reading

2020 Reads

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

2020 was a hard reading year for many people. For me, though, the only thing keeping me sane was audiobooks. I devoured audiobooks this year. Many, I’ll admit, rereads of things I knew felt like magic to me, like Maggie Steifvater’s Raven Cycle, or Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. I also returned to other forms of comfort, like Percy Jackson and a reread of The Hunger Games as narrated by the incredibly talented Tatiana Maslany.

2020 was also the year I finally finished The Wheel of Time. It isn’t and never will be a favorite of mine, but Brandon Sanderson ended it well, and that’s what I was hoping for. My favorite new reads of the year were the first book I finished, The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis, Darius the Great is Not Okay/Deserves Better by Adib Khorram, which both made me sob like a baby, and the hilarious, insane trip that is Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. It was also the first time I read Jurassic Park and The Lost World, or any Crichton at all, to be honest.

This was a really great year for reading for me, but I’m grateful I’m a person who can listen to audiobooks, because while this is the most books I managed in a year almost ever (53), it also would have been utterly impossible without audiobooks, as the only one I managed all the way through in book-form was Maggie Stiefvater’s Call Down the Hawk, and even that took me ages.

My Year of Favorite Authors

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

bleedys-icons-dockjpgI have a terrible habit.

I’m not talking about anything dark or sinister… just something that is self-frustrating. On the surface, it doesn’t even sound so bad, really. It is this: I like to save the best for last.

This is something I learned at a young age, as a dessert loving foodie. If you save the best bit until last, you don’t have the memory of that taste marred by something lesser.

Unfortunately, though, I don’t always leave this philosophy to food, and it makes much less sense in most other forms. For example: books. Every book lover knows that as readers, we work on a sort of hierarchy  and that hierarchy looks more or less something like the following:

  • Books I have to read right now
  • Books I want to read
  • Books I should want to read
  • Books I want to want to read (You know what I’m talking about. “Why don’t I want to read this?”)
  • Books I have to read (Okay, maybe this is just in school)
  • Books I don’t particularly care to read but that everyone else are reading that I don’t want to be behind on

You all have a hierarchy something like that, yes? Is that just me?

Anyhow. I have, many times, kept books from my favorite series or by my favorite authors in reserve after books of a lower order, as a sort of “treat.” In fact, this started out in school when I had to read books. I would read a “fun” book alongside it and allow myself the pleasure of something I wanted out of the fiction world after reading a chapter or two of what I was supposed to be reading. Somewhere along the path, it morphed into me reading something I sort of wanted to read alongside the book that I really wanted to read, so that I got both books done.

And then it flipped into something I can’t really explain… me keeping books by beloved authors beholden in some sort of guilty way, because I had so many other books that I hadn’t read yet, so I felt as if I didn’t deserve to read the newer books that I really wanted to read. Yes, I became a reader weighed down by her (unspeakably huge) to be read shelf. I was getting to the point where I was barely reading anything. The last handful of years I have read fewer books than ever before in a year, just passing twenty last year.

Just recently I decided this sort of practice was, in a word, ridiculous. It has led to me both being behind the times on books and authors I care about, and has dragged down the enjoyment of reading anything less than stellar. Not even that. Anything that had less than a stellar expectation point for me. Meaning I was stopping myself from discovering new book and author loves that really were stellar.

Last year, my goal was to read something more challenging. I picked up Bleak House by Charles Dickens, but I am a faithless lover when it comes to books, so I also picked up Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Suzanne Clarke, and The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky… and I overwhelmed myself. I’m pressing pause on two of the three, because I am still, yes STILL in the middle of all three of them. I’m some three-fifths done with Bleak House and honestly enjoying it, I just cannot read Dickens fast and enjoy it.

So this year I am going through my books and I am reading first and foremost the unread books I have by authors that I love, like Maggie Stiefvater and Jasper Fforde and series that I really enjoyed the beginning of like Colleen Houck’s Tiger’s Curse, and anything else that I’ve been eyeing. I will still keep Dickens by my side for glances when I feel like it, but I’m not pressuring myself when it comes to reading things I don’t particularly care to this year. Maybe next year I will feel differently, but that is to remain to be seen. For now, I’ve finished one book I’d been dying to read for an age (The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, more on that later), and am looking forward to more.

Do your reading habits change? Do you ever find yourself resenting the book you’re reading, because you want to be reading something else?

