January
1.
Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan ... i am a big fan of rick riordan's percy jackson olympiad series .... i read all of them after my kids were done .... this is called the first in the kane series because of the brother and sister main characters, the kanes .... instead of olympian gods and goddesses, the reader of this book is immersed in egyptology and a whole different set of gods (who do a lot of morphing) ..... there were some brutal battle scenes that i wasn't happy my youngest, sweetest girl had read.... and the story doesn't seem as fresh... since it isn't fresh, it's quite similar to the percy jackson premise of ancient gods still existing and meddling in the world today .... i did like the lost hero, riordan's last book, the first in a new series with some of the characters from the olympiad series .... maybe i just like greek gods better than egyptian ones .... (and a tiny disclaimer, i don't just read kid books...but, i do love to read books that my kids say are great ... and lately, some of the books i've read for teens are better than some of the adult books ... they have tighter plots and dialogue without the cursing .... )
2,3,4
awesome, awesome, awesome trilogy ... favorite books i've read in ages and ages ...
The Hunger Games, Girl on Fire, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
my oldest read these and adored them ... and asked me to read them so we could talk about them ... she said the reason she loved them was because even your favorite characters were so flawed ... and most books she could think of had a hero, or someone kind of perfect, or a flatter character who wasn't all fleshed out and so very real .... all of it takes place in what used to be the USA ... but it is now Panem, a small dystopian society with a cruel streak ... the hunger games are a reminder to the provinces of their quelled rebellion ..... you just can't imagine how bad those hunger games are .... stunning .... hunger games was the best book i've read in years and years, i think ... two bad it's the second book of the year!! no building of drama over the calendar year with a start this strong!
5
A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White ... i read this one for my book club ... i liked it ... really enjoyed it and read it fast (generally the faster i read a book, the more i liked it in the "can't put it down" kind of way) ... two sisters who end up separated ... and how they find their ways in the world and back to each other ....
6
How to Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport
... my kids are in 8th grade ... i sometimes read this guy's blog ... so i bought his book .... i think the advice is sound if you have the kind of kid that wants to achieve superness .... i'm not sure my kids are mature enough (yet?) to understnad the insight of this book .....but, even if they don't read it or won't do it, they'll still turn out fine .... the one big take away for me is that kids don't have to join a zillion clubs in high school ... they should find what they like and do it well ....
February
7
Belong to Me: A Novel by Marisa De los Santos
.... i bought this book because it had cute rainboots on the cover ... and Sophie liked it while i was browsing at costco .... nice serendipity that it was so good ..... it had a little bit of everything : cancer, out of wedlock children, catty women, true friendships, search for birth parent .... but it wove a nice story ... i really enjoyed it ... and enjoyed the truthfulness to it ... life isn't always tidy and neat ....
8
Lady Be Good by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
...another Costco purchase ... not quite as splendid as the last .... i didn't realize prior to purchase that it is a full on romance novel ... i haven't read the genre since my teens, i don't think .... but ... i read it anyway ... it was actually quite funny .... Lady Emma was trying to destroy her reputation so that the mean old earl, duke, lord something or other wouldn't make her marry him OR take away her school where she's headmistress ..... add in the playboy golf pro in texas and high-jinxs ensue ...
9
The Galapagos Islands: exploring, enjoying, and understanding Darwin's enchanted islands by Marylee Stephenson
... a little dry ... and a little enchanting .... i feel a journey in my future ...
10
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
... i adored this book as i read it (this was a reread in prep for reading the sequel) ... it was scary and provocative and full of the unexpected .... it seemed to be kids in an experiment that kept getting creepier .... turned out to be sort of post apocolyptic with a disappointing ending ... and the ending was only disappointing because it is a first in a series ... i didn't know that when i started ... so ... the ending was excused for me since it meant the story continues .....
