Challenge Challenged!

This week's pecan winner is Lesley at A Life in Books!

Congratulations, girl!

I had promised Lesley a month ago I would join her Airchair Travelers Reading Challenge and am now finally getting to it. With this post, I ask her permission to not make a list, but rather list those I read in that category as I read them. Is that unethical for any reading challenge?

My work reading must come first. I hate to be snobbish. I find the challenge of participating in these challenges, comes from integrating them into articles for the newspapers I serve. My first choice, Eat, Pray, Love, was an easy pick because of its timeliness. It's number one on the paperback bestsellers list; plus, people are really talking about it now. Thus, I read it, wrote about it, and marked it off my Airchair Travelers Reading Challenge list.

One may have noticed the original list for the Non-Fiction Reading Challenge morphed. I replaced books I did plan to read with NFs read within the allotted time period. The original list was my attempt, at looking into the future, to read timely or crowd-pleasing books. Manhunt and Mockingbird remain on the list for I think they still have people appeal.

I just hope Joy at Thoughts of Joy will forgive me.

The idea (not making a list) actually came about as a poke at Ed. The Southern Reading Challenge was countered with a mock Damn Yankees Reading Challenge by Ed at Recycled Thoughts. My reading pattern this summer was Northern as the result of an impending vacation to New York City. As I wrote articles, I noticed just as many books for Ed's challenge as for my very own. So, I thought I would give Ed a little thrill by listing the Northern books read.

Thanks to Sage (his button & title idea), Ed has enjoyed three participants in his joke.

Fellow Bloggers and Challengers, I ask you, am I a reading challenge prima donna?

Challenge Challenged!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/this-weeks-pecan-winner-is-l-esley-at.html

New Southern Authors!

Some of our fellow Southern Reading Challenge participants have found new authors in the genre! Way to go you venturesome folks!

NolaDawn at Kids, Cats, & Books ~ What Else is There said, "No Place, Louisiana is a first novel for author Martin Pousson. It gives a look at life in Louisiana’s Cajun country as seen through the eyes of Nita, who is looking for any way to escape her poor life. Unfortunately, Louisiana is it. Great voice, immaculate timing, and classic Southern drama set in the slow 60s and 70s of the lazy bayous of Louisiana. You feel Nita’s yearning and want something more for her but know what the limitations that are placed on her are. A new Southern classic for me." Read more...

Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot had quite a bit to say about Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (a collection of southern short stories) edited by F. Brett Cox and Andy Ducan. She also had a visit from one of the editors, F. Brett Cox. He noted, "Andy and I knew when we took on this project that the range of stories we wanted would, inevitably, lead to some people liking some stories a great deal while asking of other, "What is _that_ doing _here_?" But one our main goals was, as you noted, diversity, and I think we achieved it." Read much more at ...

New Southern Authors!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-southern-authors.html

Simpsonize Me!

Simpsonize Me!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-do-i-look-as-simpson.html

Dawg Days of Summer

It was a nasty 101 degrees with a heat index of 107 today. (My little weather gurl (in the sidebar) was probably runnin' around nakeed instead of her usually yellow polka dot bikini! Oh, and today is the anniversary of the release of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!) The weather promises to be more the same for the rest of the week. Can you even imagine life without air conditioning in these conditions? We got our first window unit in 1973, praise be.

Carroll Cloar, American, 1913-1993

Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog, 1964

Thought this would be a good time to post a painting idealizing the historic blues cross(rail)roads of the South, where the Southern Crosses the Dawg.

Dawg Days of Summer

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/dawg-days-of-summer.html

Eat, Pray, Love (copy)

I admire writers who willingly place their lives on public display through personal memoirs. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, Night by Elie Wiesel, and The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr immediately come to mind as examples. This week I read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert; a book that combines two of my favorite non-fiction genres—memoirs and travelogues.

Before we delve into the book, I wish to define the word memoir. Most readers use memoir, biography, and auto-biography interchangeably which is an injustice to the writer. Biographies are meant to convey one’s life from birth to death, or in the case of auto-biographies near death. With memoirs, the writer concentrates on a specific event within a life and tries to give it meaning. In Wiesel’s Night, the reader faces horror upon horror as he travels from ghetto to concentration camp during the Holocaust. His specific event is the Holocaust, but we know, through Oprah, he continues to live an eventful life.

Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s search for meaning after an acrimonious divorce which spirals her into depression. To break her cycle and “comeback” from failure, she plans a yearlong trip abroad. Her inspiration for the wanderlust is a string of beads called japa malas which contain 108 beads. A precursor to rosary beads, she uses the 108, “a perfect three-digit multiple of three” as her outline for the book, as in 108 entries with 36 chapters per three countries.

Continuing with the trilogy theme, she further chooses three goals to achieve while living in each country. She calls them pursuits and while in Italy she pursues pleasure through food, in India she pursues devotion through meditation, and in Indonesia she pursues balance through human contact. Her title Eat, Pray Love derives from the adjectives describing each pursuit as she accomplishes them.

I’m shocked Gilbert chooses food over the obvious pleasure many recent divorcées opt for. Staring her in the face are two Italian gods, otherwise known as Giovanni and Dario, or the Tandem Language Exchange twin brothers. My jaw drops as she spends fifty, flirty hours drinking wine and watching sunsets with Giovanni only to be left at the door with a handshake. Dang those English Puritan genes!

Many a reader will enjoy Gilbert’s self-imposed travel through raw emotions with an upbeat flare. She reminds us, “God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.”

Note: Number 1 Armchair Traveler's Reading Challenge

Eat, Pray, Love (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/eat-pray-love-copy.html

Winners-Step Right Up!

Friday Night Pecan Delight Winner

is

Diane at Nanners and Noodles!

You know the drill...

Sense of Place Winner

is

Literary Feline at Musings of a Bookish Kitty!

I want to thank everyone for participating. All entrants were excellent and deserve an autograph copy of Plain Heathen Mischief, but I only have one! If you haven't already, please stop by these bloggers and check out their "sense of place" photos. Thanks again for the interesting posts, quotes, and photos!

1. A Fondness For Reading with To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Lynne's Little Corner with The Beach House
3. Shelf Life with Fair and Tender Ladies
4. Tiffany Norris with Deliverance
5. Book Girl's Nightstand with The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell
6. Musings of a Bookish Kitty with When Crickets Cry
7. Book Haven with The Optimist's Daughter
8. A Striped Armchair with Delta Wedding
9. Misfit Finds Her Place with A Good Man is Hard to Find

Winners-Step Right Up!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/winners-step-right-up.html

Tobacco Road (copy)

Is Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell meant to be taken seriously or is it a comedic tour de force? I read the book cold-turkey. This is how I like to describe a book in which I lack prior knowledge of plot, characterization, or theme. I merely pick the book up to try a new author or in this case I liked the title.

I was halfway through the book before I stopped to read the small bio, brief description, and critic comments located on the back cover. The New York Herald Tribune claims, “Mr. Caldwell’s humor, like Mark Twain’s, has as its source an imagination that stirs the emotions of the reader.”

Ah, Mark Twain(ish) humor, it is supposed to be funny. That changes everything! The characters and their disregard for human life, other than their own, was a little disheartening to read. Knowing now that it is a farce, allows me to really enjoy the story full of unbelievable characters.

Leading the role for most unbelievable is main character, Jeeter, patriarch of the Lester family. Jeeter is all about Jeeter. He even shoos his own mother from the dinner table. Ada, his wife and producer of 17 children, is a quiet woman, but lately, “hunger has loosened her tongue,” and made her a trite annoying. All of the children except for Dude, 16, and Ellie May, 17, have left home for the big city of Augusta, Georgia and its cotton mills. The youngest child, Pearl, 12, was traded to Lov Bensey for food. Grandmother Lester is allowed to haunt the house as long as she stays out of the way. The family actually wills her to wither and blow away.

The book was originally published in 1932, and the timeline is concurrent with the Depression. The Lesters have become sharecroppers on their own original Lester land after Jeeter squanders their assets with fraudulent home loans. As the story opens the family is subsiding on corn meal, snuff, and chicory, while Grandmother Lester forages off the land.

I am so thankful this book is comedic in nature. Not, laugh-track, ha-ha funny such as Beverly Hillbillies or Green Acres, but rather a relief these aren’t real people. The character Elly May Clampett is way more forgiving to the eyes than poor, hair-lipped Ellie May Lester. Oh, and how misleading is the title, where’s the tobacco?

Tobacco Road (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/08/tobacco-road-copy.html

Contest Ends 12AM...

Just a quick reminder, the Sense of Place Contest ends tomorrow night at the stroke of twelve. I currently have seven participants providing a 1 in 7 chance someone will win the Autographed Copy of Martin Clark's Plain Heathen Mischief! See the side bar for details...

