Category: Its Monday What ARe You Reading

Hello!  Welcome to It’s Monday What Are You Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It’s a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read list. 😀  You never know where that next great read may come from!

Home again!  Home again!  Jiggity jig!  I am home!  After 17 days traveling Minnesota to Australia to New Zealand I am HOME!!!  It was a wonderful trip that I will be talking about for a long time.

Here is what I have posted since I came home Friday morning:

 

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

A Real look at the Hobbit Movie Set in New Zealand!!!

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Best Audio Books Of 2014 Giveaway – join in and win!

 

I also want to take one more moment and list the posts of the guest bloggers who came and visited here while I was away.  The posts are a lot of fun so check them out if you have not already!

Judith from Leswammes Blog talks about the books we should look at again

Florinda from the 3 R’s Blog talks about CHOCOLATE and War… what is it good for?

Elizabeth from Silver’s Reviews digs into the books we have both enjoyed

Candace from Beth Fish Reads is all about Australia!

Laurel Rain Snow Talks about Books and Movie – Oh My!!!

Kathryn From Book Date Takes Us To The Beach

Ryan from Wordsmithonia Pulls Our The Big Guns To Find The Secret Garden

Lori from Escape With Dollycas hashes out Gone Girl

Donna from Writer Side UP! takes care of the cobwebs in my archives

Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness brings tea and discusses non fiction reads

Laura Fabiani from IRead Book Tours comes over and starts a FIRE!

Sue from Book by Book chats about Author Justin Cronin

Jennifer from Literate Housewife discusses Team Mockingjay or Not

Elizabeth from Silvers Reviews Talks about The Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter and Sweet

Stacy From The Novel Life Talks Coffee and Books

 

This week should be a good reading week.  My schedule is light.  I have a few projects to work on but nothing overwhelming.  Here is what I plan to do:

 

For My Ears

In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes.

In another part of town, months later, a retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the “perk” and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy.

Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again. Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of highly unlikely allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady’s next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.

 

Cody and Meg were inseparable. Two peas in a pod. Until… they weren’t anymore.

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything – so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, and some secrets of his own. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open – until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

 

 

Unbeknownst to most of humankind, a powerful network of witches thrives within the shadows of society, using their magic to keep the world in balance. But they are being eliminated – and we will all pay if their power falls… When Elyse MacAllister’s great-aunt Eleanora, the woman who raised her, becomes deathly ill, Lyse puts her comfortable life in Georgia on hold to rush back to Los Angeles. And once she returns to Echo Park, Lyse discovers her great-aunt has been keeping secrets – extraordinary secrets – from her. Not only is Lyse heir to Eleanora’s Victorian estate; she is also expected to take her great-aunt’s place in the Echo Park coven of witches. But to accept her destiny means to place herself in deadly peril – for the world of magic is under siege, and the battle the witches now fight may be their last…

 

 

For My Eyes

After growing up in privilege and marrying into money, Lila Alders has gotten used to the good life. But when her happily-ever-after implodes, Lila must return to Black Dog Bay, the tiny seaside town where she grew up. She’s desperate for a safe haven, but everything has changed over the past ten years. Her family’s fortune is gone—and her mother is in total denial. It’s up to Lila to take care of everything…but she can barely take care of herself.

The former golden girl of Black Dog Bay struggles to reinvent herself by opening a vintage clothing boutique. But even as Lila finds new purpose for outdated dresses and tries to reunite with her ex, she realizes that sometimes it’s too late for old dreams. She’s lost everything she thought she needed but found something—someone—she desperately wants. A boy she hardly noticed has grown up into a man she can’t forget…and a second chance has never felt so much like first love.

 

What do a cup of coffee and cockroach pheromone have in common? How is Fix-A-Flat like sugarless gum? Is a Slim Jim meat stick really alive? If I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter isn’t butter, what is it?