11
The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner Trilogy, Book 2) by James Dashner
(OH MY GOSH...this book was the first one i EVER read on an electronic device... i read it on julia's kindle ... and OH, i want one!)... so ... part two of the maze runner ... mostly the same characters in an entirely different scenario ... with equally bizarre twists and turns with a few mutant zombies thrown in .....again, a cliff hanger ending so that we will read the third book ... which doesn't come out til fall 2011 .... it's called the death cure ...eek!
March
12
A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata .... another hand along from my daughter ....it is just dawning on me that maybe i have been reading so many of her books because i've been a bit on the overbusy side .... and it is easier to have her pick me a book than for me to browse for one online, go out to a store, or even peruse my own shelves for a reread ( i think i want to reread all seven harry potter books... maybe this summer?) ... so ... a million shades of gray is the description a young vietnamese boy uses to describe the elephant that he adores .... the time frame is the vietnam war just after the US military has pulled out .... it is a coming of age story, boy loves elephant, set amidst horrible carnage and heartache .... touching and lovely and poignant ....
13
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (author of girl with a pearl earring, LOVED that book)
... this book was a slow and steady read ... chevalier really knows how to set a scene and transport you to different time ... it was enchanting and methodical, just like those poor spinsters in the 18th century ... this is a fictionalized version of one of the women credited with discovering many fossils, and in particular, large extinct animals (first ichthyosaurus).... causing outcry among the church folks who said if it wasn't on noah's ark it's a hoax .... it was the first time in history that the notion of extinction came into being .... made me think about all sorts of things that i've never thought about before .... and i do love dinos and fossils so it also made me feel just a wee bit smarter too ...
14
LadyBirdLand by Allison Strine ...
... my favorite book of the year by my new favorite author and not so new best friend ... rah!! colorful, joyful and funny ....
15
Island Story by Ayumu Takahashi
.... this man, ayumu, wrote an adult book that seemed happy and light and airy like a children's book ... it was about a dream and some perseverance and a little alcohol mixed together to make a grand party and a good book ... with gorgeous pictures!! i'm not sure what literary value this book has, but GOSH it made me happy to read it..... just charming ....
16
A Well Manicured Murder by Georgia Adams ... so .. i think this is self published ... or published by a small house ... it had typos ... and some printing oddities ... like words running into the margin .... which was oddly distracting .... stopped reading to wonder how some of the more glaring errors got by whoever was editing .... anyway ... georgia adams is actually three women writing together under a pen name ... probably just because it's fun .... i couldn't tell it was written by three folks and i wonder if the three "litchicks" are based on the three writers ... one fancy southern, one new jersey girl, one sensible geekier woman .... the characters had a bit of caricature to them ....but, the story line was great .... quite tricky and twist and plot turn ... i liked it ....it's a good murder mystery when just about everyone is a suspect ....
17
Little Bee by Chris Cleave ... WOW ... this books is so sad and scary and frightening ... and real .... that's why it is so hard, the realness .... it is an amazing, hard to put down book .... about a nigerian orphan girl and her unbelievable life and its hardships .... this is a book you should read because we all need to know about the parts of the world that we aren't familiar with ....
APRIL
18
Darwin Slept Here by Eric Simons .... I want to go to the galapagos islands ... off the coast of ecuador ... i've wanted to ever since i was fifteen and read Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos ... so .. now, i'm reading all the galapagosy things i can get my hands on .... this is a travelogue book ... with some science, some history, some funny bits ....
19
Metal Cowboy by Joe Kurmaskie ... so, as i perused the travel books in my local border's (that is now going defunct, i should look for more books by this author whilst they are on sale) .... i was looking for galapagos, ecuador or south america books, and i happened upon joe kurmaskie .. hey! i once knew a joe kurmaskie, and how many joe kurmaskies can there possibly be? ...happily, this author is the same person as the tow headed, smiling boy i knew from church, round about fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade .... the book is a series or short stories or articles recounting his adventures on a bicycle .... because i don't think joe will ever actually know that i am reviewing his book, plus, my maiden name is not beck or artist, i can tell you what i really think ... i think he is just like the late, great erma bombeck... would he be offended to be likened to an old woman who surely didn't do much biking? hard to say... but, yup, he's a lot like her... funny, observationally acute, funny, poignant, funny ... sometimes with a bit of a moral, or a take home lesson ... really charming stories .... his later books include him riding across country towing a child, then another child, then his wife and the kids .... i'll be reading them eventually .... a side note, i do especially like them because i love biking ... my family is a good biking family ... every vacation we strap our bikes to the car though ... we take our bikes TO florida, we don't bike to florida .... something to think about ....
