Category: Its Monday What ARe You Reading

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! 😉

So I am still in a hotel room in Florida.  It has been a long time of hard work, long hours, and swelting sun.  Of course my hubby, who I just talked to back in Minnesota says it is 3 degrees there today so he is sure within a day of my return I will be whining to come back to Florida.  I have assured him that he is wrong.  I will hold my head up and deal with the snow and freezing temps just to be home with my hubby, my dogs, reliable internet and oh my gosh – my own bed!!!  I may not get up for days… 😉  I am on schedule to go back to Minnesota on Thursday.

So as far as reading goes, it is still light.  I am usually too tired to read, however I have managed some audio this past week as t works great to have the ear bids in while working in the bee yard.  Here is what I posted:

 

No Man’s Land by Aasif Mandi

 

Hop Skip Jump – its ready to order!

 

Bedbugs by Ben Winters (yup… Bedbugs)

 

The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain – oh wow!  How have I missed this author?

 

He’s Gone by Deb Caletti

 

The first of the readalong posts is up with giveaway:  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

 

Not too bad for working 10 – 14 hour days.  🙂

 

So this week will be much of the same.  A little audio, and maybe a book on the way home on the plane… but by the weekend… I hope to be curled up in my Minnesota home with great books and delicious coffee and my puppies!  🙂

 

 For My Ears

 

Dear Anna, What I have to tell you is difficult to write, but I know it will be far more difficult for you to hear, and I’m so sorry.

The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind their close friend Noelle’s suicide. Everything they knew about Noelle – her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her friends and family – described a woman who embraced life. Yet there was so much they didn’t know.

With the discovery of the letter and its heartbreaking secret, Noelle’s friends begin to uncover the truth about this complex woman who touched each of their lives – and the life of a desperate stranger – with love and betrayal, compassion and deceit.

 

 

 

“I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger…” writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up “1922”, the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife Arlette proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.

In “Big Driver”, soon to be a major Lifetime movie starring Maria Bello, a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger is along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face to face with another stranger: the one inside herself.

“Fair Extension”, the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Harry Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

 

 

 

In April 1992, a young man named Chris McCandless walked into the Alaskan wilderness, where he survived for more than 100 days before perishing in an abandoned bus. For over 20 years his story has captivated millions, and yet only one person knew the truth behind his remarkable journey – until now.

Through a tumultuous childhood, the McCandless siblings clung to each other amidst a chaotic home life, forming a lifelong bond and an unbreakable trust. So when Chris abandoned nearly all of his possessions, cut off all family ties, and forged an anonymous existence on the road, Carine understood what drew Chris away from all he had known. Having to face her own truth and surmount some crushing obstacles in the absence of her beloved brother, Carine drew strength from his constant presence while forging ahead on her own unique journey.

A powerful and deeply personal story, The Wild Truth is both a revelatory glimpse into the life of Chris McCandless and the inspirational tale of one woman’s resilience in the wake of unspeakable tragedy.

 

 

For My Eyes

 

The year is AE3, 3 years after the Event. Within the walls of Meritropolis, 50,000 inhabitants live in fear, ruled by the brutal System that assigns each citizen a merit score that dictates whether they live or die. Those with the highest scores thrive, while those with the lowest are subject to the most unforgiving punishment–to be thrust outside the city gates, thrown to the terrifying hybrid creatures that exist beyond.

But for one High Score, conforming to the System just isn’t an option. Seventeen-year-old Charley has a brother to avenge. And nothing–not even a totalitarian military or dangerous science–is going to stop him.

Where humankind has pushed nature and morals to the extreme, Charley is amongst the chosen few tasked with exploring the boundaries, forcing him to look deep into his very being to discern right from wrong. But as he and his friends learn more about the frightening forces that threaten destruction both without and within the gates, Meritropolis reveals complexities they couldn’t possibly have bargained for…

 

That’s the plan. Have you read any of these?   What are you planning?  Please add your link to your own Its Monday What Are You Reading below where it says click here:

 

Powered by Linky Tools

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! 😉

 

Well hello from Florida again!  This time I am working – long hours, in the heat with the bees.  Life… is never dull.  Where I am staying the internet is a solid maybe so I post when I can, but if you notice my absence I am either exhausted or can not get on line. 🙂

Here is what I did post this week:

 

Accidents Of Marriage by Randy Susan Meyers

 

Movie Review – Nightcrawler

 

The Dark Road To Mercy by Wiley Cash

 

The Vineyard by Michael Hurley

 

Yes Please by Amy Poehler (have been waiting for this one!)

