Cruising along and catching up

Talk about your time-sucking activities...

Last week I read Breaking Dawn, the new teenage vampire novel by Stephenie Meyer. This is the fourth novel in the series and though I might normally enjoy reading about super-hot & super-tall werewolves (because, up until this novel, Jacob was my favorite character) I really didn't enjoy this 600+ page novel. The one thing that caused giggling in the corners of bookstores, libraries, classrooms, and living rooms everywhere is gone. The absence of sexual tension made the book way too tedious for me - and no one dies. Well, except Bella who will now be the smartest, most beautiful, and bestest vampire that ever lived. WHATever.

Now I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and it is laugh-out-loud funny. People kept telling me to read it (Amy Habberstad) but never loaned it to me or even told me what it was about. So, I had to spend my hard earned money on it one day after the gym. I keep crying from laughing so hard at pasta jokes and random words in Italian. Not to mention jokes just for Connecticut residents. I'm only 1/3 of the way through and will next read this year's Pulitzer Prize winner, another after-gym Title Wave purchase.

I'm really really super lazy

Believe it or not, I have been reading. I finished Mayflower in mid-July and haven't really been engaged by anything I've picked up since. Mayflower was fascinating though and I find myself randomly rattling off statistics about the Pilgrims, the Indians, and those rotten Puritans who used to beat up Quakers in the street. The Quakers figured in pretty prominently though and it was fun to read about them and my ancestor who came across on the Mayflower as an indentured servant.
I also realized that I wish I remembered more from my American history classes. Fortunately, most of it sounded familiar so I attribute the gaps to old age instead of a poor education. I need more - any recommendations for history non-fiction? I was thinking about reading John Adams but need to locate a copy.

Well, I tried to start another book I checked out from the school library. I forget the title, but it is one of a genre of high school "coming out" books that deals with issues surrounding homosexuality for teenagers. The library aide recommended it for me because I teach a class called "Teen Issues in Literature" so the subject matter is relevant. The book is okay, not too preachy which is my pet peeve with YA lit. But I'm not gay, I'm not a teenager, and I'm not a boy. It's hard for me to relate but I want to get through to the end so I can recommend it to students.

I also started reading You Must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oates. I can't "get into" it. I'm not sure why but I have a couple of other books by her around that I should try instead.

With two weeks of summer vacation remaining I am waiting for the next book in the Mormon teenage vampire series to arrive from Amazon tomorrow. I should start rereading some of the summer reading material I assigned. I also need to get some more motivation for posting to my blog!