Check In - January

So... I was thinking it might be a good thing if every once in a while we had a check in post here and people could post in the comments (or post an entry of their own, whatever they prefer really) about how they're doing.

And for today I thought I'd add in the question - of all the books you've read recently, which was the best and why?

Lottery by Patricia Wood

(cross posted to my own blog)

Dave Hingsburger very occasionally hosts a book club on his blog.  The books he's chosen so far have all been very good.  And they've been very varied in my opinion.  At least one of them (Zoo Station by David Downing) I wouldn't have picked up for myself in waterstones or wherever and the other two (this one and A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell) are more my sort of book but neither I had heard of before they were mentioned by Dave.  The book this time is Lottery by Patricia Wood.  I had originally thought I wouldn't be able to get a copy in time thanks to all the snow we've had and my not getting out for so long earlier this month.  But then the lovely Heather posted her copy to me once she finished it.  Thanks Heather!

Lottery is a wonderful story about a character Wood names Perry L Crandell.  The L stands for lucky, his Gram always told him.  He's not the R word (I refuse to use that word in my writing but I suspect most people here know what it is), to be that you have to have an IQ of less than 75 and his IQ is 76.  Not long after the story starts his Gram dies and he ends up all alone.  The rest of his family think he's an idiot and don't want anything to do with him, they just take advantage and them dump him to manage by himself.  Until he wins 11 million dollars on the state lottery.

I don't want to go too much further into "this happens and that happens" because I don't want to risk ruining the story for anyone who hasn't read it.  I know a guy who frequently describes the plots of books and shows etc saying he won't say too much for fear of ruining it and goes so far I'm like "well you just did ruin it for me."  So I'll stick with what I've said because that's not much more than a paraphrased version of the back synopsis.

You might think that the idea of falling outside of a category by one IQ point is far fetched.  It's really not.  I've personal experience of having my needs assessed and having it found that I'm literally on the cusp of the category that gets help but sorry, Emma, no help for you!  The biggest thing that happened to me with was help with making food.  I can use the microwave and make sandwiches and get light things out of the oven so even though making food was one of the criteria you could get help for I couldn't.  Because the help that was available was help to use the microwave.  All of my other needs weren't ones that social services needed to meet according to their criteria (it's worth noting that in professional circles my area IS known as one of the worst in the UK for social services funding).  I've managed better than I anticipated without the support but financially paying myself for the bits (cleaning) I could no way manage without is a hit I could do without.  And certainly it does affect me in other ways but frustrating as it is it turned out to be of my benefit and it would be strange to have social services input again if it were offered.  I'd probably take it but it would take some getting used too.  And whilst it would be very useful I'm not sure the rigid systems that are generally provided here would feel right to me after so long out of them.  I'm not going to go any further  into my own situation because it's not relevant and it all happened several years ago.

The book ends with Perry as a very successful man, without most of his money but with everything he wants and success and love.  His family who fought so hard to have him declared incompetent and take his money aren't as lucky..

I think the overall message of this book is that happiness and success are measured it different ways and that if you think you are successful and if you're happy than it doesn't matter if you're different and society judges you negatively.  It's certainly a lesson I've had to learn in life and one at times I'm still working on remembering and relearning.

Hello from Kate!

Hi all,

Thanks for the welcome Emma.

I've always enjoyed reading but over the last few years have seemed to spend a lot of time buying books rather than reading them! I am doing 101 in 1001 days and one goal of that is to read 101 books! I thought that joining this group would motivate me to reach my goal! I also thought that it would be a good opportunity for me to 'meet' new people.

I've got a whole range of books on my shelfs - chick lit, autobiographies, general fiction etc. I also have the complete set of Harry Potter which I've yet to make a start on but would love to work my way through.

I look forward to hearing about what others are reading.

Kate

Welcome!

I'm hoping that our newest member will understand the instructions I e-mailed her and come along and introduce herself very soon.

But for now I thought it would be nice to post an entry here welcoming Kate to our midst!

Rolling Around In My Head Book Club

Dave Hingsburger who blogs over at Rolling Around In My Head holds an occasional online bookclub about disability centric books.

On 25th January he'll be discussing The Lottery by Patricia Wood - and rumour has it that she will be contributing to the book club as well.  You can take part by sharing your thoughts on your own blog or in the comments over at Dave's.  I really enjoyed the two previous books and thanks to my friend Heather passing her copy on to me I'm looking forward to reading Lottery too.

I'll post what I think of the book once I've read it - but it looks good.

Rereading The Princess Diaries

I finally went and did it. No, I don't mean going crazy--I did that years ago! Ha ha! *pulls a crazy face* I'm talking about buying and replacing the first two volumes of The Princess Diaries I've had in paperback with the hardback editions. (I bought the first two books in paperback when I first started collecting the series, but then I liked it so much I didn't wanna wait for the paperback editions to come out. So, I bought the rest of the volumes in hardback.)

