Three!

All of a sudden I have been on a reading kick! Oh, how I love a good book! Of course I can't get anything else done which isn't such a bad thing. After reading "Guernsey" I turned back to a book Mom/Grama let me borrow ages ago called Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah. Oh. My. Goodness. It was such a tearjerker!!!! Heartbreaking!! On the heels of reading a book about the German occupation of the Channel Islands, I read this novel centered around the Siege of Leningrad.

Winter Garden is about an old woman and the promise her daughters make to their dying father to get to know their emotionally distant mother. When they were children, Mom would tell a fairy tale. After their father's death, the daughters learn the true meaning of the story. Get a hanky. It's a doozy! I highly recommend the book.

And then! I read "Thursdays at Eight" by Debbie Macomber. Another "girly" book but a nice escape. I liked how the book's theme is related to a journal group and "words for the year". Since I have made a habit over the last several years of keeping a word for the year, I related to this book. It was an easy, fast and satisfying read, especially for someone like me who wants a happy ending!

I'm glad to hear from Karen about Dune. Grama really knows how to pick 'em! And Christie, I cried just reading the passage from your book....I'm looking forward to hearing what others are reading. Or want to read.

Fallen behind...

Well it's been how long and I'm not even halfway through Dune. I guess that's not such a bad thing because it means I have a lot of other things going on, but I love reading and I just wish I had more time to do it. Especially now that I have plenty of new books on my shelf. I do have those flights home and back so I should get plenty of reading in then.

I am enjoying Dune. I love sci-fi and fantasy books so much because they create this whole new world that I never could have imagined. Part of my reason for reading is to escape and reading books like this means escaping into a place that is new and exciting and full of impossibilities, which makes it all the more enjoyable.

Hopefully I'll start getting more reading in and so be more active on this blog, because I do enjoy sharing and I definitely enjoy reading about what everyone else is discovering in the book world. So I am still here and I do hope other people start reappearing too!

Bye Bye Sweet By and By

I finished The Sweet By and By last night. It was an excellent book! The story revolves around five women in North Carolina, each telling their own part of the story, which mostly takes place in a nursing home. Each chapter is from the perspective of one of the five women – two are “patients,” one is a nurse, one is the daughter of the nurse, and the last is the hairdresser who visits the home once a week.

Pretty much, I love books about women, and I highly recommend this one. However, I will caution that parts of it are sad and if you’re uncomfortable with the topic of getting old, you might want to skip it. Though really, I encourage you to read it anyway.

As I love books about women, especially the powerful bond between women, their friendship, and their strength, the quote below (from the perspective of the nurse’s daughter) especially struck me:

“I studied the circle of women, now encompassing my mother as one of their number, young and old, family and neighbors, perhaps single, married, widowed. It is as though they arrived on a timetable, like a flock of migratory birds, their schedule neither agreed upon in advance nor communicated, as much as felt in the subtle change of the seasons. This is simply what they do. They come. They are called to stand watch, oddly, with no male presence. It is perhaps not that the men, with few exceptions, can’t take the pain. It’s the ambiguity that they can’t abide. And there is that to be sure, endless hours of waiting. Surely these stately creatures are the same everywhere, perched around every bed where someone lies helpless. They arrive one at a time, or in pairs, and they bring smiles and stories and concerned brows and open hearts, and most of all they bring time, they have all the time in the world, poured out like water, crystalline and pure. They lower their shoulders, they place their purses on chairs, and they assume their places, familiar by instinct, either sitting or standing, circling the sick with wings of prayer and patience, protectors and mediators, watchers, slow and graceful, with the singular purpose of a great blue heron wading in shallow water, saving all effort for when it is most needed, the split second at which it catches a swimming fish in its beak, finally lifting off in flight, with no regard to the weight it carries, rising, as hope must, lighter than human breath.”

Seriously, this quote standing alone almost makes me cry, nevermind it’s relevance to the storyline. It’s beautiful. I especially love it because it’s written by a man, who obviously appreciates the power and grace of women.

The next book I’ve got on the agenda (The Center of Everything, by Laura Moriarty) is also about women, but it is kind of the opposite of The Sweet By and By as it revolves around characters much younger, who are just finding their way instead of coming to the end of it.

And since this post is extremely long, I'm going to shut up now. I hope you all are getting in plenty of good reading!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I loved it. I read it on vacation and it reminded me of why I love to read. The time on the airplane flew by (no pun intended!)

The book was beautifully written. The characters developed as they were introduced through letters. Some of the story was heartbreaking--the telling of the occupation of the Channel Islands (in the English Channel) by the Germans during WWII. Some of the story was warm and funny and romantic.

