Reading In White Bear Lake.......

Library Loot: November 26th, 2011

2011-11-26T14:26:00.001-06:00

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: November 23rd to 29th

My Library Loot for this week:

	Children and Fire – Ursula Hegi Set in Burgdorf, Germany, Hegi’s Children and Fire tells the story of a single day that will forever transform the lives of the townspeople. At the core of this remarkable novel is the question of how one teacher—gifted and joyful, passionate and inventive—can become seduced by propaganda during the early months of Hitler’s regime and encourage her ten-year-old students to join the “Hitler-Jugend” with its hikes and songs and bonfires. Membership, she believes, will be a step toward better schools, better apprenticeships. How can a woman we admire choose a direction we don’t admire? So much has changed for the teacher, Thekla Jansen, and the people of Burgdorf in the year since the parliament building burned. Thekla’s lover, Emil Hesping, is sure the Nazis did it to frame the communists. But Thekla believes what she hears on the radio, that the communists set the fire, and she’s willing to relinquish some of her freedoms to keep her teaching position. She has always taken her moral courage for granted, but when each silent agreement chips away at that courage, she knows she must reclaim it. Hegi funnels pivotal moments in history through the experiences of individual characters: Thekla’s mother, who works as a housekeeper for a Jewish family; her employers, Michel and Ilse Abramowitz; Thekla’s mentally ill father; Trudi Montag and her father, Leo Montag; Fräulein Siderova, midwife to the dying; and the students who adore their young teacher. As Ursula Hegi writes along that edge where sorrow and bliss meet, she shows us how one society—educated, cultural, compassionate—can slip into a reality that’s fabricated by propaganda and controlled by fear, how a surge of national unity can be manipulated into the dehumanization of a perceived enemy and the justification of torture and murder.
	Deadly Stillwater by Roger Stelljes Deadly Stillwater, where Mac McRyan is confronted with the kidnapping of Shannon Hisle, taken in a brazen daylight attack outside a restaurant on one of St. Paul's busiest streets. And Shannon Hisle isn't just anyone. She's the only daughter of St. Paul's most prominent, successful and politically connected lawyer. Mac knows that every political lever will be pulled, that the FBI will be coming in, that the St. Paul Mayor, not his biggest fan, will be scrutinizing his every move and that the media storm will be every bit as intense as the heat wave blazing the Twin Cities. What's more, while all of the signs point to a straightforward kidnapping for ransom, Mac's instincts tell him otherwise, especially after the kidnappers call just hours after the abduction and skip the ransom demand. "Why not ask for the ransom?" he wonders. While everyone assumes the ransom demand will come soon enough, the failure to make the demand gives Mac pause, and for good reason. For the Hisle abduction is just the beginning in a case of betrayal and revenge sixteen years in the making that will ultimately strike at the heart and soul of the St. Paul Police Department.
	Growing Up Amish – Ira Wagler Ira Wagler was born in 1961, the ninth of a Canadian Amish couple's eleven children. At seventeen, in the dark of night, he left the religious settlement, but it was only nine years later that he finally left the church for good. His favorite Bible verse is from Psalm 34: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." In this new memoir, he tells what it was like growing up Old World Amish and what it felt like leaving it for a strange new world. Far more than picturesque; Growing Up Amish conveys one man's heartfelt experience
	Jane Austen Ruined My Life – Beth Pattillo English professor Emma Grant has always done everything just the way her minister father told her she should -- a respectable marriage, a teaching job at a good college, and plans for the requisite two children. Life was prodigiously good, as her favorite author Jane Austen might say, until the day Emma finds her husband in bed with another woman. Suddenly, all her romantic notions a la Austen are exposed for the foolish dreams they are. Denied tenure in the wake of the scandal and left penniless by the ensuing divorce, Emma packs up what few worldly possessions she has left and heads to England on a quest to find the missing letters of Jane Austen. Locating the elusive letters, however, isn't as straightforward as Emma hoped. The owner of the letters proves coy about her prize possessions, sending Emma on a series of Austen-related tasks that bring her closer and closer to the truth, but the sudden reappearance of Emma's first love makes everything more complicated. In the end, Emma learns that doing the right thing has very little to do with other people's expectations and everything to do with her own beliefs. Laced with fictional excerpts from the missing letters, Jane Austen Ruined My Life is the story of a woman betrayed who uncovers the deeper meaning of loyalty.
	Never Knowing – Chevy Stevens From the acclaimed author of STILL MISSING comes a psychological thriller about one woman’s search into her past and the deadly truth she uncovers. All her life, Sara Gallagher has wondered about her birth parents. As an adopted child with two sisters who were born naturally to her parents, Sara’s home life was not ideal. The question of why she was given up for adoption has always haunted her. Finally, she is ready to take steps and find closure. But some questions are better left unanswered. After months of research, Sara locates her birth mother—only to be met with horror and rejection. Then she discovers the devastating truth: her mother was the only victim ever to escape a killer who has been hunting women every summer for decades. But Sara soon realizes the only thing worse than finding out about her father is him finding out about her. What if murder is in your blood? Never Knowing is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand herself, her origins, and her family. That is, if she can survive… I am really looking forward to starting this book today!
	One Summer – David Baldacci It's almost Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last days preparing to say goodbye to his devoted wife, Lizzie, and their three children. Then, unthinkably, tragedy strikes again: Lizzie is killed in a car accident. With no one able to care for them, the children are separated from each other and sent to live with family members around the country. Just when all seems lost, Jack begins to recover in a miraculous turn of events. He rises from what should have been his deathbed, determined to bring his fractured family back together. Struggling to rebuild their lives after Lizzie's death, he reunites everyone at Lizzie's childhood home on the oceanfront in South Carolina. And there, over one unforgettable summer, Jack will begin to learn to love again, and he and his children will learn how to become a family once more.
	The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst In the late summer of 1913 the aristocratic young poet Cecil Valance comes to stay at ‘Two Acres’, the home of his close Cambridge friend George Sawle. The weekend will be one of excitements and confusions for all the Sawles, but it is on George’s sixteen-year-old sister Daphne that it will have the most lasting impact, when Cecil writes her a poem which will become a touchstone for a generation, an evocation of an England about to change for ever. Linking the Sawle and Valance families irrevocably, the shared intimacies of this weekend become legendary events in a larger story, told and interpreted in different ways over the coming century, and subjected to the scrutiny of critics and biographers with their own agendas and anxieties. In a sequence of widely separated episodes we follow the two families through startling changes in fortune and circumstance.

Life seems to finally be getting back to normal. We are finally back on schedule and getting to the library each Saturday. Hopefully I will get back on track with reading and getting my book reviews written as well. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. Our family has much to be thankful about this year.

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Empire Falls by Richard Russo

2011-10-28T06:13:00.000-05:00

Title: Empire Falls
Author: Richard Russo
Publisher: Vintage (April 12, 2002)
ISBN 10: 0375726403
Pages: 496 pages
Format: Audio Book

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

Richard Russo—from his first novel, Mohawk—has demonstrated a peerless affinity for the human tragicomedy, and with this stunning new novel he extends even further his claims on the small-town, blue-collar heart of the country.

Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up.

Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his daily and future life. Called back from college and set to work by family obligations—his mother ailing, his father a loose cannon—Miles never left home again. Even so, his own obligations are manifold: a pending divorce; a troubled younger brother; and, not least, a peculiar partnership in the failing grill with none other than Mrs. Whiting. All of these, though, are offset by his daughter, Tick, whom he guides gently and proudly through the tribulations of adolescence.

A decent man encircled by history and dreams, by echoing churches and abandoned mills, by the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls: fathers and sons and daughters, living and dead, rich and poor alike. Shot through with the mysteries of generations and the shattering visitations of the nation at large, it is a social novel of panoramic ambition, yet at the same time achingly personal. In the end, Empire Falls reveals our worst and best instincts, both our most appalling nightmares and our simplest hopes, with all the vision, grace and humanity of truly epic storytelling.

Setting: Empire Falls, Maine (small town)

About the Author: Richard Russo lives in coastal Maine with his wife and their two daughters. He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for Empire Falls. His novels Empire Falls, Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool and Straight Man as well as his short story collection, The Whore's Child, are available in Vintage paperback.

Related Media: (trailer for the movie adaptation of the book)

My Review: Books like Empire Falls make me question my ability to review books. Empire Falls won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2002. While I loved many things about Empire Falls, I also found some things I did not care for. Russo is a wonderful story teller and made me feel like I was right there in Empire Falls. The characters were strong and well developed, though I would have liked to have more insight into the inner workings of Tick and Mrs. Whiting. Tick and Mrs. Whiting were my favorite characters. I understand that not providing that insight about their thoughts assists in making them more mysterious characters, but I personally wanted to know more about their thoughts.

Honestly, I nearly gave up on this book as the beginning as it seemed to plod along. But that was simply good storytelling. Empire Fall does eventually come to a boil, after much anticipation. It did feel like I was watching in anticipation for a pot to boil. For me personally, everything came to the climax and too quickly the loose ends were all tied up and the story was over. The ending was just too quick for me. The ending was a surprise to me in some regards. I thought I had it all figured out midway through the book, exasperated with such an obvious plot twist, but I was WRONG.

The last comment I have to make about Empire Falls, which is possibly related to the fact that I listened to the audio of this book, is that I found the flash backs in Empire Falls to be clumsy and confusing. I assume that in the written text the flashbacks may have been denoted in a better fashion, but in the audio it was clumsy and confusing.

My Rating: 4/5 – really liked Empire Falls by Richard Russo. I grew to really care about the characters in Empire Falls and found myself wanting to do tasks that would allow me to listen to the audio book a bit longer. If you have read my blog for any period of time, you will find I rarely rate anything 5. A book has to really keep me up at night to be rated 5- it was amazing! A rating of a 4 is certainly a book I would recommend to other readers.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Literary Corner Café

Book Awards Reading Challenge

Life with Books

Savidge Read – Book Addict

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Book Review: The Stormchasers by Jenna Blum

2011-10-26T07:31:00.000-05:00

Title: The Stormchasers
Author: Jenna Blum
Publisher: Dutton Adult (May 27, 2010)
Web: http://www.jennablum.com/
ISBN-10: 0525951555
Pages: 384 pages
Format: Audio

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

As a teenager, Karena Jorge had always been the one to look out for her twin brother Charles, who suffers from bipolar disorder. But as Charles begins to refuse medication and his manic tendencies worsen, Karena finds herself caught between her loyalty to her brother and her fear for his life. Always obsessed with the weather-enraptured by its magical unpredictability that seemed to mirror his own impulses- Charles starts chasing storms, and his behavior grows increasingly erratic . . . until a terrifying storm chase with Karena ends with deadly consequences, tearing the twins apart and changing both of their lives forever.
Two decades later, Karena gets a call from a psychiatric ward in Wichita, Kansas, to come pick up her brother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for twenty years. She soon discovers that Charles has lied to the doctors, taken medication that could make him dangerously manic, and disappeared again. Having exhausted every resource to try and track him down, Karena realizes she has only one last chance of finding him: the storms. Wherever the tornadoes are, that's where he'll be. Karena joins a team of professional stormchasers-passionate adventurers who will transform her life and give her a chance at love and redemption- and embarks on an odyssey to find her brother before he reveals the violent secret from their past and does more damage to himself . . . or to someone else.

Setting: Midwest – Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska – growing up in South Dakota and living in Minnesota the the setting was very familiar.

About the Author: When Jenna is not on the road speaking and storm chasing, she divides her time between Boston, where she teaches master novel workshops for Grub Street Writers, and Minnesota, where she writes in the rural town in which her mom and grandmother were born. Jenna is also the author of Writer On The Road, her travel/writing column for Grub Daily, and a contributor to Grub Daily's weekly advice column. Jenna attended Kenyon College and Boston University, where she taught creative and communications writing for five years and was the editor of AGNI literary Magazine. She has been writing since she was four and to aspiring writers often quotes Winston Churchill's advice: "Never give in, never give in, never give in." (from http://www.jennablum.com/blum-bio.htm)

Interview with the Author:

Related Media:

My Review:
The Stormchasers was the October selection for my bookgroup, Books & Babble. I am totally bummed that I ended up getting ill and was unable to go to group. I heard it was a great discussion. Originally, we had hope the author would be joining us for the discussion, but she was detained a day longer in Duluth. We were all very disappointed.

Having also read, Those Who Save Us, I can say that Jenna Blum is a skillful storyteller that can really capture human emotions. I started reading The Stormhasers on my Kindle. I have to be honest in saying that the story didn’t really grab me at first. Currently in my life I struggle to find the time to read, so I need a book to really grab me. This is more a commentary on my life than the book. Since The Stormchasers wasn’t reaching out and grabbing me like I needed, I switched to the audio version to ensure I would be done for book group. I am very happy I did. The audio added a lot to the story and my experience, such as the rapid, forced speech of Charles during his manic stage. The caution and fear wrapped around Karena’s words at times when talking to Charles was evident in the audio version. This ended up pulling me into the story.

While a predominant theme in The Stormchasers is being a twin and “twindar”, it is overshadowed by the skewed family dynamics of a family dealing with bi-polar disorder. The disorder and the families reaction to it overshadows every event, relationship and decision. Karena is extremely loyal to her twin, Charles. She feels a lot of guilt that she did not share the disorder with her twin, reminded me of survivor guilt.

Karena makes decisions throughout her life regarding Charles and how to help him. I did not agree with her decision to protect Charles’s secret. I think a lot would have been avoided had the problem been dealt with at the time. I loved the whole stormchaser aspect of the story, having grown up in the Midwest I have a realistic fear of tornadoes. I think Blum did an amazing amount of research on the subject including chasing herself. This is very impressive to me.

I really thought the parallel between stormchasing and bi-polar was nicely done. Stormchasing is a perfect analogy for having bi-polar disorder. The calm and then the electrically charged manic episode. In the audio, I could actually feel the energy of the storm as well as the energy of Charles when going into a manic phase.

Having grown up in South Dakota and currently living in Minnesota, I really enjoyed the references to places that were familiar to me. I actually was thinking to myself that I have to look for the arch in Dakota County the next time I head down Hwy 52. I knew the other places that were mentioned, but don’t recall seeing this arch. The flow of the story was good. I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I would have liked to have a bit of a snapshot of how Karena and Charles’s lives were after everything. The ending was just too short for me after the major build up of the story.

My Rating: 3/ 5 - like it! I enjoyed the audio more! Loved, Loved..the characters. Great character development.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Brain Candy Book Reviews

Reflections of a Bookaholic

Girls in The Stacks

Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?? – 10/24/11 Edition

2011-10-23T22:52:00.000-05:00

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading? is hosted by Shelia of Book Journey. It is a chance to share what you have read and what you plan on reading in the upcoming week. I enjoy seeing what everyone’s reading plans for the week. I always find some titles that I just *had to add to my TBR list.

Last week looked like this for me:

Finished: That Day In September – Artie Van Why (review)

Started the Book: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress – Rhoda Janzen – about 1/2 done

Started the Audio Book: Empire Falls – Richard Russo – about 1/2 done

Reviews Posted :

That Day In September - Artie Van Why

Heaven is For Real – Todd Burpo

My Plans for this week:

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. This is the book selection for November for my book group, “Books & Babble”. Hope to finish this book this week.

Empire Falls by Richard Russo is currently loading on my Zune and I hope to finish this book this week.

NEXT UP???

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian – this book was mentioned as a good read for October so I downloaded it from Audible.com.
I have not read scary books in a long time. I seem to be more effected by them as an adult than when I was a teen.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is also downloaded from Audible waiting for me! The cover and title of this book totally creep me out. Can I handle two creepy books in one month???