 

AND don’t forget the HP readalong just started – its not to late to get in on the fun – posts, prizes, badges… check it out – tell your friends!  54 are signed up now!

 

 

Reading and audio have slowed down since Tuesday.  With my long hours I am too tired to read.  I listen to audio when I am in the hotel room.  Here is what I am working on this week (I will still be working in Florida all week):

 

For My Ears:

“My father moved our family to the United States because of a word. It was a word whose meaning fascinated him. It was a singularly American word, a fat word, a word that could only be spoken with decadent pride. That word was . . . Brunch! ‘The beauty of America,’ he would say, ‘is they have so much food, that between breakfast and lunch they have to stop and eat again.'”
—from “International House of Patel”

If you’re an Indo-Muslim-British-American actor who has spent more time in bars than mosques over the past few decades, turns out it’s a little tough to explain who you are or where you are from. In No Land’s Man Aasif Mandvi explores this and other conundrums through stories about his family, ambition, desire, and culture, stories that range from dealing with his brunch-obsessed father, to being a high-school-age Michael Jackson impersonator, to joining a Bible study group in order to seduce a nice Christian girl, to improbably becoming America’s favorite Muslim/Indian/Arab/Brown/Doctor correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

This is a book filled with passion, discovery, and humor. Mandvi hilariously and poignantly describes a journey that will resonate with anyone who has had to navigate his or her way in the murky space between lands. Or anyone who really loves brunch.

 

 

FOR RENT: Top two floors of beautifully renovated brownstone, 1300 sq. ft., 2BR 2BA, eat-in kitchen, one block to parks and playgrounds. No broker’s fee.

Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up. Big mistake.

Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs… or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad – until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.

 

*In hindsight, Bedbugs may not be the best choice while staying in a hotel room 😉

 

For My Eyes:

Most of us view work and play as mutually exclusive opposites, but now you can blend them together in your new route to joy-filled success. The 75 techniques in this book will guide you to be more playful and productive as you move through three vital phases of the manifestation process: dreaming (Hop), experimenting (Skip), and taking action (Jump). Discover your Play Personality and learn how to use it to create more experiences in which work feels like play, and struggle gives way to momentum, ease, and joy.

 

That’s the plan anyway.  What are you reading?  Add your link to your own It’s MOnday What Are You Reading below where it says click here:

Powered by Linky Tools

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

Looking forward to what you are reading!

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! 😉

 

Hope you are having a SUPER week!  I am, enjoying sunny Florida with my son.  We are here until tomorrow afternoon then back to Minnesota we go!  Only a day for me because I return to Florida on Tuesday in a different capacity – but that is another story.

Here is what was posted this past week:

 

TEN by Gretchen McNeil

 

NIGHTMARES by Jason Segel

 

The Vanishing by Wendy Webb

 

Quarantined by Joe McKinney (audio review)

 

Harry Potter World (Universal) Thoughts on the new Hogwarts Express and Diagon Alley

 

Gringott’s Bank Ride in Universal Studios Review

 

ARRESTED IN Orlando (what we Dechantal’s do in our spare time 😉  )

 

Harry Potter Re-Read/ Readalong – its not to late to join in!!!

 

Clearly I had all of the reviews written before the trip.  I have hardly read at all while I have been in Florida this past 4 days.  I read a little on the plane but have been running and exploring ever since then.  I am not listing any new books this week as I have to really focus on my two book club reads – Aviator’s Wife and The Dark Road To Mercy… that will be hard enough to get done before next Bookies meeting, which I will not be at but want to be able to send in my thoughts 😉

SO…. the linky is all yours.  What have you been reading this week?  What are you planning on reading next week?  Please add your link to your own It’s Monday What Are You Reading below where it says click here:

 

Powered by Linky Tools

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! 😉

 

Hey!  Hold smokes where did October go?  Our weather this past couple of weeks has been pretty sweet so not complaining here.  We hit over 70 for the weekend 🙂  Gorgeous out really!  Here is what I posted this week:

 

Cheese Deluxe by Greg Palmer

 

 

Delancey by Molly Wizenberg

 

Dead Poets Society… Thoughts On A Powerful Movie

 

 

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

 

Four Friends by Robin Carr

 

 

Looking For Potter Heads!  Winter Re-Read Readalong  (come and play along!  Prizes and fun!)

