Time // 10:45 a.m.

Place // Back at my desk in my office, of sorts, in small town Minnesota.

Eating // A fried egg on toast, contemplating finishing off my Easter candy.

Drinking // Bigelow Lemon Lift tea

Reading // I should be reading The New Republic by Lionel Shriver because I am reviewing it for TLC Book Tours on Wednesday. But I’m actually reading Catching Fire because I watched The Hunger Games on Netflix last night.

Overall, I had a very productive reading week (mostly because I had a couple of books almost finished at the end of March that I actually finished this week): The Outsourced Self by Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Round House by Louise Erdrich and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. I can’t wait to write reviews for all of these.

Watching // At the moment, I’m catching up on some clips from last night’s Saturday Night Live. Peter Dinklage drunkenly singing Foreigner with Bobby Moynihan is priceless.

Listening // I also finished listening to Contagious by Jonah Berger (really interesting), and am back at Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Jamie and Claire just got married, so I’m hoping it’ll pick up a little bit now.

Making // I’m not making anything at the moment, but I really want to bust out my dormant cross stitching skills to make this sampler.

Blogging // This week was a busy one on the blog. I did a review, of sorts, of Possession, reviewed one of the best books I’ve read so far this year, Does Jesus Really Love Me? by Jeff Chu, announced a new readalong of Telegraph Avenue with Florinda (The 3R’s Blog) and did my March recap post. Whew!

Promoting // Rebecca Joines Schinsky wrote a fantastic post for Book Riot this week: books to read through your quarter-life crisis. It is such a smart list, covering a huge variety of topics and accompanying book suggestions. Being 26 and in the middle of my own stress and insecurity, I basically want to read all of these books right now.

Enjoying // I got a lot of book mail this week (enough that the boyfriend actually commented on it), including a shipment from Powell’s that included Margaret Fuller by Megan Marshall and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The picture above is the note that came in Margaret Fuller — a free upgrade to a new edition even though I’d ordered a used book. It was such a nice surprise!

Avoiding // I had to work for quite while yesterday which really kicked my butt. I didn’t get any of my chores done, so I’m going to have to get caught up with that today which I am not especially excited about.

Anticipating // Our local gym is hosting a free Zumba class this afternoon, which I’m excited about. They normally don’t offer classes on Sundays, and since I missed Zumba yesterday because of work I’m looking forward to getting some exercise today.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?

March was really, really not my favorite month. The last month or so of winter always puts me in a huge funk, and this year it has felt like winter would never end. There was a week in the middle of the month that I really just hated almost everything.

Despite my generally bad attitude about the world throughout March, I managed to finish nine books — the most in a single month yet this year. And most of them were absolutely excellent. I can’t think of anything to complain about other than, like usual, I wish I could have read even more.

One of my mini-goals for the month was to post four times a week, a goal I accomplished mostly thanks to updates for my readalong of Possession. I’m not sure I can keep that up this month, but I’d like to try. Anyway, here’s my breakdown for the month of March. 

Books Read in March

1. Goodman, Matthew: Eighty Days (nonfiction)
2. Moyes, Jojo: Me Before You (fiction)
3. Miner, Barbara J.: Lessons from the Heartland (nonfiction)
4. Mayer-Schonberger, Viktor and Cukier, Kenneth: Big Data (nonfiction)
5. Kiernan, Denise: The Girls of Atomic City (narrative nonfiction)
6. Sedaris, David: Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls (essays)
7. Mires, Charlene: Capital of the World (nonfiction)
8. Chu, Jeff: Does Jesus Really Love Me? (nonfiction)
9. Byatt, A.S.: Possession (fiction)

Other Books Reviewed

• Miller, Madline: The Song of Achilles

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After years of blogging without successfully participating in or hosting a readalong, I’ve found myself co-hosting reading projects two months in a row. Not that I’m complaining, since it’s a great excuse to read books that have been languishing on my shelves along with some of my favorite bloggers.

This month I’ll be co-hosting an informal readalong of Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon with the wonderful Florinda of The 3R’s Blog.

Why Telegraph Avenue? That is actually a funny story, I think (or, at least a story typical of people who love more books than they can actually read). Last year, Florinda and I both got copies of the book at an author breakfast at Book Expo America. I remember that Florinda was especially thrilled to get an ARC of the book. We both had plans to read it right away… but we didn’t.

When I saw the book pop up on a January list of the books Florinda meant to read in 2012 but didn’t, I suggested a readalong. We compared our bookish schedules and settled on April — 11 months after getting the book in the first place. There’s something delightfully absurd in that, I think.

The book isn’t terribly long, which I think will make a relatively relaxed pace over the next four weeks. Here’s our schedule:

• April 15: Section I (through page 124)
• April 22: Sections II and III (through page 250)
• April 29: Section IV (through page 381)
• May 7: Section V (through page 465)

Our plan is to do a check-in post each Monday on Florinda’s blog (you can find her announcement post here). There won’t be updates here at Sophisticated Dorkiness — we wanted to keep the discussion in one place — but I will be helping out with each of the check-in posts. We’ll also be on Twitter using the hashtag #readchabon.

Like the Possession readalong I just finished, there aren’t any requirements to post updates or anything like that. Just grab the book and join us in talking about it in whatever capacity works for you. Happy reading!

P.S. For those interested, a group of us will be doing a watchalong of the movie Possession on Sunday, April 14 at 7 p.m. CST. The movie is available on Netflix, and even if it’s no good we’ll have some fun Twitter chatter at #readbyatt to make it bearable.

Title: Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America
Author: Jeff Chu
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2013
Publisher: Harper
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

Full Disclosure: Parts of this review originally appeared in a column I wrote for the newspaper that I work at.

Review: Generally speaking, I don’t actively try to match up my reading with current events. Sometimes I’ll pick a book that connects with a holiday because I’m in the mood, like Diane Ackerman’s One Hundred Names for Love near Valentine’s Day. Or sometimes a tragic event will inspire me to pick up a book that can offer answers, like Dave Cullen’s Columbine in the wake of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. But more often, serendipity plays a role in putting the perfect book in my hands at just the right time.

That is the experience I had last week, when I happened to be finishing Does Jesus Really Love Me? by Jeff Chu on the same day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on two cases related to same-sex marriage. In the book, Chu, a journalist who grew up in California and now lives in New York, sets out on a year-long pilgrimage to ask tough why so many people who read the same scriptures and follow the same God can end up at radically different conclusions on issues of faith, the church and homosexuality.

During his journey — which is both a personal process of coming to understand his own faith and an exercise in investigation — Chu interviews hundreds of people and, in the book, gives many of them enormous space to speak their minds and share their thoughts about the state of being Christian in the United States.

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