Okay, this bug took me a half-hour to fix. But it’s important for my blogging….
Because of changes I’d made to the blog header, the pages with a single post were not providing any link at all to take you back to the main page. Fortunately, I’m learning enough that I was able to fix it. I hope that is the last bug I need to fix! The good thing is that if I fix it on this blog, I can just copy the files to my other blogs.
Yay! I did have one bug left after the upgrade that I thought I was stuck with — I was getting strange characters showing up in my old posts.
Well, this morning I decided to try getting rid of the CHAR-SET line in the new wp-config.php files. Presto! No more problems! So that’s a nice way to start the morning.
Again, I think that fixing my blog counts as blogging time. Doing it took only about 5 minutes, though.
Also overnight, I decided which stats to keep, so here’s my status on Saturday morning at 10:00, almost 12 hours into the 48-Hour Book Challenge:
Time Spent: 4 1/2 hours
Blogging: 2 hours
Reading: 2 1/2 hours
Networking (See the rules. There’s a provision for visiting other blogs of people doing the challenge and leaving comments after 5 hours participating. It will be fun!): None yet
Books Finished: 1
Books Reviewed: None yet
Pages read: 325
As mentioned before, I have a stack of books to review, from the time when my blog was down (and from already being behind). Let’s see. There are 18 books in it. So I hope I will end up reviewing more books than I finish reading, and thus not get further behind. Last night, I was too tired, though. After I do some more reading this morning, I plan to get started on the reviews.
I’m still loving this! Wasn’t even able to sleep in much. I’m too excited! Of course, that’s making me laugh at myself, and making my son laugh at me. It’s a harmless obsession, but so much fun!
So, I’m progressing on the 48-hour Book Challenge. It’s 1:50 am. So I’ve been going almost 3 1/2 hours now.
In that time, I finished one book, The Eternal Smile, by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim. I read some chapters. In the Bible, I read Mark 4; I Chronicles 6-8; Psalm 119:145-176; Proverbs 4-5. I read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of 10-10-10, by Suzy Welch. And I read the first 8 chapters of Dragon’s Keep, by Janet Lee Carey.
I had some very irresponsible late nights this past week, so it almost feels normal to be up this late. But tomorrow I can sleep in! Huzzah! More luxury!
I also did some blogging in that time (about an hour and a half). I am counting as blogging time spent upgrading my other blog, Sonderquotes, and posting an entry on it. Sonderquotes is a blog of great quotations I run across in my reading, so it’s directly related to Sonderbooks.
Since I did the work of changing the files when upgrading this blog, upgrading Sonderquotes is a matter of deleting the old files and copying in the new. A lot of clicking. A lot of dragging. In between, while the computer is working, I read. (Just looking up to click now and then. So you see, it still counts as reading and blogging, since it was working on the blog!)
And Sonderquotes looks so pretty now! I’m so happy to have it matching this blog and sonderbooks.com! This time it was a piece of cake compared to all the work of figuring out how to do it with this blog. Now I only had to copy files.
So — the first three and a half hours done. Tomorrow I will sleep late and have breakfast, and then tackle the reading again. I didn’t do any reviewing tonight because I’m too tired, but tomorrow I hope to get a lot of reviews written.
Happy reading!
Tonight, Friday night at 10:30 pm, I am officially beginning the 48-hour Book Challenge!
The rules are here on motherreader.com. Basically, in the next 48 hours, I will spend as much time as possible reading and blogging about it.
I’ve been laughing at myself all day for how excited I am about this! You see, whenever I have a special day and try to think of a dream-come-true way of indulging myself, the first thing I think of is ALWAYS to sit around and read all day long. But I ALWAYS conclude, for one reason or other, that it’s not practical, or it’s too lazy, or for some reason or other I just can’t do that.
But it’s all in the marketing: Now it is not laziness, it’s a challenge! Woo-hoo! I am not indulging myself — I am working hard! Okay, the truth is, I AM indulging myself, and I have a wonderful excuse, so I’m not feeling even a little bit guilty! Thank you, MotherReader, for providing the excuse!