All of these pressing questions and more are answered in This Is What You Just Put In Your Mouth? Based on his popular Wired magazine column What’s Inside, Patrick Di Justo takes a cold, hard, and incredibly funny look at the shocking, disgusting, and often dumbfounding ingredients found in everyday products, from Cool Whip and Tide Pods to Spam and Play-Doh. He also shares the madcap stories of his extensive research, including tracking down a reclusive condiment heir, partnering with a cop to get his hands on heroin, and getting tight-lipped snack-food execs to talk. Along the way, he schools us on product histories, label decoding, and the highfalutin chemistry concepts behind everything from Midol to Hostess fruit pies.
Packed with facts you’re going to want to share immediately, this is infotainment at its best—and most fun!—which will have you giving your shampoo the side-eye and Doritos a double take, and make you the know-it-all in line at the grocery store.

 

It probably looks like a heavy week but I am almost done listening to Mr. Mercedes.  I will be in the house most of the week so audio will be playing and late afternoons after my work is done I plan to read.

So what did you listen to and read this past week?  What do you plan to listen to and read this week?  Add your link to your own It’s Monday What Are You Reading post below where it says click here:

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For those who read mainly children and middle grade books please add your link here as well:

Hello!  Welcome to It’s Monday What Are You Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It’s a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read list. 😀  You never know where that next great read may come from!

Another Monday!  I am now in New Zealand, back later this week.  What a trip!  Here is this weeks link up!  Add your “It’s Monday” link below where it says click here.

 

 

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For those who read mainly children and middle grade books please add your link here as well:

Hello!  Welcome to It’s Monday What Are You Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It’s a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read list. 😀  You never know where that next great read may come from!

Hello from Australia!   I had planned to post a few pictures but I am having trouble getting my phone to upload the pics I have taken here.  Guess I will just have a splattering of photos when I return 🙂

I hope you check out the fun links that were up this past week.  My fellow bloggers hung out here and made sure no dust bunnies crept up on website.

I am reading and will be doing more reading now that we are on the cruise ship.  This past week we have been exploring Australia so not a lot of reading time 😉

Here is the link for this weeks What Are You Reading?  I hope you are enjoying your books!

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For those who read mainly children and middle grade books please add your link here as well:

Hello!  Welcome to It’s Monday What Are You Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It’s a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read list. 😀  You never know where that next great read may come from!

Finally feel like I am getting ready for Christmas.  Wrapped gifts this afternoon, finishing touches on shopping, and even turned on the Christmas tree lights!  So excited that in a few days the boys will be here hanging out at the house… good food, good games, movies and just being together.  These are my absolute favorite times!  😀

*Quick note on the late posting…. uhh… yeah, sorry about that.  We were out with friends last night and when I got home I was just too tired to put this post together. 

 

Here is what I posted this past week:

 

Brutal Youth by Anthony Breznican

 

My Living Room Facelift (Color makes a difference!)

 

 

The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

 

2014 The Books That Made My Year!

 

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson

 

What I Know For Sure by Oprah WInfrey

 

 

As for this week…

 

For My Ears

Stuck in a job he no longer found fulfilling, journalist Mike McIntyre felt his life was quickly passing him by. So one day he hit the road to trek from one end of the country to the other with little more than the clothes on his back and without a single penny in his pocket. Through his travels, he found varying degrees of kindness in strangers from all walks of life-and discovered more about people and values and life on the road in America than he’d ever thought possible. The gifts of food and shelter he received along the way were outweighed only by the touching gifts of the heart-the willingness of many he met to welcome a lonely stranger into their homes…and the discovery that sometimes those who give the most are the ones with the least to spare.

 

 

Goodnight Moon is an adored childhood classic, but its real origins are lost to history. In Goodnight June, Sarah Jio offers a suspenseful and heartfelt take on how the “great green room” might have come to be.

