, and Rachel is the sort of girl who collects esoteric bits of trivia and has an elaborate training system worked out to win a local pet show. And his little sister Georgia will throw temper tantrums on demand for Stewart–until Wanda shows up. Then there’s Wanda’s son Ozgood, who plays big band music lous enough to shake the walls, and says things like “I am undone” when he’s upset. An oddball cast and amusing plot–it’s too bad the cover looks like a do-or-die sports story.

 

Inferno by Robin Stevenson

Book eight of the 48-hour Book Challenge binge! I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, but award committee reading and library books with other people on the hold list have taken precedence. (And thank you again, Robin, for getting me an ARC!)

Dante doesn’t really have any friends at her new high school. Last year, she didn’t need to–she had her best friend Beth, who, though no-one else knew, became her girlfriend. that was when Dante was still Emily, before she changed her name legally. She tells her mocking English teacher that she picked her new name because high school is hell. That goes over about as well as you would expect. Though it’s not the real reason, Dante has a lot to deal with right now. Her mom is fussing about her attitutde and that she’s cut off all her hair, and has signed her up for a social skills group for teenage girls. Beth has cut off all contact. Her English teacher is a bully, and her school is full of brain-dead stereotypes. But then a strange girl shows up at school, and mutely slips her a note reading “WOOF, WOOF. YOU ARE NOT A DOG. WHY ARE YOU GOING TO OBEDIENCE SCHOOL?” Dante is fascinated by both the girl, Parker, and the note. She quickly becomes drawn into Parker and her friends’ anti-authoritarian hijinxs. But as time goes on, Dante begins to see that Parker’s boyfriend is abusive, and may be willing to go much further to change the world than anyone else suspects.

I think this is probably the strongest of Robin Stevenson’s books that I’ve read so far–she’s really cut down on the number of themes and subplots in this one, which makes for a much stronger story overall. Fortuitously, it’s also got the coolest cover–although I’m not taking A Thousand Shades of Blue into consideration since I haven’t read it yet. It’s nice to see a book with a gay teenager protagonist where her orientation is essential to who she is and to the plot, but it’s not a coming-out story. The tension and the stakes mount as the story progressses, and the characters are all unique, believable individuals. It left me wanting more of Dante’s story at the end, but not in an unfinished way–which is a good thing.

 

Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach

Book seven of the 48-hour Book Challenge binge!

Miriam is tired of her boring life, her boring town, and the inbetween-ness of being fifteen. She wants something to happen–and that’s just what she gets with the new girl, Laura. Miriam is oddly fascinated with Laura, but it’s not until Laura kisses her while they’re both stoned that she realizes why.

This is a hard book to blurb, because not a lot really happens–everything unfolds in a cloud of ennui and a series of slow, deliberate steps where small things take on huge emotional and symbolic weight. It’s like CanLit, but German! I am going to assume it’s a good translation (by Shelley Tanaka), because the text definitely has its own distinctive voice and town. I also appreciated that it was definitely set in Germany, and not translated into some generic North American setting. Way more casual smoking than I’m used to seeing–maybe it’s a European thing? I would have liked more closure at the ending (yes, I was disappointed when I didn’t find out why Laura’s obssessed with gumball machines) but I think that’s more indicative of my tastes as a reader than any inherent flaw in the story. This book isn’t going to appeal to a wide audience because it reads like high literary fiction to me, but I think that when it finds the right readers, they’re going to love it fiercely.

 

48HBC: And we’re into the second half…

11:00 pm, after food and a hot shower, and I think I can make it through at least one more book tonight. If not two.

11:15 pm-12:10 am, Inferno by Robin Stevenson

12:10 am -1:10 am, Wart by Anna Myers

1:10 am – 1:15 am, blogging

Total thus far: nine books, 13 hours and twenty minutes. How many books and hours can I cram into tomorrow? We shall see!

 

48HBC: The Almost Half-way Update

Official Start Time: 10:15 pm, Friday, June 5, 2009.