Long before I knew that Tobacco Road was a work of fiction, it existed for me as a scrap of fictional geography, vague but real, and I shuddered to imagine its inhabitants.

~ Lewis Nordan

Fiction:
Music of the Swamp (1991)
Wolf Whistle (1993)
The Sharpshooter Blues (1995)
Lightning Song (1997)

Nonfiction:
Boy with Loaded Gun: A Memoir (2000)

Contest Ends 12AM...

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/contest-ends-12am.html

Drum Roll Please...

Rebecca from Fond of Books is this week's pecan winner!

I had to go through three other past-winners before we found a neo-winner.

Congratulations, Rebecca!!!

Drum Roll Please...

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/drum-roll-please.html

Rats (copy)

One of my favorite things to do as a reader on vacation is read a book with local flair. You may have noticed my lead to books: The Big Bam by Montville and Pigeons by Blechman. This trip I brought along, Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan, as our 2007 guidebook.

Robert Sullivan, author of The Meadowlands and A Whale Hunt, is currently a contributing editor to Vogue and constant contributor to the New Yorker. In 2004, the year Rats was published, I heard Sullivan on NPR and as a guest of David Letterman.

I remember thinking he sounds sane and looks normal, but what is wrong with this man. No one, in his right mind, willingly gives up a year of their life to observe rats in their natural habitat. I am happy to say, after reading Rats, author Sullivan is like most Americans. He still gets a little freaked-out working around and in proximity to rats, even after a year of “observing.”

Let us start with the whys. Sullivan thought the rats of New York City, although a quarter to half a million strong, were mostly ignored by nature writers. If they appeared in print it was to shock newspaper buyers into full subscriptions. Yet, for all the potential diseases they carry, they have had little consequence on humans in the last eighty years.

Throughout history, where humans created community, so too did rats. As our fictitious Hansel and Gretel skipped into the woods, it wasn’t song birds but rather hungry rats that ate their bread crumbs. For America, it was the rattus norvegicus or Norway Rat, who arrived, “in the first year of the Revolution.” From which they ambled after the settlers into the country, as Sullivan quips, “a manifest infestation.”

In the summer of 2001, Sullivan set up camp outside the entrance to Eden’s Alley. In an L-shaped corridor connecting Gold Street and Fulton, the oldest section of Manhattan, he began his shift at five in the evening where he observed through a night-vision monocular until morning broke. The yearlong experiment included the tragic September 11th loss that fall, when volunteers worked to contain the rats and the pestilence they harbor from Americans.

This is a fascinating read about a disgusting animal many humans would rather ignore. Would it surprise you, John James Audubon spent his later years walking the streets of lower Manhattan, similar to our neo-naturalist Sullivan, looking for rats.

Rats (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/rats-copy.html

This Week's Winner is...

One eye on the Yankees game and the other in REM, the hub responded to this week's number question with.

"Sebenteen!"

That means Debi from Nothing of Importance won this week's Southern treat! Back up girl, you're 'bout to get 'khaned!

Note: The cute poster is a creation from the mind of Cedric Smith. He has done a series of kids and food. Check out his work...

This Week's Winner is...

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/this-weeks-winner-is.html

Modern Day Mockingbird Cast

Booklogged over at A Reader's Journal had a lovely discussion with a Canadian youth this past week. Apparently she was reading To Kill a Mockingbird when a teen told her Peck was wrong for the part of Atticus. I like his reasoning, but I still prefer Gregory Peck!

This got me thinking, which actors might pull off a modern day version. Below are 12 cast members and the characters they portrayed in the 1962 cast. If you were ahead of production, money no object, who would you place in the roles of Atticus, Scout, and Boo? This might make a fun meme, but please, no pressure. Have fun...

Note: I thought the "Not Suitable For Children" was a nice touch on the movie poster.

Gregory Peck........................................Atticus Finch

John Megna......................Charles Baker 'Dill' Harris

Frank Overton..............................Sheriff Heck Tate

Brock Peters.......................................Tom Robinson

Estelle Evans...............................................Calpurnia

Paul Fix..................................................Judge Taylor

Collin Wilcox Paxton.................Mayella Violet Ewell

James Anderson...............Robert E. Lee 'Bob' Ewell

Robert Duvall.............................Arthur 'Boo' Radley

William Windom...................Mr. Gilmer, Prosecutor

Mary Badham....................................................Scout

Phillip Alford........................................................Jem

Modern Day Mockingbird Cast

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/modern-day-mockingbird-cast.html

See...JenClair!