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg is the November selection for my book group, “Wine, Women and Words”. Should be a nice book after reading Scary Book for October.

These are my reading plans for the week. What are you reading plans for the week??? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share your reading plans for the week!!

Happy Reading!!

Book Review: Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo

2011-10-21T06:40:00.000-05:00

Title: Heaven is for Real

Author: Todd Burpo

Publisher: Thomas Nelson; Original edition (November 2, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0849946158

Pages: 192 pages

Format: Book

About the Book:

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.

Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us.

Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.

Setting: Imperial, Nebraska

About the Author: Todd Burpo is the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska where his sermons are broadcast locally every Sunday via the local radio station. He volunteers at Chase County Public Schools as wrestling coach for Junior high school students, as well as serving as a member of the school board. In emergencies Todd can be found working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department as a fire fighter. He is also the chaplain for the Nebraska State Volunteer Firefighter's Association. To support his family, Todd also operates a company called Overhead Door Specialists. Todd graduated from Oklahoma Wesleyan University in 1991 summa cum laude with a BA in Theology. He was ordained in 1994. (from Amazon.com)

Related Media:

My Review: Heaven is for Real was the monthly selection for my Wine, Women and Words book group. Heaven is for Real is the recollections of Colton Burpo regarding his time in heaven after a near death experience associated with a burst appendix. The story is told, by Todd Burpo, Colton’s father who is also a pastor. It is not very often I can say a book gave me goose bumps, but Heaven is for Real did a few times.
It is a sweet, heartbreaking and what I believe to be an honest story. I think that the simple descriptions of Heaven by Colton are amazing. He doesn’t just come to his parents and tell them what he saw in Heaven. He slowly makes little comments that make the parents question him. The family slowly allows Colton to unravel his story over a long period of time.

One of the times I had goose bumps while reading Heaven is for Real was when Colton could tell his Dad where he was and what he was doing while Colton was in surgery. No one knew this but Todd Burpo. How could this 4 year old boy know? The last thing that I found extremely emotional and was of such comfort to me was Colton’s time with his sister. A sister, his parent’s didn’t tell him about as the mother had a miscarriage in early pregnancy. Having suffered a miscarriage, this gave me comfort to know that I may someday meet that child.

I am a Christian so I already have faith that my Father in Heaven looks after me and my family. Heaven Is For Real only makes me believe this more deeply. I adored Colton and the sweet, honest voice of this child to tell his story to the world. This is a great book for those seeking comfort from a recent lose of a loved one or miscarriage.

Heaven is for Real.......................good to know

My Rating: 4/5 not often a book gives me goose bumps. I stayed up past my bedtime reading Heaven is For Real.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Book Journey

The Smitten Mittons

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Book Review: That Day In September by Art Van Why

2011-10-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Title: That Day In September
Author: Artie Van Why
Publisher: Lulu.com (June 23, 2006)
Web: http://www.thatdayinseptember.blogspot.com/
ISBN-10: 1411683153
Pages: 108 pages
Format: Paperback

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

We all have our stories to tell of where we were the morning of September 11, 2001. This is one of them. In "That Day In September" Artie Van Why gives an eyewitness account of that fateful morning. From the moment he heard "a loud boom" in his office across from the World Trade Center, to stepping out onto the street, Artie vividly transports the reader back to the day that changed our lives and our country forever. "That Day In September" takes you beyond the events of that morning. By sharing his thoughts, fears, and hopes, Artie expresses what it was like to be in New York City in the weeks and months following. The reader comes away from "That Day In September" with not only a more intimate understanding of the events of that day, but also with a personal glimpse of how one person's life was dramatically changed forever.

Setting: New York, September 11th – Ground Zero

About the Author: (from Goodreads.com)

Originally from Maryland, Artie Van Why moved to New York City in November of 1977 to pursue an acting career; albeit a slightly successful one.

Artie left show business in 1988 to enter the corporate world; as a word processor. He worked for the same law firm in midtown Manhattan for thirteen years. In June of 2001, his firm moved to other quarters downtown, across from the World Trade Center. Artie was at work the morning of September 11th, and witnessed the horror of that day from the streets.

He quit his job after three weeks of being back at his office's building near what was now called Ground Zero. He began writing about his experience of that day and the days and weeks following, giving a vivid accounting of what it was like to be in New York City on that day in September, and afterwards.

Interview with the Author:

My Review: Artie Van Why contacted me via my blog and asked if I would be willing to review his book. With the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 on my mind, it seemed a perfect time to revisit this tragedy through Van Why’s recollections of that day and the days surrounding the attack on New York.

As many people will tell you, they know exactly where they were when they heard about the attack or saw it on TV. I was getting ready for work. I was 8 months pregnant with my youngest son. My oldest son was watching TV, home sick from school, with my hubby. They were watching the Today show reporting about the first plane. I came out to watch in complete disbelief as we saw the second plane hit live on TV. I can’t begin to explain the feelings I had. A desire to protect my children so strong and such a sense of fear. I had that strong of a reaction and I was in the Midwest. I can’t even begin to comprehend the feelings that Artie Van Why had on that day.

Artie gives what I believe to be a honest recollection of the events of that day. He didn’t sensationalize the event or his part. He did a wonderful job of helping the reader to “feel” his feelings that day and the days that followed. I found tears in my eyes more than once in this short read. I was so drawn into the first hand account of Van Why’s actions and feelings that I read the book in one sitting. Some of his descriptions were so vivid that I am still thinking about them. The following description will stay with me for a long time.

“The man who had been running behind me from my right reached me and stopped. I turned to ask, “What do we do?” and was aware of someone falling on top of a pile of clothes just across the plaza. It took an instant to register that it wasn’t a pile of clothes. The person had fallen on a pile of bodies that were already lying there. I stood and stared as one body after another fell.”

What a powerful and heartbreaking vision. I feel Artie Van Why provides good insight to the events of 9/11 and how they effected his life and the city. As a society we need to continue to remember and not forget the many people that died in 9/11 and the lasting effects the event had on rescue workers and survivors.

My Rating: 4/5 – read the book in one sitting – engaging and emotional

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Life Between Pages

Kritters Ramblings

Let’s Book It

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Disclosure: I received one copy of this book free of charge from the author. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading?? - October 17th

2011-10-17T06:15:00.000-05:00

Last week looked like this for me:

Finished the Book: The Stormchasers – Jenna Blum (audio)

Started the book: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress – Rhoda Janzen

Life has been crazy and reading has been on the back burning for the last couple of months. I am hoping to find a lot more time to read in the upcoming months. We have had a lot going on with family and moving my Father in Law into our home with us. Though I don’t think I ever finish a book in September with all the start of the school activities going on anyways. I hate to say it but I am almost looking forward to the MN winter so I can curl up inside and read while the snow flies.

Posted Reviews for the following books:

None posted, but I did post about the 2011 Twin Cities Book Festival.

My Plans for this week:

	*That Day In September* by Artie Van Why - I have only a few pages left to finish this book. I was requested by the author to read and review this book.
	Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. This is the book selection for November for my book group, “Books & Babble”. I am really looking forward to reading this book. I have experience with the Hutterite community so this will bring back memories I am sure.
	*Empire Falls* by Richard Russo is currently loading on my Zune and I have just started to listen to it. Reading simply because it was on my Zune after I finished my last audio!

NEXT UP???
	*The Night Strangers* by Chris Bohjalian – this book was mentioned as a good read for October so I downloaded it from Audible.com. I have not read scary books in a long time. I seem to be more effected by them as an adult than when I was a teen.
	*Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children* by Ransom Riggs is also downloaded from Audible waiting for me! The cover and title of this book totally creep me out. Can I handle two creepy books in one month???
	*A Redbird Christmas* by Fannie Flagg is the November selection for my book group, “Wine, Women and Words”. Should be a nice book after reading Scary Book for October.

These are my reading plans for the week. What are you reading plans for the week??? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share your reading plans for the week!!

Happy Reading!!

Twin Cities Book Festival - 2011

2011-10-15T19:10:00.001-05:00

Rain Taxi presented the 11th Annual Twin Cities Book Festival at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

A sea of Books, Publishers and Authors.

I went to the event with my son and his fiancée. We tried to listen to one presenter, Steven Pinker, discussing his most recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. The room was standing room only and very hot. Since we were standing we didn’t stay very long.

We browsed through the vender area and met a few local authors. The one thing I will say about this festival is the area is too small for it. I bumped into people every time I moved. Some booths of interest included, Minnesota Book Awards. I plan on reading a couple of this year’s winners. The award for Genre Fiction was Wendy' Webb’s The Tale of Halcyon Crane.

Books of Interest by Local Authors:

Once There Were Castles by Larry Millett – architectural historian wrote a richly illustrated look at the lost mansions and estates of the Twin Cities. Millet with have a live conversation with Garrison Keillor at the Fitzgerald Theater on November 7th.

Erin Hart – Haunted Ground, Lake of Sorrows and False Mermaid – delivers suspense, melding archaeology and modern forensics with Irish myth and mystery in the charged thrillers.

David P. Holmes, of Milaca, MN - interesting author with a wide range of topics covered in his books. His books include – Secrets, Salt of the Earth, Emily’s Run and Loose Gravel.

Mary DesJarlais – wrote Dorie LaValle – a Minnesota Story of Moonshine and Murder.

Brian Landon – is a delightful author who wrote The Case of Unnecessary Sequel- A Doyle Malloy Murder. If I remember correctly he also edited Why Did Santa Leave A Body? Yuletide Tales of Murder and Mayhem a collection of short stories by numerous MN mystery authors.

Nancy Baker – I bought two books from this author, Magel’s Daughter and Magel’s Ghost. The covers drew me in and then my conversation with this author really peaked my interest. Not the typical type of book I would read and review, but I am looking forward to reading Nancy

Technorati Tags:

’s books.

On the way home we drove by the Hennepin County Central Library. I had never been there, so we stopped off to check it out. This library is state of the art and HUGE!

The Library had an exhibit about libraries through the time.

My hometown library had a card catalog just like this!! I wonder if it is still being used? Micro Fiche reader….man the hours I spent reading on one of those in college. Isn’t amazing the things our children would have no clue about??

Loved the flow of this library.

The kids area’s whimsical book holders for displays. Loved the one on the spring.

Statue in the Atrium

I absolutely love the energy of the city. I rarely head over to Minneapolis as we usually go to St Paul. St Paul is just closer to home and more convenient. I think if I was a single person it would be great to live downtown. The weather in MN was very nice today so people were out everywhere. One thing I saw that I just had to take a picture of was the Pedal Pub.

Yep….they are pedaling and drinking beer around the city. It made me laugh and it was funny watching them trying to get started at ever stoplight.

Well that was our day, filled with book related fun and great people!

Happy Reading!!

Guest Review: The Long Run by Matt Long and Charles Butler

2011-08-26T00:31:00.001-05:00

Title: The Long Run: A New York City Firefighter's Triumphant Comeback from Crash Victim to Elite Athlete
Author: Matt Long and Charles Butler
Publisher: Rodale Books
Web: http://www.mattslongrun.com
Date of Publication: October 12, 2010
ISBN-10: 160529246X
Pages: 264 pages
Format: Kindle eBook

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)
Matt Long had no chance. He was cycling to the firehouse when a 20-ton bus turned, making an illegal turn, and hit him. Sucked under the chassis, he sustained injuries serious enough to necessitate 40 operations. And then the real recovery began. This veteran marathoner and brave firefighter had faced challenges before, but even he had never experienced such physical and psychological pain. Yet just three years later, Matt Long ran in the 2008 New York City Marathon. A "Running Saved My Life" memoir that you won't forget.

Related Media:

About the Author: Charles Butler is the coauthor, with Matt Long, of "The Long Run: A New York City Firefighter's Triumphant Comeback from Crash Victim to Elite Athlete." Charlie is also an editor at Runner's World magazine and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, SmartMoney, Good Housekeeping, among other publications. (Amazon.com)

My Review: There are so many inspiring stories on television, in movies and in books, but this story is true.

You really get to know Matt well through his story. Sometimes you might think you know him too well. Honestly, at times it was hard to read about the injuries Matt endured, but it sure helps you to understand vividly how far he made it.

Matt was lucky to be able to walk again after his accident. With his strong determination, and a great network of friends and family he was able to go far beyond regaining the ability to walk.

I had not gone running in quite a while before reading this book. I had all kinds of excuses why I couldn't. After reading this book, I started running again. It really made all my excuses seem pathetic.

My Rating: 5/5 – You don’t need to be a runner to be moved by Matt’s story and to be inspired by it.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

She is Too Fond of Books

Redlady’s Reading Room

Stacy’s Books

Book Journey

Book Review: The Pioneer Woman- Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond

2011-08-06T13:20:00.001-05:00

Title: The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story
Author: Ree Drummond
Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition, First Printing edition (February 1, 2011)
Web: http://thepioneerwoman.com/
ISBN: 0061997161
Pages: 352 pages
Format: Hardcover from the Ramsey County Library

About the Book: (from Booklist)

Popular blogger and cookbook author Drummond shares the story of her courtship and marriage to her husband, whom she refers to as Marlboro Man. Though Drummond grew up in Oklahoma, she never imagined she’d end up there for good. After four years of college in Los Angeles, Drummond was only making a pit stop home before moving to Chicago. A chance encounter with a devastatingly masculine cowboy in a local bar changes everything. Though several months elapse before Marlboro Man calls her, the spark between them ignites as soon as they start dating. A rancher with deep roots in the land he works, Marlboro Man isn’t going anywhere, which means Drummond has to decide whether, to be with him, she’s willing to give up her dream of moving to Chicago. By the time Marlboro Man proposes, the decision is made, and Drummond prepares to marry the love of her life and discover what being a rancher’s wife will entail. Charming and bright, Drummond’s story will be an inspiration to those who despair of finding old-fashioned, lasting love. --Kristine Huntley

Setting: Drummond’s Ranch – Pawhuska, Oklahoma

About the Author: Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman is from Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Ree turned away from the city life by marrying a cattle rancher and moving to his home in the middle of the country. Together, they have four children.

Pioneer Woman all started as a simply blog, which has continued to grow in popularity! Ree Drummand has a book, cookbook, a upcoming cooking show on the Food Network as well as a movie adaptation of her book in the works.

Related Media:

Ree Drummond – talking about recording the audiobook.

Ree Drummond: 2010 National Book Festival

My Review: I chose to read The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels because I am a long standing fan of “The Pioneer Woman”, her blog as well as her cookbook. We LOVE her Sangria recipe! I started reading her blog Confessions of a Pioneer Woman in the early years of the blog, so The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels felt like reading an old friend’s story. While the writing may not be great, the book is written very similar to her blog, which I love. Ree Drummond has a wonderful sense of humor, sprinkled with just the right amount of sarcasm, which I simply love. The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels is a light and quick read.

The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels is about Ree’s transformation from City Girl to Country Girl and all the mishaps and adjustments that required. It is an honest and humorous story. Black Heels to Tractor Wheels shows how love and motherhood can change a person in ways they didn’t realize possible. As well as how love can get you through all the ups and downs of life! Ree Drummond’s depiction of life on the ranch is engaging and wonderfully funny when told in her voice.

I must share how wonderful Ree Drummond’s photography of life on the ranch is. She captures the true spirit of the life and some very handsome cowboys. I grew up in South Dakota so the farm life is very familiar to me and something that I miss to some extent now living in the city.

I also read that Ree Drummond has sold the rights of the books for a movie to be made. I look forward to seeing who is cast in the roll of The Pioneer Woman!

