It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  D  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too!  As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme.  I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited.  **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

Last weeks winner:

Nancy at Amusing Reviews


(**By the way I was nosing around Nancy’s blog earlier when I was working on this link and find her posts delightful!  Her Amusing Mother blog had me laughing…)

WOO HOO!!!!  Please choose an item out of the Reading Cafe Grab Shelves  and email me your choice with your mailing address as well!   journeythroughbooks@gmail.com

**Updates have been made to the Reading Cafe Grab shelves!

What a week of pretty much nothing on the book front.  I am putting up a pathetic goose egg for the week.

Yup.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada. Nothing.  ZIP.

I don’t think that has happened since I have been doing this meme 92 weeks ago (yup… that’s an accurate count)… it’s not that I have not been reading it’s that there has been no time to write posts.  Let me do a brief recap of my week this past 7 days:

Last Sunday – came home exhausted after the MS 150 bike ride and my accident that took me and my bike out of the tour

Monday:  Worked until 2 pm… ran errands, doctor visit, and then to help with registration for our Summer Kids Camp at church from 4:30 – 7:30 pm

Tuesday – worked until 3 pm, ran to grab a couple of things after work, 5:30 back to do registration again, stayed until 7 pm, ran late to my book club and then home at 9 pm to pack for Chicago.

*Note:  Remember I am doing all of this in an arm cast and pain meds. 

Wednesday:  Girls (Cindy, Sara, and Heidi) meet at my house at 7 am where we leave for our Chicago road trip.  Drive all day (I sleep a lot of it) and arrive in Milwaukee Wisconsin at 9 pm.  We find a hotel, eat dinner at 10:30 pm and then to hotel to bed by midnight.

Thursday:  Drive the hour and a half more to Chicago and spend the day on the Navy Pier, walking, touring, boat ride…  find hotel at 9 pm for the night, again eat dinner about 10:00 pm and back to hotel – exhausted.  (post and pics here)


Friday: up and back to Navy Pier where we leave the car for the day and take the Double Decker Tour bus which is a lot of fun to all the sites and stops.  Spend entire day touring Chicago – eat lunch at Gino’s pizza and get back to car about 7 pm, drive back to hotel by 8:30 pm… too tired to do anything, we all pass out by 10:00 pm.  (post and pics and FOOD here)


Saturday:  Up and drive to Wisconsin Dells…. a little shopping along the way, we make it to the Dells around 6 pm.  Find hotel and walk the strip from 7 – 10 pm taking in the shops and sights.  Grab dinner on the way back to hotel, get to sleep around midnight.

Sunday – Up and packed, out of hotel by 9:00 am, hit the cheese store and Dunkin’ Donuts on the way out of town.  Drive back to Brainerd Minnesota and get here around 5:20 pm. Spend time with hubby for Fathers Day!

I read most of Forever by Maggie Stiefvater in the car today and plan to finish it yet tonight. 

So…. uhhh…. yeah.  Honestly – I found no time to post.  Shoot, I still have audio posts to do from audio week.  (Yes, that was not two weeks ago)…  😯

BUT – I think things will settle down again now.  My traveling is over for the next couple of months.  I will see the doctor tomorrow to see if I can go to a smaller cast.  With my arm all banged up, I have suspended my kick boxing account and will not be doing Group Power at the YMCA anytime soon….  I am going to resort to tread mill, elliptical and rollerblading for a while and hopefully soon my bike which is currently being loved on at the bike repair shop. 

All that said…. here is what I would like to do this week:

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave–“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”–wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Yes.  This was my book club read for June.  Yes…. book club met last week.  I was behind.  With New York and the accident…. I could not find a copy, then it came into the library in audio the day of our review.  I picked it up, but have not finished it yet.  It is only 4 CD’s and I am through one….

The three Beauchamp women–Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid–live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret–they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. Joanna can resurrect people from the dead and heal the most serious of injuries. Ingrid, her bookish daughter, has the ability to predict the future and weave knots that can solve anything from infertility to infidelity. And finally, there’s Freya, the wild child, who has a charm or a potion that can cure most any heartache.

For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it’s time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.

Yup…. this was on my list last week.  Did not even touch it.  Try try again this week 😛

With buoyant humor and incisive, cunning prose, Rahul Mehta sets off into uncharted literary territory. The characters in Quarantine—openly gay Indian-American men, while struggling to maintain relationships with their families and cultural traditions. Grappling with the issues that concern all gay men—social acceptance, the right to pursue happiness, and the heavy toll of listening to their hearts and bodies—they confront an elder generation’s attachment to old-country ways. Estranged from their cultural in-group and still set apart from larger society, the young men in these lyrical, provocative, emotionally wrenching, yet frequently funny stories find themselves quarantined.


Rosalind is not your typical princess she and her pet dragon, Sparkler, are very rude. “What’s the big deal with manners anyway?” the princess asks. “Why do we always have to say please and thank you? And who cares how we use a napkin?”

Appalled by this behavior, the queen banishes the impolite pair from her castle until they find Good Manners. Percival, the wizard, sends them on their quest with the help of a magic fork, facing several challenges along the way. Not until the final test do Rosalind and Sparkler discover the real secret behind Good Manners.

Manners are more than mere rules of etiquette good manners make others feel at ease and are the foundation of compassion and gratitude. It is a never-ending quest for parents and teachers to instill in our children the importance of good manners.

I met this author at BEA last month.  She was struggling to find bloggers who reviewed children’s books.  I do not do many, mainly because I do not have them (the books or the children), but I do love a good children’s read.  I do have a few now in my possession that I hope to start reviewing on a more regular basis. 

