Book Review: The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges

Sometimes, even the most serious person must feel the need to play around. President Richard Nixon escaped from the Cold War by bowling. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote comic operas. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer played in the Par 3 Tournament before the Masters.

Jorge Luis Borges, along with Margarita Guerrero, wrote The Book of Imaginary Beings (El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios).* And a great diversion it is!

The book is just as the title implies: an encyclopedia of the strange and fantastic creatures that inhabit the literary world. Some, like the Harpies, have a long and varied history that comes down to us from classical mythology, both from European and Asian traditions. Others people modern works by authors such as C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra or Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Borges wrote two editions of the book, first in 1954 (entitled The Anthology of Fantastic Zoology (Manual de Zoología Fantástica), and an expanded version in 1967. He obviously hoped to expand the book further, as the prologue to the 1967 edition notes:

A book of this nature is necessarily incomplete; each new edition is the core of future editions, which may be multiplied to infinity. We invite its eventual readers in Colombia or Paraguay to send us the names, reliable descriptions, and most conspicuous habits of their own local monsters.” p. xv (English language edition)

Alas, a further edition was never issued. I can only imagine the incredible entries that might have come from the communities of the Africa and Oceania.

Still, the 120 beasts described in the volume provide important glimpses into the potential of the human imagination, as well as insights into the cultures that provided the myths. Take, for example, The Ink Monkey (El Mono de la Tinta), which comes to us from China:

This animal is common in the northern regions and is about four or five inches long; it is endowed with an unusual instinct; its eyes are like carnelian stones, and its hair is jet black, sleek and flexible, as soft as a pillow. It is very fond of eating thick China ink, and whenever people write, it sits with folded hands and crossed legs, waiting till the writing is finished, when it drinks up the remainder of the ink; which done, it squats down as before; and does not frisk about unnecessarily. – Wang Tai-hai (1791) p. 134 (English language version)

Such a monster could only come from a culture where ink was highly prized and expensive, and hints at the frustration of running out of such a precious commodity. Other mythological creatures, like dragons, seem to pop up in multiple locations. Borges refers to these as “necessary” monsters in the preface to the 1954 edition, but not in the 1967 version, so maybe he didn’t find them so “universal” upon further review.

I found this book because of an early review for the Read-A-Myth Challenge from The Parrish Lantern. His review was outstanding, and includes a really fun “monster quiz” I urge you to take. I enjoyed this book tremendously, as it was fun to read over a period of months, one entry at a time. My daughters and I referred to it while watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and agreed that JK Rowling had taken some real liberties with the Basilisk. But that’s what mythology is for, isn’t it? The monsters we create – and recreate – tell us about ourselves and our world, while linking us to our past.

Okay, last review to finish the last challenge of the year. I really enjoyed the Read-A-Myth Challenge, and I made it to Level 3 Mimir: World Myth! I included myths from both the Greek and Sufi traditions, two non-fiction books about mythology, a modern reinterpretation of a classic myth, and an anthology. Bellezza and I were able to organize a read-along of Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad for this challenge, which was really a lot of fun, and introduced me to a number of new blogs. So thanks to JoV and Bina for hosting this wonderful challenge. It was a blast – even if it did take me the entire year to complete it!

*I read the Spanish version of the book, a gift from my in-laws. But I used the English language version, illustrated by Peter Sis, for reference. Of course, the order of the two books is completely different, as they are alphabetized by noun, but the content is the same. So in this case, the English translations given were actually approved by the author.

Book Review: The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology by Marcel Detienne

Marcel Detienne’s The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology was one of the first books I put on my list for the Read-A-Myth Challenge, because it seemed to combine three things I love to read about: food, history, and mythology. And it definitely did that. But despite the title, the emphasis of the book is more on the way the evolution of the myth of Adonis – a myth affirming the renewing cycle of birth and death that symbolizes the calendar year – reveals prevailing societal attitudes and beliefs in classical society.

For those of you who, like me, stowed your copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in a box in your parents’ basement after college with a promise to retrieve it “once you had the room for it,” only to have said box’s decaying contents hauled to a local used book seller when the parents finally retired and moved to Florida many years later, a refresher of the Adonis myth might be in order. In what is arguably the most famous version of the myth, Myrrha is cursed by the Furies to fall in love with her father. Her nurse helps her seduce him during the harvest festival of Ceres. When he realizes of whom he’s had carnal knowledge, he vows to kill his daughter. Myrrha flees Cyprus for Arabia (the place where spices come from) and wanders for nine months. She finally begs the gods to have mercy on her, and they grant her wish by turning her into a myrrh tree, (because after all, what could be more merciful than losing your body and gaining some foliage?). Realizing that Myrrha is pregnant, Lucina, the goddess of childbirth, goes and touches the myrrh tree and it splits open to spew forth Adonis*. Myrrha continues to cry sappy, scented tears for her lost son that are the basis for the perfume trade.