My Rating: 4/5 – a light and enjoyable read. Especially enjoyable to follower of Confessions of a Pioneer Woman blog.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Silly Little Mischief

2 Kids and Tired Books

Reading For Sanity

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Beyond Words: July 6th, 2011

2011-07-06T11:04:00.001-05:00

Beyond Words

Beyond Words is a weekly feature at Reading in White Bear Lake, in which I share the unfamiliar words I have encountered in my reading over the past week or two. This is a great way for me to build my vocabulary from what I am reading as well as share with others.

Remember…..you are never too old to learn!! I love learning and reading, what better combination could there be.

The gift of using words best comes from knowing words
as intimately as you know your own family.
-Lloyd Edwin Smith-

New words to me this week:

Aspersions – (noun) : a false or misleading charge meant to harm someone's reputation <cast aspersions on her integrity>
Listen to the Audio Pronunciation
page 19, Come Sunday by Isla Morley
“ I knew better than to argue, especially after all the champagne, and I certainly knew better than to cast aspersions on her expertise, but dammit, why did it always have to be my fault?”

Banal – (adj) : lacking originality, freshness, or novelty : trite
Listen to the Audio Pronunciation
page 35, Come Sunday by Isla Morley
“the thought of even the most banal verbal exchange makes the dizziness return, so I go pee and climb back into the dark sea.”

Slaked – (verb) : satisfy, quench <slake your thirst> <will slake your curiosity>
Listen to the Audio Pronunciation
page 77, Come Sunday by Isla Morley
“I cannot say, for example, how long my mother slaked her thirst with the gin bottle.”

Come Sunday by Isla Morley - - (from Amazon.com) In her poignant first novel, former South African magazine editor Morley explores a mother's grief. Abbe Deighton, part-time journalist and full-time wife and mother, finds herself living in Hawaii with her preacher husband, Greg, and precocious three-year-old daughter, Cleo, thousands of miles from her South African birthplace. Her flight from an abusive father and complicit mother is not accidental—her poet brother also fled to America—and when Cleo is killed in a car accident, Abbe re-examines the choices that have brought her so far from home. She and her husband become estranged as he turns to God and forgives the man who killed their daughter while Abbe descends into self-pity and anger at the unfairness of life. Their marriage suffers and Greg loses his job, forcing Abbe to turn homeward for financial help. Upon returning to South Africa, she confronts the ghosts of her family's past and the reality of her homeland's future. Morley convincingly depicts a grief-stricken woman without resorting to clichés, and though she telegraphs the resolution of Abbe's plight early on, the storytelling, line by line, is rather beautiful.

I enjoy learning and increasing my vocabulary and I hope you will too!

Happy Reading!

Library Loot: July 5th, 2011

2011-07-05T10:49:00.001-05:00

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: July 6th – July

I am on vacation this week so have more than my usual number of books checked out from the library! I would hate to get all the way to South Dakota and not like the book I am reading. I have plenty of books to chose from this week. I am actually reading a few at the same time. When I get tired of one, I read a different on from a bit.

My Library Loot for this week (Books) :

The Lace Makers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri - (from Amazon.com) Barbieri (Snow in July) sets her latest in a small Irish town, Glenmara, where a heartbroken American tourist, Kate Robinson, finds her one-night stay extended with the help of some motherly role models. Kate's hostess, chronically grieving widow Bernie, draws the young Seattleite into a gossipy ring of lace makers. Kate, a former fashion designer, takes to them perfectly (one of several head-scratching coincidences), inspiring them to take on an empowering but controversial project. Although the focus is always on the positive, the narrative's strongest when exploring the less charming sides of Glenmara; rich sources of missed potential include the local priest, nicknamed Father Dominic Burn-in-Hell Byrne, and Bernie's irritable best friend Aileen, the only lace society member to regard Kate with anything but syrupy goodwill. The result is a sweet novel with few surprises. Even Kate's pivotal, inspirational idea—embellishing the ladies' undergarments with lace—suffers from murky logic (as do reactions from characters like Father Byrne). Still, Barbieri's world generates convincing warmth and emotion, making it worth a look for Friday Night Knitting Club fans between sequels

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - (from Amazon.com) Kingsolver's ambitious new novel, her first in nine years (after the The Poisonwood Bible), focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the product of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of his American military academy, Harrison spends his formative years in Mexico in the 1930s in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., settling down in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel takes a while to get going, but once it does, it achieves a rare dramatic power that reaches its emotional peak when Harrison wittily and eloquently defends himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee (on the panel is a young Dick Nixon). Employed by the American imagination, is how one character describes Harrison, a term that could apply equally to Kingsolver as she masterfully resurrects a dark period in American history with the assured hand of a true literary artist.

A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis – (from Amazon.com) Close-knit ties between two sisters become strained and each girl's relationships with other people nearly unravel in Davis's (East Hope) deeply stirring family drama inspired by Primary Progressive Aphasia, a neurological disease that gradually destroys communication abilities. New York gallery employee and frustrated artist Margot Winkler always looks for guidance to her older sister, Lacey, a talented New Hampshire weaver, but now when her sister is diagnosed with PPA, they're forced to swap roles. Lacey's husband, Alex, wants Lacey to break the news to their college-bound twins, Wink and Toni, despite Lacey's reluctance, and asks Margot to convince her. Meanwhile Oliver, Margot's live-in boyfriend, grows increasingly unhappy with Margot focusing on Lacey instead of their relationship. As they hurtle toward an ultimately enlightening crisis, Davis interweaves her characters' perspectives with amazing dexterity. A cut above the usual family tear-jerker, Davis delivers an insightful exploration of how a terminal illness can affect not only the one diagnosed, but also the people who love them.

Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding by Jessie Sholl – (From Booklist) When her mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, Sholl was faced with a dread worse than the disease, that of taking on responsibility for her mother’s house, filthy and chaotic from years of hoarding. Sholl had grown up in the house in Minneapolis until her parents’ divorce, when she eventually went to live with her father and stepmother not far from the house that so shamed her. She’d spent her adolescence embarrassed by her mother’s mental illness: the hoarding, compulsive shopping, indecisiveness, and occasional cruelty and abuse. Now married and living in New York, she could not rid herself of the obligation and shame or the alternating emotions of fury and protectiveness. Forced to deal with her mother, Sholl waded through garbage (unopened mail, broken appliances, moldy food, and scores of identical items bought on shopping sprees), memories, and research to find a deeper understanding of her mother’s mental disorder. She offers a compelling and compassionate perspective on an illness suffered by an estimated six million Americans that has only recently been explored through reality television programs.

Every Little Thing by Pamela Klaffke - (from Goodreads.com) Before there were mommy bloggers, there was Britt. San Francisco's brassy scandal queen filled her newspaper column with juicy details of her many marriages, cosmetic surgeries and everything about her only daughter, Mason.

Then Britt dies. Suddenly and in spectacularly embarrassing fashion. So Mason—now thirty-five and vehemently un-Britt-like in every way—returns home to settle her affairs….though some affairs are not so easy to settle.

Now caught in her own sordid debacle, Mason finds herself thrust back into the spotlight, and this time it's her own doing.

Struggling to define herself as anything other than Britt Junior, Mason soon discovers that Britt's intensely public life still holds some secrets. And though the overgrown teen rebel has always favored combat boots, she may yet walk a mile in her mother's shoes.

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine - (from Goodreads.com) Shocked by the commerce in everything from pet cloning to patriotism, frightened by the downward spiral of her finances and that of the trash-strewn earth, Judith Levine enlists her partner, Paul, in a radical experiment: to forgo all but the most necessary purchases for an entire year.

Without consumer goods and experiences, Judith and Paul pursue their careers, nurture relationships, and try to keep their sanity, their identities, and their sense of humor intact. Tracking their progress -- and inevitable lapses -- Levine contemplates need and desire, scarcity and security, consumerism and citizenship. She asks the Big Questions: Can the economy survive without shopping? Are Q-tips necessary?

Not Buying It is the confession of a woman any reader can identify with: someone who can't live without French roast coffee or SmartWool socks but who has had it up to here with overconsumption and its effects on the earth and everyone who dwells there.

For the humor and intelligence of its insights, the refreshment of its skepticism, and the surprises of its conclusions, Not Buying It is sure to be on anyone's list of Necessities.

The Adults by Alison Espach - (from Goodreads.com) In her ruefully funny and wickedly perceptive debut novel, Alison Espach deftly dissects matters of the heart and captures the lives of children and adults as they come to terms with life, death, and love.

At the center of this affluent suburban universe is Emily Vidal, a smart and snarky teenager, who gets involved in a suspect relationship with one of the adults after witnessing a suicide in her neighborhood. Among the cast of unforgettable characters is Emily’s father, whose fiftieth birthday party has the adults descending upon the Vidal’s patio; her mother, who has orchestrated the elaborate party even though she and her husband are getting a divorce; and an assortment of eccentric neighbors, high school teachers, and teenagers who teem with anxiety and sexuality and an unbridled desire to be noticed, and ultimately loved.

An irresistible chronicle of a modern young woman’s struggle to grow up, The Adults lays bare—in perfect pitch—a world where an adult and a child can so dangerously be mistaken for the same exact thing.

My Library Loot for this week (Audio Books) :

Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson -(from Goodreads.com) Rose Mae Lolley is a fierce and dirty girl, long-suppressed under flowery skirts and bow-trimmed ballet flats. As "Mrs. Ro Grandee" she's trapped in a marriage that's thick with love and sick with abuse. Her true self has been bound in the chains of marital bliss in rural Texas, letting "Ro" make eggs, iron shirts, and take her punches. She seems doomed to spend the rest of her life battered outside by her husband and inside by her former self, until fate throws her in the path of an airport gypsy---one who shares her past and knows her future. The tarot cards foretell that Rose's beautiful, abusive husband is going to kill her. Unless she kills him first.

Hot-blooded Rose Mae escapes from under Ro's perky compliance and emerges with a gun and a plan to beat the hand she's been dealt. Following messages that her long-missing mother has left hidden for her in graffiti and behind paintings, Rose and her dog Gretel set out from Amarillo, TX back to her hometown of Fruiton, AL, and then on to California, unearthing a host of family secrets as she goes. Running for her life, she realizes that she must face her past in order to overcome her fate---death by marriage---and become a girl who is strong enough to save herself from the one who loves her best.

BACKSEAT SAINTS will dazzle readers with a fresh and heartwrenching portrayal of the lengths a mother will go to right the wrongs she's created, and how far a daughter will go to escape the demands of forgiveness. With the seed of a minor character from her popular best-seller, GODS IN ALABAMA, Jackson has built a whole new story full of her trademark sly wit, endearingly off-kilter characters, and utterly riveting plot twists

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley – (from Goodreads.com) It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and had a wonderful 4th of July. My youngest son and I are in South Dakota visiting my parents. We have had a busy time already. We have gone geocaching, flying kites, visited family, lite some fireworks and played on the slip and slide. We had some storms last night, but overall have had great weather to enjoy out time outside. We are taking it easy this morning, which we need. Maybe I will be able to get caught up on some more book reviews. This afternoon we will play another outing. My son is thinking he might want to go fishing this afternoon.

Hope you are all have a wonderful week.

Happy Reading!

Review: Night Roads by Kristin Hannah

2011-06-22T05:49:00.000-05:00

Title: Night Road
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (March 22, 2011)
Web: http://www.kristinhannah.com
ISBN -10: 9780312364427
Pages: 400 pages
Format: audio book

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

For a mother, life comes down to a series of choices.
To hold on…
To let go..
To forget…
To forgive…
Which road will you take?

For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows—her twins, Mia and Zach—are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.

Jude does everything to keep her kids safe and on track for college. It has always been easy-- until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss. Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.

On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.

NIGHT ROAD is vivid, emotionally complex novel that raises profound questions about motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness. It is a luminous, heartbreaking novel that captures both the exquisite pain of loss and the stunning power of hope. This is Kristin Hannah at her very best, telling an unforgettable story about the longing for family, the resilience of the human heart, and the courage it takes to forgive the people we love.

Related Media:

About the Author: (from author’s Amazon.com page)

Kristin Hannah was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When she was eight years old, her father drove the family to Western Washington which they called home.

After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.

After her mom's death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper they'd collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.

Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she'd read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That's when her husband reminded her of the book she'd started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.

The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred her to try harder, work more. In 1990, Kristin got "the call," and in that moment, she went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and has never looked back. In all the years between then and now, she have never lost her love of, or her enthusiasm for, telling stories. Kristin feels truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer.

My Review: I read a number of reviews of Night Roads by Kristin Hannah on various book blogs and decided I needed to read it as well. I reserved the audio book from my local library. Previous to reading Night Roads, I had only read one other book by Kristin Hannah. We read Firefly Lane in my book group last year.

I found the characters in Night Roads very well developed. I had strong feelings about a number of the character and could relate to their emotions, fears and heart break. Night Roads is an emotional roller coaster of a book, which kept me very engaged in the story.

Night Roads centers on the Farraday family. Miles and Jude Farraday along with their twins, Mia and Zach are the all American family. They seemed to have it all, until a single event changes their lives forever. Of the twins, Mia is shy and struggled socially until she met Lexi Baill. Mia and Lexi quickly become inseparable. Lexi is a very resilient teen, having made her way through the foster care system. Lexi has now found a family in the Farraday family as well as with her Great Aunt Eva. Her life is finally going well. Lexi is a very sweet girl with a immense sense of responsibility. I just loved the person who Lexi was and tried to continue to be.

I could really relate to Jude, being a parent myself that is a bit over protective. I remember the worry caused by my children’s teen years. Jude is a good mother, but her entire identity is tied up in being a mother. I do remember when my oldest moved out on his own, I thought, now who am I?? I have always been Josh’s mom! I don’t want to go too much about my feeling towards Jude as it would give too much of the story away. Jude shows the reader the depths of a mother’s love and the power of forgiveness.

I was most profoundly struck by how the events of Night Roads could happen to any of us, even me. Teens don’t think about how the consequences of one decision could change their entire lives forever as well as the lives of many others. I was satisfied with the ending of Night Roads, but did want to know what happened to the characters I had begun to care so much about in the years to follow.

My Rating: 4/5 – I really liked Night Roads by Kristin Hannah. I laughed, cried and worried right along with the characters. I drove around the block one more time to hear just a few more minutes of the book. I snuck my headphone on in the middle of the night when I woke up. Night Roads by Kristin Hannah will especially resonate with parents of teens.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Book’d Out

The Compulsive Reader

Chick Lit +

A Novel Source

Happy Reading!

Book Blogger Hop: 6/18/11

2011-06-18T22:40:00.001-05:00

This week, Crazy For Books asks “How many books are currently in your To-Be-Read (TBR) Pile?”

Well, the number of books in my house is very few, maybe 20 to 30. I wanted to free up space in my home a few years ago, so I sold most of my books and donated the rest to a woman’s prison program. Instead I decided to just keep a list of the books I am interested in reading and buying them as needed or checking them out from the library. This is must easier on the wallet as well. And when I do buy a book, I buy it on my kindle so there is still no piles of books to contend with.

So I keep my TO READ list on Good Reads.com – whenever I see a book I want to read I simply add it to my every growing TO READ list! I love that my list is accessible from any computer. If I need a name of a book…I can access it from my smart phone or the library computer. Easy enough and no piles of books over taking my house. Currently I have 320 books in my TO READ list at Good Reads. I can sort them how I want on the list and I like to use random number generator such as random.org to select a number and read that book. I always struggle on what should I read next???? Eliminates that problem.

Happy Reading!!

Jen C

Review: A Secret Kept by Tatiana De Rosnay

2011-06-15T07:30:00.000-05:00

Title: A Secret Kept
Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
Publisher: St. Martin's Press; Reprint edition (September 14, 2010)
Web: http://us.macmillan.com/author/tatianaderosnay
ISBN-10: 0312593317
Pages: 320 pages
Format: Audio & Hard Cover

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com) This stunning new novel from Tatiana de Rosnay, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sarah’s Key, plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.

It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. Antoine Rey thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Mélanie’s birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island, where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach. It had been too long, Antoine thought, since they’d returned to the island—over thirty years, since their mother died and the family holidays ceased. But the island’s haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Mélanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer. When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car.

Recovering from the accident in a nearby hospital, Mélanie tries to recall what caused her to crash. Antoine encounters an unexpected ally: sexy, streetwise Angèle, a mortician who will teach him new meanings for the words life, love and death. Suddenly, however, the past comes swinging back at both siblings, burdened with a dark truth about their mother, Clarisse.

Trapped in the wake of a shocking family secret shrouded by taboo, Antoine must confront his past and also his troubled relationships with his own children. How well does he really know his mother, his children, even himself? Suddenly fragile on all fronts as a son, a husband, a brother and a father, Antoine Rey will learn the truth about his family and himself the hard way. By turns thrilling, seductive and destructive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, A Secret Kept is the story of a modern family, the invisible ties that hold it together, and the impact it has throughout life.

Setting: Paris France/Noirmoutier Island

My favorite part of a book review is researching the setting. This was especially enjoyable for A Secret Kept. I did not realize the disappearing road, “ the Passage du Gois” existed. I loved looking at pictures of Noirmoutier Island, such a beautiful place!

Le Passage de Gois ou Gôa is a natural, periodically flooded passage leading to the island of Noirmoutier in France. It is located between Île de Noirmoutier and Beauvoir-sur-Mer, in the department of Vendée. It is flooded twice a day by the high tide.

Every year, a foot race – the Foulées du Gois– is held across it, starting at the onset of the high tide.

Noirmoutier island lies off the coast at Beauvoir-sur-Mer, on the other side of the Passage du Gois. This passage is passable at low tide. In 1971, a bridge was built at Fromantine, so that it is now also possible to reach the island at high water by car. The island has a rich maritime history shown by the ratio between the number of boats on the island of Noirmoutier and compared to occupants.

Related Media:

About the Author: Tatiana de Rosnay was born on September 28th, 1961 in the suburbs of Paris. She is of English, French and Russian descent. Her father is French scientist Joël de Rosnay, her grandfather was painter Gaëtan de Rosnay. Tatiana's paternal great-grandmother was Russian actress Natalia Rachewskïa, director of the Leningrad Pushkin Theatre from 1925 to 1949.
Tatiana's mother is English, Stella Jebb, daughter of diplomat Gladwyn Jebb, and great-great-granddaughter of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer. Tatiana is also the niece of historian Hugh Thomas. Tatiana was raised in Paris and then in Boston, when her father taught at MIT in the 70's. She moved to England in the early 80's and obtained a Bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich.

Returning to Paris in 1984, Tatiana became press attaché for Christie's and then Paris Editor for Vanity Fair magazine till 1993. Since 1992, Tatiana has published ten novels in France (published at Fayard, Plon and EHO).

Sarah's Key is her first novel written in her mother tongue, English. Sarah's Key is to be published in 30 countries and has sold over two million copies worldwide. Film rights have also been sold and a movie starring Kristin Scott-Thomas has been released.

Tatiana is married and has two children, Louis and Charlotte. She lives in Paris with her family.

My Review:

I had big expectations when beginning to read, A Secret Kept as I simply loved Tatiana de Rosnay’s previous book, Sarah’s Key. I liked A Secret Kept, but did not find the story as engaging nor the characters as likeable as in Sarah’s Key. I chose to read this book due to really enjoying Sarah’s Key, which I read for my book group, Books and Babble.

The main characters consisted of Melanie and Antoine Rey. Brother and sister left motherless at a young age. They have a special bound. Melanie is single with no children. Antoine is divorced from Astrid with three children: Arro, Margaux and Lucas.

Other characters include Clarisse (mother of Melanie and Antoine), Angele (Antoine’s lover) and Astrid (Antoine’s ex-wife). Antoine as a character sort of bothered me. I wanted him to just pick the pieces of his life and move on. I understood his desire to know his mother, but didn’t find the “secret” so shocking. It certainly was in the time it happened, but not so much when Antoine discovered the secret. I thought the relationship between Melanie and Antoine was very believable as was Antoine’s relationship with Astrid. I actually really like Astrid. Despite the divorce Astrid was doing her best to co-parent and maintain a good relationship with Antoine. As for Antoine’s relationship with Angele, the mortician, I just didn’t get it. That relationship in my opinion didn’t add much to the story.

Themes within Sarah’s Key include: family secrets and their impact, loss/grief, acceptance and parenting issues. Overall, the pace of this book seemed a bit slow to me. I listened to the audio of A Secret Kept and I think that helped to keep my attention. I would have skipped over some of the words in the book due to being unsure of them, so the audio added a dimension to the story that I would have missed if I had read A Secret Kept.

My Rating: 3/5 – I liked Secret’s Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay and may have liked it more if not comparing it to Sarah’s Key in my head. Liked the book, but did not find myself burning the midnight oil to read a few more pages.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Jo Jo Loves to Read

Brain Candy Book Reviews

The Fiction Garden

Sacramento Book Review

5 Minute for Books

Reading, Beading ….and more Reading.

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?–June 13th

2011-06-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

I had a good reading week. I was home sick on Monday, so was able to finish two books that day. It is rare that I am able to get that much reading done in one week. Now I need to work on getting my reviews completed as I have 5 books awaiting review.

Finished the Following Books:

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - Ree Drummond. – 4/5
The Cross Gardner – Jason F Wright – 3/5
Promise Not to Tell – Jennifer McMahon – 3/5

Currently Listening – Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Currently Reading – Come Sunday by Isla Morley

My Plans for this week:

	Going to start Come Sunday by Isla Morley this evening as my random selection from my To Read List on Good Reads.com .
	Finish listening to Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. I am currently about 1/2 done with this audiobook.
	I will start this audiobook once I finish Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is the monthly selection for my book group, Books and Babble.

NEXT UP???

Island of Lost Girls – Jennifer McMahon – next selection from my TBR list on Goodreads.com

Impossible - Nancy Werlin
(from Goodreads.com) Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that she is the latest recipient of a generations-old family curse that requires her to complete three seemingly impossible tasks or risk falling into madness and passing the curse on to the next generation. Unlike her ancestors, though, Lucy has family, friends, and other modern resources to help her out. But will it be enough to conquer this age-old evil?
A beautifully wrought modern fairy tale from master storyteller and award-winning author Nancy Werlin.Inspired by the classic folk ballad "Scarborough Fair," this is a wonderfully riveting and haunting novel of suspense, romance, and fantasy

Those are my reading plans for the week. What are your reading plans???? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share what you reading plans are for the week!

Happy Reading!!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?? - June 6th, 2011

2011-06-05T21:58:00.001-05:00

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading? is hosted by Shelia of Book Journey. It is a chance to share what you have read and what you plan on reading in the upcoming week. I enjoy seeing what everyone’s reading plans for the week. I always find some titles that I just *have to add to my TBR list.

Last week looked like this for me:
Finished the book: Night Road – Kristin Hannah – really enjoyed this audiobook – slow to start, but very emotional. - 4/5

Currently Listening – Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Currently Reading - The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond.

Blog Posts this week:

Participated in the following blog events:

Library Loot – hosted by The Adventures of a Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader.

My Plans for this week:

	Finish Reading - The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond.
	Finishing Listening to – Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin From Good Reads.com – Tom Franklin's extraordinary talent has been hailed by the leading lights of contemporary literature—Philip Roth, Richard Ford, Lee Smith, and Dennis Lehane. Reviewers have called his fiction "ingenious" (USA Today) and "compulsively readable" (Memphis Commercial Appeal). His narrative power and flair for character-ization have been compared to the likes of Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy. Now the Edgar Award-winning author returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town. More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.

NEXT UP???
	The Cross Gardner by Jason F. Wright (Book Group Selection – June 13th) (Audio Format)
	Promise Not To Tell – Jennifer McMahon – next selection from my TBR list on Goodreads.com
	Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Book Group Selection – June 23rd) (audio format)
	Island of Lost Girls – Jennifer McMahon – next selection from my TBR list on Goodreads.com

Those are my reading plans for the week. What are your reading plans???? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share what you reading plans are for the week!

Happy Reading!!

Summer Fun : Keep Your Kids Reading and Learning

2011-06-05T11:36:00.001-05:00

It is almost summer time. The school year is coming to an end in Minnesota. My youngest son has had another wonderful school year. We were blessed with another wonderful teacher this year that helped to instill a love of reading in our little guy. Trust me, this “bookworm mama” is very happy about that.

He has discovered a love of mythology through Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. He also discovered that a book *is* better than a movie through J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series. He and the neighborhood boys run around with sticks as wands exclaiming spells to each other. I might have to sew him a cape yet. Isn’t it amazing what a book can do for a child’s imagination!

In our house we have always tried to promote reading and learning over the summer. With my older kids we would have reading contests even when they were in middle and high school. I would compete with them and sometimes their friends too. The prize would be $20 and who ever read the most pages won! That was a lot of fun and we would post the results on the wall and keep an eye on our competition.

My hubby and I have always felt it was important to maintain the learning environment over the summer. Here are some activities or places we have or plan to visit over the summer to continue the learning environment with our family. Plus having a “bookworm mama”, she loves any excuse to do anything related to reading and learning!

Summer Activities and Learning:

Guided Tour of St Paul Central Library ( bookworm mama’s pick)

Science Museum – King Tut Exhibit – 3rd grade learned about mummies this year so T is excited about this!

Wild Rumpus Bookstore – Minneapolis

The Landing – Minnesota River Heritage Park, - formerly Murphy’s Landing (part of the Museum Adventure Pass Program)

Geocaching – this is not a place …it is a scavenger hunt you do with a GPS to look for the hidden cache. They are hidden all over.

Chaska Valley Family Theatre – Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka is the summer 2011 performance. A family favorite in our house! July 28th – August 7th, 2011

Wildlife Science Center – Forrest Lake, MN

Gibbs Museum of Pioneer Life – St Paul, MN

The Works – Hand on Engineering Museum – Edina, MN (part of the Museum Adventure Pass Program)

Make sure you check out the Museum Adventure Pass program at the area libraries. The Museum Adventure Program invites you to use your library card to check out a pass for up to 2 free admissions to participating destinations. Participating destinations can be found on the program’s website.

Don’t forget to check out your local library for more summer fun! The following information is regarding the summer reading programs of the Ramsey County Library. We go to the library once a week as a family and load up of books and movies. The library is a great resource for summer fun and FREE!!!

Bookawocky: A Celebration of Summer Reading Children's Summer Reading Program

Program Dates: June 11 - August 21, 2011

Get reading with "Bookawocky," Ramsey County Library's 2011 Summer Reading Program! Designed to inspire and encourage children of all ages to read as much as they want throughout the summer, the Summer Reading Program is a fun way to explore new books all summer long.

To participate:
Ages 4 and under - Pick up a special reading record at your local library. Color in an item each day you read or have books read to you. After 10 days of reading, bring the record to any Ramsey County Library for a prize!

Ages 5 - 12 - Track the amount of time you spend reading with a reading record from Ramsey County Library. After recording 10 and 20 hours, present your reading record to library staff to receive prizes.
The Summer Reading Program is sponsored by the Friends of the Ramsey County Libraries and Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA), with additional contributions from Minnesota State Fair, Culver's Family Restaurants and Waterpark of America.

Special Events:
Ramsey County Library’s annual summer reading program kick-off will be held on Saturday, June 18th from 10am to 4 pm.

Refreshments, crafts, entertainment and, of course your summer reading materials will be available a the festival. Community sponsored activities include the Roseville Fire Department large ladder truck, Culver’s ice Cream, members of the Ramsey County K-9 Unit and Ramsey County Historical Society informational table. Don’t miss your chance to participate in out first-ever hula-hoop contest for a chance to win a family pack of tickets to the Waterpark of America.

Many other events are scheduled at your local libraries, ranging from Family Film Night to Wii Gaming for the Under 10 Crowd. We love the Library!!

Summer Book Clubs
The following book clubs are geared towards students entering 4th and 5th grade. Find book titles on the library’s website or by calling the hosting library. Space limited; register early at the library.

Wednesdays, 2pm
June 15, 22, 29/July 13, 20
RCL – Maplewood
651-704-2033
Registration not required. Bring your own book.

Thursdays. 2 pm
July 7, 14, 21, 28
RCL – White Bear Lake
651-407-5302

Summer book clubs also offered at the following libraries: Shoreview, Mounds View, North St Paul, and Roseville. Call your library for more details.

**Summer reading program information from RCL publication: BookaWocky a Celebration of summer reading.

Great Online Resource:

Book Adventure is a free online program that gives students in grades K-8 even more reasons to discover the joys and rewards of a good book.

Kids can:

Create book lists online from more than 7,000 titles
Take interactive quizzes
Earn points towards prizes

Suggested Third Grade Books and Authors

*provided by Mrs. Norman, Magnuson Christian School – 3rd Grade Teacher

A Cricket in Times Square
On My Honor
Taste of Blackberries
Charlotte’s Web
How to Eat Fried Worms
The Cay
Hatchet
There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom
Poppy
Holes
Freckle Juice
Abel’s Island
The Drinking Gourd
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Mr. Popper’s Penguins

The Indian in the Cupboard
Sign of the Beaver
The Doll People
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Old Yeller
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Shiloh
A Wrinkle in Time
Maniac Magee
The Summer of the Swans
Missing May
Walk Two Moons
Sounder
Frindle

Authors and Book Series Worth Reading

Kate DiCamillo
Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series
Percy Jackson
Tina Nolan
Holly Webb
Geronimo Stilton Series
Guardians of Ga’Houle Series
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Little House on the Prairie
Philip Pullman
Patricia MacLaughlin
The Babysitters Club Series
Just Grace Series
John Coy
Schooling Around Series

Mike Lupica
Harry Potter Series
Carl Hiaasen
Andrew Clements
Gary Paulsen
Beverly Cleary
Rick Riordan
Judy Blume
Chronicles of Narnia Series
Roald Dahl
Avi
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Ann Martin
Matt Christopher

Worthwhile Websites

www.ixl.com/math

www.coolmath4kids.com/

www.funbrain.com/

www.aplusmath.com/

www.mathplayground.com/

www.AAAmath.com

www.mathforum.com

www.mathcats.com

www.internet4classrooms.com/

www.321know.com/

www.eduplace.com/

www.POPCAP.com

www.Patterngame.com

www.funschool.kaboose.com

www.uptoten.com

www.ala.org/greatsites

Summer is a wonderful time for family fun, learning and adventure. I hope you find the time to make memories together as a family this summer. Children learn by example, so pick up a book and sit outside on a lovely summer day and enjoy a book together!! Summer seem to go by so quickly, so make your plans early!

HAPPY READING!!!!

Library Loot: June 4th, 2011

2011-06-03T03:46:00.001-05:00

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: June 1 - 8th

This last week I finished the following books:

Night Road – Kristin Hannah – 4/5

Started off shaky for me….but ended up really liking the book! Stay tune for a review in the next week or two.

My Library Loot for this week:

From goodreads.com - Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.

More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.

My favorite place to visit each Saturday….Our local Library!

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful weekend. Summer may have arrived in Minnesota!! Whew…what a week. Even being a short week, this week has felt long. June! How can it possibly be June already?? It is nearing the end of the school year and life is very busy! We seem to have something almost every night or I am working late. I am looking forward to the carefree days of summer. Not that they are that carefree anymore, but there will be a reprieve from school and church commitments. We had our first outdoor movie on Friday night, a sure sign that Summer is here!!

My youngest son was in his first Drama Club production this week. It was amazing. What a fun school he attends. June promises to be busy with Zoo Trip, Wipe Out Party, Murder Mystery Night with friends and the return of Outdoor Movies in the backyard. It must finally be summer!!!!

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet–Jamie Ford

2011-06-01T07:12:00.000-05:00

Title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Author: Jamie Ford
Publisher: Ballantine Books (October 6, 2009)
Web: http://www.jamieford.com/
ISBN-10: 0345505344
Pages: 301 pages
Format: Audio Book
Setting: Takes place in the 1940’s and 80’s

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com) - In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.
     This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry's world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship - and innocent love - that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.
     Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel's dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice - words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.
     Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

Setting: 1940 in Seattle – Panama Hotel and Camp Harmony


1940’s – Panama Hotel	Panama Hotel – Today

Camp Harmony was the unofficial name of the Puyallup Assembly Center, a temporary facility within the system of internment camps set up for Japanese Americans during World War II. Approximately 7,390 Americans of Japanese descent in Washington state were sent to the camp before being sent to the Minidoka relocation center near Twin Falls, Idaho.

Related Media:

About the Author: Jamie Ford is the New York Times bestselling author of HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, which was an IndieBound Next List selection, and a Borders Original Voices pick.

Jamie is the great grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name "Ford," thus confusing countless generations. An award-winning short-story writer, Ford is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a survivor of Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp. Having grown up near Seattle's Chinatown, he now lives in Montana (where he's on a never-ending quest to find decent dim sum).

My Review: I read this book for my book group: Wine, Women and Words. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict we had to cancel group, but we hope to discuss this book in June along with our next book.

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet went along at good pace and kept my interest. I enjoy historical fiction and like to research the events during that time in history. I felt the portrayal of the Japanese families evacuation to the internment camps was realistic. Ford did a good job of portraying the emotions and fear of the Japanese families. Many things in The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet made me sad, the evacuations to the camps, Henry’s relationship with his father and the button that said “I am Chinese”. I had an emotional reaction to the button. How could one little button make the difference in identifying a child a friend or enemy of America.

I loved the character of Keiko, her kind heart and spirit. Despite that Keiko was an American born person of Japanese heritage she and her family were treat as enemies of America. That was very hard to understand. In my research I came to the conclusion that the treatment of the Japanese in the camps were a lot worse than described in this book. To me the young Henry from 1942 seemed very mature. I am not sure if that was oversight by the author or if in that time and circumstances the Chinese and Japanese child had no choice but to be very mature due to the things happening in their lives. At times, I admired Henry Lee and his dedication to Keiko and his wife, Ethel, other times I just wished he would go find Keiko already. How could he have waited so long??

Themes in The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.include: male relationships and their difficulty, fear, prejudice, lasting friendship and the dedication to one’s wife.

In honesty, I must say I enjoyed The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, but thought I would devour it in no time after all the rave reviews I had read about it. I did not find this to be the case. I was not satisfied with the ending of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. I was not ready for Henry’s journey to end without more detail. I was left wanting more.

My Rating: 3/ 5 – Good read – I would recommend to others. I was able to put The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet down each night to fall asleep.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

The Book Lady’s Blog

The Literate Housewife Review

Hey Lady! Whatcha Reading??

Bookworm’s Dinner

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading? – May 29th

2011-05-29T23:14:00.001-05:00

Last week looked like this for me:

Finished the book: A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay for May’s meeting of my book group, Books & Babble (audio format)

Started Night Road by Kristin Hannah and am almost finished with it. I am listening to the audiobook so I think I will get it finished tomorrow while I am planting my garden. (audio format)

Posted Reviews for the following books:

Sing You Home – Jodi Picoult (audio format)

Participated in the following blog events:

Library Loot – hosted by The Adventures of a Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader.

My Plans for this Week:

	The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond. The Pioneer Woman has been a part of our family conversations for years! I have been a long time follower of her blog, long before she started writing books. Very excited to start this book!
	Come Sunday by Isla Morley is my random selection from my TBR list on Goodreads.com (audio format)

Next Up??

	The Cross Gardner by Jason F. Wright (Book Group Selection – June 13th)
	Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Book Group Selection – June 23rd) (audio format)
	Island of Lost Girls – Jennifer McMahon – next selection from my TBR list on Goodreads.com

This is my reading plan for the week. What are your reading plans???? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share what you reading plans are for the week!

Happy Reading!!

Review: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

2011-05-29T22:19:00.001-05:00

Title: Sing You Home
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Atria; Har/Com edition (March 1, 2011)
Web: http://www.jodipicoult.com/sing-you-home.html
ISBN-10: 1439102724
Pages: 480 pages
Format: Audio Books

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com) One miscarriage too many spelled the end of Max and Zoe Baxter's marriage. Though the former couple went quite separate ways, their fates remained entangled: After veering into alcoholism, Max is saved in multiple senses by his fundamentalist conversion; Zoe, for her part, finds healing relief in music therapy and the friendship, then romantic love with Vanessa, her counselor. After Zoe and Vanessa, now married, decide to have a baby, they realize that they must join battle with Max, who objects on both religious and financial grounds. Like her House Rules and several other previous Jodi Picoult novels, Sing You Home grapples with hot button issues.

Related Media:

Sing You Home Book Trailer

Ellen DeGeneres Chats with Jodi Picoult about Sing You Home

Jodi Picoult explains why she wrote Sing You Home

About the Author: http://www.jodipicoult.com/JodiPicoult.html

My Review: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult is written in typical Picoult format. The story centers around some hot button topic, which is one of the reason I enjoy Jodi Picoult books. What I like most about Jodi Picoult’s books are they challenge the reader’s beliefs. I hope in the end her books educate our nation of the other sides of these hot topics. Wouldn’t our world be a better place if we could just understand each other and not constantly judge each other.

I love the character of Zoe. I could feel her pain and desire to have a child of her own. I could relate to this, having dealt with infertility myself for many years and the havoc it can cause in a marriage. I loved that Zoe was a music therapist and found solace in music. She had a kind, loving heart. I listened to the audio of this book so the music was included between chapters. I have to be honest in saying that I didn’t feel the music added anything additional to the story. It was a bit corny. I can’t wait to see who plays Zoe in the movie adaptation of Sing You Home. I hope the casting goes with the image in my mind of Zoe. I did not feel I could connect with the character of Vanessa. She seemed a bit remote. I understood Max and his troubles, but even being a Christian myself, could not relate to his fundamentalist beliefs.

Themes in this book are very timely and controversial to many. Sing you Home questions what constitutes a family, gay marriage, infertility and infidelity. Many reviews I read of Sing You Home went into the reader’s beliefs regarding gay marriage. I included reviews that did not necessary match my own beliefs in an attempt to provide a fair representation of other’s thoughts. I personally chose to love others without judgment and live my life with an accepting and open heart/mind.

Sing You Home flows nicely and has the famous Picoult twists, which I love. I was satisfied with the ending of Sing You Home, but wanted to know what happened afterwards. It felt like there was so much more to the story that I wanted to know!!

My Rating: 4/5 - I didn’t lose sleep wanting to finish this book, but was compelled to sneak extra minutes of reading where ever I could! I enjoyed this book on a long drive to and from Duluth, MN. Sing You Home made for an enjoyable drive.

Other Bloggers Reviews:
Book Love

Bookwork1858

Proud Book Nerd

Reclusive Bibliophile

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Library Loot: May 28th

2011-05-29T20:18:00.001-05:00

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: May 25th –31st

This last week I finished the following books:

	Finished A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay for May’s meeting of my book group, Books & Babble. I was unable to attend due to a music concert at my son’s school, but I wanted to make sure I finished the book. I hope to get time this weekend to complete my review.

	I started Night Road by Kristin Hannah and am almost finished with it. I am listening to the audiobook so I think I will get it finished tomorrow while I am planting my garden. I love audio books! Listening to an enjoyable book sure makes chores more enjoyable!

My Library Loot for this week:

	I read a blog post about *Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon* at Bloggin’ ‘bout Books and had to reserve a copy to read! I am really looking forward to reading it! From Goodreads: While parked at a gas station, Rhonda sees something so incongruously surreal that at first she hardly recognizes it as a crime in progress. She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before. From the author of the acclaimed Promise Not to Tell comes a chilling and mesmerizing tale of shattered innocence, guilt, and ultimate redemption.

	I discovered Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberts Gatley while browse new titles at our library. Looked interesting to me. From Goodreads: Roberta Gately’s lyrical and authentic debut novel—inspired by her own experiences as a nurse in third world war zones—is one woman’s moving story of offering help and finding hope in the last place she expected. Gripped by haunting magazine images of starving refugees, Elsa has dreamed of becoming a nurse since she was a teenager. Of leaving her humble working-class Boston neighborhood to help people whose lives are far more difficult than her own. No one in her family has ever escaped poverty, but Elsa has a secret weapon: a tube of lipstick she found in her older sister’s bureau. Wearing it never fails to raise her spirits and cement her determination. With lipstick on, she can do anything—even travel alone to war-torn Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. But violent nights as an ER nurse in South Boston could not prepare Elsa for the devastation she witnesses at the small medical clinic she runs in Bamiyan. As she struggles to prove herself to the Afghan doctors and local villagers, she begins a forbidden romance with her only confidant, a charming Special Forces soldier. Then, a tube of lipstick she finds in the aftermath of a tragic bus bombing leads her to another life-changing friendship. In her neighbor Parween, Elsa finds a kindred spirit, fiery and generous. Together, the two women risk their lives to save friends and family from the worst excesses of the Taliban. But when the war waging around them threatens their own survival, Elsa discovers her only hope is to unveil the warrior within. Roberta Gately’s raw, intimate novel is an unforgettable tribute to the power of friendship and a poignant reminder of the tragic cost of war.

	*The Cross Gardner by Jason F Wright* is the June selection for my book group, Wine, Women and Words. We have previously read The Wednesday Letters also by this author. I hope we enjoy this one as well. From Goodreads: Married and the father of a young daughter, John Bevan had finally found the traditional family he lacked as an orphaned child. But all that disappears when a fatal car accident steals away his wife-and the unborn child she carried. Filled with sorrow, John withdraws from life and love. He erects a small cross at the scene of his wife's accident and visits daily, grieving. Then one morning he encounters a young man kneeling before the cross, touching it up with white paint. John's conversations and travels with this mysterious man-known to him only as the Cross Gardener-will forever change his world. From Jason F. Wright comes a timeless tale that explores the questions we ask when our lives are touched by loss: How do we carry on? And who will show us the way? The answers John Bevan finds illuminate the hope that even in our darkest hours we are not alone.

	The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond. The Pioneer Woman has been a part of our family conversations for years! I have been a long time follower of her blog, long before she started writing books. If I tell the family supper is a Pioneer Woman recipe, that are always excited. We love her chicken strips and Marlboro Man Sandwich to name a few. I can’t wait to dig into this book!!! I started it already and it feels like listening to with an old friend tell you a story. From Goodreads: I'll never forget that night. It was like a romance novel, an old Broadway musical, and a John Wayne western rolled into one. Out for a quick drink with friends, I wasn't looking to meet anyone, let alone a tall, rugged cowboy who lived on a cattle ranch miles away from my cultured, corporate hometown. But before I knew it, I'd been struck with a lightning bolt . . . and I was completely powerless to stop it. Read along as I recount the rip-roaring details of my unlikely romance with a chaps-wearing cowboy, from the early days of our courtship (complete with cows, horses, prairie fire, and passion) all the way through the first year of our marriage, which would be filled with more challenge and strife—and manure—than I ever could have expected. This isn't just my love story; it's a universal tale of passion, romance, and all-encompassing love that sweeps us off our feet. It's the story of a cowboy. And Wranglers. And chaps. And the girl who fell in love with them.

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful holiday weekend. We finally have some nice days here in Minnesota. The rain and severe weather have been limited so far this weekend.

On May 22nd, a tornado touched down in our sister city, Minneapolis, MN. Luckily, over in White Bear Lake we only had some rain and wind, but we did heed the warnings/sirens and headed to the basement. The damage in Minnesota is nothing compare to Joplin, Missouri. Our hearts go out to the victims of the tornado in Joplin. It is a reminder to us in the Midwest to not take severe weather lightly.

Saturday after our trip to the library my brother and his family came to visit before catching a flight to Florida. Today, we had good intentions of getting the garden planted, but looks like we will be doing that tomorrow. I am very thankful for the extra day off this weekend. I always have more to do than the weekend allows. I should be able to listen to a lot of my audio book tomorrow while planting our garden.

Maybe I will even get caught up on book reviews…..

Happy Reading!

It’s Monday! What are you reading?? 5/23/11

2011-05-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading? is hosted by Shelia of Book Journey. It is a chance to share what you have read and what you plan on reading in the upcoming week. I enjoy seeing everyone’s reading plans for the week. I always find some new titles that I just *had to add to my ever growing TBR list.

Last week looked like this for me:

Finished the Book: “The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford – 3/5 (audio format).

Started the book: “Secret Kept” by Tatiana de Rosnay. (audio format)

I am doing better in my Physical Therapy/Rehab program and am now able to sit at the computer to type for a little bit without neck pain. May continues to be very busy and rainy here in Minnesota.

Posted Reviews for the following books:

None posted, but need to complete my review of “Sing you Home” by Jodi Picoult and “The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford.

Participated in the following blog events:

Library Loot – hosted by Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader.
Book Blogger Hop – hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books.

My Plans for this week:

	Start and hopefully finish reading “A Secret Kept” by Tatiana de Rosnay. (currently on page 86 of 303 – library due date: 6/4/11)
	Start reading “Lost Boy” by Brent W. Jeffs I don’t remember where I read about this book, but it is about a young man who was forced out of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamous sect. Every since reading, “Nineteenth Wife”, I am interested in reading about LDS. (Library due date: 6/11/11)

Next Up??	Book Group Selections for June include the following:

	The Cross Gardner by Jason F. Wright (Book Group Selection – June 13th)
	Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Book Group Selection – June 23rd)

These are my reading plans for the week. What are you reading plans for the week??? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share your reading plans for the week!!

Wishing you all a very productive week!

Happy Reading!!

Book Blogger Hop: May 22nd

2011-05-22T07:22:00.001-05:00

Friday’s Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-For-Books. It is a weekend long event giving bloggers a chance to discover other book bloggers! Every week there is a new question posted……this weeks question is…..

"If you were given the chance to spend one day in a fictional world (from a book), which book would it be from and what would that place be?"

This is a very hard question to answer for my first time participating in the Book Blogger Hop. One of the first books I remember reading and thinking to myself, I want to go there some day was “Shell Seekers” by Rosamunde Pilcher. I dream of going to the beautiful beaches of Cornwall and the English countryside. I read this book as a teenage and still to this day can remember how much I wanted to visit there, though I barely remember the storyline of the book.

Happy Reading!!

LIBRARY LOOT: May 21, 2011

2011-05-21T17:29:00.001-05:00

The Adventures of a Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader. This weekly event encourages bloggers to share the books they have checked out from the library. I always find many new books to add to my reserve list! If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: May 18th –24th

This last week I finished the following books:

	The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – 3/5

My Library Loot for this week:

As you can see I restrained myself greatly at the library. I am trying to implement a new system for tracking the books I want to read and selecting the next book. I read an interesting post on Shelia’s blog, Book Journey about this and have new ideas to organize my reading. I will share about it in a future blog post.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. Our weekend started off very rainy so we did not go to the Medtronic Kids Marathon our son runs in each year. It was rainy all morning ,but now the sun has come out just in time for us to go over to our nephew’s to celebrate his birthday with him.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.

Happy Reading!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

2011-05-17T22:58:00.001-05:00

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading? is hosted by Shelia of Book Journey. (Yes, I know it is Tuesday!) It is a chance to share what you have read and what you plan on reading in the upcoming week. I enjoy seeing what everyone’s reading plans for the week. I always find some titles that I just *had to add to my ever growing TBR list.

Last week looked like this for me:

I had a very unproductive week in regards to reading. I did not finish reading any books. I am about 1/2 way through the audiobook “The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”. I started a new Physical Therapy/Rehab program that is taking up some of my time. My headaches related to my neck and back injury have gotten worse so that discourages me from reading. Also, the month of May is very busy with lots of events as the end of the school year approaches for our son.

Posted Reviews for the following books:

None posted, but need to complete my review of “Sing you Home” by Jodi Picoult.

Participated in the following blog events:

Beyond Words – a new weekly feature on Reading in WBL
Library Loot – hosted this week by Claire from The Captive Reader

My Plans This Week: Get some reading done!!!

	I am going to finish listening to “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford.
	Start and hopefully finish reading “A Secret Kept” by Tatiana de Rosnay.

Next Up??	Book Group Selections for June include the following:

	Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
	The Cross Gardner by Jason F. Wright

These are my reading plans for the week. What are you reading plans for the week??? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share your reading plans for the week!!

Wishing you all a very productive week!

Happy Reading!!

LIBRARY LOOT: May 14th, 2011

2011-05-17T21:14:00.001-05:00

Library Loot: May 11th –17th

This last week I finished the following books:

NOTHING!!! I am struggling to find time to read. May is very busy with commitments at Tommy’s school and getting ready for summer. Hopefully, June will be less busy for us so I can find more time to read! I am currently listening to “the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. I am about 1/2 done with this audiobook, so should complete it this week.

My Library Loot for this week:

Fictional Finds……

I am reading “A Secret Kept” as my book group selection for the month of May. “Lost Boy”, I don’t remember where I read about it, but it is about a young man who was forced out of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamous sect. Every since reading, “Nineteenth Wife”, I am interested in reading about LDS. I can’t remember how “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet” found it’s way on to my reserve list, but it did! I am always pleasantly surprised when I pick up my reserves at the library each week!

Much Needed Information………….

I have been struggling greatly with neck and back pain from a car accident 7 years ago. Hoping to find some insight by reading to explore options for pain relief.

Starting my 2nd week in a Physical Therapy/Rehab program.

This weekend I actually was able to go to the library with hubby and my little guy. I feels great to get back into our normal routine. I hope we can stick with it again for a while.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Happy Reading!!

Beyond Words: May 11th, 2011

2011-05-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Beyond Words

Beyond Words is a weekly feature at Reading in White Bear Lake, in which readers share the unfamiliar words they have encountered in their reading over the past week. This is a great way to build your vocabulary from what you are reading as well as from what others are reading.

Remember…..you are never to old to learn!! I love learning and reading, what better combination could there be.

The gift of using words best comes from knowing words
as intimately as you know your own family.
-Lloyd Edwin Smith-

New words to me this week:
Epaulets – (noun) : an ornamental strip or loop sewn across the shoulder of a dress or coat Listen to the audio pronunciation.
page 70, Purge by Sofi Oksanen
“In the car, Pasha ad taken off his shirt and lifted his shoulders like he was adjusting his tattooed epaulets.”

Kefir– (noun) : a beverage of fermented cow's milk
Listen to the audio pronunciation.
page 78, Purge by Sofi Oksanen
“She washed her hands thoroughly and started to change the milk in the kefir, tried to act natural, picked up the can from the floor,opened the lid, strained the liquid into the cup,and rinsed off the culture, trying again with wild boars, stray dogs and cats, although even she thought her explanations sounded stupid.”

I love being a part of this and I hope you will too! If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. I hope you will participate!

Happy Reading!

It’s Monday! What are you reading? - May 9th, 2011

2011-05-08T17:29:00.001-05:00

“It’s Monday! What Are you Reading? is hosted by Shelia of Book Journey. It is a chance to share what you have read and what you plan on reading in the upcoming week. I enjoy seeing what everyone’s reading plans for the week. I always find some titles that I just *had to add to my TBR list.

Last week looked like this for me:

Finished the book: Sing you Home by Jodi Picoult – really enjoyed this audiobook – 4/5

Posted Reviews for the following books:

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen

Participated in the following blog events:

Beyond Words – a new weekly feature on Reading in WBL – I would greatly appreciate your support and participation to get this meme rolling.
Library Loot – hosted by Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader.

My Plans for this week:

Old Aliide Truu lives alone in a cottage in the woods, pestered by flies she wishes would leave her in peace. Her isolation is interrupted when she spies a young woman under a tree in her garden. The girl is strange; arriving in the dead of night, bruised, dirty and shoeless - why is she at Aliide's door? Overcome by curiosity the old woman decides, warily, to take her in. Zara is on the run from men who tortured, raped, and sold her into slavery. Her only possession is a tattered photograph of her grandmother and another woman; in which Aliide recognizes herself and her sister. Horrified, she begins to realize that the past she has long tried to forget has finally caught up with her - Purge is a hauntingly intimate portrait of one family's shame against a backdrop of European war. (from Goodreads.com )

Library Reserve - discovered on some book blog. - started this book, but am only on page 67 of 388

Ford's strained debut concerns Henry Lee, a Chinese-American in Seattle who, in 1986, has just lost his wife to cancer. After Henry hears that the belongings of Japanese immigrants interned during WWII have been found in the basement of the Panama Hotel, the narrative shuttles between 1986 and the 1940s in a predictable story that chronicles the losses of old age and the bewilderment of youth. Henry recalls the difficulties of life in America during WWII, when he and his Japanese-American school friend, Keiko, wandered through wartime Seattle. Keiko and her family are later interned in a camp, and Henry, horrified by America's anti-Japanese hysteria, is further conflicted because of his Chinese father's anti-Japanese sentiment. Henry's adult life in 1986 is rather mechanically rendered, and Ford clumsily contrasts Henry's difficulty in communicating with his college-age son, Marty, with Henry's own alienation from his father, who was determined to Americanize him. (from Amazon.com)

Book Club Selections for May – need to have read by Thursday – very glad book group was rescheduled as I have barely started this audiobook. I was really enjoying listening to Sing You Home and just had to finish it before starting this one!

Those are my reading plans for the week. What are your reading plans???? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share what you reading plans are for the week!

Happy Reading!!

Library Loot: May 8th

2011-05-08T16:11:00.001-05:00

Library Loot Event is a weekly event hosted by Marg at The Adventures of a Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader. This weekly event encourages bloggers to share the books they have checked out from the library. I always find many new books to add to my reserve list!

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: May 4th -10th

This last week I finished the following books:

Sing You Home – Jodi Picoult – I really enjoyed this audiobook! 4/5

My Library Loot for this week:

Again this week hubby went to the library for me as I was cleaning the house in anticipation of my parents arrival for the weekend. We had a wonderful visit with my parents, though WAY too short. It was nice to spend Mother’s Day with my mother as I see her very seldom. Hubby is getting ready to make supper and I am able to enjoy my free time getting some blogging done.

I started a new meme last weekend called, “Beyond Words”. “Beyond Words” is a weekly feature at Reading in White Bear Lake, in which readers share the unfamiliar words they have encountered in their reading over the past week. This is a great way to build your vocabulary from what you are reading as well as from what others are reading.

Remember…..you are never to old to learn!! I love learning and reading, what better combination could there be. I would greatly appreciate your support and participation in getting this meme rolling.

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful weekend. It is a bit rainy here in MN once again. Argh…I can’t wait for spring/summer weather to be here to stay for a while!

Happy Reading!

Beyond Words: May 8th, 2011

2011-05-08T15:07:00.001-05:00

Beyond Words

Happy Mother’s Day! Beyond Words is a weekly feature at Reading in White Bear Lake, in which readers share the words they have encountered in their reading over the past week. This is a great way to build your vocabulary from what you are reading as well as from what others are reading.

Remember…..you are never to old to learn!! I love learning and reading, what better combination could there be.

The gift of using words best comes from knowing words
as intimately as you know your own family.
Lloyd Edwin Smith

New words to me this week:

Bedraggled – (adj.) soiled and stained by or as if by trailing in mud
Listen to the audio pronunciation.
page 4, Purge by Sofi Oksanen
“Muddy, ragged, bedraggled, but a girl nonetheless.”

Tricot – (noun) : a plain warp-knitted fabric (as of nylon, wool, rayon, silk, or cotton) with a close inelastic knit and used especially in clothing
Listen to the audio pronunciation
page 4, Purge by Sofi Oksanen
“The dress? Western. The tricot was too good to come from over on the other side.”

Babushka – (noun): an elderly Russian woman
Listen to the audio pronunciation
page 4, Purge by Sofi Oksanen
“And what if the old woman was like the babushka that Katia had told her about, or like Oksanka, who did work for men like Pasha, sending girls to the city for men like him.”

I love being a part of this and I hope you will too! If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. I hope you will participate!

Happy Reading!

Review: Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen

2011-05-02T17:48:00.001-05:00

Title: Whistling in the Dark
Author: Lesley Kagen
Publisher: NAL Trade; trade edition
Web: www.lesleykagen.com
Date of Publication: (May 1, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0451221230
Pages: 320 pages
Format: Paperback
Setting: 1959 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

It was the summer on Vliet Street when we all started locking our doors...

Sally O'Malley made a promise to her daddy before he died. She swore she'd look after her sister, Troo. Keep her safe. But like her Granny always said-actions speak louder than words. Now, during the summer of 1959, the girls' mother is hospitalized, their stepfather has abandoned them for a six pack, and their big sister, Nell, is too busy making out with her boyfriend to notice that Sally and Troo are on the loose. And so is a murderer and molester.

Highly imaginative Sally is pretty sure of two things. Who the killer is. And that she's next on his list. Now she has no choice but to protect herself and Troo as best she can, relying on her own courage and the kindness of her neighbors.

Related Media:

About the Author: Lesley Kagen is a writer, actress, and restaurateur. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, Peter. Lesley and Peter have two sons.

My Review:

I check out my copy of Whistling in the Dark from the public library. I read Whistling in the Dark as the monthly selection for my book club, “Wine, Women and Words”.

Though I was not yet born in 1959, I grew up in small town, USA and had a similar childhood venturing off in our small town. Nothing ever happens in small town, USA. I am sure that is how the parents felt that summer in Milwaukee. The two main characters, Sally and Troo O’Malley were ages 10 and 9. Troo was a feisty girl with a bit of an attitude. Sally was the over imaginative older sister who’s job was to look after Troo. Whistling in the Dark is told by Sally the 10 year old. I didn’t really feel the voice used to tell the story was realistic for a 10 year old. I had a hard time getting into this book. I can’t pin point the reason exactly.

I didn’t always feel connected to the characters nor did I feel they were that developed. I didn’t have any real strong feelings for the characters. I enjoying having an emotional connection to the characters in a story. I did feel sorry for Sally and the pressure she put on herself to look after Troo.

Like I said, the beginning of the book was a little slow for me, but the book does pick up towards the end of the book. The one thing that really bothered me about the book, was the whole mystery. Sally has all these different ideas about who the killer could be, but in the end it felt to me like the author pulled the identity of the murderer out of no where. The character was so minor in the overall book. I like to be able to think back in the story and go, “AAAAH, I should have guess he was the killer” based on the various clues weaved within the story. That was missing for me in this book. Whistling in the Dark received missed reviews from my book group. A few of us finished it and thought over all it was an Ok read.

My Rating: 3/5 – I finished the book and thought it was ok.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Booking Mama

Irregular Tammie

Read Them and Eat

Happy Reading!

Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

2011-05-02T17:16:00.001-05:00

Title: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
Author: Beth Hoffman
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Web: http://bethhoffman.net/
Date of Publication: (October 26, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0143118579
Pages: 320 pages
Format: Audio Book
Setting: Willoughby, Ohio (1967) and Savannah, Georgia

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)
For years, twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille. The tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town, Camille was a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when she is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt Tootie in her vintage Packard convertible.

Related Media:

About the Author: Beth Hoffman was the president and owner of a major interior design studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, before turning to writing full time. She lives with her husband and two cats in a quaint historic district in Newport, Kentucky. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is her first novel.

My Review: I selected to listen to this audio of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt based on some reviews I had read. This audio was narrated by Jenna Lamia . She is an amazing narrator. She plays all the characters with very distinct and believable voices, especially the pre-teen CeeCee. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt was a joy to listen to!

CeeCee is the narrator of the story and her voice is very appropriate for her age. Don’t you hate when you read a book that is narrated by a child, but the dialogue doesn’t sound like a child! This is not the case with Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.

I really enjoyed all the characters in Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. CeeCee herself is a strong, compassionate girl. CeeCee in many regards ended up parenting her mother, Camille, more than Camille actually was able to parent her. CeeCee was a reader and enjoyed books and the escape they offered her from her daily live. I could really relate to that, as a child I also used reading as an escape.

Camille, CeeCee’s mother, suffered from mental health issues. She was an interesting character and well developed. I could just see her an the Vidalia Queen. After Camille’s death, Aunt Tootie comes to Willoughby, Ohio to see CeeCee. In my eyes this is the moment in which CeeCee is saved by her Aunt. Tootie gives CeeCee an opportunity for a new life, where CeeCee is able to be a child and have friends.

Aunt Tootie is from Savannah, Georgia and is a proper southern woman. The descriptions of Georgia are rich and lush and just delicious. I love old homes as does Aunt Tootie. She saves and restores old homes validating the history of those homes. The strong female relationships portrayed in Saving CeeCee Honeycutt are amazing.

Themes throughout Saving CeeCee Honeycutt included family secrets, stigma of mental illness, abandonment, love, acceptance and strength of family/friends. What an amazing cast of strong lovely women that came into CeeCee’s life just at the right time.

My Rating: 4/5 – highly recommended – drove around the block a few times not wanting to have the story end. Looked forward to getting into the car to hear some more! Great Audio.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

She is Too Fond of Books

Redlady’s Reading Room

Stacy’s Books

Book Journey

Happy Reading!

It’s Monday! What are you reading? - May 2nd, 2011

2011-05-01T22:53:00.001-05:00

I have been following Shelia’s blog, Book Journey for a while now and decided it was time I participate in in her weekly event, “It’s Monday! What Are you Reading?” It is a chance to share what you have read and what you plan on reading in the upcoming week. I have already found some titles that I just *had to add to my TBR list.

Last week looked like this for me:

I finished the book Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards.

Review: Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Review: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson

Participated in Library Loot hosted by Claire at Captive Reader.

Added a new weekly feature to my book blog, Beyond Words.

My Plans for this week:

One miscarriage too many spelled the end of Max and Zoe Baxter's marriage. Though the former couple went quite separate ways, their fates remained entangled: After veering into alcoholism, Max is saved in multiple senses by his fundamentalist conversion; Zoe, for her part, finds healing relief in music therapy and the friendship, then romantic love with Vanessa, her counselor. After Zoe and Vanessa, now married, decide to have a baby, they realize that they must join battle with Max, who objects on both religious and financial grounds. (from Goodreads.com )

Listening to audiobook, while traveling and commuting.

Library Reserve - discovered on some book blog.

Book Club Selections for May – need to have read by next Monday.

Those are my reading plans for the week. What are your reading plans???? Join in with Shelia at Book Journey and share what you reading plans are for the week!

Happy Reading!!

Review: Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards

2011-05-01T18:34:00.001-05:00

Title: The Lake of Dreams

Author: Kim Edwards http://www.kimedwardsbooks.com/

Publisher: VIKING: Penguin Group

Date of Publication: 2011

ISBN: 978-0-670-02217-5

Pages: 384 pages

Format: Hardcover (from Library)

Setting: Fictional town of Lake of Dreams, New York

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

With revelations that prove as captivating as the deceptions at the heart of her bestselling phenomenon The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards now gives us the story of a woman's homecoming, a family secret, and the old house that holds the key to the true legacy of a family.

At a crossroads in her life, Lucy Jarrett returns home from Japan, only to find herself haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade ago. Old longings stirred up by Keegan Fall, a local glass artist who was once her passionate first love, lead her into the unexpected. Late one night, as she paces the hallways of her family's rambling lakeside house, she discovers, locked in a window seat, a collection of objects that first appear to be useless curiosities, but soon reveal a deeper and more complex family past. As Lucy discovers and explores the traces of her lineage00from an heirloom tapestry and dusty political tracts to a web of allusions depicted in stained-glass windows throughout upstate New York-the family story she has always known is shattered, Lucy's quest for the truth reconfigures her family's history, links her to a unique slice of the suffragette movement, and yields dramatic insights that embolden her to live freely.

With surprises at every turn, brimming with vibrant detail, The Lake of Dreams is an arresting saga in which every element emerges as a carefully place piece of the puzzle that's sure to enthrall the millions of readers who loved The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

Related Media:

About the Author:

Kim Edwards grew up in Skaneateles, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region. The oldest of four children, she graduated from Colgate University and the University of Iowa, where she received an MFA in Fiction and an MA in Linguistics. After completing her graduate work, she went with her husband to Asia, where they spent the next five years teaching, first on the rural east coast of Malaysia, then in a small city an hour south of Tokyo, and finally in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

During her time in Asia, Kim began to publish short fiction, and in 1990 her story “Sky Juice” won the Nelson Algren Award. Her stories and essays have since appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Anteaus, Story, and The Paris Review. They have won many honors, including a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Fiction and a Pushcart Prize, as well as inclusion in The Best American Short Stories. Two of her stories have been performed at Symphony Space and broadcast on Public Radio International. Kim has also received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kentucky Arts Council, among others. Her story collection The Secrets of a Fire King was short-listed for the 1998 Pen/Hemingway Award.

My Review:

I chose to read this Lake of Dreams, because of my love of Edward’s first book, Memory Keeper’s Daughter. I found the writing to be very descriptive, which I really liked about this book. The elements of nature within the book were very vivid in my mind. I could feel the awe is spotting the white deer. I felt the characters were well developed. I liked the character of Lucy Jarrett, but did find her a bit self absorbed and driven. I think my favorite character is Rose Jarrett, who you only get to know through the letters that are discovered that were written by this long lost relative. My favorite quote from those letters is as follows:

“Do not act out of anger. Act from love or not at all.” (Lake of Dreams, Kim Edwards, page 273)

Wouldn’t it be a better world if we all could remember to act from love or not at all. Great words to live by. Throughout Lake of Dreams run the themes of family secrets, women suffrage movement, dreams, and sacrifice for the sake of love. Rose Jarrett is such a strong and adventurous woman for her time. I know I would not have had the strength she had to make the choices she did. Lake of Dreams is an engaging read that moves along at a nice pace. I found the ending to be very satisfying.

My Rating: 3/5 – I would recommend this book to others, but didn’t find it keeping me up late to read more

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Bibliophile by the Sea

The Book Chic

Fiction Addict

Cover Me

Happy Reading!

Beyond Words: New Weekly Feature

2011-05-01T10:36:00.001-05:00

Beyond Words

I want to introduce you to a new weekly feature that will be appearing on Reading In White Bear Lake. I am excited to add this weekly feature to my blog. Beyond Words is a weekly feature that will build your vocabulary. I find that since I am no longer in the academic world, I don’t take the time to learn new words. If I do learn them, I quickly forget them. I read voraciously, but find that I will skip over words that I am not familiar with. Well, not anymore, Beyond Words will feature those words each week that I would normally skip right over. I will post words that I come across in my weekly reading that I was previously unfamiliar with or unsure of their meaning.

Why?? A wise mentor of mine once told me, “make the dictionary your friend”. She believed that one true determination of level of success was your vocabulary. A integral part of success is the ability to effectively communicate. The other reason this idea has popped into my head is my children. They both have great vocabularies beyond their years, but my youngest frequently asks me, “What does this word mean?” I sometimes find it difficult to communicate the definition of a word I know in a manner he will understand. This feature will give me practice in doing that. This year my youngest has an amazing third grade teacher. He uses vocabulary words at times that make me take a second listen!

Remember…..you are never to old to learn!! I love learning and reading, what better combination could there be.

The gift of using words best comes from knowing words
as intimately as you know your own family.
Lloyd Edwin Smith

New words to me this week:

Avaricious – (adj.) greedy of gain : excessively acquisitive especially in seeking to hoard riches
Listen to the audio pronunciation
Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards (did not mark the page as I encountered this word before I can up with the idea for this feature!)

Insular – (adj.) characteristic of an isolated people; especially: being, having, or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint
Listen to the audio of pronunciation
page 278, Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards
“His work had fallen out favor and he will not adopt the popular artistic fads, and so he was insular even before this loss.”

I hope you enjoy the addition of this feature to Reading In White Bear Lake. I plan on adding a Mr. Linky or a similar application so you can share you newly discovered words with us each week as well. I hope you will participate!

Happy Reading!

Library Loot: April 30th

2011-04-30T22:29:00.001-05:00

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Library Loot: April 27 – May 3rd

This last week I finished the following books:

Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom (Review)

The Imperfectionists – Tom Rachman (finished because I decided I didn’t want to finish it)

Lake of Dreams – Kim Edwards

My Library Loot for this week:

I was unable to go to the library this week, but hubby went for me. I am out of town for work. But being out of town means I have free time to get caught up on book reviews, reading and blogging in general. I hate to even spend any of my free time sleeping! I only get to have Mama’s little retreat once a year and always look forward to the extended free time with my books and laptop!

What did you find at the library this week???? Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand–Helen Simonson

2011-04-30T21:05:00.001-05:00

Title: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Author: Helen Simonson

Publisher: Random House

Web: www.helensimonson.com

Date of Publication: March 2010

ISBN-10:

Pages: 400 Pages

Format: Audio Book from Library

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

The Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?

Related Media/ Interview with the Author:

About the Author: (from: http://www.helensimonson.com/about_helen_simonson.php)

I have lived in America for over twenty years. I have been a long-time and proud resident of Brooklyn and have recently moved with my family to the Washington D.C. area. However, I was born in England, and when I was a teenager, my family achieved the English dream - to move to a house in the country.

East Sussex, with its sleepy villages, medieval smuggling towns, and unique pebble-bank shores is my vision of 'home.' My family lives near Rye, a 14th Century smuggling port on a cobbled hill, from which the sea receded long ago. It is marooned in the eerie landscape once home to smugglers, yet clings to its designation as a member of the Cinque Ports. Close by are the seaside towns of Hastings and Eastbourne and to the west, the Downs swell up into a ridge of grassy hills topped by the hundred mile trail known as the South Downs Way. It is literary country - Henry James at Lamb House, Rye; Kipling at Batemans, Burwash; Virginia Woolf at Monk's House, near Lewes - and this heritage was always a great inspiration to me.

As a young woman, I could not wait to go to college in London, or to move three thousand miles away from home to America. Yet I have always carried with me a longing for England that will not fade. I think this dichotomy - between the desire for home and the urge to leave - is of central interest to my life and my writing.

My Review:
I don’t recall where I first read about Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simon. I had read enough book blogger’s reviews to know I had to read this book. I listened to the audio of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and I am glad I did. I am infatuated with English accents so this is a delight to listen to. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is set in a small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in Sussex. I loved this setting and could envision this little village that did seem to be very old fashioned.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a quaint little love story between two older, unlikely people, Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali. The Major has a wonderful sense of sarcasm that was even drier than my hubby’s! The Major is an older widow with one adult child, Roger. Roger was an annoying character who was always trying to improve his standings in life by meeting affluent people. He drove me nuts with his name dropping. Mrs. Ali is the local shop owner, originally from Pakistan. She is a lovely character. She is intelligent and full of life and while cognizant of the values of her heritage, she was willing to go against convention to ensure her own happiness. Both the Major’s and Mrs. Ali’s families, like all families can be messy, complicated and unkind.

My favorite character had to be Abdul Wahid. Abdul was set in the old ways of his heritage, but yet conflicted about it. Abdul ended up being a very complicated person with many layers to him. He was misunderstood at times or maybe even conflicted about his own feelings. This was a fairly quick listen that was very enjoyable to listen to.

My Rating: 4/5 – a light enjoyable listen. The accents on the audio were wonderful. I love my English accents!!

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Book Smugglers

The Captive Reader

Mostly Fiction Book Reviews

Dirty SexyBooks

BookNAround

Happy Reading!

Review: The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

2011-04-30T20:40:00.001-05:00

Title: Kitchen House

Author: Kathleen Grissom

Publisher: Touchstone

Web: www.kathleengrissom.com

Date of Publication: February, 2010

ISBN-10: 1439153663

Pages: 384 pages

Format: Kindle Edition

Synopsis from Goodreads.com: When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.

Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.

Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.

The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

Related Media:

Interview with the Author:

You can learn more about Kathleen Grissom on her official website.

My Review:

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom was selected by my book group, Books & Babble for our April discussion. We met last week to discuss the book. The Kitchen House is the story of life on a southern Plantation in the 1780’s. The story is told by alternating narrators, Ladvinia and Belle. Belle is a slave on the plantation who is also the daughter of the Captain. Ladvinia is a young Irish girl who comes to the plantation at the age of 7 when the Captain purchases her as on indentured servant. Having two narrators worked with this story as Ladvinia’s observations of events were usually immature and naïve. Belle, was wise and understood life on the Plantation in a way that Ladvinia did not grasp.

There are many themes within The Kitchen House such as the theme of history repeating itself and effects of isolation on the people of the plantation. The other theme all too common in this dark time of history is the disregard of the person of color as anything more than an object, owned by their masters. I am always bothered by how any human being can treat other human being so brutally. I am truly appalled by this time in our nation’s history.

One member of my book group shared that her relative was an indenture servant as a small child, coming to the Midwest on the Orphan train from New York. It was very interesting to hear about this and luckily the small child was treated very well and loved. I hope our nation takes the time to learn from it’s history and not repeat it. But then again don’t get me started on how our nation treats the less fortunate. I am a social worker so I do have a bit of an opinion on the subject. I won’t use this platform for a political rant.

The flow of The Kitchen House is very smooth, even with the transition between the two narrators. The book was very engaging and kept my attention. It had me gasping out loud at points and as well as cheering for a revolution. I found myself sneaking off to read a few more pages whenever I could.

The characters are well developed. You hate the bad characters and love the good ones. It seems like in The Kitchen House you were either good or bad, there was little in between. I loved Belle, her strength and wisdom are evident throughout the book. I also loved the fact that she loved her son with all her heart despite the events that lead to his conception. Mama and Papa were wise and honest slaves that loved Ladvinia as their own. They protected her, the best they could even when her own actions put them in harm’s way. I loved Will and his treatment of the workers and the way he ran the plantation with compassion and efficiently.

I was sad for the Kitchen House to end; I wanted to know what happened next to the characters I started to care so much about.

My Rating: 4/5 – very good book – highly recommend.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

BookNAround - my friend Kristen

Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews

The Sweet Escape

Confessions of a Bibliophile

The Literate Housewife

Happy Reading!

Review: Men and Dogs by Katie Crouch

2011-04-03T10:11:00.001-05:00

Title: Men and Dogs

Author: Katie Crouch

Publisher: Back Bay Books

Date of Publication: (April 7, 2011)

ISBN 10: 9780316002141

Pages: 304 pages

Synopsis: It was the spring of 1985. Dr. Buzz Legare went on a fishing trip in the Charleston, South Carolina harbor, taking the family dog with him. They found the dog later, floating alone in the small aluminum boat, but Buzz was never seen again.

Fast forward two decades: his daughter Hannah is thirty-five with a successful business and a dedicated husband, Jon, in San Francisco. She’s left Charleston far behind, but not the conviction that her father is alive somewhere⎯not dead, just missing. Her obsession begins to play out in self-sabotage, culminating one night when, having royally screwed things up with Jon, she finds herself drunkenly climbing up her own fire escape—with disastrous results.

Head bandaged and heart bruised, Hannah is ordered home by her strong-willed mother, Daisy, and reluctantly welcomed by Palmer, her much more responsible brother who stayed behind. There, she encounters rivals and ghosts from her past, including Warren, the childhood love she could never quite forget. Enlisting his help, Hannah sets out on a quest to find out what really happened to her father so long ago. Palmer and Daisy worry about the manic lengths she’ll go to dredge up the past. Some family secrets, they reason, are best left buried for good. (http://www.katiecrouch.com/new/books_menanddogs.shtml)

About the Author: Katie Crouch is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Girls in Trucks and the upcoming novel Men and Dogs. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Observer, Tin House, Glamour, and McSweeney's. She received her M.F.A. at Columbia University, and was awarded a Sewanee Walter Dakin Fellowship and a MacDowell Fellowship. She currently lives in San Francisco.

My Review: Men and Dogs is the story of how a family copes after the father of the family disappears during a fishing trip. Hannah, the daughter, 20 years after her father’s disappearance is determined to find out the truth. She is certain he is still alive. Her brother, Palmer, believe their dad died and that his actions lead his father to his death. The mother seems to have adjusted the best to the death of her husband and moved on the best she could.

Hannah and Palmer were unlikable as characters. Hannah was very self centered and immature. Her actions were unpredictable. I did find Hannah’s attempts to reunite with her husband sad, desperate and humorous at times. I think actually I had the most respect for Hannah’s husband and his tolerance. Palmer seemed cold and detached overall.

Men and Dogs is a quick read that keeps you engaged in the story. There are some quirky characters when Hannah returns to Charleston.

My Rating: 3.5/5 – a quick enjoyable read that kept me interested throughout the book. But not one that I would be raving to my friends to get them to read it.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Book Worm with a View

Simply Stacie

Book Journey

Luxury Reading

Happy Reading!

Review: Days of Grace by Catherine Hall

2011-03-22T19:51:00.002-05:00

Title: Days of Grace
Author: Catherine Hall
Publisher: Viking Adult; 1 edition
Date of Publication:(May 27, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0670021768
Pages: 304

Synopsis: (from Booklist) Nora Lynch is at the end of her life, and she intends to die alone. When she takes in a young, unwed mother, however, her plan is interrupted, and she begins to relive the time she spent with the Rivers family during WWII. Among the many London children evacuated from the city during the Blitz, Nora landed in Kent, where Reverend Rivers, his wife, and daughter, Grace, gave her a life she never dreamed of and, in the end, never wanted. Hall's debut captures the stagnation of the Rivers family, hiding behind the seeming tranquility of their lives to shield themselves from painful memories. Even the war feels far away. Planes flying overhead are muffled by the stifling calm of the English countryside. When Nora falls for Grace, she is tormented by loving someone she can't have, and her descent into isolation and bitterness is intensely evoked. The prose, flitting between the present and wartime Kent, is as crisp, efficient, and quietly moving as Nora herself. Her attempt to find redemption and her struggle to forgive herself will engage readers to the end.