 

 

I am flying around getting ready to leave Thursday morning for Florida with my college son.  SUPER EXCITED about that!  We will be hanging out, hitting up Harry Potter World and more…

So... what shall I be reading and listening to during this upcoming week?

 

For my Ears

 

Maddy is a social worker trying to balance her career and three children. Years ago, she fell in love with Ben, a public defender, drawn to his fiery passion, but now he’s lashing out at her during his periodic verbal furies. She vacillates between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their kids—which works to keep a fragile peace—until the rainy day when they’re together in the car and Ben’s volatile temper gets the best of him, leaving Maddy in the hospital fighting for her life.

Randy Susan Meyers takes us inside the hearts and minds of her characters, alternating among the perspectives of Maddy, Ben, and their fourteen-year-old daughter. Accidents of Marriage is a provocative and stunning novel that will resonate deeply with women from all walks of life, ultimately revealing the challenges of family, faith, and forgiveness.

 

 

Bacon. McDonalds. Cinnabon. Hot Pockets. Kale. Stand-up comedian and author Jim Gaffigan has made his career rhapsodizing over the most treasured dishes of the American diet (“choking on bacon is like getting murdered by your lover”) and decrying the worst offenders (“kale is the early morning of foods”). Fans flocked to his New York Times bestselling book Dad is Fat to hear him riff on fatherhood but now, in his second book, he will give them what they really crave—hundreds of pages of his thoughts on all things culinary(ish). Insights such as: why he believes coconut water was invented to get people to stop drinking coconut water, why pretzel bread is #3 on his most important inventions of humankind (behind the wheel and the computer), and the answer to the age-old question “which animal is more delicious: the pig, the cow, or the bacon cheeseburger?”

 

 

 

Powered by Linky Tools

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! 😉

By the time you are reading this I will be at the Opus and Olives event in ST Paul Minnesota.  I am so excited!!!!  This is the event that I heard about that caused the idea of Wine and Words to start to develop.  I have never been to the event, but tonight, I am going as one of the creators guests and I am SUPER EXCITED!  (I may have already said that…)

This week has been chalk full of working and writing and speaking and …. well, here is the week:

 

SPUN by Catherine McKenzie

Cemetery John by Robert Zorn

A Good Marriage by Stephen King

Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty

Weekend Cooking:  Pumpkin Butter!

Minnesota Library Association Conference

Ocean Beach by Wendy Wax

 

Pretty far week and a good mix of books and audio and bookish events.  This next week will be a little of the same with the Gone Girl movie and Book Club.  This coming week I have on tap:

 

For My Ears:

 

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.  

She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.

But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.

Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss. 

 

 

A beloved star of stage, television, and film – ”one of the most fun people in show business” (Time magazine) – Alan Cumming is a successful artist whose diversity and fearlessness is unparalleled. His success masks a painful childhood growing up under the heavy rule of an emotionally and physically abusive father – a relationship that tormented him long into adulthood.

When television producers in the United Kingdom approached him to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show in 2010, Alan enthusiastically agreed. He hoped the show would solve a family mystery involving his maternal grandfather, a celebrated World War II hero who disappeared in the Far East. But as the truth of his family ancestors revealed itself, Alan learned far more than he bargained for about himself, his past, and his own father.

 

 

Mercer Island, Washington is a bedroom community of Seattle, plopped in the middle of Lake Washington and connected to the Big City by what used to be the world’s longest floating bridge. In the mid-1960s Mercer Island was known for fancy waterfront homes, an excellent school system, inept sports teams, and teenagers with too much time on their hands and too much money in their pants. For the high school Class of ’65, a lot of that time was spent at the Samoa Drive In, the Island’s premier teen hangout, and a lot of that money was spent on the Samoa’s Cheese Deluxe, one of the world’s best burgers. CHEESE DELUXE: A Memoir by Greg Palmer, recalls that time and those people, and their mostly true, often comic, occasionally romantic, sometimes automotive adventures in the last blush of being kids on the verge of adulthood.