The young Adonis is so beautiful that Venus falls in love with him while he is still a child, but for some reason has Proserpina foster him in the Underworld. Once he becomes the most gorgeous man on the planet, both of the goddesses want him for their own, so Jupiter intervenes, and decides Venus can have him for a third of the year, Proserpina for another third, and that Adonis can choose for the last third. Like Paris, Adonis chooses beauty (Venus) over power (Proserpina), to predictably bad results – Proserpina sends a wild boar to kill him while he’s waiting around in a lettuce patch for Venus, providing a one-way tour of the Underworld for Adonis. Venus cries foul, and Jupiter intervenes by declaring Adonis dead only part-time, giving him to Venus for half the year (spring and summer) and to Proserpina for half the year (fall and winter).

So where do the spices of the title come in? According to Detienne, the true significance of the Adonis myth is its ability to link the botanical, classical world with the exoticism of the East, the place where spices, so significant for the culinary, ritual and sexual lives of the Greeks and later Romans, originate. But more than that, the Adonis myth provides a powerful reminder of the dangers of unbridled emotion in women, who are linked alternatively to both virtue (through Demeter, motherhood and the harvest) and licentiousness (through Venus, carnal love and spices) throughout the mythological cycle.

In fact, the title refers to gardens that were planted by the secret Adonis cults, groups of women who came together to mourn the death of Adonis by planting quick growing seeds, like herbs, that would sprout during the festival and quickly die, leaving behind their scent. This, of course, made Greek men like Plato very uncomfortable, because women were getting together without men – and you know how much trouble those women could get into when there wasn’t a man around to control things! (Who knew planting a terrarium could become a means of subverting hegemonic masculinity?)

In contrast to a festival such as the Thesmophoria which was celebrated in public and in very official manner, the Adonia took place in private, in some private house where women would meet together, each the confidant of the other’s secret love affairs, for a fleeting moment rejecting, in a way, a social order noted for its public and masculine character. pp. 129-130

This is a short book, especially by scholarly standards, but Detienne has a rambling style, shifting between myths and Greek sects with no introduction or explanation. I didn’t find it an easy read, but that may be a matter of style more than substance – I found myself having to put it down and pick it back up multiple times. It may just be a cultural thing – the book is translated from French, and it’s entirely possible that French readers do not crave the organization that an American reader would. But I certainly learned a lot, and I think those interested in ancient cultures, food history and feminist history will all find something to enjoy with this book.

This is my fifth book for the Read-A-Myth Challenge hosted by JoV and Bina (only one more to go!), and the last of the titles I committed to for the Dewey Decimal Challenge (even though I wound up reading a bunch of additional non-fiction for that challenge) hosted by Jen at The Introverted Reader. So thanks to all of you for hosting!

*I included a kind of creepy rendering of that moment from Franchesi. The screaming tree reminds me of the ones from The Wizard of Oz!

TLC Book Tour Review: Peter Sis' The Conference of the Birds

When I took Peter Sis’ The Conference of the Birds out of the envelope and paged through it, I thought, “This is easily the most beautiful book that has ever been in my hands.” The paper is textured and the colors are vibrant. A very promising start. Still, I didn’t know much about Sufi mythology—the book is adapted from a Sufi mythical poem by Farid od-Din 'Attar– so I did a web search to try to contextualize the story. If you’re interested, you can find more information about Sufism here.

The story appears to be a simple parable of all the birds in the world deciding to search for their true king, Simorgh, urged on by their leader, Hoopoe.

Come on, you brave birds!

Let’s glide, let’s fly, let’s soar.

Love loves difficult things.

We’re on our way!

But it’s actually so much more than that: The Conference of the Birds has the look and feel of a gorgeous children’s picture book, yet it tackles some of the deepest philosophical questions humans can ask: Who are we? What is truth? What is the nature of God?

The simplicity of the language and the childlike illustrations probably make comparisons to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince inevitable. And the book certainly shares a dreamy quality with that famous novella. But The Conference of the Birds lacks the character development that makes The Little Prince so poignant and touching – I didn’t bond with the individual birds enough to feel sad when they dropped from the flock, or feel joy when they reached their goal.