Friday

10:15-11:15 pm: Castration Celebration by Jake Wizner

11:15-11:30 Blogging time

11:30-12:30 Sea Change by Aimee Friedman

10:00 -11:30, Death in the Air by Shane Peacock

11:30 – 12:15, The War of Jenkins’ Ear by Michael Morpurgo

12:15 – 1:00, 1:30-2:10, Frost by Nicole Luiken

2:10 – 4:30, Massive blogging catch-up time

4:30 – 5:15, Networking break!

5:15 – 6:05, Yesterday’s Magic by Pamela F. Service

6:40 – 7:15, Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach

7:15 – 8:45, Massive blogging catch-up time

8:45-9:00, Networking break!

(9:00: break to bring in the plants because of the FROST WARNING. Gah.)

Books so far: Seven. Not as great as I’d hoped, BUT THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNG!
Pages so far: 1579
Reading time: 420 min.
Blogging time: 225 min.
Total words blogged: Approximately 3,500. Because I am a crazy person. Also, I should switch to the desktop instead of the laptop because my wrists and mousing hand are sore.
Total time: 11 hours, 5 min.

 

Yesterday’s Magic by Pamela F. Service

Book six of the 48-hour Book Challenge binge! I’m going to use up all my blogging capabilities today, and by tomorrow, will be down to three word reviews. “Liked this book.” “This one bad.” “Book of awesome!” “V. boring book.”

Okay, I was quite thrilled that this sequel came out! I read Winter of Magic’s Return and Tomorrow’s Magic years ago when they first came out and I was an impressionable barely-teenager. Happily, the first two books are back in print, in a single volume as Tomrrow’s Magic.

The series is uncategorizable as either fantasy or SF, because it’s about Merlin and King Arthur coming back to a post-apocalyptical world. Yes, really!

The first book begins with three misfit students at a post-Devestation boarding school, in a nuclear winter made dangerous by roving mutants. There’s bookish, excitable Heather, solid, short-sighted Welly (short for Wellington), and the loner Earl Bedwas. If you’ve read the first two books, you know that Heather has wild magic and can talk to animals, Welly is on his way to becoming a famous warrior (much to his embarrassment, because he sees his bravery as pure, dumb luck and the growing stories as rampant exaggeration), and Earl is really Merlin. Yes, that Merlin, pulled out of his magical sleep as a toddler on the low end of the spell that preserved him in an endless loop of aging and rebirth.

All should be well. Merlin has his memories back, is on the way to reconciling his ancient magic with the undercurrents of this new world, and is engaged to Heather. King Arthur has returned, and is engaged to Queen Margaret of Scotland. And lo, there was much rejoicing. But Morgan LeFay is also back. And after the events of the previous two books, she definitely has it in for Merlin and his friends. She swoops in with her own nefarious plan, kidnaps Heather, and Merlin and Welly are off (with a dragon!) on a chase around the world.

If you’re sensing any damsel in distress vibes, don’t worry. Heather is a resourceful sort of girl, and does every bit as much work as Merlin and Welly to get herself out of harm’s way. This is a fun romp, and Blanche the persnickety young dragon is a entertaining addition to the cast. There were a couple of coincidences that were a bit too convenient, and there weren’t really any big revelations in this book. The first two were much broader in scope and there was a lot more at stake. Still, it was an enjoyable return to a beloved book-world, and I’m especially glad that this means that the first two books are back in print with a shiny new cover.

 

Frost by Nicole Luiken

Book five of the 48-hour Book Challenge binge. This one’s an autographed copy, mwaha. (Nicole is in my wife’s writing group in Edmonton, and a pretty awesome lady.)

Life in Iqualuit! Hockey! Ancient evil! Awesome!

Johnny Van Der Zee understand his girlfriend Kathy’s dedication. She wants to be a fighter pilot. He wants to be in the NHL. This isn’t as far off as it sounds–Johnny’s the star of his league in Iqualuit, and Kathy’s dad is in the Air Force, so she knows what it will take. Johnny’s lived up north for years, and is not just popular, but athletic and capable. So no-one can understand how he managed to flip his uncle’s snowmobile while Kathy was riding with him. It was a close call, but the only casualty was the snowmobile. Now Johnny’s uncle has pulled him out of hockey for the season as punishment and everyone expects him to be devastated.

