Morning Meanderings… Road Trip to pick up the BROKEN son

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

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Good morning!  Grabbing a quick bite to eat this morning and then heading out the door shortly to go pick up College Son who last weekend broke hid foot and is in a cast up to his knee and can not drive. 

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You can see the little toe area where the break is…. officially called the fifth metatarsal.

So off to Mankato this morning, a 3 1/2 hour road trip one way so I will be on the road about 8 hours today, back early afternoon.  Justin will stay with me for the weekend and I will take his home Sunday afternoon. 

Of course that translates for me = AUDIO!  I am currently listening to The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott (good!) and Killing Kennedy (really really good!).  I am thinking of Bringing Hunger Games on audio with me or perhaps a Harry Potter one, something that we can listen to together on the way back… 🙂  I also have Gone Girl…. decisions decisions….

How are you spending the start to your weekend?

Peaches For Father Francis by Joanne Harris

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)8 Comments

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Vianne Rocher has long separated herself from the French Village where a Chocolate Shop changed her life as well as others who sampled the chocolates she made within that shop.  Then a letter arrives that Vianne has never expected, one that has her returning to that French Village.

When Vianne returns along with her two daughters Anouk and Rosette she finds that many changes have taken place, among them her old friend Father Francis stands accused of a crime. 

 

 

I adored Chocolat.  I loved the richness that author Joanne Harris puts into the details and the characters and having a chance to revisit these beloved people was a no brainer for me. Vianne once again carries the story along where Father Francis provides a little comic relief.

While I did not find Peaches For Father Francis as smooth or a read as Chocolat, it was still a nice visit with old friends.

Morning Meanderings… Top 10 Literate Cities

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

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Good morning!  I only have a few minutes this morning, life has returned to normal and I am off to work this morning… first time in a week so really no complaints here. 😀

I wanted to share with you something I read this morning over my coffee…. I read about the current top 10 literate citied and I found it interesting:

  1. Washington, D.C.
  2. Seattle, Wash.
  3. Minneapolis, Minn.
  4. Pittsburgh, Pa.
  5. Denver, Colo.
  6. St. Paul, Minn.
  7. Boston, Mass.
  8. Atlanta, Ga.
  9. St. Louis, Mo.
  10. Portland, Ore.

You know I am cheering for my home state Minnesota.  Yeah, that’s right… I dont get into sports much but I would wear the big foam finger to a bookish event going “Yeah… that’s right… we bad… We’re #3!  We’re #3!”

Ok… perhaps a bit much, but you get the point. 😀

Today I work, I have a couple of errands, later I work out, it’s going to be an awesome day 😀

The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

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Edgar Sawtelle, born mute, lives a fine life at his home in Wisconsin.  He works on the family farm training dogs.  When Claude, Edgar’s uncle and brother to his father shows up, life takes a sharp turn for Edgar.  When Edgar’s father suddenly dies, Edgar thinks something suspicious is going on.  When Edgar sees his Uncle pushing his way into the role of his father, in more ways than one, it is the final straw.

Edgar flees from the only home he has never known with his three dogs.  While away his travels cause him to grow up and prepare himself to return home and face his fathers murderer.

 

 

It’s hard to explain what I thought of this audio.  While the storyline is interesting, it felt long and not overly eventful.  As I type that this sounds harsh.  I can’t quite put my finger on why it wasn’t a great listen for me.  It is well written and an interesting synopsis.  I think there are several loop holes in the book, for instance, there is a lot of questions brought up about the dogs but it never is a completed thought. There is also a section (my favorite) where Edgar meets a man named Henry, this part of the book later to me comes into question as it felt like it was left as an unfinished segment of the story.  Or… maybe in both these cases author David Wroblewski is writing brilliantly and counting on the reader to be able to complete the thought of the unknown and I just didn’t get it :D.

Overall, certainly not a bad read, just not a “Loved it!” from me.

