Still In Search of a Good Book...

I'm a very picky reader. I think I spend more time choosing what book to read that I spend actually reading it. I think this is because I ABSOLUTELY LOATHE starting a book, getting bored with it, stop reading it, and then choosing a new book. If I commit to a book, personally, I think I owe it to the book to finish it. I know that sounds really weird. But that's just my opinion. I'm considering finishing the Divergent Trilogy by reading Allegient. Or maybe the Fall of Five. Or maybe the Knife of Never Letting Go. Or maybe Champion. Any advice?

I will probably read the Knife of Never Letting Go next because a friend of mine said it was REALLLY REALLY good. And there's nothing like a friend's suggestion of books :). Allegient is a close second on my books to read list because I have heard a lot of really good things about it and I really want to finish the series, so I can go watch the Divergent movie, which, by the way, I heard was really exciting too. Below is a fan made movie trailer for the Knife of Never Letting Go:

Well I'm going to go browse the nook store this afternoon looking for books. Wish me luck!

Past, Perfect, Present Tense

So continuing the reading of Past, Perfect, Present Tense, I have come to fall in love with short stories.  It still baffles me that the author can include plot, characterization, diction, syntax, voice, perspective, themes, imagery in such little amount of words. And putting into use the new diction and syntax vocab we learned, I now know that the title’s asyndeton(because it is leaving out the conjunction ‘and’). Am I right? J Anyways, one of the things I like  is that  I can pick up the book during those 10 minutes in class when I have nothing to do, read a short story, close the book, set it down on the table, and then just think about all I was able to gather from those 10 pages. It’s great. Normally, for me, reading is a start-stop activity. I rarely sit down for a couple hours and read continuously. So, by the time, I find my page in a 400 page novel and remember all the things that happened, it’s time to put the book away.

There was one short story, out of the 5 I’ve read that really stuck with me. It’s called The Electric Summer. It’s describing a young girl (Geneva) living in 1904, when St. Louis decided to host the centennial celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. She’s the epitome of the “Classic Country Girl”. She isn’t very worldly, she’s rather isolated. Contrarily, she has an aunt, named Elvera, who drives an automobile, which is quite unique for an early 20^th century woman. So her aunt is that eclectic, oddball that all family members kind of frown upon. Never the less, Aunt Elvera asks Geneva if she would like to accompany her to the Fair. Geneva really wants to go, but her parents turn Elvera’s invite down. Granted, Geneva’s kind of crushed. But then… that same night, Geneva and her mom are sitting on the porch and her mom surprises her. They will be going to the Fair. Together.

Being from a little farm, Geneva and her mother are scared to be going to such a crowded and big place, but once they get there, they are blown away. Here, Richard Peck does an amazing job offering imagery and description to really emphasize the setting and make it ‘pop’. One of my favorite lines in the book is when Richard Peck writes about the nighttime feel of the Fair, with its dancing people, blaring instruments, and colorful lights, "...the fountains played to this music and the thunder of the fireworks.” There are two main parts in this sentence that I'd like to address. Firstly, the fountain. Fountains by nature are just beautiful, with it's clear, flowing water spurting up into the air with majestic loops. But this quote makes the scene that much more ethereal by describing how the fountain not only skyrockets upward, but that it does so to the beat of the music playing. Secondly, the fireworks were described as "thundering" which speaks to the effervescent, brazen, immodest milieu of the fair- a direct contrast to the mundane, secluded, self-conscious life- style Geneva lives when she is on her farm. This emphasizes how big of a change in environment Geneva is experiencing, and how big of an impact this Fair is having on her perspective. In general, this line spoke to me because I can almost hear the blaring music and exploding fireworks. It totally sounds like summer.

Here's some snippets of the Fair:

Short Stories...

I finished Trash!!! It was such a good book and the mystery of what that wallet held was finally solved at the end! Anyhow, new book, new blog :)

So I've always been the kind of person who likes reading novels, like actual 300 paged, storyline based novels- not a collection of poems or biographies or news articles. Well recently I picked up a book called Past Perfect, Present Tense. I don't know what it was that kind of drew me to this book. Maybe it was the glossy white cover it had, or the simple color scheme on the spine, or maybe it was the alliteration of the title. Anyhow, I picked it up. It was, as the cover stated, a collection of stories by Richard Peck. So short stories. That got the wheels turning in my head. 'What exactly was a short story?' I thought. I had the misconception in my head that short stories would be so much easier to write than novels. I mean less words, less work. Right? I also thought that short stories would be so boring to read. One minute your in the beginning of the novel and the next minute your done. How could anything really exciting happen in those few minutes? Well, I soon learned how wrong I was about both facts.

I did some research on short stories and learned quite a few things about it. The definition of a short story is "a fictional work of prose that is shorter in length than a novel". And Edgar Allan Poe said that "a short story should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours". This fact seemed a little strange to me. How could the author develop a well thought out plot, develop relatable characters, and connect with the reader in such a short amount of time? The way short story writers go about this is quite simple actually. Instead of focusing on so many different characters, so many different themes, so many different plots, and on so many different facets of the story, short story authors tend to target one character, one main central message, and one plot in their writing. This way, there's less things to cover, so the author can truly zoom in and delve deeper into their stories.

For more info on short stories: http://www.bnv-bamberg.de/home/ba4613/flg/gk_english/short_story/short_story_definition.htm