The List - Nebraska Authors

Nebraska is a small state, population-wise, the majority of it living in the two biggest cities, Omaha and Lincoln. We're proud to be the birthplace and/or home of many famous people (okay, maybe not so proud of some of them). Some of those people we're so proud of are authors. Maybe you know some of these folks?

1. Ron Hansen - author of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (made into a movie starring Brad Pitt)

2. Roxane Gay - born in Nebraska, Gay is best known as the author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State

3. Mignon Eberhart - at one time Eberhart was the leading female crime novelist in the U.S. and one of the highest paid female crime novelists in the world.

Willa Cather

4. L. Ron Hubbard (yeah, this is one we're not so proud of) - Hubbard wrote prolifically for pulp fiction magazines, mostly fantasy and science fiction works, before founding the Church of Scientology for which he is best known.

5. Nicholas Sparks - yes, THAT Nicholas Sparks, was born in Omaha and for a time lived in Grand Island, Nebraska, which is not in any way, shape, or form and island.

6. Richard Patrick Dooling - Dooling is the author of White Man's Grave which was a finalist in 1994 for the National Book Award in fiction.

7. Willa Cather - author of O, Pioneers and My Antonia, Cather is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Timothy Shaffert

8. Alex Kava - best known for her Maggie O'Dell series, Kava has written 15 novels and been a contributor to a number of short story collections.

9. Timothy Schaffert - I've talked about Schaffert a lot on this blog as he is the driving force behind the Omaha Lit Fest and the author of several books, most recently The Swan Gondola.


10. Rainbow Rowell - Rowell started writing in Omaha as a columnist for the paper but gave that up to begin writing novels. As much as I enjoyed her column, I'm mighty glad she gave it up to write Eleanor and Park among others.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Published July 2009 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Source: borrowed from my parents
Narrated by: Simon Vance

Publisher's Summary:
Mikael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government. But he has no idea just how explosive the story will be until, on the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander - the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who previously came to his aid, and who becomes the focus and fierce heart of the current situation. As Blomkvist, alone in his belief in Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation of the slayings, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all.


My Thoughts:
Okay, you all were right. Simon Vance is amazing. Except...he really cannot do a convincing Swedish accent, particularly a Swedish woman. Shouldn't even have tried. Lisbeth Salander became a Cockney girl, and not a particularly tough one.

Why, yes, this is the bed Lisbeth bought

If that were the worst thing to be said about this book, it would be a minor quibble I could have gotten over. It isn't. I have no idea where Stieg Larsson's editor was when this book was being published. Perhaps they were, like Dickens, both being paid by the word. One could actually furnish their apartment with exactly the same furniture that Lisbeth bought from Ikea, right down to the lamps and bedding. Every shop anyone went into is named, every kind of food Lisbeth ate. And don't even get me started on the street names. I do believe I could navigate through Stockholm and surrounding environs.

It's a shame to burden the story with all of this nonsense. It's a complicated story and readers need to be able to stay focused. There are a lot of names and relationships to remember. If I'd been reading, rather than listening, I might well have made notes as I started. Eventually, I got it all straight in my head and was able to go along for the ride. It really is a great ride, if you can get over the fact that it would appear a good half of the men in Sweden are chauvinist pigs. Because Lisbeth Salander is just so damn interesting.

I'd be ready to jump right into the next book if I could just get over the idea that it's bound to be three discs longer than it should be.

Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Published February 2012 by Random House Publishing Group
Source: all mine

Publisher's Summary:
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

My Thoughts:
I feel like I've been wanting to read this book for longer than it has existed. I knew it was going to be a tough read but something I "should" read. I blame Thrity Umrigar, who taught me about the slums of India in The Space Between Us, and Aravind Adiga, who taught me how political and corrupt the system is in The White Tiger.

Whatever veil was still over my eyes after those books, has been shredded away by Boo.