Morning Meanderings… Coming Home

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

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Good morning from Trout Lake Camp!  I am at the morning of our final day at camp.  The agenda this morning is breakfast, a quick wrap up of the retreat and then we are heading home.

Home!

I feel like I have not been there for days!  It will be so wonderful to go home and just BE. 😀  We had a great time the last few days, ping-pong, card games, hanging out, I even had a nap yesterday.  Now, I am ready to get home.  Al is in Florida for the next three weeks so the dogs and I will be hanging out and working out and getting in some good reading time!  I am excited about all of the above 😀

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Me playing shuffle board (I think). Pretty intense stuff 🙂

 I will have a review up this afternoon and this morning I wanted to leave you with this super fun picture I seen this morning on the Shelf Awareness email.:

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According to the Shelf Awareness email, New York Public Library had 281 children + 1 cat come to an event that broke the world Guinness Book Of Records for people wearing the cat in the hat, hat.

Makes you wonder… what World record could we readers break?

It’s Monday What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)59 Comments

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Welcome to 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.

Under the new and hopefully improved 2013 guidelines, the winner each week will receive a $5 Amazon gift card.  This past weeks winner is:Kacy from Meandering

Kacy from Meandering Home!!!!

 

Well I did not mean to be MIA this weekend.  I was at a Board Member/ Leadership Retreat for Camp Benedict and I was half way there on Friday when I realized that my laptop was still at home.  So, you didn’t hear from me this weekend.  And then I got home and was exhausted.  We stayed up until 2:00 am on Friday and I was up after 1:00 am on Saturday, enjoying the company of some awesome people.

 

Before I left, here is what I did accomplish book wise this week:

 

The Chocolate War – book VS. Movie

 

Audio Books – Abridged and Unabridged, whats the difference?

 

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard (the true story of the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard)

 

January Recap, with link up for those of you participating in the WHERE Are You Reading challenge

 

Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah

 

Kick Off to the 12K Challenge!

 

 

I have a couple more reviews to write yet and I hardly read at all this weekend.

 

For this week I will be reading:

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August 18-20, 1955: Three terrifying days and nights still remembered with awe in the Delaware River valley. Record-breaking rainfall from hurricanes Connie and Diane abruptly ended a withering drought, but the relief was short-lived. It was soon overshadowed by terror and destruction that tore away bridges and ripped houses from their foundations.

From the river’s headwaters in the Catskills and through the Poconos, excessive runoff surged down steep slopes and through valleys on both sides of the river. Tributaries swelled unbelievably, some rising thirty feet in fifteen minutes. Eventually, they all poured into the Delaware, transforming the usually placid waters into a raging, uncontrollable beast.

Mountain resorts were inundated, leaving cars upended in swimming pools. Entire summer camps were washed away. More than 400 children were evacuated by helicopter from island camps in a tense, unprecedented operation.

In the end, nearly a hundred people were dead and hundreds more homeless. Dozens were missing, some ripped–still sleeping–from their beds in the middle of the night. Victims’’ bodies were still being recovered thirty years later — some were never found.

Devastation on the Delaware follows the true stories of survivors and eyewitnesses to bring these events to chilling life. More than 100 historical photos and a dozen maps illustrate this narrative nonfiction account of a tragic event that changed life in the Delaware Valley forever.

This is our book club read for February.

 

 

 

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McNees lightly imagines the life of Louisa May Alcott, whose Little Women has enjoyed generations-long success. The story begins with a 20-year-old Louisa unhappily moving with her family from Boston to Walpole, N.H., where her Transcendentalist philosopher father pursues a life sans material pleasure. Louisa, meanwhile, plans on saving enough money to return to Boston and pursue a career as a writer. Then she meets the handsome and charming Joseph Singer, who stirs up strong emotions in Louisa. Not wanting to admit that she is attracted to him, Louisa responds to Joseph with defensiveness and anger until, of course, she can no longer deny her feelings and becomes torn between her desires and her dreams.

