Good morning! I have been pretty much absent the whole week between work and the spring book sale and then last night we ran a 5k at 9 PM at night called the Glow Baby Glow for March Of Dimes. It was cold fun, and zapped the battery right out of my phone so unfortunately I have no cool pics to go with this post… I can however, show you a picture of what the spring friends of the library sale looked like yesterday morning:
Yesterday was the final day of the three-day sale and the bag sale. You pick up a paper bag and fill it with whatever you can get in the bag for $2. People went crazy… we had 8 and 10 bag purchases… hundreds of bags went out. I can not wait to hear our totals!
Needless to probably say, I am wiped out. I worked the sale all three days and then ran a 5k. Poetic I think.. but maybe just crazy. 😛
Here is a pic of the books that came in this past week:
Some great titles here I am really excited about. Not sure about the two audio – both were unsolicited so I need to check and see if they sent me the wrong ones, or what this is about. 🙂
Anyhoo – I hope to have some real reading time this afternoon. I am pretty excited to just have a quieter week this week. I hit it pretty hard the last couple weeks between the sale and preparing for the sale. Now… I am ready to chill 🙂
17-year-old free-spirited Kestral lives in a Dystopian time of war. At this point in her young life her General father has given her the choice of being a part of the ever needy military or to be married. Kendral has no plans of doing either.
While in the village watching a slave auction a young handsome boy up for bid catchers her eye. Arin, also carries a similar attitude to Kestral and Kestral picks up on this like-mindedness right away and she purchases him at a price that sends the crowds tongues wagging.
Kestral could tell he was not a boy who would be easily broken and she finds herself becoming fond of him in ways that would not be considered acceptable. But Arin himself has plans… plans that no one would have expected, plans that can turn everything upside down.
The Winners Curse was an interesting listen on audio (yes audio again… life is busy 🙂 ). I enjoyed the twist of plot on what could have been a very predictable story. The book is set in a dystopian type of world but it also has historical elements that drew me in a little deeper to the story giving me a connection to this world. Likeable characters, and kick butt finish… I have to say if this is a genre you enjoy you should give it a try.
Happy Wednesday! I have not had much blogesphere time this past couple of weeks as life has once again taken a turn to the busy… good busy so I am not complaining…. I just really wish I could do it all. 😀
My work life is busy at this time… a lot of exciting things happening that is keeping me moving (more on that some day soon) and it seems that now we sort of had a taste of warmer weather, my energy level has risen as well and I am doing more home projects as well, oh and yes… the running has started for the year – I had a 7K last weekend and a 5K coming up this Saturday evening, a night run… my first and it should be fun.
The majority of my time this week though, is going to our spring Library sale. I have been working hard on the brochure for Wine and Words this year, the tickets, and a brochure and logo for our Friends Of The Library group as well… all to reveal at the Spring Library sale where all bookish people gather. The sale starts tomorrow (Thursday) morning.
The gathering of the books is a year-long process. People are welcome and encouraged to bring in their gently used books for the sale as well as the library donated books that have been withdrawn from the library. Twice a year, the Friends bring these books upstairs into the large conference room and sell them to raise money for our group which supports the libraries needs that the city budget does not cover. We purchase additional copies of best sellers, provide snacks for two library books clubs, a family one and an adult one, we pay the movie license for the library, new books for the kids area, and recently we helped pay for tall wooden barista style chairs and tall tables to line up along the back window for additional seating.
Just a small sample of what the basement looks like, and this is after about 50% of the books were brought up for the spring sale. The basement becomes wall to wall donated books, all separated by genre. Thank goodness for the amazing co-chairs of this event who work hard all year to keep this organized.
But… back to the sale. The set up started on Monday morning when the books are brought to the room by local volunteers. They have been sorted downstairs by genre, hard cover/soft cover, and premium (hot sellers and/or books that have been released within the last 3 years). Kids books are a quarter, regular soft cover and hard cover are .50, and Premium are usually between $1 – $4.
I went into the library on Monday to help with the set up and worked with the premium books. I separated these books into piles according to year and another lady who is a co-chair of this sale prices them. Occasionally you will get a box of pretty sweet books donated and this year it was a box of gamer books – hard cover rule books for games like Dungeons and Dragons, etc… that were marked with the store labels of selling anywhere from $35 to $104 each. To the right person, these will be a real find.
This is the beginning of the set up.. The back wall is all children’s books. The center picture is the premium table.
Today, I took most of the day off of work to go and help with the sale. This is the final set up day and I will stay as long as it takes to be ready. Tomorrow morning, I will be out waiting in the crowds to come in and shop the sale. As part of the set up team I can shop it early, but I don’t want to. I love the community of hanging outside with the rest of the book lovers and talking with them. It is a tradition and they know me by name because of it. 🙂
Does your local library have book sales? I would love to hear about them! How much are the books? How do they set it up….
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!
