It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (IMWAYR) is a weekly challenge begun by Sheila at Book Journey to encourage others to share the books they are reading each week. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers added the "From Picture Books to YA" element to Sheila's idea. Many thanks to these four women for creating a fun way to share our reading lists. Please be sure to visit their blogs and see what they've read over the past week.
Taking a break from my usual assortment of picture books, middle grade and young adult fiction, I opted for some great 19th century writing. I haven't read from that century in--I don't know--ten years or more. There's something about the way people wrote back then that pulls me in.
Adult Horror
So, the movie came out twenty-two years ago. Twenty-two years!
How young I was back then. Not to mention completely incapable of appreciating the melodic nature of literature from the 19th century.
I'm glad I waited until now to read this masterpiece. I downloaded the free version onto my Kindle app for the iPad.
Due to my love for geography, I switched from the book, to Wikipedia, to Google Earth in search of more information about locations and ethnic groups mentioned in the book. My battery wore out faster, but it was worth the nuisance of having to tote the cord around everywhere.
Spoiler: Dracula's castle isn't real.
Adult Sci-Fi
Another 19th century masterpiece I'm in the process of enjoying. Though I have to admit, sometimes my eyes gloss over when Prof. Aronnax goes on and on about the fish and plant life.
I can remember my friends going ga-ga over this book when I was a kid. Back then, I wasn't really into sci-fi. So while it seemed everyone else on the planet read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I was more interested in reading biographies about baseball players.
Just as I did with Dracula, I'm hopping between the book, Wikipedia, and Google Earth to follow the route Captain Nemo takes.
Spoiler: Atlantis isn't real.
Adult Non-fiction
This is a great book for aspiring writers. Like the title says, this book helps writers "show, not tell" how their characters are feeling. I highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about writing a book.
Be sure to check out the authors' website Writers Helping Writers for a list of more books written by the duo as well as tools and tricks for developing strong characters.
On Deck:
Next week is the #virtualbookclub chat on Twitter. Can't wait to read and discuss this book by Caroline Carlson! I've heard so many good things about it.
Monica,
ReplyDeleteHow's your summer going? Looks like you are doing some heavy reading. I went to see a Dracula movie when I was about 13 and it had a very lasting impact on me-nightmares for years! I used to sleep with my hands around my throat b/c of Dracula. I suppose I thought that was enough of a defense. I have not really watched any scary movie since that day. My imagination is just too vivid. I just finished The Maze Runner and had dreams of me running (ha to that) with three knives clutched in my hands slashing at vines along the way through the maze. I need to read a funny story now.
Wow! Those are some intense books. Like Monica, I'm not much of a scary book or movie person. The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates looks like a delight to read!
ReplyDeleteI love your reading bent this week. We did talk about reading more classics in Gatheringbooks - perhaps in 2015 we can include that as a reading theme. :) Loved Dracula - read that when I was in college.
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