Friday Five: Five Links!

/ Lisa Asanuma / 4 Comments

Five awesome links for you!

1) My newest story is up on Tales From the Hollow Tree. It’s called “The King’s Knight,” and involves a woman, a king, and (as you might guess) a knight. You’re probably familiar with the story.

2) I’m now a Dojo Leader! I’m so excited to be a regular poster at Ali Cross’ Dojo, Alif is the genius behind Writing Ninjas and will be hosting NiNoCon (Ninja Novel Conference) TOMORROW! Don’t miss out, it’s a totally free online writer’s conference, all you have to do is show up!

3) Books are For Lovers was mentioned on YA Highway today! Thank you YA Highway! If you want to read about supporting your local brick-and-mortar store this Valentine’s Day, check out what it’s all about!

4) Amanda Thomson also blogged about Books are for Lovers on her blog, Maybe Mandie! Thank you, Amanda!

5) And Cheri Chesley blogged about it on Mormon Mommy Writers! Thank you, Cheri!

I’m so excited that this is reaching other people! Books are for Lovers now has an Events page on Facebook. If you want to participate, come by and let us know! And invite your book-loving friends!

DON’T FORGET NINOCON TOMORROW!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Books Are For Lovers

/ Lisa Asanuma / 19 Comments

A friend sent me an email yesterday linking me to an article in the New York Times called “The Bookstore’s Last Stand.” It’s talking about how Barnes and Noble is the last brick-and-mortar chain that readily has a large selection of books available for people to come in, browse, and buy. About how the Nook is a way that B&N has tried to compete with Amazon, and how the company is even starting a new line of stores where there is nothing but digital content for Nooks being sold. But the fact is, Amazon has lower prices, and even a big chain like Barnes & Noble is losing ground to them more and more every day. You all know what happened to Borders, after all..

The bookstore’s last stand, indeed.

I knew of course, that most of this was true before I even read the article, but it still hit me deeply. After all, I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. I still hope to see my books out there someday, and yes, I hope to see them in print. That’s been my dream all along, not to see my book on a million digital screens, but to hold it in person, smell the pages and the ink and my own name right there on the cover.

Besides that, I love, love, love bookstores. I can spend hours in a bookstore, just looking at the spines of these lovely, literary friends and finding new authors and stories to delve into. Just being around stacks and shelves full of books makes me feel like I’m walking through a world of endless possibility. Because really, anything is possible in a book. And because I’ve spent my whole life loving books, I love everything about them—the design, the fonts used for the titles, and did I mention the smell of the pages? Oh, I did?

So I thought maybe we, as readers, should be taking a stand, too. It’s time we show our bookstores some love.

And hey… look at what time of year it is. It’s almost Valentine’s Day, the day meant especially for love. No matter how you feel about V-day, we all love books, right?

So here’s my proposition: If you’re a book lover, if you’re a supporter of the written word, if you’re an author or hope to be one someday—Buy a book on February 14th.

Really, it’s that simple. I know times are tough—they’re tough for me, too. I think it’s time we tell the book industry that we like having brick-and-mortars around, though.

So do this for me, will you? Go into a real bookstore. A brick-and-mortar. It doesn’t have to be Barnes & Noble—if you have an Indie bookseller nearby you, all the better! (No Indies near me, sadly!) Support the local selling of books in a hardformat. Even if you LOVE your Nook/Kindle/Kobo/whathaveyou.

If you absolutely have to buy online, buy through IndieBound (which will connect you to an Indie seller) or through BarnesandNoble.com. But really, I’d like for this to be about supporting brick-and-mortar stores, if we can.

(If you want more reasons not to buy through Amazon, if you can help it, here’s an article on how shopping at Amazon steals from your local economy. )

So how about we make this an official movement? How about we show some support to brick & mortars all around.

Just to be clear on this, this isn’t a competition or a contest. I’m getting nothing out of this. It’s simply an invitation to support your local brick-and-mortar bookstore! Don’t do it for me! Do it for them!

And hey, spread the word! Grab a graffic, blog, tweet! Use a #booksareforlovers hashtag! Let’s see if we can get this to be a worldwide thing!

What do you all think? Think we can do this? Are YOU willing to share some book love this Valentine’s Day?

——————-

Edited to add: Now we have a facebook events page! Go sign up and invite your friends!

