It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on November 6, 2011November 6, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

Hello and welcome to another fun addition of It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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.

I am currently in Honduras so will pull this weeks winner from last weeks entries next week as well as this current one.😀

So, as I mentioned above… I am in Honduras, I left on Saturday morning from the cities and will be here until this next coming Friday. I had planned to write this post prior to leaving but time and life stuff took over and instead, I am currently in my room in La Esperanza Honduras on a little afternoon break, typing this one out. Needless to say…. it will be short and to the point. 😛

This past week this was on the presses at Book Journey:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan audio review

Snow Flower and The Secret Fan Movie giveaway!I meant to choose a winner before I left – I did not so consider this one still on 🙂

One Fine Day by Lauraine Snelling (book review)

My post with itinerary while I am away (this will tell you what I am doing in Honduras)

Laurel from Rainy Days and Mondays shares her favorite 200 reads and recommendations

Esme from Chocolates and Croissants shares her favorite reads of 2011

My Honduras Day One Check In

Staci from Life In The Thumb shared her thoughts on The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

As for this week… I finished Monsters Of Men on the plane and among other books I brought that I hope to at least make a dent in I brought:

On the morning of July 24, 1915, the liner Eastland rolled over and capsized into the Chicago River; 844 people died. In his first nonfiction book, mystery writer Bonansinga (The Black Mariah, etc.) captures the raw emotion in a story full of greed, courage and overwhelming grief. The victims were looking forward to a day of eating, drinking and dancing. Dressed in their finest, the passengers swarmed onto the boat. Gazing at the huge, sturdy looking, freshly painted vessel, most took it on faith that they were in good hands. Unbeknownst to them, the Eastland had been beset by serious problems from its launch. The ship was hard to control and prone to listing even under normal conditions, though its various owners had covered up this fact. As the disaster unfolded, the best and worst of human nature was immediately on display. Men shoved women and children out of the way inIh desperate attempts to escape. From shore, passersby risked their lives to save the fortunate few. In pure Chicago style, the disaster’s aftermath was marked by political infighting and petty corruption. For all the loss of life and the implications to public safely, this incident is little known today; Bonansinga’s powerful book returns it to the record. Photos.

I took an interest in this when I was in Chicago in June and heard about the tragedy and about the bodies lining the streets to be identified by loved ones. A friend of mine brought me the book the day before I left for Honduras.

I hope you join in with Monday What Are You Reading. Once I am back int he states I look forward to catching up with all of you. Please add your link to where it says “click here” below.

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Esme Shares her Favorite Books Of The Year

Published on November 5, 2011November 4, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)6 Comments

Hi, I am Esme from Chocolate and Croissants. My blog is a little about books, a little about my kitties and a little about food. I am a huge collector of cookbooks. What are my favorite genres; I love memoirs, especially food memoirs, followed by historical novels and biographies. I am always up for a good novel. Sitting in bed reading cookbooks is always fun.

Sheila and I have known each other for two years now. I still remember when she reached out to me and asked if she could use one of my posts on her blog. I was quite honored that she would want to borrow one of my posts. From there we left comments on each other’s blog and then shared a room in NYC at BEA in 2010. My friends thought I was a little crazy to share a hotel room with someone I had never met. I knew it would be great fun.

So Sheila has asked me to blog about my favourite book this year. That is such a hard one. What makes a book your favourite? That is like asking me what my favorite pastry is. I like them all for different reasons.

I am going to give you three favorites from this year. They are all favorites for different reasons. The one book I did not want to end was The Soldier’s Wife . Set in Guernsey during WW11 I loved the story. My favorite food memoir was Mama’s Homesick Pie. The author followed her dreams studying cooking at the Cordon Bleu in France. The book was so much more than her story as a chef. It was about her family and the love for each other. Author Adriana Trigiani wrote a beautiful tribute in Don’t Sing at the Table to her grandmothers. Don’t Sing at the Table tells the story of Viola and Lucia, two Italian immigrants. This book is about these wonderful women and the lessons they passed on to their granddaughter.

