Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Februrary Book Photo Challenge Days 3 and 4

February Book Photo Challenge (from Books and Cupcakes)

Day Three: Made Me Cry

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
 - Truly amazing historical fantasy novel. It delves into the legends surrounding Dracula, but that only scratches the surface of the experience of reading it. I read this book in college and then again a few years later and it had the same emotional impact it did the first time I read it. The ending is beautiful and tragic so you know it's among my favorites of all time.



Day Four: Couldn't Put Down

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
 - I think Stephen King is one of the greatest living American authors although he's rarely credited as such. (What's so wrong with being prolific or writing mainly horror anyway?)
 - This book is about a young girl who takes a wrong turn while out hiking with her family. The rest of the book follows her as she attempts to survive in the wilderness, and evade a nameless horror that is hunting her.
 - It's beautiful and haunting and, yeah, a bit terrifying. As with most King novels, I couldn't put it down because I was too scared not to find out what happened next!

Monday, February 2, 2015

February Book Photo Challenge

February Book Photo Challenge (from Books and Cupcakes)
Day One: Reading This Month
(Yes, I'm one day behind. Shh.)
 

In a bit more detail...

Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner by Michael M. Baden, M.D. with Judith Adler Hennessee
- My boyfriend's mom loaned me this after we binge-watched a bunch of Forensic Files together. I'm on chapter five right now and I love it. Totally fascinating, if somewhat morbid.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- I'm reading this with my BFF. She bought a gorgeous copy from the Folio Society and because we wanted to challenge each other to read new things this years... Ta da. We're a little more than halfway done and it is surprisingly boooooring. Also the protagonist is a moron.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
- This is the first time I've read this since I was a girl myself. Still gut-wrenching and wonderful.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
- I bought this years ago, devoured half of it instantly, started my own "Feel Better" blog, and a month later decided it was all too hokey to do much with. I'm finally making myself finish it. Gretchen has good ideas and good lessons to learn from, but she is a bit hokey. There, I said it.

Scarlet and Cress by Marissa Meyer
- I read Cinder in a weekend in December. I thought it was fun and the world has a lot of possibilities. Now that I'm a few chapters into Scarlet, I think this series is going to disappoint me in its lack of true scope. I'll let you know when I finish.

The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman
- Checked this one out from the library to read over winter break. Much heavier than I was expecting. But some solid writing. I'm still enjoying it, but final verdict is still forthcoming.

If I don't finish all of these books this month, somebody should pinch me really hard. I've been reading a least half of this pile for months now. Ugh.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

July Book Photo Challenge


I love the monthly book photo challenges over at Books and Cupcakes - so I decided to do July's!

You can check it out on my Tumblr. :)

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Teaser Tuesday: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic



Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

---

From my current read (as I described yesterday), The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker. Here is the first line:

Much later, Nora would learn magic for dissolving glue or killing vermin swiftly and painlessly or barring mice from the house altogether, but that morning--the last normal morning, she later thought of it--as she padded into the kitchen in search of coffee, she was horribly at a loss when she saw the small brown mouse wriggling on the glue trap in front of the sink.
See, this is why I couldn't not check this book out from the library! What a great first line.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Recent Reads

Book review time!

I've been making decent progress on my GoodReads Challenge this year (see sidebar). The two most recent novels to hit my "Read" pile are Jim Butcher's newest addition to the Dresden Files, Skin Game, and Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl.


Skin Game was great and definitely in keeping with Butcher's previous success with this series about Harry Dresden, Chicago's wizard PI. I'm not going to give a detailed review for fear of spoiling potential readers (or those who don't read books in the 24 hours after they are released!). But I will say this this one cracked my top five list for The Dresden Files. Somehow he continues to top his own Crowning Moments of Awesome. In this book, we return to my favorite antagonists - the Denarians. And we get something of a classic heist plot - but with all of Butcher's insane twists and turns.

If you do read this series and you're interested in my top five, here they are:
1. Turn Coat #11
2. Dead Beat #7
3. Cold Days #14
4. Changes #12
5. Skin Game #15


Fangirl is the first book by Rainbow Rowell that I have read. I picked it up in Barnes and Noble one day because of the title, and as soon as I read the first two pages I knew I needed to devour the whole thing. This book basically describes my own transition from high school to college as a Harry Potter fangirl and fanfic writer. Well, I didn't have as much drama in my life as protagonist Cath seems to, but I definitely had the introverted writerly reaction to finding myself in a place that no longer valued all of the things I placed such a premium on when I was getting myself through high school.