Among the burgered are Stackhouse, whose single erotic fantasy involves a broken down Dodge, a lonely mountain road, and a bag full of burgers; Frank, the auto shop savant whose only real crime is that the police hate him; Curtis, who has devoted his life to smoking, drinking, driving, and being deeply disappointing to his parents; Clifford, who joins the International Jewish Conspiracy primarily for the cuisine; Janelle, the dream girl of many, who learns something about herself from a dying rabbit; and Tucker, a shy young sax player who, on September 5, 1964, integrates Mercer Island High School all by himself, without any help from lawyers, cops, Federal Marshals, the National Guard, or Nicholas Katzenbach.

On the other side of the counter from this group of, if not underachievers then certainly the achievement-delayed, is the restaurant’s staff: Betty, the owner/operator, who knows enough about the Samoa to bring a sack lunch to work; DeeDee, a sophisticated (which is to say cold-as-ice) collegian believed by some of the burger eaters to be majoring in Penmanship at the University of Washington; Arlene, a professional counter personnel who takes no guff, ever, from anybody; Don, the legendary Friday night Master of the Deep Fat, who can spot the fish & chip eaters solely by the cars they drive; and the author, who was both a member of the Mercer Island Class of 1965 and the Samoa’s regular cook, as well as confessor to a group of teens who often wished they had more interesting things to confess.

 

For My Eyes:

When Molly Wizenberg married Brandon Pettit, he was a trained composer with a handful of offbeat interests: espresso machines, wooden boats, violin-building, and ice cream–making. So when Brandon decided to open a pizza restaurant, Molly was supportive—not because she wanted him to do it, but because the idea was so far-fetched that she didn’t think he would. Before she knew it, he’d signed a lease on a space. The restaurant, Delancey, was going to be a reality, and all of Molly’s assumptions about her marriage were about to change.

Together they built Delancey: gutting and renovating the space on a cobbled-together budget, developing a menu, hiring staff, and passing inspections. Delancey became a success, and Molly tried to convince herself that she was happy in their new life until—in the heat and pressure of the restaurant kitchen—she realized that she hadn’t been honest with herself or Brandon.

 

Thats the plan.  🙂  In a hurry so here is the link up for your Its Monday What Are You Reading:

 

 

Powered by Linky Tools

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

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! 😉

October!  Enough said!  Seriously though… October?  Here is what I posted this past week:

 

Hatching Twitter by Nick Bolton

 

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

 

The Best Of Me Film Release Giveaway!

 

Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman

 

This Is Where I Leave You Book VS. Movie

 

My Next Read Winner!

 

Hidden by Catherine McKenzie

 

This week is going to be bookish!  Tomorrow we are having our first ever friends of the library recap and retreat.  On Wednesday and Thursday I will be at the Minnesota Library Association meeting and then home on Friday.  It is going to be fun!  Here is what I have planned for the week:

 

 

For My Ears

When unlikely friends Madeline, Avery, and Nicole arrive in Miami’s South Beach neighborhood, they’re hoping for a do-over. Literally. They’ve been hired to bring a historic house back to its former glory on a new television show called Do Over. If they can just get this show off the ground, Nikki could fix her finances, Avery could restart her career, and Maddie would have a shot at keeping her family together.

The women quickly realize that having their work broadcast is one thing, but having their personal lives play out on TV is another. Soon they’re struggling to hold themselves, and the project, together. With a decades-old mystery—and hurricane season—looming, the women are forced to figure out just how they’ll weather life’s storms . . .

 

 

It was just another ordinary day at McKinley High–until a massive explosion devastated the school. When loner David Thorpe tried to help his English teacher to safety, the teacher convulsed and died right in front of him. And that was just the beginning.

A year later, McKinley has descended into chaos. All the students are infected with a virus that makes them deadly to adults. The school is under military quarantine. The teachers are gone. Violent gangs have formed based on high school social cliques. Without a gang, you’re as good as dead. And David has no gang. It’s just him and his little brother, Will, against the whole school.

 

 

For my Eyes

Tender at the Bone is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by unforgettable people, the love of tales well told, and a passion for food. In other words, the stuff of the best literature. The journey begins with Reichl’s mother, the notorious food-poisoner known for-evermore as the Queen of Mold, and moves on to the fabled Mrs. Peavey, onetime Baltimore socialite millionaress, who, for a brief but poignant moment, was retained as the Reichls’ maid. Then we are introduced to Monsieur du Croix, the gourmand, who so understood and yet was awed by this prodigious child at his dinner table that when he introduced Ruth to the soufflé, he could only exclaim, “What a pleasure to watch a child eat her first soufflé!” Then, fast-forward to the politically correct table set in Berkeley in the 1970s, and the food revolution that Ruth watched and participated in as organic became the norm. But this sampling doesn’t do this character-rich book justice. After all, this is just a taste.