June Andersen is professionally successful, but her personal life is marred by unhappiness. Unexpectedly, she is called to settle her great-aunt Ruby’s estate and determine the fate of Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore Ruby founded in the 1940s. Amid the store’s papers, June stumbles upon letters between her great-aunt and the late Margaret Wise Brown – and steps into the pages of American literature.

 

For My Eyes

Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash—no credit check, no lease. It’s the kind of place you end up when you you’ve run out of other options. The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don’t know is that one of them is a killer. He’s already chosen his next victim, and he’ll do anything to protect his secret.

 

Also.. do not forget the First Book Of The Year!  This is going to be a lot of fun!  If you are signed up remember to send me your pic this week of what you will be reading and if you are not signed up, it is not too late and this is a pretty cool thing to do to kick off the New Year!  Check it out here.

 

I think that is the plan.   What are you reading/listening to this week?  Is this a good reading week for you with the holidays or is it a hard week to read with everything going on?  I will have a mix of quiet days and crazy days… but all should work out to a good week to read 🙂

Please add your What Are You Reading link below where it says click here:

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For those who read mainly children and middle grade books please add your link here as well:

Hello!  Welcome to It’s Monday What Are You Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It’s a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read list. 😀  You never know where that next great read may come from!

I have had a busy “project week”.  Being at home has led me to work on things I have put off.  This week I cleaned up the bathroom closet, our bedroom closet as well as purging a lot of clothes to go to those in need, and today I painted our living room (pics later this week).

I also found time to read and listen to audio, audio of course while I was working on the projects.  Here is what I posted this week:

 

Party Hangover – a GOOD book club night!

 

Interview With David Baldacci

 

The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell (Excellent gift idea for the book lover you know!)

 

The Year Of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller

 

Winter Street by Elin Hildebrand

 

2014 My Year In Review – The Events, The Crazy Stuff, The Fun (wow… I change my hair a lot!)

 

The Hypnotists Love Story by Liane Moriarty ( an excellent author!)

And dont forget the fun challenges coming up:

First Book Of The Year Challenge (OOH this will be fun!)

Library Challenge 2015

 

Not a bad week!  This week should be pretty good too.  I plan to get to these reads:

 

For my Ears

The bed and breakfast was hidden in the hills of West Virginia. Wary guests wondered how it could stay in business at such a creepy, remote location, especially with its bizarre, presidential decor and eccentric proprietor. With the event hotel for the national Iron Woman triathlon accidentally overbooked, competitor Maria was forced to stay at the Rushmore. But after checking into her room, she quickly realized she wasn’t alone.

First her suitcase wasn’t where she put it. Then her cell phone was moved. Finally, she heard an odd creaking under the bed. Confusion quickly turned to fear, and fear to hysteria when she discovered the front door was barred and the windows were bricked over. There was no way out.

One year later, four new female athletes have become guests of the Inn. Will they escape the horrors within its walls? Or will they join the many others who have died there, in ways too terrible to imagine?

 

 

After film critic Gene Siskel asked her, “What do you know for sure?” Oprah Winfrey began writing the “What I Know for Sure” column in O, The Oprah Magazine. Saying that the question offered her a way to take “stock of her life”, Oprah has penned one column a month over the last 14 years, years in which she retired The Oprah Winfrey Show (the highest-rated program of its kind in history), launched her own television network, became America’s only black billionaire, was awarded an honorary degree from Harvard University and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, watched friends and colleagues come and go, lost beloved pets and adopted new ones, and celebrated milestone birthdays. Throughout it all, she’s continued to offer her profound and inspiring words of wisdom in her “What I Know for Sure” column in O, The Oprah Magazine.

Now, for the first time, these thoughtful gems have been revised, updated, and collected in What I Know for Sure, a beautiful book packed with insight and revelation from Oprah Winfrey. Organized by theme – joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, awe, clarity, and power – these essays offer a rare and powerful glimpse into the mind of one of the world’s most extraordinary women. Candid, moving, exhilarating, uplifting, and dynamic, the words Oprah shares in What I Know for Sure shimmer with the sort of wisdom and truth that listeners will turn to again and again.

