Competitive Reading

I made the mistake of signing our family up for a summer reading program at the library. It's a mistake because evidently the Man and I suffer from hyper-competitiveness. We're one week in and neck and neck at 500 minutes of reading. He tried to convince me that the night time reading I get done while up with Twinkle doesn't count while making sure I wasn't logging quiet time minutes (which I had to confess I'd thought about). He also tried to log all the audio book minutes that he listened to after he fell asleep. Let me just say: dirty. cheater. Let me also say: I am putting every free minute to good use these days because he is going down.

Side note, I have the ability to do this because Twinkle has transitioned to the jumperoo after trying to flip her bouncer off the kitchen counter during breakfast and evidently the jumperoo is fun for the whole family.

At any rate, I thought it was time for a quick book blog. It has to be quick because I was up from midnight until 330 last night with my favorite fifth child and I would like to get a little bit of time to hang out with the Man before I pass out from exhaustion. And before anyone makes the assumption that the Man was snoozing away blissfully while I manned point with the baby, he took the first shift...and also has to get up at an obscenely early hour to go to the gym so that he doesn't kill people when he goes to bring home the bacon. Moving on, apologies for not including nice pictures of the books but all my reading is happening on my phone these days (the better to read while night-nursing, my dear). So here's what's been hanging out of my kindle app:

The Pigeon Pie Mystery and Acedia & Me are both still in the works
so no comment as of yet.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. My middle sister suggested this one primarily because she wanted someone to discuss it with. Aziz Ansari is best known for his role as Tom Haverford in Parks and Rec but this is primarily a research driven book on what it's like to find love in the 21st century. I could write an entire blog post just about this book, and I don't want to because not enough sleep AND want to hang out with the husband BUT if you want to understand a little better what is going on in our culture (and even cultures around the world), this might be worth a read. I found it to be a somewhat sad read (especially because I'm reading Little House on the Prairie to the Bigs right now all most people want in life is a relationship like Ma and Pa's).

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh. Allie Brosh's blog is one of my favorite online reads, and I was so excited when I heard she was putting out a book. Turns out that more than a few of the chapters are repeats from the blog, which is why I get books from the library instead of buying them, but I didn't necessarily mind the reread. Her story about the dinosaur-goose was a fun add in, but her strongest chapters are still the ones on depression. If you haven't read her two posts on depression, please go over to her blog and read them. The last two chapters about identity were also fascinating. Brosh manages to blend humor with depth in ways that really gave me a lot to think about.

She's scooting, but only backwards...
which means I'm fishing her out from under the piano a lot.

My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith. My oldest sister suggested this book (why have a librarian when you can have sisters!), and it was a great read. I went through a massive Alexander McCall Smith phase after the Little Man was born, but this may be my new favorite. It made me want to take the Man to Italy. But we wouldn't rent a bulldozer to drive around in. But we might gently bend a few laws. But we wouldn't land in Italian prison. Hopefully.

This is the portion of the blog where I was going to force the Man to tell me about what he's been reading (he audio books like a beast), but he got sucked into watching The Office, so that ship has sailed. Anyway, assume I said something about military history and things that actually happen in real life and stuff blowing up, and you'll be pretty spot on.

I take a break from reading to hang out with this kid,
because she's pretty cute.

So, books: read them. And then compete wildly with the people you love to see who can read more of them. And then stay up way too late reading them instead of actually adulting.