 

Thats the plan.  Whats your plan?  Add your link below where it says click here:

Powered by Linky Tools

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! 😉

Banned Book week was last week and I started out here AMAZING… and then puttered out by Tuesday with just too much life stuff going on both day and night. Thanks goodness to the wonderful bloggers who linked to me to also chat up banned books.  They carried me this year:

Posts that did make it up:

 

A link to all the banned book posts and giveaways that linked to Book Journey this week

 

Lord Of The Flies review and giveway

 

The Great Gatsby Movie thoughts – a banned book made into a movie

 

Good Bye Harry Potter – a book that is banned… and a song

 

Attempted Book Banning – In MY Home Town

 

I did THIS At Our Fall Book Sale… Oh Yes I really Did

 

YOU Choose My Next Read and YOU win that book!

 

I am still finishing up banned books this week.. in the middle of three… yup three.  As I am tired, I am going to leave it at that and ask you to link your Its Monday What Are You Reading to where it says click here below 😉

 

Powered by Linky Tools

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! 😉

*Whew!*  Big week!  I was crazy busy all last week, gone over the weekend to our cabin and pretty much relaxed as much as possible today as this week will be BIG again with helping a friend, movie tomorrow night, a birthday dinner for a friend on Tuesday, City Library board meeting on Wednesday, and Thursday – Saturday the fall library book sale which should be a lot of fun and I have a few things up my sleeve to keep it REAL.  Oh, and it is Banned Book Week which I love and we have some exciting giveaways happening here this week.

 

So what was posted?

 

Library Friends Networking

 

Invisible by James Patterson and David Ellis

 

Early Decision by Lacy Crawford

 

Banned Book Week is on!  Learn about it here!

 

Lord Of The Flies by William Golding (Banned Book Review and Giveaway!)

 

Of Mine And Men – a story of banning in my home town posted at Books Are My Thing

 

And this week will be all about the Banned Books – reviews, other blogs chiming in… it is going to be fun.  For Real.  😉

Here is what I have planned:

“Community, Identity, Stability” is the motto of Aldous Huxley’s utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a “Feelie,” a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today–let’s hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren’t yet to come.

 

 

They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.

Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie’s unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

 

 

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

 

 

This is the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled, manipulative daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her way of life. A sweeping story of tangled passion and courage, in the pages of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell brings to life the unforgettable characters that have captured readers for over seventy years.

 

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write “something new–something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned.” That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald’s finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author’s generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald’s–and his country’s–most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning–” Gatsby’s rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

 

(ok, I know i can not get through all of these in the week… but these are what I hope to start 🙂  )

 

For My Ears:  (non banned book items)

 

In 2005, Odeo was a struggling podcasting start-up founded by free-range hacker Noah Glass and staffed by a motley crew of anarchists. Less than two years later, its days were numbered and half the staff had been let go. But out of Odeo’s ashes, the remaining employees worked on a little side venture . . . that by 2013 had become an $11.5 billion business.

That much is widely known. But the full story of Twitter’s hatching has never been told before. It’s a drama of betrayed friendships and high-stakes power struggles, as the founders went from everyday engineers to wealthy celebrities featured on magazine covers, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show, and Time’s list of the world’s most influential people.

New York Times columnist and reporter Nick Bilton takes readers behind the scenes as Twitter grew at exponential speeds. He gets inside the heads of the four hackers out of whom the company tumbled…

 

 

Darcy Anderson’s husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his routine business trips when the unsuspecting Darcy looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a hidden box under a worktable and in it she discovers a trove of horrific evidence that her husband is two men—one, the benign father of her children, the other, a raging rapist and murderer. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends “A Good Marriage.”

 

Thats the plan 🙂

 

What is your plan this week?  Are you finding time to add a banned book to your list?  There are so many – and in all sizes…. you can read one!  🙂  Please add your It’s Monday post below where it says click here:

 

Powered by Linky Tools

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: