Vacation Reading: The Results

Back from vacation, and I am exhausted!  Having fun is work.  Seriously, I have no right to complain -- ten days in Southern California!  Boo hoo!  I spent a lot of time with my brother and sister-in-law and their baby Luca, who is seven months old and in the running for the title of Cutest Baby On the Planet.  I also went to the San Diego Zoo, Coronado, and two days at Disneyland. Woo hoo!

In between all this excitement, I actually got a lot of reading done:  I ended up bringing seven books with me, three library books and four of my own, and I finished six of them!  I know, I swore I was only bringing owned-and-unread books, but in the end I caved, as all three of the library books were very thin paperbacks. 

Just for fun I decided to total the page numbers:  approximately 1,475 pages read!  Here's a list of the books I completed (reviews to follow shortly):

1. Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

2. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

3. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

4. Summer by Edith Wharton

5. Mixed Magics by Diana Wynne Jones

6. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin

Looking back at the list, I just realized how well this list represents most of my favorite genres:  children's fantasy, classics, and food writing.  (No mysteries this time around -- well, there's always next year). 

I also broke my resolution to stop buying books -- Puffin Children's Classics were on special at Barnes & Noble, three for the price of two!  And I found a really cool book at the Hotel Del Coronado bookstore that I just could not resist:  Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West.  Time to plan some literary pilgrimages!

I had almost no time to blog or comment on other blogger's postings, so I apologize.  However, I'd like to thank Jane at Reading, Writing, Working, Playing for a Versatile Blogger Award -- thank you so much!   According to Jane, I must now share seven things about myself and then pass the award to more bloggers (it's supposed to be 15, but I need to start writing those book reviews so I'm limiting it to seven, which has a nice symmetry). 


Seven things about myself, some of which are pretty random:  


1.  I've visited 39 states in the U.S., and lived in five: Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Nebraska, and Texas.
2.  I've visited 14 foreign countries and lived in Japan.  
3.  I have a journalism degree, a culinary certificate, and a Master's in Library Science.
4.  I love period movies, i.e., costume dramas.
5.  I've eaten some really unusual foods, including ostrich, emu, kangaroo, and crocodile.  Probably the most unusual food I ever ate was deep-fried duck hearts.  We were in Beijing and it was the appetizer course at a Peking duck restaurant.  I was a little squeamish but I was starving.  They were delicious.
6.  I'm a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America.
7.  In 2008 I went on 14 zip lines in one day in the mountains of Costa Rica.  I felt like Spiderwoman.


Now -- time to pass the awards forward!  I read quite a few blogs, and here are some of my favorites (in no particular order):


1.  The Zen Leaf
2.  Lakeside Musings
3.  Book Lust
4.  Things Mean a Lot
5.  Jenny's Books
6.  Rebecca Reads
7.  Pining for the West


Well -- time to start writing up all those reviews. 


PS -- I apologize for the tiny font size.  Somehow the whole thing has shrunk and I can't get it back to normal.