A great week… a busy week, I did not get many post up but here they are:
So that was my week. 🙂 This next one will be pretty crazy as it is the spring book sale (WOO HOO!) I am helping with set up tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday and working the sale Thursday – Saturday, a 5k run Saturday evening and a board meeting for camp on Sunday… probably not a big reading week coming up for me but here is what I hope to get to:
A wondrous and redemptive debut novel, set in a stark world where evil and magic coincide, The Enchanted combines the empathy and lyricism of Alice Sebold with the dark, imaginative power of Stephen King.
“This is an enchanted place. Others don’t see it, but I do.” The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison, viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits. Fearful and reclusive, he senses what others cannot. Though bars confine him every minute of every day, he marries visions of golden horses running beneath the prison, heat flowing like molten metal from their backs with the devastating violence of prison life.
Two outsiders venture here: A fallen priest and the Lady, an investigator who searches for buried information from prisoners’ pasts that can save those soon-to-be-executed. Digging into the background of a killer named York, she uncovers wrenching truths that challenge familiar notions of victim and criminal, innocence and guilt, honesty and corruption – ultimately revealing shocking secrets of her own.
Beautiful and transcendent, The Enchanted reminds us of how our humanity connects us all, and how beauty and love exist even amidst the most nightmarish reality.
Thanks to Trish Collins post on Facebook abut this one.
The town of Henbane sits deep in the Ozark Mountains. Folks there still whisper about Lucy Dane’s mother, a bewitching stranger who appeared long enough to marry Carl Dane and then vanished when Lucy was just a child. Now on the brink of adulthood, Lucy experiences another loss when her friend Cheri disappears and is then found murdered, her body placed on display for all to see. Lucy’s family has deep roots in the Ozarks, part of a community that is fiercely protective of its own. Yet despite her close ties to the land, and despite her family’s influence, Lucy – darkly beautiful as her mother was – is always thought of by those around her as her mother’s daughter. When Cheri disappears, Lucy is haunted by the two lost girls – the mother she never knew and the friend she couldn’t save – and sets out with the help of a local boy, Daniel, to uncover the mystery behind Cheri’s death.
What Lucy discovers is a secret that pervades the secluded Missouri hills, and beyond that horrific revelation is a more personal one concerning what happened to her mother more than a decade earlier.
OOH right?
That’s it, probably sticking with audio this week and finishing up book I already have going. How about you? Add you Its Monday What Are You Reading post to the link below where ti says click here.
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Ex Atlanta Cop, Callahan Garrity, sometimes wonders why she gave it all up to be owner of the House Mouse, a house cleaning service to those with means in the Georgia area. Then, when she finds herself at the scene of a liquor store crime that involves the shooting of one of her dear friends who is also a cop… she remembers why…
the job just isn’t worth your life.
Yet, when Callahan does not see the police taking the direction they should in the case, Callahan can not help but let old instincts take over. As she puts her nose where it doesn’t belong, things get a little dangerous…
This was my first Callahan Garrity book and probably won’t be my last. With a little whimsy of a cozy mystery (the House Mouse workers and Callahan’s own mother keep the book light and fun), and a small likelihood to Janet Evanovich, this book was a treat to read.
One thing I liked about this protagonist is that she is tough, a little rough around the edges (she can drink with the best of the boys), and she doesn’t give up. She does not take on the ditzy female role that other books like it tend to and I appreciated that.
A fun quick listen (I went for this one on audio!) that I thoroughly enjoyed enough to explore more of these books.
Good morning! I did not mean to fall off the grid this past week but I apparently did. Yes I have books to share, and happenings and all that stuff but running out the door in the morning and not back until night has taken its toll… This week I hope will be better. 😀 With the spring book sale this week I will have plenty to talk about.
Yesterday, if I would have been home my Saturday snapshot would have been this:
Yesterday my friend Wendy and I ran a 7k in Minneapolis called the Get Lucky. This was my second time running this one and Wendy’s first. The weather was fair, around the 20’s – much better that last years cold and windy jaunt.
12,000 people were at this run. No kidding! Another 3,000 were in St Paul doing a half marathon at the same time. I love how big these runs and fun events have become. I think last year it was about 7,000.
I was not home last weekend so this book pic is the accumulation of two weeks of literary fun that has come to my home:
I should have posts later today and throughout the week of reviews, the book sale and… another run next Saturday night called the Glow Baby Glow! (Kind of excited about that one!)
A few days ago I read and reviewed for the first time, The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This week, our book club The Bookies had the opportunity to discuss it.
On a scale of 1 – 5 (5 being the highest) the book rated mainly between 3.5 and 4. The girls all agreed that they enjoyed the book. While it was not one of those “WOW” that blew me away reads, it was an overall pleasant read with a nice mix of mid 60’s southern culture, and fats about honey and bees.
We discussed Lily’s home life situation with her father, and the loss of her mother. We discussed the culture of the 60’s in South Carolina and what that meant at the time for a white girl to live among an African-American family. (This still shocks me that this was really, not so long ago….)