I think where this book really succeeds is in bringing a central concept of Sufism – the concept of God within each individual – to a Western audience. That, and in the enjoyment of Sis’ gorgeous illustrations. This book is highly recommended for readers interested in mysticism, mythology or Persian culture. And also for lovers of the book as art. And also lovers of poetry.

Well, I’m happy to say that this book puts me back on the map in the Read-A-Myth Challenge – I’m still thinking I will finish that one before December. Thanks to Thanks to JoV of Bibliojunkie and Bina of If You Can Read This for hosting. And because Peter Sis is Hungarian, this also counts for the Eastern European Challenge. Thanks to my buddy Amy at The Black Sheep Dances for hosting!

I read this book as part of TLC’s book tour, and received a copy of it in return for my honest opinion. I encourage you to check out these other stops on the tour:

Tuesday, November 1st: Bibliophiliac

Wednesday, November 2nd: Book Snob

Monday, November 7th: Sarah Reads Too Much

Tuesday, November 8th: Library Queue

Wednesday, November 9th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Thursday, November 10th: Col Reads

Tuesday, November 15th: Wordsmithonia

Wednesday, November 16th: Hungry Like the Woolf

Wednesday, November 16th: Melody & Words

Monday, November 21st: Unabridged Chick

Thursday, November 22nd: Seven Impossible Things

Monday, November 28th: Alexandra Boiger

Tuesday, November 29th: Abigail Halpin

Wednesday, December 14th: Layers of Thought

Book Review: The Penelopiad

Ever since I heard about the Read-A-Myth Challenge, so kindly hosted by JoV and Bina, I have been looking forward to reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. Written in 2005 as part of the Canongate Myth series, The Penelopiad is often described as a “feminist reinterpretation of Homer’s Odyssey.” And it definitely is that.

But now that I have read the book, I would argue it is actually far more than a simple reinterpretation of a myth. I believe what Atwood is actually doing with The Penelopiad is reintroducing feminism itself.

The reinterpretation of the myth is in some ways the easy part of the novella. As I mentioned in my previous post, Penelope is a surprisingly complex character, at turns very funny, snarky, desperate and hopeful: kind of like every woman you know. Her narrative explains her behavior throughout her long ordeal. She loves her husband, but is disappointed by him. She loves her son, but doesn’t trust his judgment. She loves her parents, but their relationship is not close. Once Penelope moves from archetype of patience to actual human being, she becomes more interesting and significant. And that underscores the importance of feminist literature. It reminds us that women have stories, women are funny, women watch movies: they are not bystanders to culture, they are participants in its creation. At one point, Penelope deals with patriarchal misconceptions about her directly:

The charges concern my sexual conduct. It is alleged, for instance, that I slept with Amphinomus, the politest of the Suitors. The songs say I found his conversation agreeable, or more agreeable than that of the others, and that is true; but it’s a long jump from there into bed. p. 143

She similarly dispenses with the idea that Odysseus himself did not trust her, explaining that he simply believed she would cry if he revealed himself, and they might lose the opportunity to surprise and overtake the Suitors.

The trickier part, as I see it, is the view of feminism Atwood leaves us with in The Penelopiad. One of the stranger parts of Odyssey is Odysseus and Telemachus’ slaughtering of Penelope’s maids once they regain control of his kingdom. Atwood anchors the book in this violent act against women by including the usually silent maids as a Greek chorus. They editorialize on events throughout the book, sometimes comically, sometimes angrily. The maids have been wronged by Odysseus, by Telemachus, by the Suitors, and even by Penelope herself, they believe. And to some extent, they function as the feminist consciousness of the book. But if that is what they are, it's important to note that they aren’t totally sympathetic. Thousands of years after the events of the Odyssey and Penelopiad, they seek vengeance on Odysseus. Even the dead Penelope finally asks, “Why can’t you leave him alone?” Penelope senses that continually addressing wrongs done cannot improve the present.

I believe Atwood is addressing some of the complaints about feminist scholarship in this novella. Is it anachronistic to hold men of the past to current standards of behavior? How can feminists give women a voice if they cannot work together – and trust each other? She doesn’t necessarily answer the questions, but she acknowledges that a new generation of women may not see the issues exactly the same as the previous one, and I think that’s very interesting!

I was unexpectedly without Internet access for the past couple of days, so I’m anxious to catch up and see what others thought of this book. Was it enjoyable? Difficult? Here’s what Bellezza, WeBeReading and Nonsuch Book had to say. If you've reviewed this book, please add your links in the comments, and I’ll include them in this post.

