Long time

It's been a long time since I've posted, but I have been reading.

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife by Irene Spencer - This was an interesting book. For some reason I'm fascinated by polygamy, probably because it's something I can't imagine ever doing and don't understand anyone else agreeing to be part of. I guess if you grow up with something and are taught to believe that it's the right way to live and the only way you're going to get to heaven you might have a hard time going against it. I did think it strange that even though she saw how awful it was for her Mother and her Mother was actively against it for her own children, she did it anyway. I'm glad she had a happy ending and found a relationship that was more fulfilling for her, and that most of her children chose a different path than she did.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - I read this for book club and probably wouldn't have otherwise. It's one of those books where there was so much hype I was sure the actual book wouldn't live up to the high expectations. It was actually really good. It's hard to believe that people actually live in conditions like that. I can't imagine living in a place where it's possible my friends or families will be killed by a stray bomb. I also can't imagine living in a place where I'm not allowed to walk down the street by myself and have to wear a head to toe covering. I understand that other cultures are different from my own, but it makes me glad that mine isn't like that.

Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.'s Most Notorious Gang by Colton Simpson - I'm fascinated by gangs and by prisons. I love watching the Supermax shows on tv. I'm not sure why. This book gave an inside look at both of these. Again, this book showed a life that is so far removed from my daily experience it's hard to even imagine. There was so much random killing and for what seemed like no good reason.

Right now I'm reading Getting Stoned With Savages by J. Maarten Troost. I had previously read The Sex Lives of Cannibals by the same author. So far I like it and I like his style of writing. His titles kind of crack me up, but I wonder what people thought in the dentist office this morning when they saw the title of the book I was reading!

Killing Pablo & The Grand Complication

I recently finished Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden. It was lent to me by a friend and was a really good book. I didn't know a thing about Pablo Escobar before reading this book so everything was new to me. It really is a different world in Columbia and it's hard to even imagine how common kidnappings and murders must have been at that time. It doesn't seem like it's that bad now, but maybe we just don't hear about it. I was interested to read how much control Pablo had over everything, including the jail he had built for himself and his friends! The leve of corruption was horrible. It was also amazing to read about the resources that went into the manhunt. All of the different police and military acronyms got a little confusing, but that shows the extent of the manhunt. Mark Bowden also wrote Black Hawk Down which was made into a movie of the same name. The incident in Black Hawk Down actually took place at a similar time and is mentioned in Killing Pablo.

I also read The Grand Complication by Alan Kurzweil recently. Several people in the Librarians who LibraryThing group posted that this was their favorite Library/Librarian book. I can't think of what mine would be, but it probably won't be this one. I thought it was okay. Maybe I had high expectations because of what other people had written about it.

I also have checked out:

Room for Improvement, Stacey Ballis - This is just sitting on my shelf. I probably won't read it.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah - This is our next book club book. It looks really good. It's the memoir of a boy soldier (ha!) from Africa. He now lives in the US and is attending school.

Secret Society Girl: an Ivy League Novel, Diana Peterfreund - I just checked this out. I think it's about a woman who is invited to join a secret society at Yale, or maybe another Ivy League school.

Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky - I've heard really good things about this book. It's about a Jewish woman in Paris in the 1940s. While not autobiographical, there are many similarities between the author and her character's lives. The author was sent to Auschwitz where she died a month later. Her daughters took her incomplete novel with her and it was published 60+ years later.

The True & Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters

I just finished The True & Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters for book club which meets tonight. Since I chose it, I'll lead the discussion. While I was at my parents house I read Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy. I always enjoy her descriptions of life in small town Ireland and her characters. They're real people with real problems.

Other books that I have checked out:

The Third Victim & The Next Accident by Lisa Gardner - my Mother in Law is reading them on vacation. I'm not sure I've read anything by Lisa Gardner.

I Stink! by Kate McMullan, The Big Book of Things that Go, A Pocket for Corduroy by Don Freeman and Road Construction Ahead (video) - These are all for Ryan (shocker!) I should probably get him his own card. His favorite, by far, is Road Construction Ahead. We'll watch it and he'll ask to watch it again, which has never happened. He can always hope.

The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil - Several people in the Librarians who LibraryThing Group posted that this was their favorite Library/Librarian book so I had to read it. I'm not sure if it's my favorite, but it's interesting and different so I'll probably finish it.

The Midnight Choir, Gene Kerrigan - I don't even recognize this title.
Room for Improvement, Stacey Ballis - Haven't started it.
The Man of My Dreams, Curtis Sittenfeld - I picked this out as a book club suggestion and didn't suggest it. I started reading Prep by the same author and never finished it. I'm not sure if I'll read this.
The Quality of Life Report, Meghan Daum - A book club suggestion that wasn't chosen. Not sure if I'll read it.
A Hole in the Universe, Mary McGarry Morris - Another book club suggestion that wasn't chosen. Not sure if I'll read it.
Lion Eyes, Claire Berlinski - Another possible book club suggestion that I didn't suggest. Not sure if I'll read it.
Jacob Have I Loved, Katherine Patterson - There is a book discussion group at the Library that is reading this. I checked out the Library copy to myself in case we needed an additional copy for the group. I think I read it years ago.

But Enough About Me...

We discussed The Fig Eater at our most recent book club. Only two of us finished the whole book and one woman read about half of it. It was a strange book, lots of references to gypsies and their superstitions. I would say that overall I didn't like the book, but it was fun to discuss it. There was a lot of "how about that part when the woman did this" and "why would somebody do something like that" and I think the other women at book club that night were wishing they'd read the book so they had some idea what we were talking about. I suggested the three books for next time:

The True & Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters, by Elisabeth Robinson (this is what we're reading)
The Quality of Life Report, Meghan Daum
A Hole in the Universe, Mary McGarry Morris

I've read several other books recently. The first, On Wings of Eagles, by Ken Follett. This book had been on my shelves with the other Ken Follett books and I had assumed it was fiction. I was surprised to find when I started reading it that it was a true story. It was a story about breaking two men out of an Iranian prison. The crazy thing was that they worked for Ross Perot's company and he was the one who decided to pursue the rescue mission after diplomatic efforts failed. It's still not clear why they were detained, but it appears that the Iranian government didn't want to pay for work that had been done and also thought that Perot's company had been involved in bribing officials. I really enjoyed the book and can't believe a movie wasn't made of this crazy story.

I also read But Enough About Me... by Jancee Dunn. This book was laugh out loud funny to me at various points. The parts I enjoyed most were her stories of growing up in New Jersey with her family and some of the interviews that she described. She grew up in the 80s so a lot of the things she described I remembered from my own childhood. It was very funny. She also went to the University of Delaware, which was a coincidence.

This morning I finished Nearlyweds by Beth Kendrick. It was cute and an interesting premise. Three women find out that the paperwork for their weddings wasn't properly filed and they're not really married. Two of the women stay with their "husbands" and one doesn't. It was predictable in that the two I hoped would stay together, did. I enjoyed it though.

Someone posted a link to this on LibraryThing and I thought it might be fun to do. A friend of mine posted this, or something similar, on her blog a while back but I never finished it.

Instructions: In the list of books below, bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won't touch with a ten-foot pole, put a + in front of the ones on your bookshelf and * the ones you've never heard of. The books in regular font I haven't read and am not sure I want to.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) a favourite
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. +The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. +The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. +Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. +Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. +The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. +The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime & Punishment(Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. +War and Peace(Tolstoy)
64. Interview with a Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) -
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) Saw the play, does that count?
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the time of cholera (Marquez)
73. +Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. +Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. +Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. +The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. +The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

The Fugitive Wife, The Calling & The Fig Eater

The last book I read, The Fig Eater by Jody Shields, was the one I liked least of the three most recent books I've read. It's our book club book for this month and we meet on Monday. I finished it much sooner than I usually do b/c another woman in my book club asked to borrow it. There were a lot of things I didn't like about it. I didn't really like a lot of the characters, I didn't like all the flashbacks and the sayings that were spread throughout the book. It just seemed like a lot of different things were thrown together, and then not really followed up on later in the book. I'll be interested to see what other people thought about it on Monday.

I did like both The Fugitive Wife and The Calling. In The Fugitive Wife, by Peter Brown, Essie has run away from her husband and ended up in Alaska. You don't find out until quite a ways into the book why she ran away, and it wasn't as a result of a single, dramatic event. It seems like it built up for her and then after her son died, she had just had enough and couldn't go back. Even though Leonard sounds like an awful husband, I couldn't completely dislike him. When he shows up in Alaska and she chooses to stay with him instead of Nate, I couldn't really blame her for her decision. I wanted to believe that he had changed, and at least wanted to have a good life with Essie. Then again, I wasn't too upset when she ended up going to Nate after all. I skimmed some parts of the book, mainly dealing with the birds, but did enjoy learning about life on the farm and in Nome.

The Calling: A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns by Catherine Whitney was very interesting. I didn't go to Catholic school so I haven't had much experience with nuns. I'm fascinated by them and was interested in learning more about how exactly they live. One thing that surprised me was learning that, at least in the order that she was describing, they did not receive support from the diocese and had to support themselves. One question that she asked that wasn't answered was whether or not this type of life is dying out as fewer and fewer people join these orders. It seems like that will eventually be the case.

I'm not reading anything right now, but have a few books waiting for me at the Library. Hopefully one of them will appeal to me. I have to pick out three books to present at book club on Monday night and really don't have anything in mind yet.

Innocent Man

We discussed Innocent Man by John Grisham at our last book club. I liked it. For the most part it held my interest and I wanted to know what happend, even though the title clearly told you he's innocent. It's so hard to believe that people are convicted, even today, on such flimsy evidence. It seemed that because the police and detectives wanted him to be guilty, he was, regardless of the evidence or lack thereof. What was really interesting was that even at the end, they were still considered suspects! We're reading The Fig Eater by Jody Shields for next month.

The other book I read recently was How This Night is Different, a book of short stories by Elisa Albert. In general, I like short stories and I enjoyed this book. The stories were about different people, all Jewish, and their experiences in life. I'm not Jewish so it was interesting to read about customs and events that are different than what I've experienced.

Currently I'm reading two books One is The Fugitive Wife by Peter Brown about a woman who ran away to Alaska to escape a bad marriage. The other is The Calling: A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns, a memoir by Catherine Whitney. I am Catholic, but didn't go to Catholic school, so I haven't had much experience with nuns. Should be interesting.

I've been reading a lot more lately, partly because I joined the 50 Book Challenge group at LibraryThing. As of January 26th when I started the challenge, I'd read one book. Since then, I've finished seven more and feel like I will probably be able to do it.

Dearly Departed & A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

I recently finished Dearly Departed by Elinor Lipman and A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies by Ellen Cooney. I bought Dearly Departed a while ago at Atlantic Book Warehouse and it's just been sitting on my shelf. I'm not sure why I hadn't read it yet. I've read a few other books by Elinor Lipman and reading this one made me remember why I had enjoyed the others. I like her style of writing and enjoy her dry humor. This wasn't necessarily a funny book, but certain passages made me laugh out loud. She seems to write the way she's thinking and that's something I can never do. My writing always seems dull and stilted to me, and I don't think that's how I'm thinking. If that makes any sense. While I did enjoy it, I was left with a few questions at the end of it. If Miles was paying child support the whole time, why didn't he ever acknowledge that he had a daughter. Sunny never seemed to consider that. I think she would've liked to have had a father.

I didn't like A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies as much as I'd hoped to. The premise is interesting and certainly made me want to read it! The hotel in the title is a women's hotel where the male porters discreetly visit the women guests, if you know what I mean. The book went on too much in Charlotte's head and not enough in the present. I would've liked more development of some of the other characters, the guests at the hotel, Mrs. Petty, Hays. You only saw them from Charlotte's persepctive which wasn't enough.

Right now I'm reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham for book club. We meet next Monday.

Plum Lovin' & Braving Home

I recent finished 2 books, Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich and Braving Home by Jake Halpern. Plum Lovin' is sort of an offshoot of the Stephanie Plum series. This was had a Valentines Day theme and there was another one that had a Christmas theme. I liked this one better than the Christmas one, but I definitely like the numbered books better than either of these. Again, her car didn't blow up which is something I keep waiting for. Someone did get chained in a bathroom which happens quite frequently. Or at least more often than you would imagine it happening.

The second book, Braving Home, was really good. It told the stories of 5 people who lived in what other people might consider impossible to live locations, and have actually stayed there through horrible weather and natural disasters. The one that interested me the most was the man who lived in Grand Isle, Louisiana. He, and others on the island, mentioned Hurricane Betsy and the destruction that came with it many times. They also seemed resigned to the fact that there would be other hurricanes, and that a bad one was due to come sometime soon. This book was written and published pre-Katrina and I can't imagine that much of the island was left after Katrina came through. The few articles I've read say that the residents are rebuilding their homes and their lives. I can't even imagine.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the epilogue. I often wonder when I finish books, even ficition books, what happened to the characters after the book ended. The author went back and revisited each of the 5 people he had spent time with before. All 5 of them were just as determined to stay put in their homes and never leave.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

We had an interesting discussion about The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. A few questions that got everyone talking were:

1. What could Caroline have done differently? Mainly she could have told Norah the truth from the beginning. I think she was right to take the baby instead of leaving her in the institution, and obviously she loved her and raised her well, but she should've told Norah at the start.

2. How would Norah and David's relationship been different if he'd told her the truth? I think Norah would have wanted to raise Phoebe at home. There wouldn't have been this big gulf between them and maybe they would've had a good marriage. Maybe not. In any case, even though she didn't know what was causing the distance between them, Norah realized early on that something was not right and she didn't know how to fix it.

Judy suggested 4 books: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King, The Faith Club, by Ranya Idliby, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and The Innocent Man, by John Grisham. I voted for The Faith Club. We're reading The Innocent Man, so I was obviously outvoted!

I haven't read very much of The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, but I am going to try to finish it. Right now I'm busy with birthday party preparations so I haven't had much free time to read.

Ryan still loves reading. He's made up his own titles for some of his favorites. Very cute. Here are a few titles. Left Foot (The Foot Book, by Dr. Seuss), How Much (Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney), Mother (Are You My Mother, by P.D. Eastman), and La La La (Moo, Baa, La La La!).

Long time

It's been a long time since I posted. I had a rough fall. I didn't read a whole lot and what I did read was mostly a bunch of crap to keep me occupied without making me think too much. I didn't read either of the last 2 book club books, Marley and Me or a book by Anita Shreve that I can't even remember the title of. I'm not much of a dog person, and parts of Marley & Me hit a little too close to home, so I didn't finish it. Anita Shreve is generally kind of a downer, and I just wasn't in the mood, so I skipped that one too. I actually finished this month's book club book ahead of schedule. Usually I'm up late on Sunday night trying to be ready for Monday night's book club. I finished The Memory Keeper's Daughter over Christmas. We meet on Monday night and I'm looking forward to discussing it.

Right now I'm reading The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank. So far so good.