What’s more, my blog has been broken for the last three weeks. Just today, I got it working. What’s more, in order to fix it, I had to learn enough about WordPress that now I was able to give the blog the same color scheme and look as my main site, sonderbooks.com. This morning before work, I finished fixing the color scheme to match. For the more than a year that I’ve had the blog, and my three other blogs, I’ve meant to make them look like the main site, but I never got around to figuring out how to do it.
Well, in order to figure out how to fix the problem and upgrade the blog, I had to learn enough about WordPress to adjust the look. I’m really happy with what I ended up with! And I just happened to finish tinkering with it this morning.
What’s more, the challenge happened to hit the only weekend in months and months when I have nothing on the calendar. Yes, I’ll go to church on Sunday. Yes, I’ll write for 15 minutes on Saturday. (I haven’t missed a day of at least 15 minutes writing in 2009!) Yes, I have to take Tim to a group project meeting on Sunday. But the cool part is that I can listen to an audiobook on the way there, and read while I am waiting for him to finish! It will simply provide a change of scenery.
The clear schedule is so rare as to almost be miraculous. Definitely a Sign. I HAD to do this!
I also have a STACK of books to review, since the blog was down for three weeks. It doesn’t really say in the rules, but I’m assuming that time spent “blogging” includes time writing reviews of books you’ve already read. So I’m going to spend time reading, and break it up by writing reviews, and maybe just maybe I can catch up!
Along with updating the look, I also had been toying with the idea of converting my site to a blog only. Well, the blog breaking convinced me that I don’t want to do that. But I think I will make more of the blog — with personal entries like this one about being a reader and a writer and a librarian and a blogger. I’m going to start thinking of sonderbooks.com as an archive of the book reviews. It is arranged by type of book, so is a good resource for finding books to read.
There was one problem with the upgrade. The one thing left that doesn’t work is the “Pretty Permalinks.” So now none of the links from sonderbooks.com to the blog will work. I will need to go in and change those, but I can do that, eventually. In the meantime, if a link to the blog doesn’t work, go to the blog’s main page and then do a search in the blog for the book you want.
I’m also very excited about getting involved in the Kidlit blogging community, the Kidlitosphere. Technically, mine isn’t just a Kidlit blog, since I also review books for adults. But I’m a Youth Services Librarian, and I definitely have an emphasis on YA and children’s books.
Well, why am I spending all this time explaining myself when I could be reading?
Here goes!!! Woo-hoo!!! Woo-hoo!!
Forgive me all this drama! But when you got very little sleep the night before trying to upgrade your blog — and then it doesn’t work, it’s easy to overreact.
The last problem was solved when I deactivated a plug-in called “Customizable Permalinks” that a message had warned me sternly needed to be activated! I hope, hope, hope that now the blog is working fine!
I spoke too soon. Although I can now add posts, ONLY the main page works. NONE of the links to other pages — including the permalink to this post — seems to work. None of the pages work. The feed doesn’t work. If I can’t figure it out, I may have to start over with a new blog. I am very bummed.
More than two weeks ago, I suddenly was not able to add or edit posts to my blog. Tonight, after many many hours spent figuring out how to do it, I upgraded WordPress to 2.7, and now it works!!! WHEW!!!
Walking with God
by John Eldredge
Thomas Nelson, 2008. 218 pages.
Starred review.
http://www.walkingwithgod.net/
The caption on the front of this book reads, “Talk to Him. Hear from Him. Really.”
When I was a young college student at Biola University, a popular book was Decision Making and the Will of God. What I got out of this book was the idea that God didn’t care about the minute details of our lives. You shouldn’t ask God what color shirt you should wear today or whether you should go to lunch early or late. The book taught that God gives us moral guidelines in the Bible, and within those guidelines we can do what we want. That God would be happy with either wonderful choice of a marriage partner, for example.