I have been wanting to read this one for awhile!

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MacKayla “Mac” Lane is a small-town southern girl living a life of suntans and shopping. All that changes when her sister dies in Ireland and a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone raises disturbing questions about the nature of her sister’s death. Mac follows the lead to Dublin and the strange life her sister led, on to the darkly dangerous book-dealer Jericho Barrons, and a burgeoning war with deadly Fae that humankind doesn’t even realize has begun. Time-travel-romance maven Moning reshapes her Celtic lore for a radically different and engaging new dark fantasy series. Mac’s first-person narrative is more than point of view; it’s a true recounting of how a sheltered young girl grows to accept the role fate has dealt her.

Picked this one up from audible.com.

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Few pastors or Christian writers have dared to approach the subject of how proper eating and an active lifestyle can affect how we serve God. Author Gary Thomas does just that. And he reaches all the way back to the apostle Paul, who wrote that we need to prime our bodies to become, ‘an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.’ To illustrate the body/soul correlation, Thomas presents engaging and diverse stories that include a young mom who got fit through volleyball and reaped spiritual rewards in her marriage, a 300-pound pastor who realized his obesity was eroding his ministry impact, and a woman who gained the spiritual strength to survive a contentious divorce by training for a marathon. In every instance, Thomas makes a direct connection between the physical challenge and its spiritual consequence. This book is a must read for anyone seeking new and compelling motivation for strengthening their bodies and fortifying their souls.

We are reading this one as a staff for my work. 

I leave tomorrow morning for a staff retreat yes that is two retreats in a row.  I will be back home on Wednesday early afternoon but I do plan this time to remember my laptop 😀

What are you reading this week?  Please add your link to where it says “click here” below.

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For those of you who review mainly Middle Grade (MG) and/or Young Adult (YA) reads, please also add your link to this meme as well:

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Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments
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Note – this is a stock picture, not a pic of my audio

As Annie Colwater waves good-bye to her daughter as she travels to study abroad, she id not realize that was not the only thing she would be saying good-bye to that day.  On the drive home Annie’s husband Blake, confesses he has been having an affair and he would like a divorce.  Shocked and needing to get away from the pain that has just been placed on her, Annie heads back to where she grew up, Mystic Washington and to her father who still lives there.

Within a few short days Annie hears of the death of a long-lost friend and stops in on two widowed husband and Annie’s first love, Nick Delacroix.  Within a short amount of time (more on that later), Annie and Nick rekindle those old feelings (much like throwing gasoline on an already burning fire).

While Annie is experiencing feelings she did not know she could still produce, she also knows that eventually she must return home to sort out her life.  When a phone call flips her world once again.. Annie is forced to make  a hard choice, she just has to decide if she should follow her head or follow her heart… and some times, they may both lead in the same direction.

I have read Kristin Hannah before and enjoyed her books.  When I found this audio at a price I could not resist, I snatched it up.  One thing you can say about Kristin Hannah is she writes in a feel good, heart of the matters way that I was in the mood for.  Her writing gives you that feeling like you have been traveling for some time and are looking forward to a home cooked meal.  Kristin Hannah’s books are that home cooked meal.

 

 

 

While listening to this one on audio I had many battles with it.  For one, things were moving way way way to fast.  Annie’s decisions felt as though time and again they were made hastily with no thought whatsoever,consequences be damned. Of course, that does not make her a bad character, perhaps one could argue that Annie had been a rule follower all her life and look where that got her?  Maybe she was out breaking the mold…

but it felt like more than that to me.

As the audio went on there was a later happening that I jumped on feeling that the story had just jumped ahead skipping a vital section… and then I got it.