Since I don't have to finish a book to write about it, the book I am reading now is Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah. I've just started it but I am intrigued by the fairy tale at the center of the story. It was the first Kristen Hannah book Grama/Mom read (I think) and it caused an avalanche of Kristen Hannah books to be consumed. Which ones has everyone read?

Seeking vacation destination? Try Guernsey!!

The Isle of Guernsey that is!! I just finished reading the BEST vacation, read on the plane for fun book..."The Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"!

The characters were warm and wonderful; the story was interesting; the setting was different than my usual; it was written as letters from one character to another and there was a love story wound up in it as well.

I LOVED IT!!

I LOVE LUSTBADER!!!

I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading Eric Lustbader! I love his dark sided characters, his twisted plots, his exotic settings and his page turning writing. Although I have not read one YET, he is the perfect author to continue the writing of the Bourne series, in my opinion any way.

I have just finished reading a two-book series of his about the beat friend and close confidant of the US president, and the relationship he has with the president's daughter. (NOT THAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP!!). The first book is 'First Daughter" and the second is "Last Snow". You really need to read them in order as one builds from the other. They are full of intrigue and danger, brainwashing and its results, spy masters and spies, Russians and criminals and diplomats and a serial killer or so. They have some sex and some torture and alot of fast turning pages! My kind of book!!

I have them to loan if anyone is interested in borrowing......

No Summer Sisters

As I expected, I didn't have much time for reading over the weekend. We were busy doing other wonderful things! This means I didn't get Summer Sisters started, and now I've decided to skip it and move onto another book called The Sweet By and By by Todd Johnson. It was recommended on a blog I love and so I'm going to give it a try... I'm even going to buy a copy! Well, mainly because they don't have it at the library, or else I'd get it for free. Fortunately, I have a good coupon for Borders, so I'll be picking it up tomorrow at lunch time.

Awesome.

I finished The Amber Spyglass, which completes the His Dark Materials series. The series as a whole was amazing, though I was a little disappointed with the last bit of the last book. It seemed like after all they had been through that the ending was a bit anticlimactic… but maybe that’s because I already had an idea of what would happen.

I still really enjoyed the story and the characters and the creativity. There were points in the last book where I was practically in tears, others where I was on edge wondering what would happen, and finally a bit disappointed because even though the characters were experiencing a lot of emotion, I wasn’t really "feeling it."

There were a couple things I do wish I had written down while I was reading, but I can’t find them now trying to look back through. Darn it, I should have known better than to think I could go back, but it’s hard to stop reading when the story is so awesome!

Moving forward, I’ve decided to read some stuff I have at the condo instead of getting books out of the library when I bring these last two back. I think I’ll start with something I’ve already read (years ago) - Summer Sisters by Judy Blume - because it will be a fun, easy read for me while I’m in RI camping and hopefully going to the beach this weekend.

The Subtle Knife - Finished

I am glad to hear from Karen- especially about her reading of the His Dark Materials series! I suppose I am not reading the series with the controversy in mind, meaning it's not affecting my enjoyment, but I do see where a controversy could stem from. And although I don't agree with a complete overhaul of creation and of the relationship we have with God verses what we know as Christians, I do find the story and characters extremely fascinating.

I finished The Subtle Knife before I left for VT and started The Amber Spyglass, which is the last book in the series. I have already been introduced to some amazing creatures in one new world, and the story line continues to build up to what I'm sure will be a grand battle and finale.

Do Not Recommend

I finished The Book of Air and Shadows and just to let you know how much I enjoyed it, when I read the last word, I threw it across the kitchen. I realize I could have just stopped reading it at any time, but I have a weird thing with not finishing things and I just had to, so I stuck it out. I was thinking it would be more Dan Brown-esque and it really wasn't. The kind of story was similar, but the way it was told and the actual storyline etc. did not live up to Dan Brown's work at all. It didn't flow that well and it wasn't that interesting and it was a little more pornographic than I thought was necessary. Needless to say, I do not recommend this one. Just steer clear.

Grama sent me the Dune series so I've just started on the first one. I really don't have much time to read nowadays but starting in July I should have a better time of it. I'll try to keep up though, I did so well at the beginning of the year. Anyway, this one seems like it's right up my alley so I'll probably post more about it, at least more positively.

Christie: I have read the whole Dark Materials series and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I also read them without knowing there was such a big controversy surrounding them and I did not catch on to that at all when I read them. But I'm a little dim sometimes, and just don't always think that deeply about things. I just read them as really fascinating, creative and unique fantasy stories, which is just the kind of thing I enjoy. I'm glad you're enjoying them. They are definitely books that I would recommend to anyone.