What I’m Reading Wednesday – Across the Universe by Beth Revis

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

I have to admit, sometimes when it comes to reading, I feel like I’m playing a never-ending catch-up game. I’m not a fast reader (yes, you may gasp) and I like to reread books… which only puts me further behind sometimes. Right now the other two books I’m reading are rereads, gearing me up for finishing up their respective series (Fablehaven, and The Wolves of Mercy Falls).

But I’m trying to put newer books that I own into my reading circulation. Because let’s face it, I like talking about new(ish) books just as much as anybody else.

So right now, my newer book that I’m reading is Across the Universe by Beth Revis. If you’re not familiar, it’s about a girl named Amy who gets cryogenically frozen so she can travel 300 years asleep with her parents to help inhabit a new world. Only she gets woken up fifty years early… and someone’s done it on purpose. Now she has to adjust to life on board a ship with its own unique civilization, where someone just may be a murderer…

Oh, and if she ever sees her parents again, she’ll be double their age. Awkward… And devastating, considering she’s given up her entire outside life to be with them.

Anyhow. I’m about a quarter of the way into the book now. If you’ve heard all the hype about this book? Believe it. I’ve loved every minute of it. Revis has a sharp, crisp voice, and Amy and Eldest (the other POV in the book) are both very unique. I love, love, LOVE Amy. She’s feisty and not afraid to say what she’s thinking (which is good, because she’s going to have to ask a LOT of questions here really soon).

I have to admit, I fell so in love with cryo-Amy’s voice that I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy Amy’s chapters as much after she woke up. Well, she’s just woken up, and boy have I been proven wrong so far.

As to other reading… I’ve finally coordinated my Google Reader. Yes, I know I’m a jillion years behind. I had an account once, but it was full of blogs that I never really wanted to read… or at least that I don’t care to read anymore. Things that aren’t of interest to me anymore, but I thought might have been once upon a time.

Now I’ve cleaned those old blogs out and put in all of the blogs that I actually do want to keep up with. Personal friends, writers I respect and love, other writers that are struggling to get somewhere, just like me.

And I have the app on my droid, which I love more than I can say. Maybe for the first time since I was on Livejournal every day, I’ll actually be able to keep up with the blogs I care about!

What have you been reading lately?

In which I explain my OCD reading habits.

/ Lisa Asanuma / 2 Comments

A Real Conversation with my Husband

Me: Sigh. You can only have 15 holds at the library at once.

Him: Heavy sigh.

Me: Can I put 15 holds on your—

Him: NO.

Backstory: According to Goodreads, I’m currently in the middle of eleven books. This includes one book of poetry, four books that are being held captive by the library and holds system, and five that I own. (Was very recently six, plus another library book, but I finished those.)

Anyhow… I was wanting to start Tiger’s Curse, because he bought it for me for Valentine’s Day (along with Sapphique, the sequel to Incarceron, which I loved so much I was tempted to buy Sapphique from the UK Amazon) (Yes, I know I’m lucky.) Then I made the mistake of explaining to him why I fall into the trap of reading more than one book at a time—generally either because one is slow but fascinating, I’ve misplaced the book, or yes, it needs to go back to the library and I haven’t finished it.

I then made the further mistake of explaining to him HOW I read multiple books at one time. Basically, I line whichever books I have up by order of date that I started them (This obviously does not include books taken back to the library unfinished. It does, however, include books that are misplaced.), and then I pick one book as the “A” book, or the Alpha book, I guess. What I mean by this, is that I pick a book that I can read straight through if I wish to, then whenever I want to turn to something else, there’s a set rotation I have to follow. The Alpha book is either a book that I’m particularly hooked to, or a book that I’m bribing myself through, because it’s interesting, but other books are far more interesting. After the Alpha book has been assigned, I read through the books in order, one chapter at a time. If the Alpha book isn’t super great, or great-but-not-insanely-greater-than-the-other-books, my reading pattern is decided for me. With letters assigned to titles for ease of explanation, it reads a bit like a complicated poetry scheme:

ABACADAEABACADAE, etc.

I have siderules, also. Of course. Because I’m just that crazy.

#1) Once a book is in Alpha position, it must stay there until it is completed. (For exceptions, see Rule #5)

#2) If there is no Alpha position, chapters read ABCDEABCDE, etc. (Yes, I know there’s still an A there, but now it’s just another letter.)

#3) In most cases* a book cannot be added unless another book is finished.