Which Author's Fiction are You?

Flannery O'Connor wrote your book. Not much escapes your notice.
Take this quiz!



Quizilla
Join
Make A Quiz More Quizzes Grab Code

See...JenClair!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/seejenclair.html

I Ramble When Sleepy...(copy)

I am a little groggy. I spent half of last night reading a book just for fun. No, it wasn’t the new Harry Potter. It was something a little more adult. I read Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich and loved it!

I don’t feel at all guilty, either. Why should I? I know, I didn’t learn anything and lost valuable beauty sleep, but boy did I have fun. At times, I was having so much fun, my laughter echoed down the hall. Come to think of it, my husband is probably groggy, too.

What is wrong with having fun? Isn’t reading supposed to fun? Why do we feel we must learn something in the process? I admit, I read Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find earlier in the week. Okay, in essence, I lied. I did the self-assigned hard stuff first, because I felt guilty, before playing. Even I couldn’t let myself have fun.

I should be able to pick up a book for the pure escapism it provides. Not only that, I should consider O’Connor’s writings as much fun as the Stephanie Plum series. Yes, her writings are full of racism, classism, and ageism, but they are meant to be escapism, too. I think Flannery would have used a road-killed, stuffed, exploding armadillo created by the local taxidermist as performance art, had she thought of it like Evanovich.

Come to think of it, I had as much fun reading O’Connor. I do remember laughing out loud while reading her last story titled, The Displaced Person. It was a different type of fun though, a cerebral type filled with subtle ironic twists. For example, in the last few sentences of the short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, our main character is described by her killer with, “She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

We see ourselves in her characters, hear ourselves in their voices, and move within their world which makes the book fun. Also, I found with O'Connor's characters, it is just as much fun knowing we aren’t like some of them.

Who is to say I didn’t learn something through Evanovich’s character Stephanie Plum. Before reading the book, I would have been skeptical if someone said they totaled a car, burnt down two buildings, stapled a man’s jewels, and receive 16 stitches in their leg in less than 24 hours. Humph?

I Ramble When Sleepy...(copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-ramble-when-sleepycopy.html

The Mis-Education of Maggie

I so wanted to like her, and I may be warming to her as I reflect on her short stories, but the casual use of the N word stupefies me. Of course, it isn’t her fault, she is merely reflecting the times as they were; therefore, I should be mad at those times, but it is O’Connor in my hands and in my head.

Was it Flannery O’Connor’s grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find or Sweetheart who said, “Oh look at the cute little pickaninny.” O’Connor may have written the words in the early 50s, but I heard them in the 70s from my own grandmother. Sweetheart had a habit of using the N word which was never watered down such as negro or colored. I loved her but had trouble figuring out why the obvious character flaw in her otherwise pleasant self.

All my grandparents were openly racist, yet my mother and father rejected their beliefs by buying music by Fats Domino. Sounds silly, but this was a major deal. White people were supposed to buy white music and black people were supposed to buy black music. Or, at least that is how the world turned in the South.

I approached the situation a little differently, I merely listened. Ns are dumb. Ns are lazy. Ns are dirty. As I became older, each one of the statements was debunked by my friend, Kenneth Moore. Our dads played tennis together, so we learned early, get lost. (Can you say ball girl?) Kenneth and I were the same age and went to the same schools. He always made better grades than me, was early to all classes, and looked like a model from the Sears catalog. I may have been white, but I was the N my grandparents warned me about, not him.

In O’Connor’s time, N occurred in everyday conversation. In present times it is a dirty word. Sweetheart, if you are reading this, I love you! But, say that word again and I’m gettin’ the soap.




Note: Fats Domino's mixed media portrait by Tami Ellis.

The Mis-Education of Maggie

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/mis-education-of-maggie.html

RIP Mr. Marlette

Doug Marlette

1949-2007

Pulitzer Prize Winner (1988)

Non-Fiction

In Your Face: A Cartoonist at Work (1991)

Fiction

The Bridge (2001)

The Magic Time (2006)

Sage from Musings had some very nice things to say, plus a review.

RIP Mr. Marlette

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/rip-mr-marlette.html

Lucky Number 13!

Friday the 13th was a lucky day for one Southern Reading Challenge participant.

My husband was quick with the number this time.

And the winner is Tiffany!

She has read one book so far for the challenge, taking on Deliverance by James Dickey. She begins, "'The whole land was very tense.' An appropriate first sentence for a very tense book." Read more...

Congratulations Tiffany and look for those khans in the mail!

Lucky Number 13!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/lucky-number-13.html

I'm a Rockin' Thinker!

You Love Me!

You Really Do!

Thank YEW Nancy at Bookfoolery and Babble, Iliana at Bookgirl's Nightstand, and Gentle Reader at Shelf Life for the Rockin' Girl Blogger Award!

Thank YEW Terry at Hill Country of Monroe County, MS, and Lisa at Books. Lists. Life. for the Thinking Blogger Award!

I'm a Rockin' Thinker!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/im-rockin-thinker.html

The God-Haunted South

Bookpage calls him the author of, "God-Haunted Southern Literature." Wow, that's pretty amazing praise, and why haven't I heard of him?!? Who? Haven't heard of whom? Charles Martin!

Literary Feline had this to say about When Crickets Cry, "I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I love the title itself, and the story is not only heartbreaking but also heartwarming. It is a novel most of all of love and friendship, but also of letting go, making sacrifices, redemption, and of having hope." Read more...

Other books by Christian author Charles Martin include:

Chasing Fireflies

Maggie

Wrapped in Rain

The Dead Don't Dance

The God-Haunted South

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/god-haunted-south.html

Three Perils of Reading!

In the library world, there are individuals who we consider “rock stars” of the profession. One such “rock star” is a petite librarian named Nancy Pearl. Mrs. Pearl is the model for the librarian action figure, “with the amazing push-button shushing action.” In person, she looks exactly like the Barbie size doll, complete with loafers and glasses.

At a recent conference, I was lucky enough to hear her speak on reading. She surprised us by giving three perils of reading. Yes, my friends, there are three dangers that occur to people who read too much. And, you thought reading was all good.

First peril occurs when one encounters vocabulary he may not know how to pronounce. She admitted for years she pronounced misled as missile-d. Other examples include the words awry and segue. I myself tried to use segway in an article. The spell-check underlined it quick, thus I used transition instead. It wasn’t until writing this that the light bulb came on.

Second peril occurs when one is too lazy to define a word so they surmise the meaning from context. Pearl recalled her younger days spent reading the Anne of Green Gables series. At her tender age, the dying of little Ruby was extremely traumatic, for she couldn’t figure out who or what ate her or how she ate herself. You see little Ruby died of “consumption.”

The last peril is the most dangerous of all. It occurs when one confuses stories they have read with their actual life. It happened to Pearl a few months earlier. While on the phone with her daughter, she started telling her about a yellow prom dress she wore to the dance. She went into elaborate detail recounting the high collar, lace arms, and fancy petticoat. As she continued describing her date, Mike, he daughter stopped her. “Mom, you didn’t go to the prom!” With worry in her voice, she told her mom she sounded like a chapter in Double Date by Rosamond Du Jardin.

Aagh! This is my fate for sure. I can see myself telling tales to the nursing home staff and them thinking, “Ah, she just read it in a book.” How will they know the real me from the written me? I really skipped a Starduster on the calm waters of Old Hickory Lake thanks to Michael Torraca. I didn’t really land a DC3 in the mountains during icing conditions with only car lights as my guide thanks to Ernest K. Ganns. Such is life, and such is life in books.

Three Perils of Reading!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/three-perils-of-reading.html

How Do You Pronounce Cairo?

Karo Pecan Pie

3 large eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup Karo (dark OR light)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons oleo

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup pecans, chopped

Beat eggs throughly, add sugar, Karo, melted oleo, salt, and vanillia. Mix well. In unbaked 9 inch pie shell, spread pecans on bottom and poor mixture over them. Bake at 350 degrees until firm - 30 minutes.

~From the ladies of Como, Mississippi

How Do You Pronounce Cairo?

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-do-you-pronounce-cairo.html

How Do You Pronounce Pecan?

Hi Mike!

Congratulations Ellamac at McCallaCamellia!
You're our new weekly winner!

How Do You Pronounce Pecan?

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-do-you-pronounce-pecan.html

Born Today in 1951...

A bouncing "rough south" boy, Larry Brown, in Oxford, Mississippi!

Fiction:
Facing the Music (Short stories, 1988)
Dirty Work (1989)
Big Bad Love (Short stories, 1990)
Joe (1991)
Father and Son (1996)
Fay (2000)
The Rabbit Factory (2003)
A Miracle of Catfish (2007)

Nonfiction:
On Fire (1993)
Billy Ray’s Farm: Essays (2001)

Born Today in 1951...

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/born-today-in-1951.html

Make Mine a Pulitzer

As a librarian, it is important to keep reading. Sounds silly to have to write that, but a lot of people in my profession do not keep reading. They settle into their professional magazines or read just their favorite authors and call it, ENOUGH.

But, what if said librarian is cornered by a patron that wants to discuss books? EGADs!

Did you know, in our area, librarians are hiring more managers than actual certified librarians. As a matter of fact, when I started working as a librarian I was hired with a BS in aerospace. I went back to school in the fall of 2002 to get that coveted Masters in Library and Information Science; otherwise, I would have been just another manager, too.

I have a little story that illustrates the need to keep reading. One of my librarian friends was forcibly removed from her beloved job. The old toss the fat money maker and replace with a cheaper younger version scenario, was this person's fate. Well, the younger version wasn't a reader, um, at all.

The local book club found out by asking two little questions. "Did you enjoy this month's book?"

"No ma'am. Sorry. I didn't have time to read it."

"Okay, tell us what was the last book you read."

She was fishing for types of books their new librarian might enjoy, when he replied, "Um, I haven't read anything lately, but I did listen to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil a couple of years ago."

How embarrassing for this young man, to lose all credibility and in front of key library users in the community.

I don't want to ever be that Yahoo! This is why I join challenges. Yes, I read the pro-mags and favorite authors, too, but challenges keep me reading different books. Books I know I will enjoy, but just haven't read yet, and isn't that the key-keep reading.

This is a list of Pulitzer Prize Winners I haven't read yet, but will be reading in the next 12 months for the Book Awards Reading Challenge.

2006 - March - Geraldine Brooks

2005 - Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

2004 - The Known World

- Edward P. Jones

2003 - Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

- Michael Chabon

1995 - The Stone Diaries

- Carol Shields

1990 - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos

1988 - Beloved - Toni Morrison

1987 - A Summons to Memphis

- Peter Taylor

1986 - Lonesome Dove

- Larry McMurtry

1983 - The Color Purple

- Alice Walker

1980 - The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer

1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

1958 - A Death in the Family - James Agee

1952 - The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

1947 - All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren

1942 - In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow

1940 - The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

1939 - The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1932 - The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder

1925 - So Big - Edna Ferber

Make Mine a Pulitzer

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/make-mine-pulitzer.html

Happy Fourth!

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

~Mark Twain
Following the Equator (1897)

Happy Fourth!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/happy-fourth.html

The Big Bam (copy)

Serendipity is the art of finding something meaningful amid looking for something else; or at least, that is how I define it. It happened last week while perusing the Atlanta airport books. I was in the mood for Flannery O’Connor, a native Georgian, when I ran across his face. Who? None other than, "the Sultan of Swat, The Caliph of Clout, The Wizard of Whack, the Rajah of Rap, the Wazir of Wham, the Mammoth of Maul, the Maharajah of Mash, the Bambino. The Bam. The Big Bam." Yes, staring me in the face was The Big Bam by Leigh Montville.

Skipping down the concourse and plopping into a seat next to hubby, I smile as I reveal my manly book. Ah, I can see in his eyes, he is impressed with my decision. He then tells me he has tickets to watch the Yankees at Yankee Stadium while in New York. He wants to see a game in the "House that Ruth Built" before they move across the street.

"Babe Ruth played for the Yankees and they built a stadium for him?"

Yes, yes. Laugh away. It is a good thing this book called out to me! I obviously know nothing of the game of baseball. Maybe Babe’s ghost placed it in my ignorant hands to keep me from further embarrassing myself.

The Babe’s early life is a mystery and author Montville calls it the fog. The book opens with father, George Herman Ruth, escorting his seven year old son to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. The school housed orphans, truants, and delinquents; for some reason, a place Mr. Ruth thought better than his home above the family bar. Reasons are in the fog.

It is at school Ruth learned how to pitch, hit, and field a baseball. At the age of 18, a scout for the Baltimore Orioles, Jack Dunn, stopped in for a look-see. He noticed as the large boy came to bat, "the right fielder moved so far back that he left the playing field, crossed a path, and stood in the next field, where another game was taking place." Next thing, the ball careened over the same fielder’s head.

In the early 1900s, a home run was seen as a fluke, as unexpected as an ace in golf. The book states, "The balls were not made for home runs...scuffed up, roughed up, spit upon, and used for as many as 100 pitches in a game. The bats, heavy and thick through the handle, were not made for home runs. The mind was not made for home runs." Here, standing in front of Jack Dunn, was a miracle.

For what ever reason, I’m glad I finally met Babe Ruth. Montville summed it up nicely, "He will be crude and rude and kind and approachable, sometimes all in the same ten minutes, and it all will be fine. He will be credited with miracles. Fine."

The Big Bam (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/big-bam-copy.html

Today in History

"on July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed it (Civil Rights Act) into law."

What a coincidence that Eva from A Striped Armchair posted a review for the Southern Reading Challenge on a book set in 1964's South Carolina which uses the Civil Rights passage as a catalyst for change. One blogger posted that the present date coincides with the passage of that law! Eva claims Secret Life of Bees left her with "that satisfied reader's glow." Read more...

Debi from Nothing of Importance stated, "It's not often that I stumble upon a book that I fall so deeply in love with...". Read more...

Nymeth from Things Mean a Lot says, "There are many reasons why I loved this book. The writing itself, for starters, is both simple and beautiful, and, above all, it feels very genuine." Read more...

Today in History

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/today-in-history-work-in-progress.html

Congratulations, Carol!

You are our new Pecan Winner!

(That's Carol without Blog!)

Yippee!

Normally, I ask my husband for a number between 1-53, which he hollars with great exuberance; alas, he is at work and I am alone to do the deed. I'm watching cable and decided it would be fair to use the channel as my number. I'm watching WKNO's What's Killing Stellar Sea Lions on channel 10 and am very sad. So, through bittersweet tears I congratulate Carol! :D

Congratulations, Carol!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/07/congratulations-carol.html

Can Blogs Be Trusted?

Well, anything you read on my blog CAN! Um, and if something is found to be untrue, well, I’m sure y'all will call me on it. Right? I have no alterative motive other than encourage reading. Any critical analysis (which may accidently get in) is open to interpretation.

Last Saturday, I attended the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) program, Can Blogs Be Trusted?. Our speaker, Jason Zengerle, Senior Editor for The New Republic, was gracious enough to speak two hours since his co-speaker remained MIA.

As librarians, I think most of us attended the meeting to find some authoritative blogs. A little something-something to advise pre-law students asking quote questions or for those wary instructors faced with citations from questionable sites. To make a long blog short, Zengerle stated he is, "skeptic about information from many blogs."

Well, surprise. So are we.

Note: As a book blogger, I would like to see this title-post question asked of my peers. Do you give galleys a more favorable review because they are free? Most of us would say "NO WAY!" to that kind of question, but...

Can Blogs Be Trusted?

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/can-blogs-be-trusted.html

Hee-Haw!

Here's a little something

to think about
as we embark on the

"Sense of Place" contest.

Photos of dead mules need not apply!

Oh, this one? He's restin'.

Thank yew to this hilarious post

from SFP at Pages Turned!

She did a little background check on "southernness"
which turned up this jewel by Jerry Leath Mills.

...there is indeed a single, simple, litmus-like test for the quality of southernness in literature, one easily formulated into a question to be asked of any literary text and whose answer may be taken as definitive, delimiting, and final. The test is: Is there a dead mule in it?

Hee-Haw!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/hee-haw.html

Hey, I Wear Her Shoes, I Might as Well have Her Boobs!

Your Celebrity Boob Twin:

Jessica Simpson

Who's Your Celebrity Boob Twin?

Hey, I Wear Her Shoes, I Might as Well have Her Boobs!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/hey-i-wear-her-shoes-too.html

"Sense of Place" Contest!

The rules:

Pick out a passage from your southern reading which depicts sense of place

Either take a picture to match the passage or find one on the internet

Post quote and picture and Link it to Mister Linky on this post

You don't have to be a participant in the Southern Reading Challenge to play

Good Luck! Deadline is July 31, 2007!

One lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of

Martin Clark's Plain Heathen Mischief!

Thanks Deana!

Above is a photo of a southern architectural tradition:

the porch, veranda, or gallery.
This is my side porch. Pretty plain I know.
We will be tearing it down and replacing it with original wooden latticework.
So, I've got the required red rockers until work begins.

"Sense of Place" Contest!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/sense-of-place-contest.html

Born Today in 1880!

Our very own Alabamian, Helen Keller!

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

~ Helen Keller

Born Today in 1880!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/born-today-in-1880.html

Conference Transportation Blues cont...

I wanted to add that the extremely nice conference bus drivers were contracted from Florida. This will make more sense to those who rode the buses on Friday and Saturday.

Did it seem like he was lost at times? Well, that's 'cos he was!

Conference Transportation Blues cont...

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/conference-transportation-blues.html

Mississippi Fred McDowell - Goin Down to the River

Mississippi Fred McDowell - Goin Down to the River

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/mississippi-fred-mcdowell-goin-down-to.html

Conference Airport Blues!

How many of us poor librarians spent the long day, night, and morning traveling from DC to home? I arrived at the airport a hair after 3:30pm, with a delayed 8ish departure, and arrived at my back stoop at 4:01 this morning. Some poor souls probably still haven't made it home because of the cancelled flights. Weather in Atlanta and Air Traffic Control delays were to blame, but don't you just want to blame it on the airlines.

How about some blues for y'all. A little Go Down to the River and take a bath blues! You know you want to dunk yourself in that cold, cool water. Go on, I'll wait.

Oh, and here's a little trivia for y'all bluesy peeps. Mississippi Fred pumped gas between his international/national touring schedule.

Conference Airport Blues!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/conference-airport-blues.html

Artist Respect Boundaries

When a children’s picture book is created there are usually three integral people involved: the writer, the illustrator, and the editor. The editor acts as middleman with a slightly different twist. He gets input from both parties but doesn’t confer with the other. In essence, all information is fed to him, but he doesn’t dole it back out. Thus an innocent little 32-page book is created without the writer and illustrator communicating. For example, the very popular Miss Bindergarten Kindergarten series, illustrated by Ashley Wolff, shocked writer Joseph Slate when his human characters appeared as animals.

It is a rare occasion when collaboration occurs between writer and illustrator, with the exception of married teams. This is why Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) program, Collaboration Techniques Between Authors & Artists: The Inside Story of How Picture Books are Created, was extremely interesting.

The speakers consisted of HarperCollins writer, Eloise Greenfield and illustrator, Jan Spivey Gilchrist; Farrar Straus & Giroux writer, Eric Kimmel and illustrator, Leonard Everett Fisher; and Bloomsbury/Walker Books writers/illustrators, Kevin O’Malley and Patrick O’Brien.

All brought to the audience a well rounded program, but admitted they respect the other's space. Mrs. Greenfield elegantly stated, "they [Greenfield & Gilchrist] collaborate on all books, but they are strict not to comment on the other's work." Kimmel and Fisher admit to swapping jokes when they are on the phone, instead of talking shop. The O’Malley/O’Brien collaboration began because the two are related by marriage and it "seemed like a good idea," but they too tend to banter on the phone.

It is with respect they all maintain a healthy distance from their mutual artistic partners. Very obvious, from the ease at which they are all in the same room, at the same tables, that friendship abounds. Kimmel explained their connection as, "being on the same wavelength." Gilchrist trust Greenfield enough to paint a whole book without ever having words to consult. The book, Sweet Baby Coming, is a poem of expectation written after the artwork arrived.

I think Kimmel explained the collaboration process the best with his storyteller analogy. As a young summer volunteer, Kimmel spent his salad days telling stories at his local public library. (He also claims this storytelling is the key to his successful writing.) He soon realized the characters and scenes he was describing, actually appeared totally different in the heads of his listeners. No one is ever wrong when interpreting a story, including illustrators.

Artist Respect Boundaries

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/artist-respect-boundaries.html

TXMommy Wins Weekly Prize!

Yes!
Our weekly winner is TxMommy

from Too Many To Count.
Big Congratulations to her!

TXMommy Wins Weekly Prize!

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/txmommy-wins-weekly-prize.html

Day Two and My...

...Dawgs are Barkin'! We had the best fun today stumbling all around town. For the record, we racked up 34,000 steps or over 16 miles. That's a lot of museums and Metro steps. Our favorite, hands down, had to be the US Botanical Gardens, southeast from the Capitol.

Oh, my! It's past 1am and I'm still on the computer. I think I may have a problem. Should y'all gather and plan a bloggie intervention? :D

Day Two and My...

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2007/06/day-two-and-my.html