It's Monday! What are You Reading #35

Share what you (are, have been, are about to, hope to be) reading or reviewing this week. Sign Mr Linky at Book Journey and visit other Monday reading roundups.

 I didn't read as much this past week as the week before as I spontaneously decided to participate in BBAW as I ran across the chatter about it during my IMWAYR visiting for which I actually visited well over ten and left at least ten comments and then forget to drop the comment about it at Sheila's.  That was the first time I managed the 10 visits in months and that was on top of all of the BBAW posting, surfing and commenting.

During all of that I discovered various challenges and meme's I'm interested in and I plunged into two of them: The Read Your Own Book Read-a-Thon at Bibliophilic Book Blog and the Read a Myth challenge which I combined.

So during this past week between Monday and Friday I continued reading the novel, Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier which I had begun before last Monday and discussed in last week's post.  Ditto for Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer which I discussed last week.

When I decided to take the plunge into both the Read Your Own Book Thon and the Read a Myth Challenge I combined my intent in one post and dedicated the thon reading to the Myth theme.  I have over a dozen myth and fable related books out of the library and more on the way as I've been beyond obsessed about them for about three weeks now.  It isn't the first of such obsessions and my bookshelves reflect that and as I searched the library catalog I would spot one I owned and start hankering after it.  I would move on to another entry wryly telling myself that the poor book would have a better chance of getting read if I checked it out of the library.

And then came along the Read Your Own Book thon and the Read a Myth challenge.  I encountered both on separate blogs within an hour of each other.  Talk about synchronicity!

So in my Friday Forays in Fiction post in I declared my intent I listed the books I would be reading for the thon which I will just quote here

• Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
 by Clarissa Pinkola Estes -- I've owned this since before my 17yr old nephew was born and have begun it several times and once passed the halfway point before getting distracted.  My sister has been after me to read it, especially certain chapters in the last half, so she can discuss her experience of it with me.  It's about time I did!  It sits on my shelf in plain sight right behind my Ott lamp and every time I reach around to turn on the lamp it gold metalic title glitters mocking winks at me.

• Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey
 by Sallie Nichols -- this was one of my exciting purchase at my last Powell's book store visit 2 years ago!  I bought it specifically as research relating to a WIP which has a main character doing academic research on the tarot emphasizing its relationship to storytelling so this was one of those Jungian synchronicity moments for me and I fear my neglect of it has been an insult to whatever personal angel or muse sent it to me.

• The Mask of God: Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell

• The Mask of God: Oriental Mythology by Joseph Campbell

• The Mask of God: Occidental Mythology by Joseph Campbell

• The Mask of God: Creative Mythology by Joseph Campbell

I acquired Joseph Campbell's The Mask of God series the same year as Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book and have tried several times to read them cover to cover, moving back and forth among the four, making significant progress each time.  But that only accounts for half of the time I've spent with these volumes as I find them fascinating just to browse in.

• Also on my agenda for this weekend is one modern fairy tale, the novel: The Swan Maiden by Heather Tomlinson which I bought off a Friend's of the Library shelf a year ago.  

The Swan Maiden
by Heather Tomlinson

I read this charming fairy tale retelling cover to cover inside of 24 hours between Friday evening and Saturday evening.

I browsed happily among all the NF some more than others.

Oh and I also restarted War and Peace, (for the ?th time) reading about 10 pages just to test the waters.  I'm tempted to stick with it but it would have to be at a very slow pace and thus I couldn't set aside all other fiction like I prefer to do when reading a novel.  The slow pace is necessitated by eye strain due to the small print.  Maybe I should look for a large print edition or download an ebook....

I pulled War and Peace off the shelf because I came across a read a long somewhere in my blog travels.  I think forgot to save the link.  But i doubt I could read at the pace the group would be reading anyway.

It really hurt to set aside Illumination, a library book, which I'm truly enthralled with but I'm not sorry now because this was a quick, light enjoyable read that reminded me of how it felt to read similar stories when I was a pre-teen.  And to think it would likely have been a year or two or never if I'd not had this kick in the pants.

The Read Your Own Book challenges (I've seen others out there I need to check on) is primarily designed for the blogging reviewers who have allowed their review obligations to pile up so high they feel guilty reading the books they buy for love.

Me, I don't have that issue yet.  But I let library due dates rule my reading choices.  Currently I have 30 odd items out on my card and as of Thursday there were 9 more waiting for me which Ed couldn't get off work in time to collect for me and since then 7 more have been shipped.  And I've added more requests on Ed's card.  Only about 4.  Two of them were accidents because I forgot which card I was logged onto and the other two because they were his kind of story and I thought I'd have him vet them for me.

That's what happens when I surf book blogs.  I head to the library catalog open in another tab and I get in queues.  Some are long and some are short and sometimes  there is no queue at all.  Sometimes the requests trickle in and sometimes they flood.  This week it's a tidal wave.

Well after this weekend thon experience I decided I need to keep one or more of my OWN books in my weekly reading agenda so I'm going to be making it part of this Monday post to declare which of my personal books I will be attending to.

This week I declare the NF list above to be the pool in which I will swim.  Maybe I'll favor one over the others but I'm going to let whim take me for now.

But of course I'll also be reveling in all the library books.  I'll probably be doing a Library Loot post Wednesday or Thursday about the items that come home this week.