on top here, is book 18 ....
on the bottom, book 20 and 21 ...
20.
Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, himself ... reading this book was just flat out geeky of me ... but, i'm dedicated to fully immersing myself in the galapagos .... i had read it originally when i was a kid ... i believe i even did an extra credit report on it for tenth grade biology .... the book is charming and old fashioned ... the most interesting thing to me is that i think of charles darwin as this old dude ... big beard, dour expression ... but in this book his youthful, wide eyed wonderment really shines ...
21.
Origin of Species, by our man Charles Darwin .....the quintessential argument for evolution .... this was a skimmer ... sorry, charles .... i want to have the brain of a scientist and the heart of a naturalist ... but when i go to bed at night to read, this just did not keep me awake! .... so ... i skimmed ... i learned stuff ... but it totally slowed me down!!
22
what i wish for you, by Patti Digh .... i love patti digh ... she has a blog that i started reading eons and eons ago ... and then she wrote a book, life is a verb ... and i submitted art to be in it ... and it was in there ... and then i used that book to teach an adult sunday school ... and it was cool ... and now i have art in this one ... this is a collection of lovely stories/articles written to patti's oldest daughter as she prepares to go off to college ... now that daughter is almost done with her freshman year ... time flies ....simple wisdom for a happy life ... a lovely read ... with pictures too ... gotta love a grown up book with pictures .....
MAY AND JUNE (catching up ... some of these were end of april too, maybe?)
23. Frommer's Ecuador and the Galapagos ... it's a travel book ... i love it ... i daydream with it ....
24 My Father's Island by Johanna Angermeyer .... guess which island was her father's? you know right? the galapagos islands .... i loved this book ... it made the galapagos very real to me AND it was a great story ... coming of age ... having a goal ... figuring out your history ....
25. Floreana by Margaret Wittmer .... do you now where Floreanna is? it's an island in the Galapagos islands ... i'm going for full galapagos immersion!!
26. Wildlife of the Galapagos .... by Julian Fitter and a couple others .... i didn't really "read, read" this one ... i looked at pictures, read about the pictures that drew me in ... and looked up animals that were in other books i've been reading ....
27. In the Land of No Right Angles by Daphne Beal ...fictional travel writing ... but not to galapagos!! this book was given to me, i loved the gift of it, but didn't love the book ... i liked the book, read the whole thing, about an American girl living in Nepal for a year ... and the mess she gets into ... it made me realize that it can be hard to read a book where you really wouldn't make any of the choices that the main character makes ...
28. After the Fire by Robin Fisher ... wow ... this was a hard book to read ... it is a true story of a fire in a college dorm (seton hall)... set seemingly on purpose ... bunches died ... the two highlighted in this book were horrifically burned .... it was a great book ... i don't usually read non fiction ... maybe non fiction makes the bad stuff even harder to handle ... (like, in the book i'm reading currently, if a vampire dies, the reader can be ok by distancing themselves easily, whereas here, you are left wondering how those people are managing now)
29. Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose ... uh oh ... i think i still read like a reader ... darn .... this was much drier than what i usually read .... but it was interesting .... i guess you have to read drier stuff when you are on the quest to get smarter .... just reading happy fiction wasn't expanding the brain at all ....
