current books

Around the time that Maxwell died, the kids and I finished up several ongoing stories we had been working on. We finished the 7th Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) and are now eagerly anticipating the 7th movie due out on November 19th. We finished up the back seasons for both Glee and the Office. Since his death, I have also indulged quite a bit in Grey's Anatomy and am now officially caught up on that. I've also watched several Woody Allen movies which have been a lot of fun.

Since finishing up Harry Potter, we have read the Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, a Newberry winner and are currently reading the Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, also a Newberry winner. When we finish Despereaux, I think we will go ahead and watch the movie- it's usually interesting to see how the movie compares to the book and one of the things that we enjoyed about Harry Potter was ending each book with the corresponding movie.

Before reading either of the above books, we started reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. We ended up not finishing it because we actually weren't thrilled with it. I'm not sure why, it seemed to differ for each of us. I had originally started reading Wrinkle... to the kids because we are supposed to see a play based on it in the spring and I thought it would be fun to read the book beforehand. I had also never read it as a kid and had always heard good things about it. The good that came from starting it in the first place was that it got me to check out the list of Newberry winners again, another great place to find new books to read.

Two books that are sitting in our reading pile that I think we will read next are The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg and Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The kids are also reading the Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien with Matt. He read them the Hobbit last year. They are really enjoying the story and are looking forward to the movies once they have finished reading.

In addition to watching Woody Allen movies, I have also been reading a few different books including Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (actually my first Vonnegut book aside from a feeble attempt at a short story in college) and Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (I am a sucker for French 19th century realism and it has been too long since I've bitten off a book like this one.). I've also been reading the Chocolate Cake Sutra by Geri Larkin. Although I confess that my attention for reading hasn't been what it could be and I have been doing far more knitting than reading lately. I'm currently looking for owl knitting patterns and am excited to have found a pair of fingerless gloves on ravelry with owl patterns on the fingers...