The audio I was listening to was abridged (my bad – I purchased it that way), meaning that it had been shortened from the original writing and as I recently learned through Twitter conversations and Google, abridged is to provide audio books at a much better cost and are therefore significantly shorter than the unabridged.  Abridged also appeal to people who may not have the time to listen to a whole audio book.  See my vocal thoughts on that idea here. 😀

Once I realized what I was dealing with I quit judging the book so harshly.  In fact, as it went on I found I did like the story and finished it.  While it was good, I was not invested enough in the book to go through it again in book format or unabridged. 

If you enjoy Kristin Hannah I think you will enjoy this one as well, just be sure to read it or get the unabridged audio book.

Morning Meanderings…Retreat! Retreat!

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)8 Comments

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Good morning!  Happy Friday!  Lots of stuff happening around here in the next 6 days so I am basking in this little time I have this morning to enjoy some coffee, eggs, and chatting with you. 😀

This morning I put up the 12K Challenge over at Team Kickin It.  Yes, today is kick off day and I am excited to see where this challenge goes for everyone who signed up for it. 

Now in the midst of a half filled suitcase, laundry in the dryer, food on the counter and a “to do” list, I am preparing for back to back retreats over the next 6 days.  No, I couldn’t plan this if I tried.

First, many months ago the AIDS Camp that I am on the board for thought it would be fun to do a three-day retreat at the camp.  The days were chosen for February 1 -3.  Awesome I thought, I have nothing going on.  Then, a couple of months ago, the staff I work with thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we did a staff retreat.  That sounded cool, we would all go hang out together for a few days at a camp about an hour away.  They chose the dates February 4 -6.  😯  Yup.  Seriously, I could not make this up.

So….. today I need to be at Camp Benedict by 2:00 pm.  I will be home on Sunday early afternoon and then need to be at Trout Lake Camp by noon on Monday.  I will be home on Wednesday afternoon.

I am taking my laptop so I should be on-line and checking in and writing posts.  Things like this make me a bit buggy… so much going on but I have to break it down to one day at a time or I can overwhelm myself.  I am hoping for some reading and relaxation time as well.

January Recap and WHERE Are You Reading Link Up

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)23 Comments

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January was a great month here at Book Journey for books and audio.  It has been a long time since I have had such a good month.  I end with this last day of January with 12 reads completed and reviewed,  Here is what they were:

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The Road by Cormac McCarthyckson

Between The Lines by Jodi Piccoult

In The Belly Of Jonah by Sandra Brannan

Gods In Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

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Will To Murder by Gail Feichting

Ashes by Ilsa Bick

The Gilly Sisters by Tiffany Baker

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

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GONE by Randy Wayne White

Murder Of The Century by Paul Collins

Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans

Born This Way by Paul Vitagliano

For best of the month, I would say do not pass on Gods In Alabama, The Gilly Salt Sisters and Level 2.

Here is my WHERE I have been reading so far this year.  If you are participating in the WHERE Are You Reading Challenge, please add your recap post to the linky below:

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Have you read any of these books?  What was your best reads of January?

Morning Meanderings… I have taken a SHINING to this book…

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)25 Comments

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Good morning.  Here we are the last day of January and my month was an excellent one for reading and audio.  More on that later…

A few days ago I decided to join in on the #Shineon Read-a-long of The Shining by Stephen King hosted by Jill at Fizzy Thoughts.  I think it will be a fun adventure in King, who other than my listening to 11-22-63 last year, I have not read since I was a teenager and it will be interesting to see what I think of his older writing now.

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There was a time I enjoyed King very much and his movies too… in fact the Shining was creepy spooky good but again, I have not seen it in a long time.  If you care to join in on the read-a-long, use the link above to check it out, we have all of February to read it and it’s not a very large book. 

Today I work and I am also taking care of my hubby who had dental surgery yesterday and is recovering at here at home.  Tomorrow I will be sharing with you my latest TV addiction… 😛

Have you ever read Stephen King?  If so, what is your favorite book you have read by him?  I would have to say that 11-22-63 is by far my favorite all time King read.