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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Sundays In Bed With


Sundays In Bed With..., hosted by Kate @ Midnight Book Girl: What are you curled up with this Sunday?

This Sunday is going to be a busy one with lots of errands and chores plus church if we get up in time (we are lazy Lutherans some weeks). Hopefully near the end of the day I will be reading a little of each of these:

Harry Potter book #5 - I so want to get into this and back to Hogwart's but I have another book I am really into
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty McDonald: This series was one of my favorites growing up and if I ever have kids, I will be reading this to them when they don't want to take a bath or pick up their toys. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle makes everything magical through imagination.
Finally, a book coming out in November that is thought-provoking and hard to put down - Trial of the Fallen Angels by James P. Kimmel. I'm only a short way into it and I wish I had more time to read it. Once this book is published, I will certainly be doing a blog on it.

So that's it. Now on to those errands and chores.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Bloggiesta

Woop! Woop! My first bloggiesta by
There's A Book

Now as I sit at my friend's table (props to Kimberly @ On The Wings of Books for hosting and Kate @ Midnight Book Girl for co-hosting), I am a little overwhelmed - these girls really know their stuff. I'm just an amateur writer with a new laptop but I do love this book blogging thing. Anyway, here goes:

To-Do List for Blog
-  Sign up for a couple of weekly memes (including Sundays in Bed With...)
-  Visit more blogs and follow more blogs
Clean up my blog and try and maybe to do "tabs"?
-  Participate on twitter

Continue to bug the hell out of my mentors (Thanks, Kate and Kim!)
-  And seriously, gotta find time to read more this week

I'll be working on this some more tomorrow. It's a learning process and I'm slow. Thanks for your patience!

Monday, September 24, 2012

I will review a book eventually

Alright, I must admit - the last couple of books I have read have pretty much not been review-worthy. In layman's terms - they sucked! I shouldn't even mention them here but I'm gonna: Carrie - Stephen King & The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde. These books ARE well written and amazingly creative but they didn't "fit" me. Let me 'splain more:

I had read Carrie as a teenager and absolutely loved it, but for some reason, this time around, I got annoyed by the constant interruptions of news articles or witness accounts coming into the story. I also forgot how grossed out I got when I read the shower scene. And another thing that bugged me was the thoughts of Carrie in parentheses all the damn time (O! Mama! No! O!). After I read Carrie as a teenager, I started on more Stephen King books. I read part of IT, part of Gerald's Game (which almost had me passing out from how disgusting it was with the dog or whatever) and I read his short story, The Jaunt, which scared the crap out of me. When I was younger, I loved being scared. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, Christopher Pike books, R.L. Stine books - all favorites of mine - but for some reason, I just can't stomach King. I've seen a lot of the movies and I do okay with those but the amazingly gooey descriptions he comes up with unnerve me. No doubt, the man is a genius but I just can't go there.


The second book, The Eyre Affair, was a book club pick and I love my book club girls (Bitches be Readin'!), but this story was so convoluted and annoying that I barely finished it (and to confess, I skimmed the last 40 pages or so). It involves a peppy gumshoe named Thursday Next (yes, I'm serious) and she works in the department of literary crime. There's a villain, Hades, and there is an old love, Landen. There's a time-traveling father and a quirky uncle with great inventions. However, I can't tell you much more than this because I honestly had no idea what was going on most of the time. I looked up some reviews of this book online and a TON of people loved it. I'm just not a "fit" for this book either.


So now I am heading back into the land of Harry Potter (book #5) and no this is not a re-read. This is my first time on the Harry Potter books. I'm reading other books along with Mr. Potter but I'm definitely not picking up anymore Stephen King ... at least, not yet.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Top Ten Bookish People We Would Like to Meet

                     From The Broke and The Bookish, it's time for Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's subject: Top Ten Bookish People We Would Like to Meet

Well, where to start? I haven't been blogging long and don't do it as often as I would like thanks to having only one computer in our home currently and it's not a laptop. (Hint: husband, I need a laptop). Therefore, I don't know a lot of other book bloggers and I have only like 4 followers, so...the list will be comprised of authors only.

1.) Judy Blume: How did she know how I felt when I was 13 in Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? How did she know what I worried about when I lost my virginity in Forever? It's like she was writing my life story in my teens.

2.) Shel Silverstein: I want to know how all those wonderful ideas came from one man and I'd love to thank him for the poem, "Warning", which gave me the idea to tell my niece (who was 5) that a snail lived in her nose and would bite off her finger if she stuck her finger up there. 

3.) Maya Angelou: The grace, the pride, the strength of her words that can lift you so high. How does she achieve such a keen sense of self while remaining positive throughout so much turmoil?

4.) Bronte Sisters: I have a feeling we'd talk over tea and we'd discuss moody men. 

5.) Helen Fielding: How did she know how I'd feel in my 20s? I was just like Bridget Jones.

6.) Suzanne Collins: I have a feeling if I asked her to tell me a bedtime story, she'd scare the crap out of me and have me up all night worrying...but it would be worth it.

7.) George Orwell: I would love to discuss our criminal justice system with him. Social injustice, totalitarianism and thought crimes...oh my!

8.) Christopher Moore: The dude can make Jesus' childhood hilarious among other subjects. I haven't LOL'd so much at a book in my life. Check out his book, Lamb, unless you are easily offended by humorous slight sacrilege.

9.) Shakespeare: I'd want to ask him who he was writing about in the sonnets. Then, I'd ask him about his sex life. I imagine he had quite a saucy life.

10.) Dr. Seuss: 
I would meet him on a train
I would meet him on a plane
I would ask about the Grinch 
I would ask about ... green eggs and ham (I can't rhyme; you get the point). 


                     

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Books that make you think





A weekly meme from The Broke and The Bookish, this Tuesday's list is about books that make you think.

My pics are...

1.) A Question of Power (Bessie Head). This is a difficult read and was part of my African Lit class back in the 90s but wow! It's from the point of view of an insane woman drifting in and out of reality.

2.) The Shack (Paul W. Young). Why do bad things happen to good people? Where is God when things like this happen? What happens if you lose faith? Quite a good story.

3.) Night (Elie Wiesel). The best book from a survivor of the Nazi Death Camps I've ever read and a very emotional book.

4.) Thou Shalt Not Kill (Mary S. Ryzuk). Considering I knew Bob Clark/John List when I was a kid, this one hits home for me. He was a member of my family's church. This man, John List, killed his family and then disguised himself and lived as Bob Clark for many years, several of which were in Brandermill, where I grew up.

5.) The Red Tent (Anita Diamant). Women in the Bible aren't usually chosen as characters of fiction but this one is and it's a good one. The writing itself is so descriptive that I feel like I was there.

6.) 1984 (George Orwell). Freaky, freaky, freaky. What happens when the government OWNS you?

7.) Lord of the Flies (William Golding). It's like Survivor except there is killing, real challenges and a bunch of asshole boys. It begs the question, "What would you do?"

8.) Any Shakespeare but specifically, Hamlet. There is so much about this that makes you think that I can't pinpoint one specific thing.

Well...I almost made it to ten. Eh, whatever.

Friday, September 7, 2012



Remember that song in 1994 by Des'ree, titled "You gotta be"? They played it over and over again ad nauseum, but one of the best lyrics is "Read the books your father read."

On my dad's 70th birthday, I wanted to see what my dad would say are his favorite books of all time. (Keep in mind, I called him in the middle of the work day and said that I needed his top 5 favorite books right now so I can have something to blog about since I didn't keep up with my reading very well this week.) So, although he may rethink this list later on, here are some of his favorites.



#1 Trinity by Leon Uris

I started this book back when my dad say that this is his favorite book of all time, but I was a teenager then and couldn't get through the first chapter. This is next on my to-read list. My father is an Irishman. No, he wasn't born in Ireland but he might as well have been. His pride in being Irish has led to a proud and loud Irish clan with me, my mother, my sister, my brother and 6 grandchildren. Erin go bragh!

#2 Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo by Ted Lawson

I hadn't heard of this one so I had to look it up. It's a first-person account of the American raid ("Doolitle Raid") over Tokyo in April 1942. My father would have been just born around the time of these events but I can imagine his fascination as he read this as a teenager (and perhaps that factored in to his decision to join the Air Force years later).

#3 Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Okay, this one I have read and I agree that it should be in the top 5 books of all time! A powerful love story set during the French revolution, this book ends in the ultimate sacrifice. I can say, in all honesty, that my dad knows something about sacrifice. Sacrificing everything for his family, he has raised three kids, put them through college, helped us when we were in trouble, counseled us, make us feel safe and, most of all, loved. Plus, he somehow managed to attend college and get his Ph.D., while working extremely hard to provide for his family.

#4 The New Testament

I've read some of the New Testament (I know, I know - I should have read it all by now). My dad definitely wanted this added, but wanted it to be clear that it's not the whole Bible that he loved...only the New Testament. Who can blame him? That Jesus really spiced things up. Raised Baptist, my dad wanted to be a minister at one time. That changed but he kept us kids settled in the Lutheran church growing up, taking me to church every Sunday, dropping me off at vacation bible school, picking me up from lock-ins and teaching all of us how to be good people and help others. I imagine he would have made a great minister - - well, apart from the Irish temper.

#5 Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

As www.goodreads.com describes it, "...suspense, intrique, and the dangerous machinations of the human heart." Sounds like a good one, Dad! I'll put that on the to-read list too.

These are all great choices but, for me, there is only one book that will always remind me of Dad.  Growing up in suburban Midlothian, VA , after spending the day at school or at the pool or roller-skating in the basement, I would be ready for bed and my dad would tuck me in and read me this:




HAPPY BIRTHDAY, "GEORGE"! You are not a cow or a hen or a dog or a plane or a SNORT! You are a daddy and you are my father! I love you.

**Just a few hours after I published this, my dad sent an email with some others: Exodus, War & Peace, Nicholas & Alexandria, IKE, Lonesome Dove and The Killer Angels.

~ Wooter