It's a long one...

so I'm still working on The Poisonwood Bible. I wish I was getting through it faster but I've been pretty busy lately. So I'm falling a little behind on my reading spree, but it's ok. I should catch up later when all I have to do is read in the beautiful sunshine of Colorado.

The book is about a Baptist preacher who takes his wife and four young daughters to the Congo on a missionary trip. It is written from the point of view of the mother and four girls, each chapter written by one of them. In one chapter, one of the girls is talking about what the people in their village wear and how there is a man who wears a woman's sweater but doesn't seem to notice.

"But if you think about it, how would he or anyone here ever know it's a lady's sweater? How do I even know? Because of the styling, though it's nothing you could plainly describe. So is it even a lady's sweater, here in the Congo? I wonder."

This quote struck me as something very enlightened. Perhaps something only someone living in a very different world would notice. It's very interesting the things we take for granted or don't even think about but when put in a foreign environment, surrounded by people with different backgrounds and cultural experiences becomes strange and unfamiliar.

It's a great book so far and I look forward to enjoying the rest. Keep you posted.

AN UNUSUAL BEDTIME

I am not an "in bed" reader like Kathy and Christie. I can never get comfortable and I am not able to see clearly enough to read... must be 'old' age. I have however had several rather late nights lately because I have been reading books I couldn't bring myself to put down! Last night, well actually at 2:30 this morning, I managed to drag myself away from the latest Kristin Hannah book that has had me sleepless in Tunbridge.

The first one I read was 'Winter Garden'. I chose it because it was about a Russian woman who had married an American and had 2 daughters with him. Now, he has passed away and she is left,at 80+, to fulfill a promise to complete telling the fairy tale she never finished telling their daughters when they were young. Her children, now in their 40's, never had a close or loving relationship their mother, but they had also made a promise, to get to know her better and to take care of her. The journey that they take together is awesome and interesting. I had trouble putting the book down and it left me hungry for more from this author.

I just blindly picked the next one from Amazon.com's list. "The Things We Do for Love" was again about a relationship that grows and changes between a childless unhappy woman and a motherless (more or less) teenage girl. It was as good as the first one was, full of love and joy and growing, including all the pain that can involve. Again, there were more late nights.

Now I am on the prowl for yet another one....

Nabbed from Karen's blog

I think we all can relate to this!

See Karen's blog here.

Clearing the Nightstand

Like Christie, I go to bed to read and end up reading two or three pages and then I'm out cold. No wonder it is taking me so long to finish anything! Last week I decided my goal was to clear my nightstand, once and for all. I still have about 10 pages of Still Meadow......honestly, I should be ashamed. That book was so enjoyable and it's taking me months to finish. Ridiculous.

I'm also reading Julia Cameron's memoir. Gotta finish it. Jane asked if I've read it yet (she let me borrow the book). I love J.C.'s writing--I've read almost every book she has ever written and they have been life changing. I'll create another post soon so we can talk about life changing books.

The book "I Thought it was Just Me" about shame is half done. I haven't decided if I will finish or if I will give myself permission to remove it from the pile. It has been thought provoking and I have gained some insight into why I feel some of the ways that I do.

I did finish a book called "Creating Time and Space" about making time in your life for art. The book featured several artists and their methods for organizing their life in such a way that they have time to create. I took away a couple of interesting thoughts. First, all of them agreed that a clean house isn't necessary. EEEK! I don't think I can handle that idea. But I also recognize that I will find all kinds of excuses to avoid making something. The second idea was that the creative mind is always thinking--often we obsess about things that we cannot control . Oh boy, is that me! I'm constantly thinking. I have felt I should escape it somehow. Instead the author suggests we replace obessive thoughts with creative ones--like instead of worrying about whether I will die an early death or whether Karen will find the job of her dreams, I need to be thinking about my next art project. I like this idea!

As I finish the books I will give myself a star. I have so many good things to read. Maybe I need to go to bed sooner at night or something.

One more day, one more book...

Turns out, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a very short book. I finished it yesterday without even knowing. I thought it was the end of the book but I wasn't at the end of the physical book. Turns out the rest of it is a few short stories by Truman Capote. So...that was easy. It was good. A cute story.