In addition to the Read-A-Myth Challenge, I also realized this book counts for the Once Upon A Time Challenge as well. So while I didn’t do so well on that one, I did get one book in at the finish! I’ll plan better for that one next year! Thanks to Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting!

An Armchair BEA Giveaway -- and Initial Thoughts on The Penelopiad

My friend Bellezza at Dolce Bellezza and I are reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad this week, as part of the Read-A-Myth Challenge – and some other bloggers have decided to join in as well! We’re going to post our reviews on May 30. The book is short, there’s plenty of time, so please feel free to join us as well!

So after an evening of reading, here are my initial thoughts and questions about what I’ve read. And there’s a giveaway too!

First, I was not prepared for how funny it was going to be:

After her wedding to Odysseus:
“And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat. A package of meat in a wrapping of gold, mind you. A sort of gilded blood pudding.” (pg. 39)

Also, Penelope is a far saucier character than I imagined!

On her mother-in-law:
“That Anticleia would freeze the b*lls off Helios.” (pg. 61)

I am wondering about Penelope’s mother. I had no idea that she was a Naiad. Is that in the original story? Isn’t it interesting to give the most steadfast character in Greek mythology the flightiest of mothers? So far I absolutely love the book. I hope everyone else is enjoying it as well!

The Giveaway

To celebrate my Armchair BEA, as well as our book buddy read-along, I’m giving away the winner’s choice of any of the books in the Canongate Myth series available through the Book Depository (so the contest is international, but you must live in a country where Book Depository offers free delivery). To enter, just follow this blog on GFC (below, right) and leave a comment with your email, so I can contact you! Each entry will be assigned a number, and I'll use random.org to pick the winning digits! Giveaway is open until May 27.

The Canongate Myth Series allows modern authors to reimagine traditional myths from many cultures. For those of you not familiar, here are the books in the series:

A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Weight, Jeanette Winterson
The Helmet of Horror, Victor Pelevin (trans. Andrew Bromfield)
Lion's Honey, David Grossman (trans. Stuart Schoffman)
Dream Angus, Alexander McCall Smith
Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith
Binu and the Great Wall, Su Tong (trans. Howard Goldblatt)
Where Three Roads Meet, Salley Vickers
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Dubravka Ugrešić
The Fire Gospel, Michel Faber
The Myth of Izanagi and Izanami, Natsuo Kirino
Orphans of Eldorado, Milton Hatoum Mythology of Amazonia
The Hurricane Party, Klas Östergren
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman

Good luck, and thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to check out the other giveaways at Armchair BEA Central!

Sunday Salon: Penelopiad Read Along Invitation and Other Summer Fun

With yesterday’s graduation complete, Summer Reading Season officially starts today at Col Reads! I’m especially happy to be starting off this summer with two “buddy” reads. The first will be a foodie simul-blog with long-time friend Jess over at Desperado Penguin – we’ve both been reading Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices, and we’ll be blogging about it this week. I think this is the fourth simul-blog we’ve done, and I’m always surprised by our differing takes on the books we read, despite being friends for about 20 years.

Next up is a Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. When we signed up for the Read-A-Myth Challenge way back in December, wonderful Bellezza at Dolce Bellezza noticed we both had the title on our lists, and suggested we might read it together. And we’d like to invite you to join us too! We’re planning on reading and posting any thoughts or questions during the week of May 23-May 28, with a wrap-up post on May 30. Atwood’s novella finally gives Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus, a chance to tell her own story. I’m looking forward to some good conversation about the “feminist” perspective on a classic tale. Please feel free to join us for any or all of the read – it’s totally informal, but we think it will be fun.

Aside from that, my summer plans include getting to work on the challenges I signed up for earlier in the year, which should make for a fascinating summer of reading. I’m behind on the GLBT, Book Blogger Abroad and Read-A-Myth challenges at this point, but the titles I have planned are very eclectic and diverse, and I’m excited to get back to them. My daughter and I will also be working on the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge together for her summer reading project, always a treat.

I’m also hoping to make plenty of time for something else I truly love this summer: photography. I’m hoping to master PhotoShop Elements, so look forward to lots more pictures – and maybe even a change in design of Col Reads. More on that later.

What do the next few months hold for you, reading and blogging-wise?

I hope to see some of your thoughts on The Penelopiad on May 30!

Book Review: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Remember how you felt the first time you read Homer? Stretched and slightly confused, but in a good way? Reading Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony gave me that feeling again – for the first time in a long time.

Calasso’s landmark work is not just a retelling of the Greek myths – although the myths are central to the book. Rather, Calasso puts the myths, and their evolution, into perspective. Starting with Zeus’ rape of Europa, Calasso explores the Greek world’s uneasy relationship with their gods, and thereby tries to explain their relationship to the world.

Calasso finds patterns and subtle differences in familiar stories that I never noticed before. He writes poetically and persuasively. Speaking of the disaster wrought by the necklace given to Harmony by her mother Aphrodite for her wedding, Calasso explains the irony:

What conclusions can we draw? To invite the gods ruins our relationship with them but sets history in motion. A life in which the gods are not invited isn’t worth living. It will be quieter, but there won’t be any stories. And you could suppose that these dangerous invitations were in fact contrived by the gods themselves, because the gods get bored with men who have no stories. (p. 387)

This is a very enjoyable but by no means light read. First, the text assumes a fundamental understanding of ancient Greece’s philosophical terms. For a mythologist, this is just jargon. For me, it required a lot of trips to the dictionary – along with Wikipedia, I must admit. Likewise, even though I have a pretty good background in Classics, there were many myths and characters – especially from the older Greek Pantheon – with which I was unfamiliar. Again, these required a good deal of cross reference to understand Calasso’s arguments. Lastly, there’s the problem of chronology – while the book has numbered chapters, the structure is hard to understand. Some paragraphs seemed to bear no relationship to the paragraphs before or after them. I think this was intentional on the author’s part, hoping to emulate a kind of discussion with the reader. But there were times when I simply found it disorienting.

I would urge anyone with an interest in Classics or Greek mythology to read this book. I read it looking for a non-fiction title about mythology for the Read-A-Myth Challenge, and I would highly recommend it to the other participants in that challenge. I would simply urge readers to be patient – it’s not a book to be devoured in a day or two. I found myself reading a section, reflecting, sometimes re-reading and referencing, and then finally moving on. There’s just so much information here that I think to plow through it would be a disservice to Calasso’s accomplishment. Reading this book really will give you a completely different perspective on myths you thought you knew.

Thanks so much to JoV and Bina for hosting the Read-A-Myth Challenge! If you have room in your challenge schedule, I think you'll learn a lot from this one!

Since Calasso's treatise is about Greek mythology, and not a retelling of myth, I think it also counts for the Dewey Decimal Challenge! Thanks to Jen for hosting.

Book Blogger Hop: What Am I Reading?

Today's Book Blogger Hop at Crazy for Books asks, “What are you reading now and why are your reading it?”

This week I’m tackling Brigid Pasulka’s A Long, Long Time Ago, and Essentially True. I read a review of it at The Black Sheep Dances,* and it sounded like just my type of book, both romantic and historical, and about a country I know very little about, Poland. It’s taking some time to get into it, but I actually have more time to read during the week. This counts for the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge and the Eastern European Reading Challenge.

I’m also planning to finish Robert Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony for the Read A Myth Challenge. This book is an academic treatment of the “utility” of the Greek gods in ancient culture, and uses the gradual shifts in the familiar stories to explicate changes in Greek society. I’ve found it very enjoyable, just a bit dense – I have to read it in small doses.

Thanks to Crazy-for-Books for sponsoring the Book Blogger Hop. Have a wonderful reading week!

Col

*At least I think it was on The Black Sheep Dances. I went to link to it and couldn't find it, so you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, Amy!

The Firebrand: Of Feminism and Prophesy

The generation of readers who grew up rooting for Elphaba in Wicked may not realize how much they owe to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, which in its time was a groundbreaking piece of revisionist literature, presenting a feminist interpretation of the Arturian Cycle as told from the point of view of a traditional “villain,” Morgan Le Fay. I remember reading it on summer break from Georgetown, where I was an undergraduate. As a medievalist, I had had the opportunity to study Wolfram von Eschenbach and Chretien de Troyes, and I found Bradley’s take on the classic tales electrifying.

But it wasn’t until I was looking for titles for the Read-A-Myth Challenge that I realized Bradley had also reinterpreted the story of one of the most frustrating and hopeless characters in Greek mythology: Kassandra. In The Firebrand, Bradley revisits the doomed prophetess of Troy, cursed to always be right, but never believed. (**Digression: Any woman who has ever tried to share the assembly directions while her significant other boldly struggled to put together the IKEA furniture with brawn and intuition alone should be able to put herself in Kassandra’s place pretty easily.**)

Bradley is at her best describing the day-to-day life of women, and The Firebrand is crammed with social history lessons, from marriage customs to household duties. I’d say she was less successful in the actual “history” portion of her books, as the ancient world she seeks to recreate requires some suspension of disbelief. For example, we’re asked to believe that Amazons and Centaurs (although she calls them Kentaurs) lived in highly evolved, monosexual groups which allowed women to be wholly autonomous. In fact, some of the dialog during Kassandra’s time with the Amazons reads more like a Ms. Magazine editorial than a great work of literature.

Like its precursor and parent, The Iliad, proper relationships are at the center of this novel. Bradley takes some liberties here as well, making Kassandra the twin of Paris, with whom she shares a bond of sight, something Paris finds unseemly. The novel’s men are almost uniformly bellicose, vainglorious, and imperious in their treatment of women, although the gentle Aeneas is a notable exception. It is the relationships among the women that are most satisfying, as Bradley allows us to see not only Kassandra but Helen and Hecuba in far greater detail – and sympathy – than any previous treatment of the classic tales I’ve read.

I really enjoyed this novel. It is LONG, though, and since the outcome was never in doubt – Troy was certainly going to fall – there were times when I grew a bit impatient with it. And the last chapter, an attempt I think to link the main characters to the Iron Age Earth goddess-worshipping societies of Western Europe that MZB knew so well, had the feeling of an afterthought. But those are quibbles. I would definitely recommend the book to those who enjoy revisionist and feminist literature, those who enjoy Greek mythology, and those who enjoy historical novels. All in all, a great start to the Read-A-Myth Challenge. Thanks to JoV at Bibliojunkie and Bina at If You Can Read This for hosting.

Looking Forward and Back on the Blogging Thing

For me, 2010 will definitely be remembered as the year I discovered blogging. Back in April, when I started Col Reads, my idea was pretty simple: I wanted a place for my reviews for the What's in a Name 3 Challenge. But clicking on a just a few links to read reviews turned into a far more interesting proposition, as I found other book bloggers with similar interests and tastes. Now reading book blogs and participating in memes is part of my weekly routine, and for the most part it's been very rewarding -- especially meeting so many wonderful, bookish people.

With 2011 looming, I took a little break last week to enjoy time with my family and friends. I've also been thinking about what I wanted to do with this little piece of internet real estate in the coming year. Here are some plans:

More and shorter reviews: Some books deserve a long review -- others, not so much. I'm going to try for pithy this year, rather than comprehensive.

More creativity: I think I'm going to work on the look of the blog. Sounds like a summer project, but it's on my mind.

More adventure: I've joined a number of challenges that will push me to read from different literary traditions. Some of the best books I read in 2010 were not ones I would have picked up on my own. But Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge introduced me to Kitchen. Amy's Scandinavian Challenge introduced me to The Summer Book. I'm looking forward to more of those "a-ha" moments this year.

Less pressure: This is for fun. I have a day job. If blogging becomes a chore, why do it?

With all that in mind, here's the current Challenge Line-up (complete book plans are in the Reading Challenges tab). I'll probably add a few more as the year goes on. Looks like a lot, but I'm only doing a few books in each!

Read A Myth: In which our heroine takes on another challenge and hopes you will join her, because it looks like fun!

All I can say is thanks, Bellezza dear!

Having already committed (emotionally, at least) to two 2011 challenges (Beth Fish Reads' What's in a Name 4, because version 3 was my first-ever challenge, and Black Sheep Dances' Eastern European Challenge, which hasn't even been announced yet but sounds so interesting I can't wait to join), I had decided I was going to eschew other challenges and chart my own reading course come January 1.

Not so fast! Yesterday, Bellezza announced she was joining the Read A Myth Challenge. She was so excited I had to investigate. An entire year to read a flexible number of books, based on the myths from cultures of your choice! Academic literature is encouraged. The button features Artemis, my daughter's favorite goddess (and her Halloween costume, as it turns out). I started to do a little research and suddenly the possibilities were amazing - in a fit of enthusiasm I signed on the dotted line!

Here's where my list stands so far:

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Prince of Ayodha, Ashkor Banker
Psyche in a Dress,Francesca Lia Block
The Firebrand, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso
Goddess of Yesterday, Caroline Cooney
Runemarks, Joanne Harris

I'll need one more to reach Level 4, but I'm assuming I'll get plenty of ideas as others begin to log their books! Maybe something based on the myths of Egypt?

If you have any suggestions, let me know.