John Eldredge takes a different view. He believes that we can share our daily lives with God, ask His counsel for large and small decisions, and accept His guidance. Honestly, in the past few years as I’ve gone through the fire of being abandoned by my husband, God has been near to me like never before, and I’m finding He is indeed willing to come alongside and help and guide, as John Eldredge describes. It was inspiring to read this account of someone who is trying to live his life, walking with God.
And the book takes more the form of a journal than of a manual. John Eldredge takes the approach of describing his own walk with God so that we can see how it might look.
In the Introduction, he says:
“It is our deepest need, as human beings, to learn to live intimately with God. It is what we were made for. . . .
“Really now, if you knew you had the opportunity to develop a conversational intimacy with the wisest, kindest, most generous and seasoned person in the world, wouldn’t it make sense to spend your time with that person, as opposed to, say, slogging your way through on your own?
“Whatever our situation in life — butcher, baker, candlestick maker — our deepest and most pressing need is to learn to walk with God. To hear his voice. To follow him intimately. It is the most essential turn of events that could ever take place in the life of any human being, for it brings us back to the source of life. Everything else we long for can then flow forth from this union.”
As the book begins, he describes why he believes intimacy with God is possible even today:
“Now, I know, I know — the prevailing belief is that God speaks to his people only through the Bible. And let me make this clear: he does speak to us first and foremost through the Bible. That is the basis for our relationship. The Bible is the eternal and unchanging Word of God to us. It is such a gift, to have right there in black and white God’s thoughts toward us. We know right off the bat that any other supposed revelation from God that contradicts the Bible is not to be trusted. So I am not minimizing in any way the authority of the Scripture or the fact that God speaks to us through the Bible.
“However, many Christians believe that God only speaks to us through the Bible.
“The irony of that belief is that’s not what the Bible says.
“The Bible is filled with stories of God talking to his people. Abraham, who is called the friend of God, said, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me . . .’ (Genesis 24:7). God spoke to Moses ‘as a man speaks with his friend’ (Exodus 33:11). He spoke to Aaron too: ‘Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites’ (Exodus 6:13). And David: ‘In the course of time, David inquired of the Lord. “Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah?” he asked. The Lord said, “Go up.” David asked, “Where shall I go?” “To Hebron,” the Lord answered’ (2 Samuel 2:1). The Lord spoke to Noah. The Lord spoke to Gideon. The Lord spoke to Samuel. The list goes on and on.
“I can hear the objections even now: ‘But that was different. Those were special people called to special tasks.’ And we are not special people called to special tasks? I refuse to believe that. And I doubt that you want to believe it either, in your heart of hearts.
“But for the sake of argument, notice that God also speaks to ‘less important’ characters in the Bible. God spoke to Hagar, the servant girl of Sarah, as she was running away. . . . In the New Testament, God speaks to a man named Ananias who plays a small role in seven verses in Acts 9. . . .
“Now, if God doesn’t also speak to us, why would he have given us all these stories of him speaking to others? ‘Look — here are hundreds of inspiring and hopeful stories about how God spoke to his people in this and that situation. Isn’t it amazing? But you can’t have that. He doesn’t speak like that anymore.’ That makes no sense at all. Why would God give you a book of exceptions? This is how I used to relate to my people, but I don’t do that anymore. What good would a book of exceptions do you? That’s like giving you the owner’s manual for a Dodge even though you drive a Mitsubishi. No, the Bible is a book of examples of what it looks like to walk with God.”
Here is another book of examples, exploring the question of what it looks like to walk with God in today’s world. There’s food for thought, and there’s inspiration and encouragement.
God, what is the life you want me to live?
Thirteenth Child
Frontier Magic, Book One
by Patricia C. Wrede
Scholastic Press, New York, 2009. 344 pages.
Starred review.
I’m a huge fan of Patricia C. Wrede’s books, particularly the Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Sorcery and Cecilia. So when I heard she had written a new book, I snapped it up.
The book intrigued me from the beginning. You’ll quickly understand why I simply HAD to tell my sister Melanie — the thirteenth child in our family — about it, as well as my brother Robert, who is the seventh son of the seventh son. Here’s the first page:
“Everybody knows that a seventh son is lucky. Things come a little easier to him, all his life long: love and money and fine weather and the unexpected turn that brings good fortune from bad circumstances. A lot of seventh sons go for magicians, because if there’s one sort of work where luck is more useful than any other, it’s making magic.