Please stop by for a cup of tea and tell me what your favourite book this year is.

* note from Sheila: Esme is always tempting me with delectable recipes on her blog…. of the three books she mentions here I have read two… but sounds like I need to dig into Mama’s Homesick Pie as well!

Morning Meanderings… Weekend Healing

Published on November 1, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)17 Comments

Good morning.

It’s Tuesday… again. Last Tuesday, I would rather erase from my memory… but here we are. A week out and while the pain is still there… it is now manageable and I can see more clearly that we did the right thing.

I spent the weekend with a few friends from the bike rides I do, my cousin’s wife Rhonda, and my friends Belinda and Sheila. We went up North and checked out a few shops in the area, ate great food, hiked a bit in the Tettegouche State park and watched a couple of movies.

I think the weekend was just what I needed… a little time to get away and relax. I came home feeling renewed and stronger again. Friends… are counselors and healers. I am lucky to have them.

My one regret was I did not get a picture of the four of us together.

Last night Al and I watched tv and ate pizza…. that’s how we roll on a Halloween night. 😛 How about you? What did you do on Halloween?

My Heart Is Broken Over The Loss Of A Dear Friend

Published on October 25, 2011October 25, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)69 Comments

In Memory of Elmo Jo DeChantal

September 18 1997 – October 25 2011

Elmo came into our life in late 1997. My son Justin and I went and picked him out at a kennel. He was nothing but a 6 week old fur ball with eyes. He was born with a hernia, had a scratch through one eye and a heart murmur…. he was perfect!

Bailey and Elmo on lake Superior in the wind

I tucked him inside my coat and we brought him home to surprise the family. We all loved Elmo from day one… he was just what our family needed.

In 1999, while talking to the boys at the dinner table one January evening, we discovered

that Elmo had got off the leash while outside and he was gone. I followed his tracks in the snow down our driveway where I could see he had been in the ditch and then I seen where a car had pulled over and picked him up. I was devastated and unable to go to work the next two days. The boys and I made signs and hung them up from the bar down the road all the way to every business all the way to the Casino which is about 40 miles away. Four days later my husband took a phone call while I was at work from a bartender down the road. He said a woman had stopped in earlier in the week and said she had just picked up a dog on the highway and she was going to take him to her daughter who worked at the casino. Later that same night a second phone call came in from a

girl who worked at the casino but claimed she found him wandering the streets around the casino. She had taken him in, fed him from the buffet at the casino and took him home to Peirz Minnesota (about 40 miles away in a different direction). Al loaded up the boys and went and paid the reward we had offered to get Elmo back. What a miracle!

In 2000 while I was at work the boys were home from school one June and left the door to the deck open. Sure enough, I get home from work and Elmo is gone! I jump in my car driving up and down the roads near us, not knowing how long he had been gone or what direction he had went. I spoke to my aunt who lives down the road and an hour later she called me – he had been found down the road on the other side of the

busy highway about 4 houses down.. they were bringing him back to me now. Again, we got lucky.

In 2009, I was cleaning the house one weekend and Elmo must have followed me outside when I took the garbage out. Soon after my neighbor is knocking at my back deck door trying to be heard over my vacuuming, she had Elmo in her arms and said he had just been hit by a car. I rushed him to the vet as he was bleeding from the mouth and after being checked over he was discovered to have…. road rash. That’s it. This 10 pound dog survived being hit by a car!

I share these stories with you because Elmo truly was a miracle in our lives. We all loved him and he was truly the best dog I have ever – or will ever have. Letting him go this afternoon was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do and I am a wreck.

Our boys are now 21 and 23… that shows you how long Elmo has been with us.

He completed our family. He was my constant reading companion. I will miss him forever.

Elmo the afternoon of October 25th, 2011

Dewey’s Read-A-Thon!!!

Published on October 22, 2011October 22, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)50 Comments

(mini challenge participations are at the bottom of this post)

Good morning! Welcome to the kick off for the Dewey Read-A-Thon. I am totally unprepared! I thought I was going to road trip to St Cloud today and look at cricut machines. I signed up for the read-a-thon a while ago and then wasnt sure if I was going to be able to do it, but as of last night knew I could just use a break from the hustle and bustle… and what a better way to enjoy a foggy fall day than surrounded by books.

I am reading for charity again, like I did in the spring… I am reading for Camp Benedict, the camp for people who have AIDS. (You can read more about my heart for this camp here. I will give 10 cents per page I read and 10 cents per minute I listen to audio to the camp.

If anyone wishes to donate to this wonderful camp you may do so here by leaving me a comment about sponsoring me (a set amount or so many cents per page/ audio minute) or by donating directly through this link.

To kick off this morning with hour one…. we were asked to give out a little info:

1)Where are you reading from today?
2)Three random facts about me…
3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?

1. I am reading from Brainerd Minnesota

2. hmmmm…… I have been to Honduras 9 times (10th in a few weeks here), I love adventures and have biked over 600 miles this year – 50 miles of that was in an arm cast from a previous bike ride,I have two shih-tsu dogs that are ages 15 and 13 and both driving me nuts right now. (Lets just say I don’t have kids at home… but with these two I feel like I have kids at home) 😛

3. I have a stack of 13 books and a couple of audio but mainly for variety… I know I wont make it through them all

4. To clean up some of the books I have started and have not finished due to other commitments.

5. Have fun! Be sure and check out the mini challenges, take breaks…. walk around with audio (I count that!)

Mini Challenge Participation:

Character Photo Mini Challenge (hilarious and fun!)

Book Puzzle Mini Challenge (guess what I am reading!)

6 Hour mini challenge and five books I am looking forward to!

Mid Event survey challenge

I will check in throughout the day by updating this post.

9:00 a.m.: 20 minutes of audio (We The Animals) so far while I made breakfast and cleaned up kitchen

noon: One book complete, 130 pages read this morning between – mini challenges, letting dogs out and in and out and in, e one hour getting dressed, cleaned up, making lunch… but listening to Night Strangers on audio (30 minutes)

9:00 pm (not so good at checking in am I? 😛 ) finished one audio (add another hour to my totals) while putting away our lawn furniture for the winter…. not a whole lot of reading done since last check in but hoping now to crack down….

Don’t Blink by James Patterson

Published on October 20, 2011October 20, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

Who doesn’t like a big juicy steak from a world-famous restaurant such as New York’s Lombardo Steak House. The place is famous for their menu, the clientele…. and now the gruesome murder of a mob lawyer.

In the restaurant at the time of the murder is reporter Nick Daniels, conducting the interview of a lifetime with a legendary bad boy of baseball. Nick is shocked and shaken as the hit-man slips through all the activity without a hint of who he may be. When Nick realizes he actually has a key piece of evidence on his recorder, he proceeds to investigate the case himself despite dangerous warnings for him to back off.

New York’s Lombardo’s Steak House is famous for three reasons–the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police’s fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit.

As Nick continues to get closer to the truth… the truth becomes closer to him as well… first with his friends… and then even closer when they go after his family.

Chapter 2,489 ….. ha ha…. a little inside Patterson humor…. 😉

It is nothing new to hear me rave about a James Patterson audio. I have enjoyed many of his audio books immensely, especially the Mike Bennett Series he writes with Michael Ledwidge: Step On A Crack, Run For Your Life, Worst Case,and most recently Tick Tock. These books are filled with action, amazing narration, and honestly not gruesome as some of writing can be.

For all of the above reasons… I was excited to get my hands on Don’t Blink. And then…. I dont know what happened. I must have blinked.

The story line was kind of all over. I never felt I knew enough about Nick Daniels to care about him. He may as well have been named Joe Blow. He goes after a case that causes many (MANY) people to get killed. Friends, people trying to help him… suddenly it feels as though I am just read leaping from one attack to another… he barely gets out of one jam and then there is another and then anaother… and then when you think “whew… it’s over!”…

there is another.

In the end for me it was all a little too much…. enough plot here for two books. I didn’t really feel any connections to anyone and it actually became work to follow what was going on and who was after him now…

maybe I did blink and somehow missed the point, but that is my take on this one. Not a hate… just not a love. 😀

Amazon Rating

Goodreads Review

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading map has been updated to include Dont Blink

I won this from Nise’s Under The Boardwalk blog

They’re Creepy And They’re Spooky…. What SPOOKTACULAR books this way come??

Published on October 9, 2011October 9, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)32 Comments

October. As the leaves are quickly separating from the trees, and the nights are starting to release the chill of pending fall… I find myself, like many of you, thinking of a little something spooky to cuddle up with in the evenings.

What scares you?

Here are a few that I would love to get the opportunity to read:

In 1987, Bohjalian purchased a Victorian house, only to discover a mysterious sealed door in the basement. But it wasn’t until 2009, when pilot Sully Sullenberger was forced to (successfully) land his plane on the Hudson River, that Bohjalian had the second thread he needed for The Night Strangers’ terrifying plot. His protagonist, Chip Linton, is a pilot who lives to tell the tale of his emergency landing on Lake Champlain. But Flight 1611 ends up with 39 casualties among the 40-odd passengers and crew. Thirty-nine just happens to be the same number of bolts that seal shut a hidden door in the basement of the new house Chip and his lawyer wife Emily move to with their twin daughters Garnet and Hallie. This retreat to the mountains of northern New Hampshire is an attempt by Chip to come to terms with the crash. However, peace doesn’t come easily.

While Chip goes about refurbishing the house (discovering the boarded-up door and random weapons hidden in nooks and crannies in the process), Emily and the twins realize this small White Mountain village is populated with numerous greenhouses and self-proclaimed herbalists. As Chip’s grief slowly descends into a type of madness, Emily begins to question why the town is so obsessed with teaching her daughters the tricks of the plants.

The basic premise, that of an amnesia victim suffering from debilitating short-term memory loss, has been thoroughly mined in print (James Hilton’s Random Harvest, G.H. Ephron’s Amnesia) and cinema (50 First Dates, Memento). Where Watson diverges from the formula is in his exhaustive exploration of one woman’s spiral into paranoia. Does Christine have a happy marriage, or is it a total sham? Does she have a son, and if so, did he die in Iraq, or is that just a figment of her overworked imagination? And what’s up with her doctor, anyway? From early on, it is clear that her husband is not being entirely truthful with her, but to what end—Christine’s well-being or something darker? On the sly, Christine begins keeping a journal, documenting the inconsistencies in the stories she is told by those she thought she could trust, leading to a showdown of epic proportions.

My name is Amelia Gray. I’m a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I’ve always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.

It started with the discovery of a young woman’s brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I’ve been hired to restore. The clues to the killer—and to his other victims—lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I’ve vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

For 10-year-old Beau Jackson, the annual late August trek from his home in Richmond, Virginia, to his grandmother’s ancestral property on a Georgia peninsula known as Gull Island is a dismal one. For two weeks, Beau will have to deal with his constantly arguing parents as well as his alcoholic aunt and uncle, swarms of mosquitoes, unbearable humidity—and his weird cousin Sumter Monroe.

But this summer proves to be different from past vacations. Sumter, always a little strange, is downright disturbing. Obsessed with a decrepit shack at the edge of the property, Sumter makes it his own personal clubhouse and names it Neverland, a place where grown-ups are forbidden and an old human skull is worshipped as a destroying god. Compelled to Neverland to escape the dysfunction and alcohol-fueled fights inside Grammy Weenie’s house (ironically called The Retreat), Beau and his older twin sisters Missy and Nonie enter Sumter’s dark sanctuary and become entangled in a web of evil that includes thievery, animal sacrifices, blood drinking, demon worship and, quite possibly, facilitating the beginning of the end of the world.

Thank you to Book Page and Goodreads for these suggestions

That’s just to name a few. How about you? Any “scare-awesome” reads coming up?DO any of these appeal to you or do you have others on your radar? Or maybe you skip the spooky all together…

Oh and in answer to what scares me….

dolls.

Dolls have always creeped me out.

There I said it. 😛

Looking for Blogger Posts For Banned Book Week Project

Published on September 10, 2011September 20, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

Banned Book Week is a week I look forward to every year. If you are not familiar with this week, there was a time I was not either… but chances are – you have read a banned book. Here is a little taste of books that are on the list:

To Kill A Mockingbird

Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret

The Bible

Twilight

Hunger Games

The Color Purple

Farenheight 451

The Handmaid’s Tale

Blubber

The Lorax (yes, Dr. Suess)

All Harry Potter Books…

Last year I read and reviewed only banned books during the Banned Book week and it was a lot of fun and informative too!

This year, now that I am a seasoned banned book reader 😉 , I want to do more. I will be hosting some giveaways here and am asking for book bloggers to assist me, by either a) reading and reviewing a banned book during this week, and/or b) sharing your thoughts on a banned book you have already read. I need a minimum of seven participants – one for each day of Banned Books Week.

If you are interested, please fill out the form below and I will be in contact with you. This is going to be a lot of fun.

**Note update to this post on 9/20/11: I have filled the seven (turned out to be eight) blogger daily posts for the contest, however I would love to still have additional Banned Book related posts – such as book reviews, Banned Book Discussions, and giveaways. I have updated the form to show this. I would love to have YOU on the Banned Wagon. 😛

😀

You can find our more about Banned Book Week and the history behind it by visiting The American Library Association site.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (audio review)

Published on August 24, 2011August 24, 2011 by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

The Help

UNABRIDGED
by Kathryn Stockett
Narrated by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, Cassandra Campbell

In the early 1960’s, Jackson Mississippi was a community of white women who ran charity events, and ran their help. The “help” were their African-American maids who cooked and cleaned and raised the white children so the white women of Jackson could play bridge, have coat drives, and complain about their heavy word load.

Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young woman fresh out of college comes home to Jackson to live with her mom who is sick and her father. Skeeter attends the bridge meetings and hangs with what is considered Jackson’s elite, especially Hilly, leader of the pack – and the coalition for every home in Jackson to have a separate bathroom installed for “the help” as after all as Hilly would say, “they carry different diseases than us, and we must protect our children!”

Skeeter, is appalled by the way the black women are treated and decided to write a book giving the maids (Help’s) perspective on how they feel they are treated, from raising the kids (who will later become their boss), to wages, and what they think is unfair.

Needless to say – none of the black women jump at the chance to speak first.

Enter the wonderful Abilene, she cooks, she cleans, she has raised many a white child… and finally she has something to say. As Skeeter and Abilene have secret meetings at Abilene’s home were Abiline talks ad Skeeter writes, eventually the feisty and hilarious Minnie joins in with her stories.

The result is an incredible story about faith, trust, and blowing up a small town. 😛

I am believing that if you have not read the book or seen the movie – you at least have heard about the phenomenon that is “The Help”. Currently at the movie theaters (I have seen it twice!) I would suggest you run – don’t walk, to get your ticket!

I read this book in late 2009 and wanted the refresher of the audio with the movie coming out. I had heard some buzzing about the fact that the movie was different from the book and from my foggy recollection I was thinking of very few differences but of course, this recent listen of the audio has now refreshed my memory…. HOWEVER – both…. are awesome… yes there are some differences, but I still feel it held true to the main story.

If you enjoy good audio – you must listen to The Help… (yes, Laurel…. maybe even you 😉 ). The narrators are fantastic! The woman who reads the part of Minnie… also plays her in the movie! Seriously great stuff! I can not rave this one up enough!

The Help is so good that I do not care how you get it in (book, audio, movie) – but you must!!!

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading map has been updated to include The Help