About the Author: Catherine Hall was born in the Lake District in 1973. Now based in London, she worked in documentary film production before becoming a freelance writer and editor for a range of organizations specializing in human rights and development.

Interview with the Author: A CONVERSATION WITH CATHERINE HALL from Penguin.com website

My Review: Days of Grace by Catherine Hall starts at the beginning of World War II in 1939 with a twelve year old girl, Nora, being evacuated from London to the countryside for safety. She is chosen to live with the Rivers family by the daughter, Grace. Nora loves living in the country and has a close friendship with Grace. Nora enjoys a better lifestyle in the country than she did in London with her mother.

Days of Grace alternates between chapters, going between present and past events as told by the young and older Nora. Generally, this type of alternating is distracting to me as a reader. In Days of Grace it is an integral part of the story. The secrets unfold between the telling of the past and present in a way that is very compelling. Nora’s past does a wonderful job of explaining the present and her feelings. The story of Nora’s past comes to a pivotal point in the story with VE Day, on May 8^th, 1945. This is when World War II ends with the formal acceptance of the surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, ending Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

There are many themes within this story: such as the power of secrets on shaping one’s life, the strength of the bond of friendship, the power of unrequited love and the lasting impact of one’s decisions on their future.

Main characters in the past are the young Nora, an evacuee from London and the Rivers family that takes her in, consisting of the Reverend, his wife and their daughter Grace. I loved the free spirit that is Grace. She was my favorite character, leaving a lasting impression on many lives. My least favorite character was Nora as an old woman. She seemed selfish to me and not mindful other’s long-term happiness.

I thought the title; Days of Grace could be taken a number of ways. It could represent the carefree youth of Nora and Grace running and playing in the countryside. The cover of Day’s of Grace by Catherine Hall reminds me of this. It could also represent the days that Nora has Grace in her life before they part ways. The title could represent all the days of Nora’s life that are filled with thoughts of Grace and the impact of that. Lastly, Grace could be taken not as the name of a person, but the ability to live one’s life with grace, as to live with a disposition to kindness and compassion.

My Rating: 4/5 - I would recommend this book to others. I was interested in this time in history as I was not that familiar with it. I found the book very suspenseful and revealing bit and pieces of the story is a very masterful manner. I ended up going to work very tired a day or two due to this book. I would have given Days of Grace a 4.5 rating, but ending was not my favorite.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

The Girl from the Ghetto

The Book Bag

What Women Write

Curled Up with a Good Book

Happy Reading!

Book review: Mothers & Other Liars by Amy Bourret

2011-03-13T10:57:00.001-05:00

Title: Mothers & Other Liars
Author: Amy Bourret
Publisher: St Martin’s Griffin
Web: www.stmartins.com
Date of Publication: August 2010
ISBN-13:
Pages: 288

Synopsis: (Publishers Weekly) Ruby Leander and young daughter Lark, the abandoned baby she took as her own at a truck stop years ago, when she was a runaway, are living happily in New Mexico. Ruby is pregnant with boyfriend Chaz's child and everything is going well until she sees Lark's picture in the newspaper as a missing child. Ruby realizes that to do the right thing and return Lark means losing everything she loves. When Ruby comes up with a way to keep Lark, her plan involves an untenable choice. The revelations aren't surprising and though the characters face weighty moral questions, the resolutions seem inconsequential. Bourret does manage to present an alternative to the standard family drama, and the writing is crisp despite a plot that moves along to a predictable conclusion.

About the Author:

Helen Keller said, “Life is an adventure or it is nothing at all.” My own adventure has been a raucous ride through Denver, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Houston, Lubbock, New Haven, Dallas, Santa Fe, and Aspen. Now, I split my time between Dallas and Aspen, where I am working on my next novel.

Along the way, I earned diplomas from Yale Law School, Texas Tech University and Miss Julie’s School of Dance. One of my favorite clients liked to say that Yale told him I was real smart, but Tech told him I was real. I’m not sure what the other diploma tells anyone, other than that most of the time I can walk and chew gum at the same time and there are some black-mailable photographs of me in god-awful costumes.

The passion that fuels Mothers and Other Liars was sparked through my child advocacy work, as pro bono counsel in law school and in my practice, and as adviser to advocacy, foster care and child rescue organizations. Among other esteemed activities, at various times and in no particular order, I have also been corporate lawyer, gymnast, event planner, student, civic volunteer, judicial clerk, official neighborhood bee catcher, corporate communications director, and flower girl at a tadpole funeral. What I have always been is a writer, from treacly childhood poetry, to college and graduate school theses, to legal briefs and contracts, and, oh yeah, to Mothers and Other Liars, my debut novel. What I have never been is a mother or a liar. Well, at least half of that last statement is true. (http://amybourret.com/about-amy/)

Author Interview: What Women Write hosts interview with Amy Bourret

My Review:

The title and cover of this book really is what made me grab it off the new fiction self at the library. In reflecting on the title, Mothers & Other Liars, I am left wondering who the other liars were. This book started off good for me, got a little slow in the middle, but picked up again towards the end. Mothers & Other Liars reads a bit like a book by Jodi Picoult. It is an emotional read that in the heart of it examines the debate of Nurture vs. Nature. The book though not very long it is comprised of 117 chapters. I really disliked the way the book was written in very short chapters. I felt this distracted from the flow of the story and left the story with a choppy feeling.

Mothers & Other Liars did have me thinking about what I would do if I found an abandoned baby. I have never been in the situation that Ruby was in, but as a mother I am not sure I would make the same decisions she did regarding her solution to her problem. As I was reading the book, I was yelling at Ruby and saying, “A mother would not do that”. My hubby thought I was crazy! It just wasn’t realistic to me and it bugged me. I do believe that Ruby loved Lark and would do anything for her. Once the twists are revealed the conclusion of the story became very predictable. The ending of Mothers & Other Liars was all tidied up and presented as a happy little package with a bow on it.

My Rating: 3.5/5 - I would have given Mothers & Other Liars a 3 rating, but emotionally the story did grip me. I may have even shed a tear or two, but parts were just too unrealistic for me. This book did not have me missing my beauty sleep.

Other Bloggers Review:

Book Hooked Blog

Alexia’s Books and Such

All About {n}

HMG – Book Reviews

Kinda Sassy

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Secrets of Eden – Chris Bohjalian

2011-03-13T10:56:00.002-05:00

Title: Secrets of Eden
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Broadway;
Web:
Date of Publication: February 1, 2011
ISBN - 13: 978-0307394989
Pages: 400 pages

Synopsis: (From Publishers Weekly) Bohjalian (Law of Similars) has built a reputation on his rich characters and immersing readers in diverse subjects—homeopathy, animal rights activism, midwifery—and his latest surely won't disappoint. The morning after her baptism into the Rev. Stephen Drew's Vermont Baptist church, Alice Hayward and her abusive husband are found dead in their home, an apparent murder-suicide. Stephen, the novel's first narrator, is so racked with guilt over his failure to save Alice that he leaves town. Soon, he meets Heather Laurent, the author of a book about angels whose own parents' marriage also ended in tragedy. Stephen's deeply sympathetic narration is challenged by the next two narrators: deputy state attorney Catherine Benincasa, whose suspicions are aroused initially by Stephen's abrupt departure (and then by questions about his relationship with Alice), and Heather, who distances herself from Stephen for similar reasons and risks the trip into her dark past by seeking out Katie, the Haywards' now-orphaned 15-year-old daughter who puts into play the final pieces of the puzzle, setting things up for a touching twist. Fans of Bohjalian's more exotic works will miss learning something new, but this is a masterfully human and compassionate tale.

Related Media:

About the Author: Chris Bohjalian is the author of thirteen books, including his most recent novel, Secrets of Eden, which debuted at # 6 on both the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.
His other novels include the New York Times bestsellers, Skeletons at the Feast, The Double Bind, Before You Know Kindness, The Law of Similars, and Midwives.
Chris won the New England Book Award in 2002, and his novel, Midwives, was a number one New York Times bestseller, a selection of Oprah's Book Club, a Publishers Weekly "Best Book," and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery pick. His work has been translated into over 25 languages and twice become movies ("Midwives" and "Past the Bleachers"). You can see some of the international covers on this web site.
He has written for a wide variety of magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and has been a Sunday columnist for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since 1992. Chris graduated from Amherst College, and lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.

Author Website: Chris Bohjalian –The Official Site Reading Group Guide

My Review:

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian raises awareness of the devastating effects of domestic violence on families. The story starts out with the deaths of George and Alice Hayward in a murder/suicide situation. A few members of the small town in Vermont are aware of the spousal abuse that Alice suffered at the hands of George, but many were not. There are many secrets that come to light throughout the book.

The story is told in four parts by four different narrators. Part one is told Stephen Drew, the local minister of the church in which Alice Hayward is baptized shortly before her death. Stephen’s perceptions of the events are clouded with guilt. The second part is told by Catherine Benincasa the deputy State Attorney. The third narrator is Heather Laurant, an author who writes about angels and is familiar with the effects of domestic violence within her own family. I am not sure that the character of Heather really added to the story. The final part of the story is from the perspective of Katie Hayward, daughter of George and Alice Hayward. This was my least favorite of the parts, I did not feel the voice of Katie came across as a realistic portrayal of a teen girl. The truth comes out in the end and makes for a satisfactory ending.

I enjoyed Secrets of Eden, but I was not a fan of the story being told in parts. It made the story feel a bit disjointed to me. I did not have strong feeling about any of the characters in particular, but if I had a preference it would be for Katie Hayward. She was a strong young woman who was managing a very difficult situation the best she could.

My Rating: 3/5 - good read , but not my favorite of Chris Bohjalian’s books. He does a nice job of raising aware of spousal abuse and the emotions surrounding it.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Constance Reader’s

Mostly Fiction Book Reviews

Serendipitous Readings

Chew and Digest Books

Lynne’s Book Reviews

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Library Loot: March 12th, 2011

2011-03-12T18:10:00.003-06:00

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Marg has Mr Linky this week

This last week I finished the following books:
I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells (my review)
Garden of Eden - Chris Bohjalian (my review)
Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret (my review)

This week only a couple of books found there way home with me from the public library. I just read that they are going to be doing some updating to our local library. Hoping this will be a good thing!

My Library Loot for this week:

What did you find at the library this week???? Stop by and share your Library Loot !! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!!

Happy Reading!

Review: I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

2011-03-07T08:14:00.001-06:00

Title: I Am Not A Serial Killer
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Tor Books
Date of Publication: First Edition edition (March 30, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0765327821
Pages: 272
Category: Young Adult

Synopsis: I Am Not a Serial Killer is the story of John Cleaver, a 15-year-old sociopath who works in a mortuary, dreams about death, and thinks he might be turning into a serial killer. He sets strict rules to keep himself “good” and “normal,” but when a real monster shows up in his town he has to let his dark side out in order to stop it–but without his rules to keep him in check, he might be more dangerous than the monster he’s trying to kill.

Related Media:

My Review:

I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells is a shift from the type of books that I usually read. I have never seen the TV series Dexter, but I am told this book is very similar. I might have to check out a season of Dexter from the Library to see the similarities.

The main character John Wayne Cleaver (what a name!) is a 15 year old boy who is diagnosed a sociopath. He has a disturbing interest in everything about death and serial killers. So of course he is very interested when a serial killer seems to be rampant in the town in which he resides. John lives in a mortuary and assists his mother and aunt with embalming. He really enjoys being able to assist. His mother is not sure this is really a good idea. I am thinking it isn’t. The details of embalming are well described.

Excerpt: “I’d been helping Mom and Margaret at the mortuary since I was a little boy, back before Dad left. My first job had been cleaning up the chapel: picking up programs, dumping out ash trays, vacuuming the floor, and other odd jobs that a six-year-old could do unassisted. I got bigger jobs as I grew older, but I didn’t get to help with the really cool stuff—embalming—until I was twelve. Embalming was like . . . I don’t know how to describe it. It was like playing with a giant doll, dressing it and bathing it and opening it up to see what was inside. I watched Mom once when I was eight, peeking in through the door to see what the big secret was. When I cut open my teddy bear the next week, I don’t think she made the connection.”

While John communicates very well to the reader that he thinks about killing people and could easily be a serial killer. I found him to be a villain that I had sympathy for. He was struggling with his own demons, but was determined to figure out who was the Clayton Killer. I don’t think he really wanted to kill people, he just felt he was destined to do it. He had rules in place to make sure he kept his “monster” caged. Why would be do that if he wanted to kill people??

The book is fast pace and keeps the reader’s attention. I read the book in a little over a day. I stayed up WAY too late last night to finish it. I did find I was a bit unsettled to sleep initially after finishing it, but no bad dreams! The story does have a bit of a supernatural edge to it that I am not sure I cared for. It did not detract from the story in any major way.

I was surprised in researching this book that in the UK it was published as a Young Adult novel. I did not feel that was the case at all. In the US it was published as Adult Fiction, which I thought was more appropriate due to some of the more gory details. I am not a Serial Killer is the first book in a trilogy by Dan Wells. The next books in the series are, Mr. Monster and I Don’t Want to Kill You. Those are certainly titles that jump out at you!

My Rating: 4/5 – anything that keeps me up in the wee hours of the night has to be good! I would recommend this title to others.

Other Reviews:

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Review: The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

2011-03-05T21:58:00.001-06:00

Title: The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner;
Date of Publication: 1 edition (January 9, 2006)
ISBN-13: 978-0743247542
Pages: 288 pages

Synopsis: (From Publishers Weekly) Freelance writer Walls doesn't pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure."

Related Media:

Video of Jeannette Walls on “The Glass Castles” with her mother.

About the Author: Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in the southwest and Welch, West Virginia. She graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York City for twenty years. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, a triumphant account of overcoming a difficult childhood with her dysfunctional but vibrant family, has been a New York Times bestseller for over three years. A publishing sensation around the world, The Glass Castle has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the U.S. and has been translated into twenty-two languages. Walls is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Christopher Award for helping to "affirm the highest values of the human spirit," as well as the American Library Association's Alex Award, and the Books for Better Living Award. The Glass Castle was chosen as Elle magazine's book of the year. Walls lives in rural Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.

( From: http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Jeannette-Walls/19723841/biography)

My Review: The Glass Castle: A memoir by Jeanette Walls

In The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls tells the story of her unconventional, nomadic upbringing as a child. Her father, Rex was a very intelligent and charismatic man, who spent time teaching his four children. His alcoholism keeps the family in unimaginable poverty. Rose, the mother of the family was an artist who really could not be bothered to provide basic care to her children or maintain employment as a teacher. Jeanette and her siblings did well in school and learned to fend for themselves at a very early age. What struck me most about this book was not what happened to the children/family, but how the author’s voice when telling about these events of her youth contained such love and compassion for her parents. In many regards the children had to parent themselves as well as their parents. I did not pick up feelings of resentment in reading The Glass Castle. Rex promised to build the family a Glass Castle for them all to live in. The promise to me showed the hope this family had, which unfortunately never became a reality.

Jeanette is able to preserve and maintain hope throughout The Glass Castle. This is what makes The Glass Castle different from other memoirs I have read about dysfunctional families. I was not left with that “icky” feeling when reading this. The children were terribly neglected, but this was not done with malice. I believe the parents loved their children.

Jeanette and her siblings are able to escape. One by one they go to New York to start a new life for themselves. Three of the children seem to fair well as adults and maintain a relationship with their parents. Then the parents move to New York to be with the family. They chose a life of homelessness, which is hard to understand. But the children seem to accept their parents and who they are.

My Rating: 4/5 – I would recommend this book to others.

Other Bloggers Review:

Lit and Life

A Fanatic’s Book Blog

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