It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

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.  You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

Last weeks winner (using Random.Org) was:

TBA (I did not have time to pick yet)

Congratulations!  Please choose an item out of the PRIZE BOX and email me your choice with your mailing address as well!   journeythroughbooks@gmail.com

 

It has been a whirlwind of a week.  Chance has been staying with us since last Sunday and I have been prepping all week to get ready to go to Honduras this Wednesday.  In a nut shell (and that term is perfect) I have been running in several different directions this week and unfortunately reading didn’t always get on the agenda.


Here is my week in review:


Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows A Movie Adventure (Have you seen it?  Have you seen it?)


Don’t Sing At The Table… Life Lessons From My Grandmother by Adriana Trigiani (Book review – OH WOW!)


The GaMeS BiBlE by Leigh Anderson (Hey board gamers and card players – this is a “must have” book!


Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman (an audio review that is totally SSQQQUUUUEEEE worthy!)


Coffee and Fate by RJ Erbacher (a review of a book that still is making me wonder….)

The Secret Is Out… It Is I Who Has The Invisibility Cloak (my real tale of a recent shopping experience)

This week I have finally picked the three books that will go on the plane with me and the two audio books on my IPOD:

From the author of the bestselling The Good Women of China comes the uplifting story of three sisters who, like so many migrant workers in today’s China, leave their peasant community to seek their fortune in the big city.The Li sisters don’t have much education, but one thing has been drummed into them: their mother is a failure because she hasn’t managed to produce a son, and they themselves only merit a number as a name. Women, their father tells them, are like chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken. Men, on the other hand, are the strong rafters that hold up the roof of a house. Yet when circumstances lead the sisters to seek work in distant Nanjing, the shocking new urban environment opens their eyes. While Three contributes to the success of a small fast-food restaurant, Five and Six learn new talents at a health spa and a bookshop/tearoom. And when the money they earn starts arriving back at the village, their father is forced to recognise that daughters are not so dispensable after all.

In 1967, not long after the Six Day War, three young Arabs ventured into the town of Ramla, in Jewish Israel. They were on a pilgrimage to see their separate childhood homes, from which their families had been driven out nearly twenty years before during the Israeli war for independence. Only one was welcomed: Bashir Al-Khayri was greeted at the door by a young woman named Dalia.

This act of kindness in the face of years of animosity and warfare is the starting point for a remarkable true story of two families, one Arab, one Jewish; an unlikely friendship that encompasses the entire modern history of Israelis and Palestinians and that holds in its framework a hope for true peace and reconciliation for the region.

In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran’s sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari’s stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah’s secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice…

 

A young woman appears in a small NC town. She makes one friend, a woman who lives nearby, but other than that, she keeps to herself. Soon, however, a series of events pulls her into the circle of a local merchant, a widower with two children, and against her better judgment, she finds herself drawn to him and letting down her carefully constructed guard.

For this women has a secret, a secret that has forced her to hide her identity, run as far away as she can from home, and escape a past that still haunts and terrifies her.

It is inevitable that her past will catch up with her-in the form of an abusive husband who refuses to let her go. But what remains unknown is whether she will allow herself to love and trust again, and to what extent her husband will go to ensure that she’ll have a future…but only if it includes him…

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman’s love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

I hope in the next ten days to accomplish getting through all of these between the plane time and hopefully some down time between our travels.

There will be a It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading? Next week – I am pre-setting the post.  AND I hope you will stop by after Wednesday and check out the wonderful bloggers who have shared a Christmas story with you as well as a book recommendation.

I am excited to see what you are reading!  Please add your post to the LINKY below where it says click here.


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

  1. Your list this week did BAD THINGS to my TBR list, Sheila! Those first three books look AMAZING, I listened to Safe Haven this past week and A Thousand Splendid Suns left me speechless – I’m positive you will rave over it (I liked it better than The Kite Runner).

    Fantastic list this week and I envy you for it! I have some mandatory reading to get out of the way and wish I could just swap lists with you!

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  3. I still haven’t posted a review of Harry Potter…I can’t decide if I should yet or not! I need to pop over and see yours 🙂

    Have a fabulous time in Honduras, and please be careful – a friend of mine just recovered from cholera he picked up in Tanzania, so I am super worried about people traveling overseas right now!

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  4. Oh, I hope you have a fabulous trip! It sounds like so much fun and I’m sure you’re going to enjoy so much of your time there.

    I loved your review of Don’t Sing at the Table and completely agree! I loved her tribute to her grandmothers as well. It was such an unexpected read for me. I never would have imagined I’d enjoy it as much as I did.

    Have a fabulous week and a spectacular trip! Can’t wait to hear back about how it goes!

    Reply

    1. I agree Danielle, I thought I would enjoy the book but was surprised by how much I became engaged in it.

      Once I get going I will be good…. its the “pre trip” that gets me all nervous and plan crazy…. 😀

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  5. Hi, I added 3 books. 2 are giveaways I have for Christmas books and they end in the next couple of days. Also I did a review for Dancing in the Snow which is a YA book perfect for teens.

    Thanks for the linky.

    Tina “The Book Lady”

    Reply

  6. I have to come back and check some of your reviews. A Wow and Squeee are always worth checking out! I hope you have a wonderful and safe trip. (Nice to get away from the cold too.)
    Enjoy your reading and listening.
    Martha

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  11. Hey Sheila. I always enjoy reading your reading schedule for the week because you pick great books. 🙂 Thousand Splendid Suns looks interesting though I haven’t read The Kite Runner. Looking forward to your review.

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  12. Have a fantastic time in Honduras! I’m hoping you love A Thousand Splendid Suns enough to squee over it and inspire me to lift my copy off the bookshelf LOL
    So glad you loved Saving CeeCee, I’m off to check out your review 🙂

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  13. for many reasons, some of them good, some not – I didn’t finish one book – not one. I did however, read a bit of quite a few…:)

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  16. I read Safe Haven and loved it – I hope you enjoy it. Your other books look really good, too – especially Miss Chopsticks and Rooftops of Tehran.

    Have a safe trip to Honduras – my mom went there a few years ago to build houses with Habitat for Humanity and loved it!

    I also have a giveaway going on if you want to stop by and enter it!

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    1. Thanks Kristen! I have been on a work team that has went there every year since 2004 but this trip is a different one and instead of working we will be exploring different mission areas. 🙂

      OOH – a giveaway! I am going to have to check that out!

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  17. What wonderful books you are taking with you! I liked Lemon Tree, but LOVED A Thousand Splendid Suns. And Rooftops of Tehran sounds really good. I can’t wait to see what you think of all 3

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    1. Lemon Tree was suggested to me by a friend over a year ago and as I tend to do – I rushed right out and bought it and then put it on my shelf…. since that friend will be one of the people going with me to Honduras – she will be thrilled to see I brought it along! 😀

      Reply

  18. Wow! You have several incredible-looking books on your list…and Safe Haven is one Nicholas Sparks book that I’ll be reading at some point.

    Have a great trip, but hope to interact with you some more before you go.

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  21. I’m in the middle of Deeper than Dead (Tami Hoag) and enjoying it. Loved A Thousand Splendid Suns (more of a women’s book than The Kite Runner). I really must stop reading so much and get something done around the house!

    Be safe in Honduras and enjoy your trip.

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  22. I love Xinran’s books – Chopsticks is the only book of hers that I haven’t read yet actually.

    I am dying to read The Lemon Tree – I used to live in Israel (only for 2 years) but I am fascinated by books set there and this one is top of my list; I have heard great things about it.

    My mum has been on at me for ages about reading A Thousand Splendid Suns too! She is sure I will love it!

    Have fun on your trip, Sheila 🙂

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  24. What a nice little selection of international lit! I had a couple already on my wish list and am now adding the others to it as well.
    Also just read your ‘invisibility cloak’ story. Too funny, but also very sad the complete lack of customer service.
    Have a fabulous trip!

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  25. Another Monday is here, time to make the best of it. Let’s see…yes, I saw HP7 part 1…and loved it. ^_^ SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT…well the book was fantastic so the audio being so doesn’t surprise me. Wow on the shopping experience…just wow. Of your upcoming reads…quite a mix there….enjoy! I’m currently reading JUGGLER IN THE WIND and EUPHEMANIA. Interesting combo yes…but both have their high points. Happy reading!

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  26. I envy your reading list. I’ve read several of Xinran’s books, but Mrs. Chopsticks is not available in Norway (as far as I know).

    Nicholas Sparks is one of my favourite authors and I’m collecting his books in English:)

    Have a good week!

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  28. I completely understand about being so busy – we just returned from a week away.

    Looks like you have a nice line-up of books for your trip – a very international selection, perfect for traveling! A Thousand Splendid Suns is an amazing book – very moving (disturbing at times but ultimately uplifting and hopeful).

    Enjoy your trip!

    Sue

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  31. This is my first time here! Don’t sing at the Table is definitely on my TBR list. Saving Cee Cee was one of my favorite books this year and I am listening to Safe Haven now and loving it!

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  33. I have had Miss Chopsticks on my wish list for a while. I am waiting for a copy on PWS. I decided I want to read it but not enough to pay for a new copy. lol 🙂

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  37. I bought The Rooftops of Tehran just over a year ago and still haven’t read it. If I could only find more hours in the day to read I could get all of the wonderful books on my shelves read! I look forward to hearing all about your trip and the books you read while you are away. Safe travels!

    Reply

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