30. Ape House by Sara Gruen .... this was a reread ... cause it was sitting on my bedside table and i loved it the first time round ... (little known fact, i was an anthropology minor in college and LOVE all things primate ...) this was written by the author of water for elephants ... and i think i love it much more than that one (water for elephants? the clowns and roadies freaked me out) .. the thing that intrigues me here is how much research the author does for her books ....
31. Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner ... i ADORED this book ... i thought it was going to be dry non fiction but it was wet ... so not dry .... it is about the scientists and the finches on the island of daphne major ... that's an island in the galapagos islands ... and those finches are what helped darwin figure out evolution ... and it is where the scientists in this book WATCH evolution as it happens ... cause it isn't always slow (even though still having appendix and pink toe populations make you think so)
32. The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle ... i have LOVED reading peter mayle over the years ... he wrote a year in provence, toujours provence ... and many other books ... i have read ALL of his books ... this one was my least favorite ... it was fine, i read it all the way through (instead of stopping in the middle like i do with books i hate) ... but it was not nearly as charming as his other books .. maybe he's not meant to do mysteries .... his observations of life/anecdotes are my favorite ...
33. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin ... i started this last year ... and have done a slow and steady read ... reading chapters between other books .... but , again, it is part of my effort to improve myself by reading non fiction .... i read gretchen's blog (and apparently feel like i know her well enough to speak of her by first name) ... i am a facebook friend of hers (or her page) ... she likes quotes (so do i) .... and she is so not like me ... she's on this happy quest but i don't think she's innately happy ... she's studying happy and working on happy (which i think is totally admirable) .... as opposed to me, who i think is just genetically happy until something external turns up and i'm not .... gretchen's book was VERY interesting to me .... it made me happy ... hee hee ...
an unnumbered entry right here: i got a kindle for mother's day .. OH MY GOSH I AM IN LOVE WITH AN INANIMATE OBJECT .... the harrowing bit was having to finish my real books that i was working on while being lured away by my kindle ... love, love, love ....
34. I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore .... ok ... Pittacus Lore is from another planet, not this one ... writing about aliens who live among us while they gather strength to go back and retrieve their planet ... how did pittacus get a publisher? ... i read this book because my oldest had, and loved it ... and i also loved it .. great premise for sci fi thriller .... looking forward to reading more from alien author pittacus lore ... because it will be a great series ....
p.s.... we just watched this book as a movie on tv (on demand, 3.99) .... the movie was NOWHERE as good as the book ... in fact, they left out all the best parts of the book and just left in the battle/fight/mayhem scenes .... my son LOVED the movie ... and presumably will now read the book so he can understand it better ....
35. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffen ... this series has taunted me for years .... she's an atlanta author ... her books are everywhere ... but i always pick them up (borders, costco, grocery store, cvs, they are everywhere) and then don't love the blurb on the back ... they sound like they are too lite and trite .... i have nothing against lite and trite, but it seemed like it would be lighter and triter than that ... so i always skipped them ... til i saw the something borrowed movie trailer ... and it looked like a GREAT movie ... fun movie ... movie i would love (even though i generally don't GO to movies, i wait for them to show in my family room, geesh, i sound like my dad) ..... so ... i bought it for my kindle and LOVED it ... great book ... and really, not trite at all ... it would be a great book club book (my highest complement for a book) ... it has tons to talk about ... is infidelity ever excusable? do we each have a true love somewhere? do we only have ONE true love? is how you perceive yourself remotely similar to how others perceive you? great book ...
36 . Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford ... this, i actually read as a book club book .... it is about the japanese relocation efforts on the pacific coast during the war ... it's actually a love story and the absolute antithesis of the characters in the last book (see above, infidelity, dishonesty, self centeredness) ... the main character had a true love that was relocated... and he went on to live a long life without her .... it was sweet and lovely ... and taught me a lot about cultural differences and that era of our history ... loved it ...
37. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White .... another book i read for my book club .... a great one ... who knew there was a leper colony in louisiana? not me ... and that it was attached to a low security federal prison? ... the author was in fact a prisoner there!! ... he went from being scared of the leprosy sufferers (let's not call them lepers, ok? that's mean) to being a friend to them ... this book doesn't have the grand story arc of the type of book i love, but it was a nice introspective journaling of a man who had made mistakes and was trying to sort it all out ...
38, 39, 40, 41
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
and
Dead to the World
... all of these are Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries by Charlaine Harris ... and they are about vampires ... and i love them ... and they might be rotting my brain .. and i might never go back to enlightening books because these are pure and fabulous escapism ... if you want to escape to small town Louisiana and live amongst vamires and werewolves .... such fun ... and completely inappropriate for anyone under the age of 30 .... i bought one .... read a single chapter ... and then bought three more ... i'm going to try not to buy more until i've read some of the other books in my queu .. but no promises .. i feel pretty immersed in that world and want to keep reading them ... they remind me of janet evanovich's books ...one for the money ... sookie stackhouse and stephanie plum would be great friends if they met in some literary parallel universe ....
so, if you are keeping track, i've read 8 books on my new kindle (one on my daughter's kindle) ... and i have a bunch more that i've already bought (mostly from the 2.99, 1.99 , FREE lists) ..... i adore my kindle .... i was reluctant to go e reader ..... but am now so happy i have ....
42... dead as a doornail
43.. definitely dead
44 .... all together dead
45... from dead to worse
46 ... dead and gone
47 ... dead in the family
48 ... dead reckoning
.... i just finished the eleventh sookie stackhouse book by charlaine harris ... these are the books that the tv show true blood are based on ... i've never seen the show, don't have hbo .. and actually can imagine not ever seeing the show ... is it very bloody and gruesome and sex filled like the books? .... here's the thing ... when i read jurassic park, i loved it ... i loved michael crichton, read all his books, and have a thing for dinosaurs ... so jurassic park was perfect .... but when i saw the movie jurassic park? OH MY GOSH ... i was scared to DEATH ... i thought the movie was too scary and gruesome and horrifying ... eek! ... i decided then that when i read things, my brain was self protective ... i don't tend to visualize the stuff .. i read it, hear it, move on ... but in a movie ( or a tv show) the imagery is so in your face, "seared on your eye" comes to mind .... so these sookie stackhouse books had some charming, funny bits ... and good fast storytelling ... but i wonder if those would both get lost in the filming and i'd feel like i was just left with too much gore?
anyhow, i ADORED these books ... i think i started the first one in the beginning of june ... and now it is still june .... so i read them quickly too ... that's the same way i read the stephanie plum books by janet evanovich.. i started well after the series had begun, so i read a bunch in a row ... and now wait impatiently for each next edition .... next addition to the series ... another series i did this with was sue grafton's abc mysteries .... i think i read a through h all at once ... and have been reading them only periodically since ... the funniest thing about that series is that kinsey millhone used to be a contemporary, but now she's still stuck in the 80s ....
so the current dilemna is what to read next ... i have half a mind to find another brain wasting, edge of your seat, summer read .... but i have about ten books in queue on my kindle (love a word like queue, so vowel rich, so pattern happy queueueueueueue) .... so i might just read something i have ... or i could get back to doing some of the things i am meant to do and spend a little less time reading .... hmmmmm ....
rest of june and then july (i'm writing this section on august 1) ....
49. beastly by alex finn ... young adult fiction that my daughter loved and asked me to read ... a retelling of beauty and the beast in modern days ... in new york city .... well done ...
50...stir until thoroughly confused by heather wardell .... i bought a BUNCH o' 99Cent books for my kindle .... of varying quality .... this is of the "light summer read" variety .... about a cook ... and a romance .... it was kind of like reading a good food network show .... i liked it ....
51...faking it by elisa lorello ... i had low expectations for this book ... even wondered why i had bought it (besides the good price) .... went back and checked .. and it had great amazon reviews .... so i plugged on ... and i really ended up liking it .... well developed characters in an off beat plot ... i really, really loved two of the men in the book ...
52...a life that fits by heather wardell ... someohow the light summer read book/romantic fiction of my high school youth had been upgraded to this: easy read chick lit .... funny, sassy, better character development, good plot twists .... the main character has a heartbreak and then decides to change EVERYTHING about herself .... sorta .... funny premise .... easy read ....
53...perfect on paper: the (mis)adventures of waverly bryson by maria murnane ... great chick lit ... better written than most of the others in this summertime chick lit binge i went on .... i like the idea of not knowing what you want to do with your life and changing it all up midstream ....
54...seven exes are eight too many by heather wardell ... i, the reality tv watcher, loved this book ... it just cracked me up .... why have none of the people on survivor or amazing race or big brother or the bachelor written a tell all? or have they? this is a book about reality tv gone amok .... made me laugh ...
55...the firebrand by marion zimmer bradley ... oh MY ... i LOVE, LOVE, LOVED this book ... though it is squashed into a summer of light reading it is not fluff .... marion zimmer bradley wrote mists of avalon ... loved that ..... so when i was searching for trojan war fiction (obsure and out of the blue? yes) i ran across firebrand and knew i'd love it ... the story is the trojan war from cassandra's point of view ... now, if you don't know who cassandra was, you might not love this book ... but if you have any interest in homer's stories, this one was a great spin .... cassandra and paris are twins ... i LOVE that .... helen is lovely ... hector is a jerk .... achilles is a brat .... it is the trojan war from cassandra's point of view .... and since her role in the original is minimal, the author did a good job of fleshing out her part in the story ... i LOVED this book ... maybe my favorite of the year so far ... have i said that yet? did i declare a best yet?
56....gigi by colette ... i read this book in book form, not on my kindle ..... colette is a sassy french writer... gigi is a sassy character.... being raised to be a courtesan .... and happily ends up marrying her rich man .... i read it for its frenchness .... while in france ..... i think it was a novella, not a novel ... but i'm giving it full credit as a full book on this list since it was not easy reading ..... i'm not sure i have ever loved a translated book ....
57.....the cat by colette .... again, set in paris ... and i read it in paris .... there are three charaters : newlyweds and a cat ... the cat's name is saha .... and she is the strongest character .... i don't like cats .... i'm a dog person .... the book was charming though ....
57....french lesson by ellen sussman ... french lesson to be read in france ... i actually finished it on the plane ride home .... it was three stories in one ... of three french tutors and their students .... i liked it that they walked around paris to learn french .... made me wish my french was better ... though i'd never do something so risky as having one of those french tutors .....
58....naked in knightsbridge by nicky schmidt ... this book? not the best ... but for 2.99 for light summer reading, it was fine ... i read every page because it was mindlessly funny ... goofy .... oddball .... good enough to keep my attention ... the main character is pretty much lacking in any redeeming qualities .... and made loads of horrific choices .... but it made me laugh ....
end of july and then august
59. go small or go home by heather wardell .... i am seemingly addicted to 99cent kindle books ... this one had four stars so i got it .... it was a hockey book love story ... i am not a hockey kinda girl but still liked it .... the characters were kind and lovely and pretty believable .... it's one of those books that everyone is extra damaged (surely not that many people are such a mess in real life) but you know it's going to turn out happily ever after ... super fast read ... the main female character is an artist ... and i could feel her pain! ... light and trite but worth more than the 99cents i paid ...
60. lonely millionaire by carol grace ... 99cents chick lit on amazon kindle ... hooray for that .... this was the goofiest of the dozen or so books like this i bought ... the lead female was just a ditz ... foolish, no work ethic to speak of and FULL of bad luck .... but, they did all live happily ever after ... well ... the bad guys didn't ... but the ones we were supposed to care about did ...
61. the penelopiad by margaret atwood .... (she wrote the handmaid's tale too) .... this book is the odyssey from odysseus' wife's point of view ... poor penelope ... o left for war when telemochas was a baby ... and doesn't get back for 20 years or so ....so we hear penelope's side ... as an ancient greek play with a handmaids' chorus ... they even sing after they all have been killed .... anyway, penelope first meets and eventually loves o ... then he leaves for war and she hears snippets about him ... and then he's meant to be coming home and she just hears news hear and there ... oh, he's sleeping with a goddess .. no, that was just a visit to a brothel .... rumors! .... it was clever ... i'm not sure o was worth waiting for in this retelling ....
62 the iliad by homer .... my son read this one this summer ... so i did too .... it wasn't as interesting as i remembered it being as a kid ... some bits i had to slog through or skim ... i guess when i read it in middle school it was a well abridged version ... and when i read it in college, the discussions in class made it seem more nuanced than what i got from it this time ... anyway ... homer's classic epic of the battle over helen between greece and troy ......
63 the odyssey by homer .... odysseus gets lost on his way home from the trojan war ... poor penelope ... poor blinded cyclops ... poor crew of faithful soldiers who all die along the way ....
64 ransom by david malouf ... oh my ... i adored this book ... the best (so far) of the ancient greeks and trojans i am reading about .... this is just a snipped of the iliad, chapter 24, fleshed out ... priam, king of troy, plans the then unthinkable, to personally ransom hector's dead body from grief stricken achilles ... totally humanizes all these people and gives us somax, the cart driver, now my favorite trojan .... very touching and interesting and well written ... loved it ....
a bit of august, september, october and the beginning of november
(I AM IN THE PROCESS OF WRITING AND EDITING THIS POINT FWD)
65 the spark: the 28 day breakthrough plan for losing weight, getting fit, and transforming your life by chris downie ... i am not transformed, but i am motivated ... i liked reading it ... but i got not great insight that i didn't already have ... i bought if because it was super cheap on kindle ... and though i'm not a self help book buying kinda gal, i thought for the price it was worth a try .... oh well ... i do pop in on their website now and again though ...
66 the swiss family robinson by johann david ----
67 the time machine by h.g.wells
68 alice's adventure in wondeland by lewis carroll
you can buy classic lit on kindle for cheap .... i had never read any of these but knew the stories well ... it is interesting to me how different the books are than what gets distilled out in pop culture and the movies .... books are better ....
69 the postmistress by sarah blake ... read this for book club in
70 evening ferry by katherine towler ... read this for book club
71 how to meet a guy at the supermarket by jessica degarmo
71 the power of six by pittacus lore
73 the breath of god by jeffrey small .... WOW ... i read this for a women's group meeting at church ... the author came and spoke to us and he was amazing ... astonishing ... fabulous ... so, so , so great ... he and the book were super ....
74 an accidental family by donna fasano
75 the christmas wedding by james patterson ... a book club book for december ... i was in costco in november and saw this book (i'm a kindle girl now but still browse their books just in case) and i saw this book .. my book club has trouble picking christmas books ... you want it to be good ... or good enough .... but you don't want it to be long cause if there is ever a time when someone won't be able to get it read it is in that busy downhill slide from halloween to thanksgiving to christmas ..... the slippery calendar slope to the new year ... so i texted a pal ... and we made the decision that this would be THE book ... not just the one we'd all read, but the actual physical book that we'd all read ... so i bought it, read it, signed it ... and past it on ... now each pal in my book club will read it and sign it and quickly pass it on ....
the book itself was a light easy breezy read of happiness ... lots of kind, perfect people ... minimal conflict that gets worked out easily .... exactly what most christmas books are ... considering that chances are good that our christmas book club will be so fun that we skip the book discussion, it is the perfect choice ...