 

 

Summer is a busy season at the inn, so proprietor Jo Marie Rose and handyman Mark Taylor have spent a lot of time together keeping the property running. Despite some folks’ good-natured claims to the contrary, Jo Marie insists that Mark is only a friend. However, she seems to be thinking about this particular friend a great deal lately. Jo Marie knows surprisingly little about Mark’s life, due in no small part to his refusal to discuss it. She’s determined to learn more about his past, but first she must face her own – and welcome three visitors who, like her, are setting out on new paths.

Twenty-three-year-old Ellie Reynolds is taking a leap of faith. She’s come to Cedar Cove to meet Tom, a man she’s been corresponding with for months, and with whom she might even be falling in love. Ellie’s overprotective mother disapproves of her trip, but Ellie is determined to spread her wings.

Maggie and Roy Porter are next to arrive at the inn. They are taking their first vacation alone since their children were born. In the wake of past mistakes, they hope to rekindle the spark in their marriage – and to win back each other’s trust. But Maggie must make one last confession that could forever tear them apart.

For each of these characters, it will ultimately be a moment when someone wore their heart on their sleeve – and took pen to paper – that makes all the difference. Debbie Macomber’s moving novel reveals the courage it takes to be vulnerable, accepting, and open to love.

 

For my Eyes

 

On January 26, 1996, Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medal winner and wrestling golden boy, was shot three times by du Pont family heir John E. du Pont at the famed Foxcatcher Farms estate in Pennsylvania. Following the murder there was a tense standoff when du Pont barricaded himself in his home for two days before he was finally captured.

Foxcatcher is gold medal winner Mark Schultz’s memoir, revealing what made him and his brother champion and what brought them to Foxcatcher Farms. It’s a vivid portrait of the complex relationship he and his brother had with du Pont, a man whose catastrophic break from reality led to tragedy. No one knows the inside story of what went on behind the scenes at Foxcatcher Farms—and inside John du Pont’s head—better than Mark Schultz.

The incredible true story of these championship-winning brothers and the wealthiest convicted murderer of all time will be making headlines this fall, and Mark’s memoir will reveal the true inside story.

 

That’s my week.  What is yours?  Please add your What Are You Reading where is says click here below 🙂

 

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For those of you who read mainly children and middle grade books, please also feel free to add your link here:

Hey there!  Welcome to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading!

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. Fair warning… this meme tends to add to your reading list! 😉

It is hard to believe I have now been home over a week.  I guess with Thanksgiving and the hustle with that life really did not slow down until Friday afternoon after everyone was gone and I had the house to myself.  Then Saturday afternoon I started to get sick and that has hung on through today.  Gah… go figure.  On a happier note… here is what I posted this week:

 

The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless

Food by Jim Gaffigan

Meritropolis by Joel Ohman – YA Dystopian 99 cents on Kindle today!

Mockingjay Book vs. Movie

Harry Potter Readalong – House Points and Giveaways and YOU still can join in!

 

That’s the week.  Today I listened to audio while resting and finished the Diane Chamberlain I was listening to. So Good!  Cant wait to review it!

Here is the plan for this week:

 

For My Ears

Moving the Needle provides both the “kick in the pants” and the game plan many of us need to break out of the rut and get moving to achieve our goals. CEOs, vice presidents, professionals, military personnel, and even college students frequently express frustration at the entrenched status quo, in which initiating progress feels like moving mountains.

 

 

 

Born during a Christmas blizzard, Jane Williams receives a rare gift: the ability to literally see true love. Jane has emerged from an ailing childhood a lonely, hopeless romantic when, on her 29th birthday, she receives a card from the midwife who delivered her. Jane must identify the six types of love before the full moon following her 30th birthday – or face grave consequences. When Jane falls for a science writer who doesn’t believe in love, she fears that her fate is sealed.

 

 

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

 

For My Eyes

While his successful wife goes off to her law office each day, Simon Connolly takes care of their kids, Jake and Laney. Now that they are in high school, the angst-ridden father should feel more relaxed, but he doesn’t. He’s seen the statistics, read the headlines. And now, his darkest fear is coming true. There has been a shooting at school.

Simon races to the rendezvous point, where he’s forced to wait. Do they know who did it? How many victims were there? Why did this happen? One by one, parents are led out of the room to reunite with their children. Their numbers dwindle, until Simon is alone.

As his worst nightmare unfolds, and Jake is the only child missing, Simon begins to obsess over the past, searching for answers, for hope, for the memory of the boy he raised, for mistakes he must have made, for the reason everything came to this. Where is Jake? What happened in those final moments? Is it possible he doesn’t really know his son? Or he knows him better than he thought?

 

 

What are you reading this coming week?  Please add your link to It’s Monday What Are You Reading where it says click here below:

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

For those of you who read mainly children and middle grade books, please also feel free to add your link here:

Hey there!  Welcome to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading!

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. Fair warning… this meme tends to add to your reading list! 😉

I am HOME!  Yes!  For the first time in three weeks I am sitting at home in the comfort of my recliner and typing up this post.  PURE BLISS.  I cant even tell you.  I am still pretty wiped out but have a nice low key week now with the boys coming over on Thursday for Thanksgiving and that is my highlight.

Here is what I posted this past week:

Fog Island Mountains by Michelle Bailat-Jones

The Banks Of Certain Rovers by Jon Harrison

Big Driver by Stephen King

 

What I Was Doing While I Was Away In Florida…

The Midwife’s Confession by Diane Chamberlain

The books that came in the mail while I was away

If I Stay Book VS Movie

 

Not too bad a week. 🙂  For this week I plan on:

 

For My Eyes

 

With a plunging reputation and enrollment rate, Saint Michael’s has become a crumbling dumping ground for expelled delinquents and a haven for the stridently religious when incoming freshman Peter Davidek signs up. On his first day, tensions are clearly on the rise as a picked-upon upperclassmen finally snaps, unleashing a violent attack on both the students who tormented him for so long, and the corrupt, petty faculty that let it happen. But within this desperate place, Peter befriends fellow freshmen Noah Stein, a volatile classmate whose face bears the scars of a hard-fighting past, and the beautiful but lonely Lorelei Paskal —so eager to become popular, she makes only enemies.

To even stand a chance at surviving their freshmen year, the trio must join forces as they navigate a bullying culture dominated by administrators like the once popular Ms. Bromine, their embittered guidance counselor, and Father Mercedes, the parish priest who plans to scapegoat the students as he makes off with church finances. A coming-of-age tale reversed, Brutal Youth follows these students as they discover that instead of growing older and wiser, going bad may be the only way to survive.

 

 

For My Ears

 

With her fiery red hair, new-girl outsider status, and tendency to be a total klutz, Autumn Falls definitely isn’t flying below the radar at Aventura High. Luckily, she makes some genuine friends who take her under their wing. But she also manages to get on the wrong side of the school’s queen bee, and then finds out the guy she’s started to like, funny and sweet Sean, hangs with the mean crowd. Now her rep and her potential love life are at stake.

When Autumn vents her feelings in a journal that belonged to her late father, suddenly her wildest wishes start coming true. Is it coincidence? Or can writing in the journal solve all her problems? And if the journal doesn’t work that way,  is there a bigger purpose for it—and for her?

 

 

In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child. CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she also knows what happened to the missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make: tell the truth, and destroy her family, or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies….

 

I suspect there will be more but I cant make up my mind now so there it is.  🙂  What are you reading this coming week?  Please add your link to It’s Monday What Are You Reading where it says click here below:

 

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For those of you who read mainly children and middle grade books, please also feel free to add your link here: