Reading Post 5/7

This quarter I'll be able to finish two of my three goals.  Those being the one I already finished (finishing The Well of Ascension over break) and finishing all Mistborn books currently available before the end of the year. I finished The Hero of Ages this weekend so to finish the series I just need to read The Alloy of Law in two and a half weeks.  My last goal of reading 30 minutes per night has been my least completed goal throughout the quarter and this week didn't help to change that.  However this week I read about 300 pages for a total of about 1300 for the quarter so far.

Reading Post 4/30

This week in The Hero of Ages I read a little over 100 pages and am now on page 324.  I read my nightly goal of 30 minutes contradicting the pattern I've set so far this semester.  In total I'm over 900 pages for the semester.  My pace of reading is up to par for the class requirements but if I want to meet my goal of finishing the entire series before the passing of the year I'll need to more than double my pages per week.  I also found out that Brandon Sanderson is writing 3 mini-series out of Mistborn.  The first, the one I'm nearly finished with, is a medieval setting.  He has one book finished for the next series, which will be set in a steam punk setting.  Then the series will transfer to a sci-fi/fantasy genre set in space.  Also I learned that every book he's ever written is all set in the same universe just different planets.  The inter-galactic sub-series, I hypothesize, will connect all the worlds from his books and be some awesome finale which makes me want read all of his books.

Reading Log 4/23

My goal of reading 30 minutes each night is my most difficult goal it seems.  In total I've probably read the equivalent to reading a half hour per night but I never spread out the reading to meet this goal.  The Hero of Ages still has my attention thoroughly in its grasp.  This week I read roughly 100 pages and I'm on page 212 at the moment.  In total this quarter I've read about 800 pages.  My goal of finishing the rest of the Mistborn series seems within reach if I read more than the usual amount, I'd have to read 1000 pages by the end of the year.

Reading Post

Diving full tilt into The Hero of Ages.  I wasn't able to pick up the book until later into the week and quickly ripped through the first roughly 100 pages.  I'm thoroughly hooked on the series by Brandon Sanderson.  At the end of each book in the series so far I wonder what would be the next book's contents without fabricating nonsense to fill the pages.  Each time he's surprised me with concepts that mesh wholly into the series.  I didn't read 30 minutes per night but I meant the 100 page minimum this week.

Notes 2 & 3

The Trouble With Henry

In Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Henry a small town's peaceful life transforms into entropy when the restless corpse of Henry stirs up mayhem.  Stark contrast is seen as the distracted doctor blunders through the scene as comical upbeat music plays implying that death is no harsh and mournful occurrence but rather a lighter part of the cycle that occurs every day.  At first glance the bright and colorful fall landscape tells of more contrast between the vibrant leaves and the scythe of death.  However with a deeper look the leaves don't contrast death, but rather accentuate it, the leaves will soon shrivel up, fall to the earth, and be forgotten.  The autumn beauty of leaves advocates the shortness of life and abundance of it.

The Consent

BY HOWARD NEMEROV

Late in November, on a single night

Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees

That stand along the walk drop all their leaves

In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind

But as though to time alone: the golden and green

Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday

Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.

What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?

What in those wooden motives so decided

To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,

Rebellion or surrender? and if this

Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?

What use to learn the lessons taught by time.

If a star at any time may tell us: Now.

     Nemerov's detailed imagery appeals to all senses as he looks out into a "November night."  Watching as the "flattering fans of light" slump to the earth "neither to rain nor to wind" but to what?  What invisible menace struck down these once full of life pieces of nature.  If this genocide were to repeat, "what race shall be exempt?" he wonders.  The vivacity of the leaves being withered into nothing at the command of an astral being underlines that the end of life can be unexpectedly abrupt.

Reading Log spring break

I finished The Well of Ascension not before spring break like my goal but rather in the middle of it.  I didn't read 30 minutes per day but more read in large chunks at a time, mostly in car trips.  I liked The Well of Ascension a lot and look forward to reading Hero of Ages.  I may have enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the first book of the Mistborn series which isn't typical of most series'.  Brandon Sanderson is an awesome writer with a creative mind.

Since my last reading post I've read ~500 pages.

Exercise 3

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/47
http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/a-darkling-plain-book-four-of-the-hungry-city-chronicles
http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/a-web-of-air

-Intro giving background information.
-Give reactions to the book
-Pass an overall judgment with points to back it up.