But Johnny doesn’t seem to care. He knows that everything he loves is taken away from him by the mysterious, ancient evil that claimed him years ago. Johnny calls it Frost. Whatever it is, it’s a creature of killing cold and silent, barren places. Now Johnny’s trying to drive away everyone and everything he loves before Frost can take it from him, whether it’s his family, girlfriend, or even hockey. As Johnny becomes more manic and uncaring, his friends and family start to worry, and his ex-girlfriend Cheryl, no stranger to tragedy herself after The Year of Three Funerals, starts to put the pieces together. Meanwhile, Johnny is coming to the conclusion that Frost has some very definite plans for him, and the rest of the world. Nuclear-winter type plans.

This reminded me of Graham McNamee’s Bonechiller–but not in a derivative way, more as if two different writers both hit on the same plot elements, and put together two unrelated stories. This particular story is awesome for a variety of reasons. The plot starts off with a slight sense of unease and gradually ratchets up the tension and reveals what has come before and how it’s made the characters who they are. The characters themselves are all clearly-defined individuals–and excellent strong female characters! Like Cheryl, who survived the loss of her entire immediate family and found herself again through her grandfather’s Inuit traditions. Or Kathy, who knows exactly what she wants to do and is willing to put in every bit of hard work she can to get it. There’s a very strong sense of place, and yay for a realistic, respectful yet not sugar-coated look (to the best of my knowledge) at modern Inuit people. Also, it’s quite the creepy, well-put-together story.

One thing’s for sure, you’ll never listen to another Christmas carol about Jack Frost in quite the same way again…

 

The War of Jenkins’ Ear by Michael Morpurgo

Book four of the 48-hour Book Challenge binge. (I am currently up to seven books, but I need to let it sit in my brain fora  few hours before I can blog it.) Once I get this stack blogged, I think I need a break to eat. Or, find quick, easy food I can eat while reading.

Toby Jenkins starts every term counting down the days until he can leave again. He’s not Toby at school, he’s Jinks.And he always cries on the train. But this term, things are going to be different. First, there’s Wanda, the cook’s green-eyed daughter, who’s helping out her mother for the term. Even though he’s a toff and she’s an oik, he finds that just the thought of her makes school more bearable. And then there’s the new boy, Christopher. He’s not like anyone else at the school–he’s self-assured, a pacifist, and he questions things. Christopher always wants to know why. But what’s more than that, Christopher claims to have miraculous powers. His powers, and Jinks’ faith in him, are put to the test when Jinks inadvertently crosses over onto the territory of the oiks, the town boys, and starts a schoolboy war.

This is a totally unsentimental look at boarding school. (After hearing Michael Morpurgo speak at Kaleidescope last fall, it doesn’t surprise me.) This isn’t a jolly hockeysticks Enid Blyton story, but it’s not Lemony Snickett and the Austere Academy or Joan Aiken, either. The school itself reads like a pretty realistic depiction of shool life in the UK in the 50’s. Nobody’s starved, the schoolmasters aren’t deliberately cruel, but it’s a pretty harsh environment. (I think Jinks is about twelve or thirteen, and Swann, the youngest boy at the school, is only seven.)

It’s also a story about faith and belief. Chrisopher has visions, and is convinced that God speaks to him, and that he’s the next incarnation of Christ. He recruits Jinks and several other boys as his disciples, and proceeds to quietly try to do good. I’m still not quite sure what I think of it. It’s not a preachy story, or intent on disbunking anything. I’m sure it will offend some people, but if you’re comfortable with a different sort of story about religion, Michael Morpurgo is a hugely talented storyteller and this book’s no exception.

I’d planned on briefer blogging than I’ve been doing this weekend, but I seem to be reading books that I have things to say about. I’m not doing any editing though–so I hope I’m making sense!

(And at some point, I need to read The Butterfly Lion, which is based on the time the author ran away from boarding school–at least the beginning, anyhow.)