The negative: I did feel it was a bit melodramatic at times. I also closed it with the feeling that Rowell missed some opportunities in the wrap-up at the end. Again, I won't go into detail for fear of spoilers, but there were some Big Important Plot Things that seemed to get swept under the rug at the end.

The positive: It was extremely evocative of the time of life it described. The language was stellar. And I really loved how we got the full gamut of reactions to fanfiction from the various characters (but most of all from Cath's creative writing professor which is the one that most of us who got our "start" writing fanfic get).


To sum up: Both of these books gets 4/5 stars from me. Satisfying reads, but each had minor issues that I really believe their authors are good enough to have resolved. Otherwise, these both would've made it to my favorites shelf!


Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Teaser Tuesday: The Beauty Bride



Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Current read: The Beauty Bride by Claire Delacroix

Synopsis: Alexander has a problem. It's that he has to marry off his sister Madeline, who has refused to ever wed. Madeline's betrothed died on the same boat as their parents and she won't even discuss it. So Alexander is forced to take matters into his own hands by auctioning Madeline off. He never intended Rhys Fitzhenry to take part. Rhys is a warrior who has fought the king to gain land. Clever and resourceful, he knows he needs an heir, and this auction is the perfect way to get one. Furious that her brother would dare auction her off, Madeline flees...but Rhys won't be cast aside so easily. Can this strong and witty warrior catch his impetuous and bold bride?

Teaser:
Rhys had always found women somewhat incomprehensible and a goodly amount of trouble. It was small consolation that his new wife proved his earlier conclusions to be valid.

I picked this up for free on my Kindle. (I am always looking for free romance novels to read via the Kindle app on my phone when I'm caught somewhere without a book.) For a historical romance with a pretty insane premise, its main characters are rather endearing. I'll say more about it when I finish it!

Monday, May 12, 2014

Musing Monday: A home without books is no home at all!




Musing Mondays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Just muse about one of the following each week:

Describe one of your reading habits.
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!
Last week I mused about how I am a "messy" reader - and got some interesting responses. It seems a lot of people fall into extremes with their reading style, either being messy like me or neat as a pin like my dear BFF.

This week, I think I'll continue to muse about my reading habits. After all, the best part about a blog is talking about yourself!

Reading Habit #2

Before I talk about my reading habit, I think we need some background information. Because not only do I think a well-worn book is a well-loved book... I also think a house that looks more like a library is the only kind of house for me. Fortunately for me, my boyfriend agrees! Our house currently has six standalone bookcases, and at least five shelves on other pieces of furniture that I have turned into bookcases. There are regularly piles of books on both coffee tables, both of our nightstands, the filing cabinet in my office, the end table in the living room, and sometimes the kitchen table.

Of course, we spend a lot of time in the Barnes and Noble cafe reading books we don't own as well.
 ...we own a lot of books. I counted all of them when we first moved in together (and actually took them all out of boxes) and we had four hundred and some odd books. That was three years ago. Since then, we've moved into an actual house and managed to rescue nearly all of the books that remained at our respective parents' houses. I wanted to count our new collection when we put up the bookshelves here... But it was far too daunting a task. I would assume we own over a thousand books now.

Yep. And they are in every room of the house EXCEPT the bathrooms. Which is silly because we both definitely read in the bathroom! (Maybe that can be the subject of another Musing Monday.)

I took this picture when I had finished counting all the books we had in our first apartment together.
So, my second reading habit is this: I delight in finding new places to read in much the same way that I am always looking for new places to write. Having bookcases all over the house really aids in this venture. I can say with certainty that I've lived here for less than a year and I have spent time reading in each and every room of the house - as well as on the porch and the deck out back!

Are you like me, always seeking the next reading nook? Or do you like to curl up in the same chair every time you open a book?

As for me... I'm so intrigued by listing all of my book-y assets that I'm thinking some pictures of my collection might be in order soon...

Friday, May 9, 2014

Friday Finds

This is another meme from Should Be Reading

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased). 

I am constantly adding books to my TBR list. Recent examples from haunting our local Barnes & Noble:







All by Paula Brackston. You can guess why I'm interested in these. (Hint: I really like stories about witches.) I actually checked out The Witch's Daughter from the library, but got caught up in reading other things and didn't get to it. For what it's worth, the first two chapters were beautifully written. I hope I can get back to it sometime soon.

Also stumbled across these YA books via Youtube reviews and thought they sounded good:

The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith

Has anyone else read any of these and have feelings about them?