I was in Kyle's room yesterday and spotted The Poisonwood Bible on his bookshelf so I snatched it. I don't really know anything about it except I've heard good things. So I'll be starting that today. I suspect this one will take a little longer than a day...I'll keep you posted.

Too fast for my own good.

So, I started The Lost Symbol on Saturday and by Wednesday I was a little more than half way through. Well, I am an easy target for Dan Brown's books apparently because I got home Wednesday and got in bed and read for the entire night until I was finished. I would say it was at least 200 pages. Needless to say, I was not as bored with it as Grama was. I do think he did a lot of historical explanations, even more than usual. So it seemed to drag on at points. But I'm a sucker for the way he sets up the chapters so you're left with a cliffhanger at almost every turn. It sucks me right in, just as it is intended to. The story is set in Washington, DC, based around Masonic tradition and involves the CIA and the relationship between science and religion. It definitely took a more religious turn in the end than I would have expected. I wouldn't say it lives up to The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons but I still enjoyed it.

Well, I got through that so fast, I didn't even think about what would be next. It's a gloomy, rainy day today and I had nothing so I caught Paige before she went to work and she gave me Breakfast at Tiffany's so I'll give that a go today. It should be another quick one.

Slow.

My current book (The Naked and The Dead) is going very slowly, though not for lack of interest. It seems like every time I go to bed to read, I end up with the book dropping to the covers because I've dozed off. I'm actually really enjoying the book, so I'm hoping to carve out some time to read that doesn't involve laying down under comfy blankets. Hopefully I'll have it finished before the end of March so I can stay on track!

A "time-ly" quote

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you”

Carl Sandberg (read in “one Simple Act” by Debbie Macomber on 3-2-2010)

a wee post from Mom, Grama, Barbara

Finished

I finished Travels With Charley the other day. Now I'm just sticking with Eat, Pray, Love, though I'll probably finish that this weekend. I might start another one after that, but I have an acting scene I have to memorize so the extra reading might fall by the wayside a little bit. Then again, if it's nice out this weekend, I might make a trek to the library...Maybe find the new Dan Brown book. YEAH!

Anyway, surprisingly, I don't recall really coming across any quotes that really stood out to me in TWC. It seems strange, it was a very beautiful, descriptive book about traveling across the country, but for some reason, there wasn't a lot that I came across and thought, I really need to write that down. There was this one quote I marked, he had just been talking to an actor and said this of the theatre:

"So it went on--a profession older than writing and one that will probably survive when the written word has disappeared. And all the sterile wonders of movies and television and radio will fail to wipe it out--a living man in communication with a living audience."

It was an enjoyable read. I wish I could say more about it than that, but really it was enjoyable. The writing was great, of course, but I can't say I was blown away by it. It was nice.

I'll let you know if anything new comes along this weekend.

Seriously changing gears...

I finished Home yesterday afternoon. I had struggled through it a bit, but I was very pleased with the end. It made the struggle worth it and somehow when it started to wind down, I finally started to gain some deeper understanding of what the book was trying to say.

Here are some quotes I wrote down since last time:

"I am hungry in general. It is the particulars that discourage me." (198)

"How to announce the return of comfort and well being except by cooking something fragrant. That's what her mother always did." (252) - This quote and other parts of the book where food was discussed make me want to cook more and provide that kind of comfort.

"You can hate thoughts. That's interesting. I hate most of my thoughts." (287)

"... the table and sideboard with their leonine legs and belligerently clawed feet, like some ill-considered, doiley-infested species of which they were the last survivors." (299)

"His hair had been brushed into a soft white cloud, like harmless aspiration, like a mist given off by the endless work of dreaming." (304)

"If Jack had been here, he'd have felt that terrible shock of joy- no, worse than joy, peace- that floods in like blood pushing into a limb that has been starved of it, like wild rescue, painful and wonderful and humbling- humiliating as she remembered it becasue she had been so helpless against it." (322)

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The changing gears refers to going from the above book to my next book, which is The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. When I went to the library the other day, none of the books I was looking for on my list were in and so I started to browse. I recognized this title and then remembered it was a book from the Top 100 list. It is a war novel set in the South Pacific during World War II. Definitely a change of scenery from Home, which is about coming back to a home in Gilead, Iowa.