Of course, we themed food and I found a fun little website called Book Menus that had a list of ALL the food in The Secret Life Of Bees. Seriously, how cool is that? We had pulled pork sandwiches and I made ham. One of the girls had coleslaw and added peaches to it (delicious!) as peaches play a role in this book. We had a pineapple strawberry upside down cake, orangeade, AND….
we had to try the coke and salted peanuts together like the y had in the book:
Bookies, trying the coke with salted peanuts as Lily and August loved in the book, Secret Life Of Bees
Why is this a great book for book clubs?
The Secret Life Of Bees brings out some good discussion topics such as abuse, the loss of a mother and women who stand in as “mothers” in our lives. There is also the topic of racial hatred and relationships among those of different backgrounds and color. The book brings with it wonderful southern foods to try as well.
Yes, it is about that time of month again when I talk book club. I can’t help it. I love that group of girls so! Tuesday evening while we sat around chatting before the review with plates full of food from the book ‘The Secret Life of Bees” and salted peanuts in coke (more on that later….), one of the girls said something that really touched my heart.
She said that she loved our book club and had to tell us why. She had been in a book club before that just did not work. She said that the group would have a book they would read but some would read it, most would not. The group would gather and have wine and talk and rarely get to the book. There was no one who brought questions to the group about the book or kept a discussion on track.
It’s no secret I love my book club. We have such an amazing group of ladies who each bring something to add to the group. They are willing to dig in and discuss the hard topics, and laugh about the fun stuff.
It’s not always easy pulling off a book club night, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love planning the food around the book and it has stretched me to make new things and try different cultures. Each book, even before I open that first page has me thinking, “what will I learn? How can I implement that into the meeting? What foods will me encounter? What music?” Where can I get a skeleton?” (Ok just kidding on that last one… at least so far 😉 )
I love doing the extras for book club. I love to fully experience the book. Bookies has come a long way in our almost 13 years. I wouldn’t trade a moment.
14-year-old Lily Owens has little memories of her mother. The one memory she does carry, is that she is responsible for her mom’s death. Her father, T. Ray, is distant and both physically and verbally abusive. When Lily finds a town written on the back of an image of a black Madonna that belonged to her mother, Lily and her friend Rosaleen decide to leave on a search for clues to who Lily’s mom was.
When Lily finds a product in a store called Black Madonna honey, the same black Madonna that is in the picture that was her mother’s, she is directed to the home of the creator of this honey. Lily meets the three Boatwright sisters, April, May, and June, three black women who harvest honey. Lily feels strongly there is a connection between these women and her mother, and plans to stay until she can find out, knowing that back home her father is just learning that she is gone and his anger for her betrayal will fuel him forward to find her.
The Secret Life Of Bees is a warm southern read which if it carried a scent I believe it would smell like bread right out of the oven with fresh honey dripping down thick slices with a background aroma of lilac and clover. This book gives me flashes of that warm feeling I had when I read Beth Hoffman’s Cee-Cee Honeycutt.
I was actually a little surprised how much I enjoyed this book/audio. I do not know what held me back from it all of these years as I clearly know now that I was missing out. Lily is a delightful protagonist. She has been forced to grow up quickly in a world without her mom and a dad who has no idea to be anything but angry.
Narrated by Jenna Lamia, who also narrates in The Help, and both of Beth Hoffman’s books as well, the audio flows smoothly as Jenna has no trouble taking on the young voices of Lily and Rosaleen, as well as switching it up to the older Boatwright sisters.
If you have not yet treated yourself to The Secret Life Of Bees I encourage you to do so. You are in for a sweet experience.
Now…. I get to watch the movie!
The Secret Life Of Bees filled South Carolina for this challenge
Good morning happy Tuesday and all that it will bring! Tonight is Bookies book club so I am *SUPER* excited about that! We are reviewing The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Yes, surprisingly most of us had never read it, including myself. I listened to it on audio and am excited to report that it was a wonderful narration! My review of the book will go up later today and tomorrow I will share the Bookies thoughts and the book club goodies we added to the review. 😀
That takes me to my office….
When I went into the office on Monday this was by one of my co-workers desks:
We are in a building where there are many businesses. This actually belongs to the yarn lady downstairs from us. I am guessing that maybe she left her items in the hallway over the weekend and someone picked them up and brought them up to us so no one stole them or knocked them over. When I sent this picture to my co-worker (who does not work until Wednesday) with a “?” he responded that he left a ransom note for the yarn lady to come and get them.
Well….
by Tuesday this is what happened:
“Miss Mabel” as I have come to call the mannequin bust, has been moved onto the said co workers chair now and has taken over his desk. Surprisingly… I had nothing to do with this one, although I am a little annoyed that I did not think of it (stupid head cold!).
Final thoughts this morning, well… err…. I mean for this post. Hopefully not final thoughts for the morning as I am on my way into work and that would leave me much like Miss Mabel… just sitting there…. 😉 Anyhoo…. final POST thoughts, we had a 53 degree day yesterday here in Minnesota. Seriously – a heat wave. Doors and windows were open and spirits lifted. It is supposed to remain in the 30’s all week.
Book Journey 