#4) No book can be moved to the Alpha position on its first round.  This means if I’m in the middle of a round when I start a new book, I must finish that round and read through another full round before the new book can be given the Alpha position. Except:

#5) Library books are automatically given Alpha position. This means that any book that was acting as Alpha now goes back into line. This is the only time an Alpha book can be taken away from its Alpha position without being finished. When the library book is finished, assuming the other book is not, it moves back into Alpha position.

#6) (This is a new one) These rules apply only to physical copies of books.

#6a) I am allowed to have ONE of each: 1) an audio book for when I’m doing stuff with my hands but my mind is free 2) a book on my phone to read when I have no other books available to me, and 3) an ebook on my computer.

#6b) I can use the same book for all three devices if I choose, but cannot read a secondary book on any of the devices, even if all three are the same.

*This rule excludes library books and long-time favorite authors’ new books.

Understandably, my husband demanded that I put a stop to the insanity. He withheld Tiger’s Curse from me until I at least get down to 3 books (physical… he agrees with me on the techie side of things, yay!) but I think I’ll let myself get down to two, and read two at once… that’s usually my goal, one Alpha, and one to string along… I don’t know.

Anybody else out there read in completely obsessive-compulsive ways?

Booking Through Thursday – First book

/ Lisa Asanuma / 2 Comments

Looking through the archives of Booking Through Thursday today, since I don’t really have a good answer for today’s question. Instead I looked backwards a few weeks and found this:

Do you remember the first book you bought for yourself? Or the first book you checked out of the library? What was it and why did you choose it?

I have a couple of answers to this. Firstly, library books. I can’t even tell you what the first book I checked out from the library was, except to say that it had  to have been a school library book. I know that I LOVED non-fiction books when I was little. In elementary school I was always checking out learning books… about dinosaurs, about foxes, about planets. Anything that struck my fancy, I’d be in the non-fic department, burying myself in learning about it. I wish I still had that love for non-fiction today… I need to forcibly make myself read non-fiction. I still find it fascinating, I just tend to blip it out of my mind when I’m in a bookstore. There are so many fake stories I want to know! Le sigh.

I think the first book I ever really bought was at a Scholastic book fair with what I believe was a couple of dollars from my mom. I was in either the third or fourth grade. I bought Alice in Wonderland. I had fallen in love with the live-action movie of it and Through the Looking Glass, and I already had a beautiful copy of Through the Looking Glass that I’d been given for Christmas, so I wanted to read the first book first, naturally. It was just a trade paperback and not very pretty, as opposed to my copy of TtLG, which was gorgeously bound with inserts of painted illustrations sprinkled throughout it, but it did the job so far as the story goes. I remember being mesmerized by the idea that you could make words on a page actually form a picture of sorts, and Wonderland is still deeply embedded in my imagination, as I’m sure it is in many peoples’. I’m delighted it’s getting the attention in new fiction that it is today.

The first book I bought at an actual bookstore was Just as Long as We’re Together by Judy Blume in the fifth grade. I’d borrowed it from the library after a friend suggested it—I’d already been a Judy Blume fan, what with the Fudge books, etc.—and thus started my life-long love of Young Adult books. I loved the book so much that I then had to, had to, HAD to buy the book for myself, along with whatever other Judy Blume books I could. She is still undoubtedly one of my favorite authors, and a huge inspiration to me.

Booking Through Thursday – Discoveries

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

Hey look, it’s actually Thursday!

There’s something wonderful about getting in on the ground floor of an author’s career–about being one of the first people to read and admire them, before they became famous best-sellers.

Which authors have you been lucky enough to discover at the very beginning of their careers?

And, if you’ve never had that chance, which author do you WISH you’d been able to discover at the very beginning?

I think the closest I can come to saying that I discovered someone on the “ground floor” is Brandon Mull, writer of the Fablehaven series, among others. I picked the first Fablehaven book up as an impulse buy at a Deseret Book (an LDS bookstore) down in San Diego, just a few months after it came out. Back then it was just a couple of copies on a very low shelf hidden in the back of the store in the kids’ section. Granted, these are kids’ books, but when the final Fablehaven book came out, it got its own table displays at Barnes & Noble. That’s a far cry from being hidden away on the second-to-bottom shelf in a cornered-off kid’s section.

The cover of the book got me to pick it up. I’ve heard some rumors that a green cover is death to a book for some reason, though I’ve never understood a word about that, but in this case it definitely caught my eye. The illustration on the cover did, as well. It wasn’t until after I finished the book that I understood what the cover illustration was supposed to be, and I’ll admit that the cover illustrations don’t do a whole lot for me… I either disregard half of the picture with some kind of mental-block, or I’m just not big on the cartoony appeal, but bygones.

The interesting title, gold lettering, and sparkly-ness of the cover was enough to get me to pick it up. I had been in the mood for something fantastical, and the Fable– part of the title gives away immediately that this was, even though I thought the character on the cover was creepy, and didn’t notice the colorful fairies on the cover for an embarrassingly long time. I flipped the book over and became EXTRA intrigued. In place of a carefully-worded pitch or a list of quotes was something made to look like a want ad torn from a newspaper.

If I’d had any doubt that this was going to be fantastical, the ad asking for a new caretaker “willing to perform emergency dental surgery on a fog giant” and listing knowledge of gnomish language as “a plus,” snagged my imagination from the get-go. I read the synopsis on the inside flaps of the paper cover (the book was in hardback) and decided I’d take a gamble on it. This isn’t usual for me—I like to pick up a book half a dozen times before I buy something, especially in hardcover, because I just don’t have the funds that often, but this seemed like a good day. Besides, something from found at Deseret Book can’t necessarily be found somewhere else. I was with my mom that day, and she had a membership card, which at the time still consisted of points (now you have to have a premium membership), and I think the book ended up being about free. Well, ish. You know.

The book was a slow go for me the first time I picked it up, but the second time I stuck to it, and by a couple of chapters in I was stuck. And thrilled. It was everything I’d been hoping for and more. Kendra and Seth are a VERY realistic pair of kids with a very realistic sister/brother relationship. The creatures they come across span from the amazingly beautiful to the grotesque and terrifying, but Mull does it in a way that is constantly uplifting. (Rather than being emotionally dark, like the Spiderwick Chronicles seems to be, based on the film, at least).

The books are by turn funny, scary, and downright cool. The kids make mistakes but learn from them in a very real way. And every book gets better and better. I just love this series, and I’m thrilled to know that so many people have come to love it also. It is very deserved. I’ve been passing on the excitement, fantasy and fun by word of mouth ever since. Just recently, my husband has finished reading the first book and started the second. He loves it, too.

I haven’t read any of Mull’s other works yet (except for the children’s book Pingo, which is adorable!) but I do own The Candy Shop Wars and am really looking forward to his Beyonders series, the first of which is due out next month. Woohoo!

Booking Through… Saturday?

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

Okay, I’ve loved Booking Through Thursday since I first found out about it a couple of years ago. It’s a weekly question about reading or books that serves as a great writing prompt for blog posts.  Problem is, I always forget to do it. This year I’d really like to get used to the idea, though, and so I give you my first Booking Through Thursday prompt. Yes, I know it’s Saturday night. Give me a break.

What’s the largest, thickest, heaviest book you ever read? Was it because you had to? For pleasure? For school?

I have to admit, the thickest book I’ve ever read all the way through is probably Gone With the Wind. Mercy, even Middlemarch isn’t as long, and Middlemarch is 800+ pages. And if you’re curious, yes I read that one, too. All. The. Way.

Like many a girl before me, and probably (hopefully) many to come, I had a deep infatuation with Gone With the Wind when I was younger. It started with the movie. I’d seen it once when I was very small, but all I really remembered from it were the (amazing!) dresses and the fire. Oh, and Clark Gable. Because… he’s Clark Gable. *blushes*

When I was eleven or twelve I watched it on TV—on the WB, to be exact, back when the network still existed alone—and fell utterly in love with it. My mom would sigh and tell me how Vivian Leigh wasn’t her Scarlett O’Hara (I had to get it from somewhere, you know?) but I didn’t mind. I watched enthralled from the twins (Frank and Fred? Oh dear… someone will call me out on that if it’s wrong) fawning over Scarlett, through her dancing in mourning clothes and the Atlanta Fire (which nothing has ever compared to cinematically since, if you ask moi) to her declaration of Tomorrow being another day.

This was right before they digitally remastered the film and made all the colors brighter. I think I got that double VHS copy for Christmas that year.

And so, I read the book. Oh, that book. I remember bits of it so vividly. Rhett leaving her on the bridge… Scarlett beating her horse so that it got her to Tara, the thick, thick mist in her dream that was so much more oppressive than they were in the movie. Also, all of the extra husbands and kids that didn’t make it into the film version.

I would think about how Margaret Mitchell used the manuscript as a stabler for her kitchen table for years, something that appalled me as an already-aspiring author. How Clark Gable was afraid he couldn’t pull it off because he was a comedian. How he was actually who she pictured as Rhett Butler, which was completely amazing to me. I read the book twice, but I’d like to read it again someday… I wonder how different I’d take to it now that I’m all growed up and whatnot.

Other thick books I have read at least most of:

Middlemarch by George Eliot — As mentioned. I loved this book. It’s long and dry in some parts, yeah, but definitely a classic for a reason. You know how Jane Austen said that Anne Elliot from Persuasion was “almost too good” for her? That’s the feeling I get from Middlemarch, except in this case Dorothea is really, honestly, VERY good in every single way. Kind, pious, generous, etc. Somehow she’s not unrealistic, though. And she’s not immune to romance, either.

The Assassin’s Cloak: An Anthology of the World’s Greatest Diarists — I completely loved this book. I can’t say I’ve read every single entry, because it was for a class and I got behind a bit, but it has writing from so many amazing, brilliant and diverse people. I highly, highly recommend it.

The Norton Anthology of Poetry — I read through the first half of this (I think I actually read every poem) for a class. I wish I could have taken the second half of the class, but it was at the same time as another class I wanted to take more. I don’t know where my NAP (as I called it affectionately—though in all honesty, the content rarely made me sleepy) is at the moment, and that thought saddens me greatly, because it’s such a pretty book. I’d like to take it out and read it slowly.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson — This… was also for a class. Are we seeing a pattern here? I re-read it just over a year ago, though, because that class officially made me a Dickinson lover for life. Every time I read an Emily Dickinson poem, I want to read a hundred more of them. She is that good.

A seriously thick book I want to read, which is sitting on my shelf just waiting? Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I’ve heard it described as a Harry Potter* for adults, complete with seriously awesome footnote** content, something Thursday Next novels have made me a complete geek for.

What’s the thickest book you’ve read?

*I suppose a couple of the HP books are long too, eh?

**I completely forgot this word for a good five minutes. Had to resort to Google to figure it out. Then had to head-desk.

Reactive Reading

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

My husband has started reading the first Fablehaven novel by Brandon Mull, which is one of my favorite series, ever. Probably my very favorite kid-lit series (I’m not counting Harry Potter here, he’s in a realm of his own). Fantasy like you’ve always wanted it—scary at the right times, but always uplifting and full of awesome heroics. (Not half so emotionally dark as something like The Spiderwick Chronicles, either).

Anyhow, back to my husband. Now, I read pretty intently. You sit me down with a good book and I’m glued to it. I don’t want any interruptions if the book is really good. When something shocks or worries me, I probably gasp or widen my eyes, possibly clench the book closer to me, but really I’m still all alone in my little world—or rather, I’ve forgotten myself entirely, because I’m so deep in the world I’m reading about. And I’ll admit, sometimes I don’t want anybody near me when I read. When I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I shut myself up in my room for three days, only coming out when it was absolutely necessary.

My husband on the other hand, has sat next to me while doing most of his reading (I’ve been reading too, but mine is a mix of business and pleasure), and he reacts vocally to what he reads. He’s gotten incredibly frustrated with one of the characters—Seth, if you’ve read the books—and has vented that frustration loudly to me. I’ve read all but the last book (I really hate for it to end, so I’ve been prolonging it. That, and I was getting married, so I was a little busy) so I love Seth, despite his rash ways that always lead him into trouble. I tried pointing out that he didn’t know what he was doing in a lot of the scenes that irritated my husband so much, but he would have none of it.

I honestly love it. I think his reactions are great, and I really should have expected nothing less, as my husband’s personality could never quite be mistaken for quiet, like mine. Anybody else seen someone read so reactively?  Do you, by chance?

P.S. I’m really excited to watch as he reads the rest of the series. The Fablehaven books just get more and more awesome as they go, and his reading them makes me want to reread them. And okay, finally finish the series.

P.P.S. The Jayne icon is the closest I could find to relay the obvious reactions my hubby’s been having, but on a sidenote, I’ve gotten him watching Firefly, too. We’re about half-way through the series now. The hooks are in. He’s caught.