""The big people think that because we are poor we don't understand much," she said to her children. Asha understood plenty. She was a chit in a national game of make-believe, in which many of India's old problems - poverty, disease, illiteracy, child labor - were being aggressively addressed. Meanwhile the other old problem, corruption and exploitation of the weak by the less weak, continued with minimal interference."

Boo spent three years talking to the residents of the Annawadi slum, getting them to trust and confide in her, finding the right story to center her book around. In Abdul's family she found the perfect story to highlight all of the ills of the Annawadians, of all of those living in Mumbai slums - a shortage of work, religious conflicts, corruption down to the lowest level, political chicanery, abuse of power by the police, and an ineffective judicial system. They are pawns in a game they don't even know is being played, busy as they are just trying to stay alive, and the first to suffer when the world economy collapsed in 2008.

"Every country has its myths, and one that successful Indians liked to indulge was a romance of instability and adaptation - the idea that their country's rapid rise derived in part from the chaotic unpredictability of daily life. In America and Europe, it was said, people know what is going to happen when the turn on the water tap or flick the light switch. In India, a land of few safe assumptions, chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted, creative problem-solvers.  

Among the poor, there was no doubt that instability fostered ingenuity, but over time the lack of a link between effort and result could become debilitating."

I cannot stress enough how important this book is if you want to understand what it is to live as a poor person in India today and how such a person can feel hope for a better future.

Life: It Goes On - April 24

Surprised to see me this early? Yeah, me too.

Somewhere around midnight last night, I knew I probably shouldn't try to make it through the entire night reading. If I'd really been rocking the reading, I might have said the heck with all of that and read on. But with graduations, a kid moving, and a house guest all arriving in less than three weeks, I have too much to get done around here to spend all of one weekend day reading and the next day sleeping. And then there was that 8 a.m. phone call from one of my kids to wake me up. I can't imagine my reaction to that phone call if I'd only just gotten to bed two hours earlier!

This Week I'm:

Listening To: I'll finish Muriel Sparks' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on the drive into work tomorrow (or today, if I run errands by myself). I've enjoyed it. I think John Boyne's The Absolutist is up next.

Watching: The Voice, some baseball, but not really much else. We're kind of off on a lot of the series we'd been watching so The Big Guy's been doing a lot of channel surfing instead of watching. He actually went all of Friday night without turning the television on!

Reading: Think I covered this one with yesterday's long readathon post. I'll finish The Edge of Reason in the next couple of days then it's on to When The Moon Is Low for an upcoming TLC Book Tour.

Making: Hmmm, must have been a dull weekend in the kitchen because I can't remember a thing I actually made. Except Friday night when I used a roasted chicken from Costco to make a delicious chicken salad. So delicious, we made it again yesterday for lunch.

Planning: The graduation party planning continues and now, it seems, Mini-him will be moving out right around that same time. So we'll need to get him packed up again and ready to go. We'll be hosting Miss S's (Mini-me's girl) mom for several days when she is here for Miss S's graduation and the party so I've got to turn Mini-him's bedroom into a guest room even as I pack him out of it.

Thinking About: See above. Not much time to think about other things.

Enjoying: Patio time! It's the perfect time of year - the birds are singing like crazy, it's not too hot, and the neighbors' pool heater has been turned on yet so we don't have to listen to that whenever we're outside.

Feeling: Like the rest of my family needs to get on board the spring cleaning/party prep train.

Looking forward to: A quiet week, commitment-wise.

Question of the week: What special things do you do when you have house guests?

Dewey's Time!

Well, I'm off to a terrible start! Stayed up much too late last night and, consequently, slept right through my 6 a.m. alarm. What? It's 8:15 a.m. already? Yeah, that's how I'm rolling today.

Grabbed my coffee, a bowl of cereal and my iPad to get this readathon started. Of course, life has already interfered so I've gotten all of about 1 hour of reading done as we head into hour five of this 24 hour funfest. But, I've cleared the calendar and the family will largely be out of the house today so I'm hoping to still get in a lot of reading today.


Hour 1 Mini-Challenge: Opening Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Sunny, soon to be very hot, Omaha, Nebraska - right smack dab in the middle of the U.S.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

I'm very excited to be back to Chris Cleave's Everyone Brave Is Forgiven. Hope to finish it before I break for lunch. 

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

All of them? Because, really, readathon is the only day we give ourselves permission to eat all of the snacks in one day. 

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I'm a mom of three who, at this point, should be an empty nester. For a few months I was. Then two of my birdies flew back home. And I'm okay with that most of the time because being a mom is my very favorite thing. Sorry, books. 

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

Stay out of the room where someone is insisting on watching t.v. I prefer to read curled up in a corner of the sofa but that's in the room where everyone else will end up. With my comfy sofa in my living room for the time being, I'll be able to stay away from the noise as much as possible.

HOUR 7:
Well, I've been waylaid by lunch (made some chicken salad - protein for the energy, don't you know!) and a long search for an elusive peace symbol flag which took more than a half hour. Miss H is about to get home from work and the peace and quiet that just befell my house is about to be disrupted. Still, I will try to read on!

HOUR 13:
Mid-Event Survey

1. What are you reading right now?

Finally finishing up Everyone Brave Is Forgiven. In an hour, I'll finally be able to start my second book.

2 . How many books have you read so far?

See question #1.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?

I'm having a change of heart about what I'm reading next. Was going to finish Why We Write About Ourselves but I'm thinking I need something I can really sink my teeth into now that I finally have the house to myself. Also, thinking I need to go with a "real" book which rules out the third book I had planned to work on. So my next book will be whatever strikes my fancy on my bookshelves.

4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?

Endless interruptions, including my eldest coming by for a couple of hours unexpectedly. I always try to soldier on but next readathon, I may just take to my room for the duration. I should have done this:

5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?

How fast the daylight hours go by. Which is actually something that surprises me every readathon for some reason!


HOUR 15:
Well, as much as I loved Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, it was oh so sad. I've had a terrible time settling on something new. Finally, I decided I need something completely different and funny. So begins Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which is, at least, one of my #owndamnbooks.

HOUR 17:
So, I may have snuck a nap in during hour 16. I was rudely awakened when I thought I heard the garage door open when no one was supposed to be coming home. False alarm. You'd have thought that nap and startling wake up would have brought me back to reading life. Not so much. Don't know how much longer I'm going to make it, folks.

HOUR 19:
Woohoo! I'm still at it! I got a second wind and have been killing it with the reading.

HOUR 21:
Well that's it for me! Did more mini-challenges than I usually manage to work in and read enough to have finished a good length book start to finish. But this girl's got to get something done tomorrow so I've got to get some sleep. Good luck to those of you are are going the distance!

Hours Reading: 12            

Books Finished: 1 1/2 

Mini-challenges: 6

Pages Read: 427

END OF EVENT SURVEY

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?

Curiously, the seventeenth. I'd had a bit of a nap, I'm always still awake at that hour, and I'd just started a book which was light and brought back characters I was already familiar with. 

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

I always suck at this question because I usually haven't read very many books during readathon. I guess I'd suggest the Bridget Jones books because they are quick, light reads, although Edge Of Reason is not particularly short.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next season?

Nope. It was great as usual! I didn't cheer this year because I was hoping to really knock out a lot of reading. I wish I would have because, seriously, 76 cheerleaders for 2000 readers?

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

I didn't ask to be cheered because I knew it would be a few people trying to hit up a lot of people but I really liked the idea of doing it by Twitter. So, so much easier to do all the cheering at one place instead of trying to go to all of the blogs individually.

5. How many books did you read?

One and a half. Had so hoped to knock out a couple. One of these years I'm going to head into readathon without so many upcoming reading commitments!

6. What were the names of the books you read?

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

Enjoyed them both.

8. Which did you enjoy least?

See above.

9. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

I will definitely readathon again; I love, love the idea of reading along with 2000 other people all over the world. I would, as I said, definitely cheer again. Something more? Maybe.