76 AND 77 (cause i make my own rules) whom the gods would destroy by richard powell ... this is my favorite book from my youth ... i read it in ninth grade ... and then two or three times a year for six or seven years .... then as an adult i found it on a brother's book shelf and read it on at least three different trips to his house .... then this summer, when my kids found out they could read the iliad for summer reading, and were doing the odyssey in ninth grade english, i wanted to read it again ... and it's not on kindle ... so i bought it at a hefty price used off of amazon ... it is out of print .... but i have an old library copy now (how could they have given it up?) ... and i read it twice in a row ... once fast, and once to savor it ... it is the story of the trojan war as it revolves around a trojan boy ... who may or not be one of the many sons of priam ... who is captured by the greeks ... who leads an heroic life .... helios ... he might be my favorite character of all time ... i love him ... in light of all the other greek mythology type books i've read this year, i love him especially much .... i also quite like the portrayal of achilles, hector, and odysseus in this book ... i love to hate paris ....
78 four word self help by patti digh ... a reread ... a boost ...
79 trail of thread by linda hubalek .... a pioneer book .... from the women's perspective .... wagon train kind of stuff ... treacherous river crossings ... someone always loses a dog ... i liked it .... bought it as a kindle bargain and will see if there are more by the author ....
80 slow love, how i lost my job, put on my pajamas and found happiness by dominique browning .... my january book club book ... i'm just getting ahead ...
november is almost over ... don't think i'll make it to 100 after all ...
81 sixteen brides by stephanie whitson ..... 1800s, civil war widows heading out west .... little house on the prairie-ish .... i actually loved it , but i have a thing for wholesome books ... this was well written and wholesome ... and now, if you need me to dig a fire break for you, i'm fairly knowledgeable ... not sure that reading about herding cow got me as skilled in that area of expertise though ....
82 something blue by emily giffen .... my friend kb lent me this one .... right after i read number 35 ... this is the continuation ... took me along time to get to it, huh? ... darcy became a more likeable character in this second book .... i think there's a third book with her ... i like the book, but am not sure i need to read a third about her... maybe if someone lends it to me ...
november and december
83 ender's game .... by orson scott card ... awesome book ... i had read it in the 80s and picked it up again after thanksgiving because my brother, niece and daughter all were reading it .... i loved it .... again .... sci fi at its finest ....
84 declaring spinsterhood ... by jamie lynn braziel .... of course she didn't stay a spinster ...
85 the death cure by james dashher ... from the maze runner trilogy .... the least of the three, but still exciting ...
86 and 87 ....bridesmaid lotto (mcmaster the disaster) .... by rachel astor..... and .....
gamble on engagement (mcmaster the disaster) ... chick lit ... second in series
88 ... following my toes by laurel osterkamp ... chick lit .... about foregiveness ....
christmas books ....
89... the quiet little woman by louisa may alcott
90... can this be christmas by debbie macomber
91 ... touching wonder by john blase
92 .... twas the night before by jerry jenkins
93... ten tales of christmas by lynne miller (very old book)
94 ... christmas miracles by a bunch of people!
95......the christmas shoes .. by donna vanliere ... my book club read it in 2006
96.... an idiot girl's guide to chrismtas by laurie notaro
it is december 24th ..... and i'm going to go start a new book .... as quiet time before cookie baking and church time .....
97. .... little blog on the prairie ... by cathleen davitt bell ..... ya fiction .... going to get both of my girls to read it too ... cute
98.... frontiersman's daughter ... by laura frantz ... i loved this one ..... about the settling of kentucky ... very complex characters .... i think it is a series ....
99.... divergent .... started late on the 29th ... finished on the 30th driving home from nc .... lucky for me, mr.e.beck.artist drove the whole way ..... by veronica roth .... i believe this book is the next big thing ... will get big and popular like the hunger games ... amazing story ... in the future ... life's a mess .... a colony around chicago .... five groups .... at 16 you can leave the group you were born to, otherwise you are in it for life ....
100.... the bigamist .... by mary turner thompson .... not my usual, it's non fiction ....my pal allison told me about this one ... well ... i read her post about it on facebook ..... started it on the 30th .... finishing on the 31st .... just so i can say i finished 100 books in 2011 ....