I think that is enough for this week.  I know many of you told me to rest and heal last week and honestly it was probably my busiest week of the year next to my week at BEA in New York.  I can honestly tell you I feel the exhaustion and plan to take it easier this week.  I have a meeting Wednesday evening and a gathering where I am supposed to be kayaking on Thursday but we shall see…. 😀 

Anyway – I hope to get around to see most if not all of you through your Monday post so please add your link below to where it says “click here”.  It’s now your turn to share It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading?  😛

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104 thoughts on “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?”

  2. I am really curious about Witches of East End. I haven’t read the author’s previous books, but I would like to try this one.
    Happy Reading!

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  3. You have really been crazy-busy, haven’t you? It’s good to take a breather now and then….

    Thanks for sharing your week. The Witches of East End looks good.

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  5. Your weeks are always so busy I am surprised you have time to read at all, but glad you do. 🙂 I adored The Last Lecture. Happy reading Sheila.

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    2. Jennifer, just tried to go to your blog and receive a message that it has been corrupted or hacked. I hope you are not going through what I wnt through last week!!

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      1. Thanks Dollycas. I have my server checking my blog, I am not picking up any issues, but I am having them double check. Thanks for the heads up.

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  9. I’ve been convinced to give The Hunger Games Trilogy a try. I also have Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannahon my night table and for some frivolous reading Janet Evanovich’s Smokin’ Seventeen.

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    1. Kerri I do not think you will be disappointed! I just loaned the series to my friend and she, her husband, and her 13 year old daughter all read and loved them. 🙂

      Firefly Lane will make you mad, and it will make you cry…. fair warning 🙂

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      1. Thanks for the warning. 🙂

        I was told that the first two books were emotionally taxing so that’s why I decided to throw in a just for entertainment read to help me regroup.

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  11. I’ve been seeing Witches of East End around lately. I’ll watch for your review.
    Quest for Good Manners looks adorable! Enjoy your week as you continue to heal!

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  12. I like the cover of Witches of East End and I’m going to have to look into getting Quarantined since it sounds really good. Have a great week and I hope you are feeling better.

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  13. What a hectic week, I do hope you’ll start to feel a bit more like your old self when things settle down and you get to take it easy. Pain meds always make me feel like doing very little 🙂
    I had a week of little reading, no reviewing and no blog visiting … too much going on but sometimes life is like that lol
    I do review kids books so I’ll be interested to see what you think of Quest For Good Manners.

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  14. You know what? To be honest, I’m so happy you didn’t find time to post. It actually makes me feel better about taking a day off here and there. Granted, I’m not in a sling & cast, but still there seems to always be that pressure. But I’m glad you were able to still have an enjoyable (busy) week and help me see there’s more to book blogging than posting every blasted day. Thanks! 🙂

    Now, all that being said…I hope you find time this week to post and get in a few of the great books on your list! Feel better and have a fabulous reading week!

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  15. From all your posts this week it seemed like you were super busy, so it totally makes sense that you read nada this week. 😉

    I can’t wait to see what you think of The Witches of East End, I’m so excited to read that one! 😀

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  16. I think if you have told the Dr what you had planned for last week he would have put you on bedrest 🙂

    Here’s to a quieter week.

    carol

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      1. I completely agree with that! I have another busy week with a weekend away. My mom, sisterm niece and I are going for a girls weekend. Hoping to get some reading done at the pool. 🙂

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  26. Glad you had a great trip with the girls! I had a great week of reading, but really need to get some things done around here! I am going to *gasp* not read for two days except at night in order to get them done.

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  29. I loved The Last Lecture – puts everything into perspective. I listened to this a few years ago while hiking in the rockies… wow.

    The audio has an interview with the author at the end of the book, I highly recommend listening if this is an option for you.

    Glad you are on the mend – sounds like you had a wonderful weekend in Chi-town.

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  30. What a hectic week! Now wonder you didn’t get much done in the book world. Hope things settle down for you this week!

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  32. What a crazy week for you! That manners book sounds cute. It’s funny because I find it hard to get children’s books for review. It seems like if you mention children’s books, it’s all YA, which I don’t read. My kids are young so we read a lot of actual children’s books, but they’re usually from the library.

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  36. That’s a busy week even if you were at your best! I hope you’re healing well and get some rest this week. I gave The Last Lecture book to one of my nephews as a graduation present and read it first. I liked it, but not quite as much as actually watching the video of the lecture which I found incredibly moving.

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  37. I thought maybe you were down this way to check out the big Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books on Friday and Saturday. I have to plan better for next year. That event is one close enough for me to travel. Gad you had a great trip but seriously take it easy this week. You need to heal!!

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  39. Just read your bike tour post… Ouch! I hope you’re healing well. Sounds like you’ve had a busy week despite the injuries! Remember to take some time out for yourself.

    If you’re interested, I’ve got a giveaway going on on my blog 🙂

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  41. Quest for Good Manners looks like a fun little book! It looks like you have been really busy this past week, I hope you have some time for relaxation and healing soon!

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  42. Seems like forever since I last participated in this meme! Looks like your keeping busy and reading some good books. Take care of your arm, hope its getting better!
    Natalie :0)

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  44. Some weeks are super busy like that! It sounds as though you had a fun week, even in a cast! 🙂 Witches of East End is one that I’ve been looking at; think I may already have it on my wishlist! Enjoy your upcoming week!

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  45. Holy macaroni Sheila, you never slow down! The trip to Chicago looks like it was so much fun-thanks for sharing the photos. That pizza was crazy-huge! My favorite book last week was Anne Patchett’s wonderful State of Wonder.

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    1. Crazy busy at times Jenners. I do not like being that busy as it exhausts me and I burn out. i am about there right now but it looks like a smooth weekend, one I am looking forward to. Maybe rent a movie, read a book, take the dogs for a walk…

      Reply

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