The book that started it all, introducing us to Princess Amelia (Mia) Thermopolis Grimaldi Renaldo and giving us glimpses into her humorous, teen angst-riddled adventures, came Saturday, and I'm expecting the second book anyday now. The last book was published in 2008, I think, and ever since I read the last page I've wanted to reread the entire series straight through, this time looking at Mia's growth as a person (character) and at the changes in her relationships with the other characters. (Over time, some enemies become her friends and some friends--for a time--become her adversaries.) I also want to pay more attention to Lilly Moscovitz, Mia's best friend, how she develops and changes. I have to admit, it's going to be different reading the series this time around, but that's to be expected, I guess, since I know how things are going to go for each character.

I know this is teen fiction, but I love this series! It's humorous, mostly light-hearted, but it has soul. The characters are three-dimensional and well-written. The dilemmas Mia finds herself in in each book are for the most part, plausible, and I can see other teenage girls sympathizing or even empathizing with Her Royal Highness. I will admit though, Mia tends to be a drama queen, and sometimes that gets a bit old for me. But she never fails to get a laugh out of me, and there have been many a night when I read her diaries the first time that I was so glad I was alone, because I laughed out loud and for a good while before I could continue on with whichever volume I was on at the time.

I start the first volume tonight--for the second time--and I'm looking forward to following Mia and her eclectic set of friends as they navigate the tricky and often hard years of high school. (There are roughly 10 volumes in the series, plus a few volumes "and a half," that take us through Mia's freshman year to her graduation from Albert Einstein High School.)

***SPOILER ALERT***
Oh! That reminds me, if you'd like to read this series as well because you liked the Disney movies, don't expect it to be like them. At all. 'Cause it's not. The novels take place in New York, not San Francisco; Mia is blonde not a brunette; her dad is still alive but can't have anymore children; and her Grandmère is no charming, gracious Julie Andrews, and her (Clarisse's) dog, Rommel? He's a neurotic poodle! But to be honest, I prefer the books to the movies--no offense Anne Hathaway.

If the mood so strikes me, I may post more about the series as I go along. So you may be reading more about Mia and her experiences in the near future. Ta, for now!

Introducing Myself

I was going to post something the other day suggesting that people introduce themselves and then Shiloh beat me to it so I didn't

I probably should introduce myself though.

I'm Emma and I'm 28, from the UK.  My blog is A Writer in A Wheelchair.  I really love to read and I've been trying to increase my "range" of books away from easy chick lit and into new areas.

Since partway through last year I've been using this list as a bit of inspiration for some of what I read.  I'm thinking of not having a number goal this year when it comes to reading - for the last three years the goal has been 100 books which I finally managed in 2009, reading 102 books (72 in 2008 and 93 in 2007).  Instead I am making my goal that at least half of the books I read come from that list.  This spreadsheet is proving an invaluable tool in doing so.

I'm going to keep a list of books I read this year on my blog and I'm hoping to check in here every week or couple of weeks too depending on what happens with this challenge/blog.

A New Book List for 2010

Hi, my name is Shiloh. I'm from the Northwestern United States and used to be in the 100 Books Club with Emma. I'm glad she started this new book club, as I really enjoyed being part of a book club that allowed me to read whatever I wanted throughout the year.

Today I started documenting this year's list of books. As I finish each book it'll be added to the list, so if anyone's interested, they'll be able to see what I've read so far. And once in a while, I may write reviews of books that left an impression on me, whether good or bad. I'll be sure to post them here as well.

I hope we'll be able to get quite a group going here.

Linking To Reading Challenge

I have created two small icons (each 100 by 100 pixels) which can be used to link to this blog.  I will do a couple more soon.  Probably slightly different sizes as well as different colours.  I'm thinking of plain black and white ones as well as a blue one because that's what colour my own personal blog is at present.

To use them please right click them and upload them to your own image host and then link them back to this blog at http://notthe100bookclub.blogspot.com

If more detailed instructions for how to do that is needed please let me know, I love to help others with their blogs.

This is the first, it's basically the same as the header image. Plain red with white text which says "Reading Challenge"

This is the second image, it's white with red text which says "Reading Challenge 2010" and it has a red star underneath it, just for decoration,  It's my favourite of the two.

Welcome

I used to be a member of the 100 book club online for several years. However it's now defunct and I really missed having it last year. So I've set up this blog in an attempt to resurrect it somewhat.

The idea this time round is that you set yourself a challenge for how many books you want to read in a period of time - a month, week, year, whatever and post about your progress. How many books or pages you've read, which books you've read - recommend your favourites or tell us what you hated, whatever.

It's very new and I'm still trying to figure out how it's going to work but send an e-mail to writerinawheelchair@googlemail.com if you'd like to take part.

~Emma