“And everybody knows that the seventh son of a seventh son is a natural-born magician. A double-seven doesn’t even need schooling to start working spells, though the magic comes on faster and safer if he gets some. When he’s grown and come into his power for true and all, he can even do the Major Spells on his own, the ones that can call up a storm or quiet one, move the earth or still it, anger the ocean or calm it to glassy smoothness. People are real nice to a double-seventh son.
“Nobody seems to think much about all the other sons, or the daughters. There’s nearly always daughters, because hardly anybody has seven sons right in a row, boom, like that. Sometimes there are so many daughters that people give up trying for seven sons. After all, there’s plenty enough work in raising eleven or twelve childings, and a thirteenth child — son or daughter — is unlucky. So everybody says.
“Papa and Mama didn’t pay much attention to what everybody says, I guess, because there are fourteen of us. Lan is the youngest, a double-seven, and he’s half the reason we moved away from Helvan Shores when I was five. The other half of the reason was me.
“I’m Eff — the seventh daughter. Lan’s twin . . .
“. . . and a thirteenth child.”
Thirteenth Child is set in an alternate reality Old West, where dangerous magical creatures are kept at bay from frontier settlements by magicians at each settlement. Eff’s father is a skilled magician who goes out west to teach at a college that trains such magicians.
Eff must come to terms with her own supposed bad luck, afraid of what she might do if she lets her magic loose.
This book reminded me of Robin McKinley’s Dragonhaven. Both are set in an alternate reality with wilderness and magical creatures. Both involve the protagonist growing up over a long passage of years. The focus in Thirteenth Child is more on building an intriguing magical world than on the plot itself.
I was delighted to read about a fictional family as big as the one I grew up in, so I was a little disappointed not to get much of the chaotic flavor of such a family. (Though I think housekeeping is much much easier when you get to use spells to do the work.) Although the plot was not terribly gripping, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time in this world. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Eff as she explored different ways of doing magic and what it means to be a Columbian (American) magician.
There is something of a climax at the end, where Eff plays an important part, but even she doesn’t like the attention she gets from it. She’s still an adolescent helping adult magicians, not really having come into her own yet. However, I’m encouraged that this is already described as “Book One.” Patricia C. Wrede has laid a many-layered foundation for a bigger story, which I think is going to be exciting and compelling.
I only hope I don’t have to wait very long for Book Two!
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/thirteenth_child.html
The Queen of Attolia
by Megan Whalen Turner
performed by Jeff Woodman
Recorded Books, 2007. 8 CDs. 9 hours.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: Wonderful Rereads
This is approximately the fourth time I’ve read The Queen of Attolia, and like the rest of the books in the series, I like it better every time. With its beautifully orchestrated touch of romance, this is my favorite of Megan Whalen Turner’s books, and indeed one of my favorite books of all time.
Jeff Woodman does an excellent job of bringing the book to life. The advantage to listening the book instead of reading it was that I was forced not to gobble the whole thing down in one night, and got to draw out the experience. The disadvantage was that I was very unhappy to arrive at work each morning while I was listening to it. Of course, this was the perfect audiobook to be listening to just after moving. My new commute is quite a bit longer than I thought it was going to be — but because it gave me more time to spend with Eugenides, I was glad!
Megan Whalen Turner creates rich and complex characters. This book more thoroughly explores the character and background of the Queen of Attolia, and we learn that her apparent ruthlessness has reasons behind it. We find ourselves actually liking someone who seems capable of atrocities. — Is that not the work of a master author?
I also love the way Megan Whalen Turner explores the question of why God (only in the book it is gods she invented) allows bad things to happen. Eugenides has a Job-like moment that gives Eugenides — and the reader — a perspective on how God transcends human comprehension, but also works for our good, even when we don’t understand.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/queen_of_attolia_audio.html