Morning Meanderings… Mother’s Day Wishes

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

Good morning!  Barreling towards the end of the week already!  WOW!  Today is my last day of work for the week and it is going to be a fun one.  Myself, and two co workers are going out to lunch for a late Administration Week celebration, then a little shopping.

Later tonight, I have a dinner/birthday gathering for a friend I used to work with.  😀

Then – this coming Sunday is already Mother’s Day.  Normally we just go out to lunch and maybe a few starter plants for the yard… but this year I have my eye on something…

I already have this and love it:

(If you are an audio lover, I highly recommend this – I use my credit every month AND they often have some great sales for members with $4.95 titles…. I really load up them 😀 )

For me though…. I seen something when I was in the Cities last week at Fleet Farm that caught my eye.  I stopped at out local Fleet Farm last night to see if we had it too…. and

we do:

It is up on a display stand, so I am hoping you (and my hubby) can see it well.  But once I seen it….. OOH!  I am thinking new reading area on the deck?  😛  I don’t know if it “Will Be Mine”… but a girl can always dream  😀

Anything you are planning on doing or hoping you will be getting for Mother’s Day?  Guy’s who read this, are you thinking about mom’s, wives, or even sisters with kids? 

Later today my review is going up for Still Alice, the one I just read with the Bookies.  This was an exciting review to write!

In The Bag by Kate Klise

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)19 Comments

Daisy is traveling with her teenage daughter Coco to Paris.  When they arrive and Coco goes through her bag excited to take out the carefully picked out skirts, peasant tops, and super cure shoes, instead she find wadded up t-shirts and dirty pants.  Ugh.  Who packs dirty pants???

WRONG bag.

Andrew is traveling with his teenage son Webb.  Andrew had noticed the very attractive  woman sitting in 6-B, with her younger sister.  Ummm… too cheesy?  Ok her daughter, but she doesn’t look like she could have a teenage daughter!  He decided to slip a note in her purse when she is not looking.  When they arrive Web finds that he has the wrong bag…. filled with expensive shirts and clothing items he can not even identify.

While Andrew and Daisy try to figure out how to get the bag mix up settled, they are unaware that Webb and Coco are also working on their own “reunion”.

Kate Klise was the fourth of six children born to educational film producer Thomas and Marjorie Klise. Raised in Peoria, Illinois, she attended Marquette University and spent fifteen years working as a correspondent for People magazine.[2] She currently resides on a farm with a pond near Norwood, Missouri , where she has many friends who she describes as kind, generous, and always thoughtful. “My nicest characters always resemble them,” said Kate Klise. She is a vegetarian, who loves tomato sandwiches. ~Wikepedia
I knew when I chose this book it sounded like fun.  Visions of light summer reading, smiles and the occasional giggle escaping me while I sat on the deck slathered in tanning lotion drinking ice tea…

well that was the plan.

The book delivered, the weather did not.

Either way, In The Bag was as I had expected.  Reading the synopsis I knew this one was just going to be candy for my brain. I liked the alternation chapters between our four protagonists, Daisy, Coco, Andrew, and Web.  The note that Andrew stuck in Daisy’s purse cracked me up… totally GUY.  😛  The email exchanges are light and fun. 

In the end, a quick, fun, read.  That if you are going to the beach, this one need to be, in the bag.  😉

Thank you TLC book tours for a fun summery type book that made me crave beaches and warm sand.

 

 

Tuesday, May 1st: Seaside Book Nook
Wednesday, May 2nd: A Bookworm’s World
Thursday, May 3rd: 2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews
Monday, May 7th: Walking With Nora
Tuesday, May 8th: Book Hooked Blog
Wednesday, May 9th: Book Journey
Thursday, May 10th: A Musing Reviews
Monday, May 14th: A Cozy Reader’s Corner
Tuesday, May 15th: Life In Review
Wednesday, May 16th: Book Reviews by Molly
Thursday, May 17th: Good Girl Gone Redneck

Morning Meanderings… Book Club Of Laughter and Tears

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

Good morning!  Happy Wednesday! 

I am about to gush about my book club again.  😯

I can’t help it. 

Last night we met to review Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  It is a book about a women with Alzheimer’s, and it was a book I absolutely did not want to read.  I did of course, read it, and I am so glad I did. 

I knew our discussion was going to be good no matter what each of the eighteen Bookies thought of this book.  Love it or hate it, this book was going to hit a nerve or a heart string in each and every one of us….

and so it did.

I spent 2 1/2 hours with these amazing women discussing the book, the characters, and people in our own lives that have experienced this disease that honestly, scares the nutter butters out of me.  We ate food centered around the book, and we ate food mentioned that is supposed to be good for brain power and memory (dark chocolate and blueberries).  We laughed, and we cried.

Driving home after 9 pm, I had to once again think how lucky I am to be part of such an amazing group of women.  The topic was not an easy one.  One of our members found that it hit so close to home that she could not come and discuss it with us, but instead sent a letter along with another member saying what a painful topic it was, her thoughts on the book, how it touches her personally, and she would see us next month.

And that is what I LOVE about us.  We keep it real.  A book can generate raves, or it can cause pain and anger, yet we stick together, appreciate each others opinions, even when they differ from our own.  I can not even begin to tell you how that makes me feel, what a level of security and trust we bring to each meeting. 

Our review will go up on Thursday (I can’t wait!!!)  .  Today I have a book tour review for In The Bag.

As I head out to work, I will leave you with this, have you hugged a book club member today?  😀

May BAND Discussion: Non Fiction…. The Topics You Hate To Admit You Enjoy

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)31 Comments

BAND — Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees — is a group organized to promote the joy of reading nonfiction. We are “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” and we want you to join us. Each month, a member of BAND hosts a discussion on their blog related to nonfiction.


I was so excited when I was offered to host the May BAND topic.  I started dabbling a bit more consistently into non-fiction in early 2010 and discovered I really enjoyed it.  It seems as I get older (*insert GROAN here*)the more I find myself fascinated with true stories.

Non-fiction covers everything from memoirs, to facts about anything…bugs, wood, planes, homes, historical truths, you name it… you can read about it…

HOWEVER…

what I would like to offer up as the topic this month is what are those topics in non fiction reading, that you almost hate to say out loud that you enjoy reading about.

I have two that come to mind, one I don’t mind saying out loud… the other even disturbs me a bit.  😛 

The first is, I am fascinated with everything to do with the Titanic.  Not just now that we are on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy… but I always have been.  In a way, I feel bad about this because it is about a tragedy… but I am drawn to it… the ship, the facts, the people on board… I can not get enough about reading non fiction about this…

A Night To Remember

Titanic Survivor by Violet Jessop (on my wish list!)

The Story Of Titanic as told by Its Survivors

Voyagers Of The Titanic

 

The second non fiction topic that I hate to admit I like to read is true crime.  Yup.  There was a time when an Ann Rule book was the first book I read each year.  I admit, I haven’t read one in a few years now, but I am still drawn to the topic for some reason even I can’t explain.  I am oddly interested and baffled by what causes people to act in such ways.  Some of the true crime I have read in the past:

Heart Full Of Lies

The Stranger Beside Me (Ann Rule’s recap of her friendship with Ted Bundy when he worked the Crisis Hot Line with her, before he was discovered to be a serial killer)

Green River Running Red

Every Breath You Take (the first Ann Rule I ever read, about a woman whose husband would not let her go – an obsession that was so frightening that she (Sheila Blackthorn Bellush) knew he would eventually kill her and had told a friend to have Ann Rule  write her story if he did succeed in killing her).  He succeeded.

 

Thanks for letting me play in the BAND!  😀

Do you have any non fiction topics that you are a little reluctant to admit you enjoy reading?  It can be anything… books about ants, the human brain, bed bugs, Salem Witch Trials, Undertakers, fashion, rock star memoirs…you name it! Spill it!  😀  Feel free to write your own BAND post and link it back here. 


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Morning Meanderings… BOOK CLUB TUESDAY!!!

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)23 Comments

Good morning!  Happy Tuesday.  I woke up to a light rain (again) pattering on the back deck as I let the dogs out but today… I dont mind.  After I write this I will be on my way to work, after work to the store to get my ingredients for tonight’s Bookies review of Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

To all of you who have said to me “I can not believe you have not read this one yet!” or “That is one of my favorite books!”  Now that I have read it, I can not believe I had not read it yet either, and yes, I think it is quickly rising in my mind to on of the best books I have read this year.  Our review will go up on Thursday.

So as it clouds up over here in Central Minnesota, my mind is circling around ideas of if I can make pumpkin ravioli for the first time ever and serve it to 18 girls in my book club successfully, or….

am I better off making enchilada’s… a safer recipe I am more familiar with…. 😀

 

In Shelf Awareness this morning, one of those lovely morning reads that pops in my email and makes me smile, this was stated about the best book club reads out there right now:

 

Top Book Club Books in April

The following were the most popular book club books during April based on votes from readers and leaders of more than 32,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James
3. Defending Jacob: A Novel by William Landay
4. The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain
5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
6. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
7. Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel by S.J. Watson
8. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
9. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
10. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

 

I have read #1, #5, #7,#8.#9, and #10.  How about you?  Have you read any of these?  Would you agree with their choices?  I would have to add Still Alice should be added to that group.  I think our discussion tonight is going to be deep, and amazing. 

The Selection by Kiera Cass

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)14 Comments

If I had to vote on a “best cover for 2012” book.. this one would be in the running.

~ Sheila

The Selection

America Singer is a young teenage girl. She lives in a country, Illea, where people are ranked by their skills, or in castes. America is a five, only three steps from the bottom. Fives are typically artists or performers; America is a singer and is skilled at a few instruments. Her family constantly struggles to get the food needed, as well as keep the house heated through the winter season. America lives with her mother, Magda, her father, Shalom, her younger sister, May, and her younger brother, Gerad. Her eldest siblings, Kota and Jenna, have moved out of the house. Aspen, a handsome nineteen year old, holds America’s heart. America cannot truly be with Aspen because he is a six; women hardly ever marry below them. Aspen can hardly provide for his family, especially after his father’s death. America, because of money issues, enters in the “Selection” a contest in which the king and queen of Illea randomly choose thirty five women between the ages of sixteen and twenty from each providence to compete for their son’s hand in marriage. America, of course, knows she has little chance of being picked, but enters the contest for the possible compensation that her family could earn if she is selected. When America is selected, her whole providence of Carolina is dumbfounded.

America goes to the palace only to escape Aspen, who has recently decided to end their relationship. It is here in the palace where she meets the kind, generous, caring, and funny Prince Maxon. America has no intentions of coming to care for Maxon, and expects to be sent home in the first week. To her surprise, she becomes very dear friends with Maxon. Despite her still nagging feelings for Aspen, she finds herself and the prince growing closer and closer together. After brutal attacks on the palace and a surprise appearance from Aspen, she knows she must chose between the two, but who will it be?

 

The Selection is a book that is portrayed in great detail, and lets you really feel what the characters feel. It shows you the true meaning of life, and mostly, the tangled ways of love and how it creeps up on you at unimaginable times. I personally enjoyed this book immensely.  I loved it, and read it in a matter of hours. It is extremely hard to put down once you start, and is interesting and pulls you in from the beginning. Looking forward to the next book!

Note from Sheila:  Camryn told me this is one I do not want to miss!  Also, the book cover pic is always linked to where you an purchase the book but I also heard it is excellent in audio as well.  Audio lovers, here is a link for you.  😀

 

Camryn is 12 years old, soon to be thirteen and enjoys reading YA books of the fantasy and romance genre. A few of her favorite books are “Hourglass” by Myra McEntire, “The Other Countess” by Eve Edwards, “Hush, Hush” by Becca Fitzpatrick, “The Immortals” series, the “Marked” series and the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” series.  When she’s not reading she enjoys watching Gilmore Girls or going to book sales for more books to add to her ever-growing collection.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)75 Comments

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.

This past weeks winner:

I must have distracted everyone last week with the fact that I had not read The Secret Garden yet…  no one entered the weekly giveaway 😀

 

 

I am a little wiped out right now.  I was gone most of the weekend for a bike ride in Lakeville Minnesota and just got home around 5:30 pm tonight.  My friend Amy and I road 50 miles in not the most ideal weather, but it could have been so much worse. 

 

Here on the blog this past week:

 

Like YA?  I have a new On-line Book Club to tell you about

 

The Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris (A Camryn review!)

 

The Secret Garden Read-A-Long and Garden Party!

Pin It and Do It Challenge – Have You Seen This? 

The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman

Dead Running by Cami Checketts (I am so excited about this book – read my review and see why!)

Home Front by Kristin Hannah

When You Dont Love That Book That Everybody Else Seems To

 

Thats the week.  I am just finishing Wintergirls, and had DNF on the Koontz audio I posted last week (Sorry Dean but you went a bit too creepers for me and lost me by the end of the first CD….)

As for this week, I have some wonderful reads lined up that have me excited to just… well… READ 😀

 

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

I read Divergent As the first book of 2012 and really enjoyed it.  I am excited to continue this journey with Insurgent!

 

 

 

Cate, Renee, and Abby have come to New York for very different reasons, and in a bustling city of millions, they are linked together through circumstance and chance. Cate has just been named the features editor of Gloss, a high-end lifestyle magazine. It’s a professional coup, but her new job comes with more complications than Cate ever anticipated. Her roommate Renee will do anything to nab the plum job of beauty editor at Gloss. But snide comments about Renee’s weight send her into an emotional tailspin. Soon she is taking black market diet pills—despite the racing heartbeat and trembling hands that signal she’s heading for real danger. Then there’s Abby, whom they take in as a third roommate. Once a joyful graduate student working as a nanny part time, she abruptly fled a seemingly happy life in the D.C. suburbs. No one knows what shattered Abby—or why she left everything she once loved behind. Pekkanen’s most compelling, true-to-life novel yet tells the story of three very different women as they navigate the complications of careers and love—and find the lifeline they need in each other.

I LOVE Pekkanens books and can not wait on this one!!!!!

 

 

 

A European vacation. A luggage mix-up. A note from a secret admirer.

Meet two single parents who think they’re too busy to date.
And two teenagers who can’t stop writing flirty emails.
This is a tale of connections—missed and made—in a universe that seems to have its heart set on reuniting Ms. 6B and Mr. 13C.

Webb
I can’t believe I picked up the wrong bag at the airport. My dad is never going to let me hear the end of it.

Coco
I don’t understand why Mom told me to pack my worst underwear. And now I’ve lost my bag? Ack!

Andrew
I cannot stop thinking about that woman in seat 6B on the flight to Paris.

Daisy
I don’t have time to worry about the creep sitting in 13C who slipped a note in my purse. I have to find my daughter’s missing bag before this ruins our vacation.

In the Bag is a smart and stylish story that explores the old-fashioned art of romance in a modern world, where falling in love can be as risky as checking a bag on an international flight. Buckle your seat belt—it’s going to be a bumpy vacation!

Ok this just sounds like a fun read… and I could use a fun read.  😀

 

 

 

Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom who has finally gotten her and her daughter’s lives back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry, her job as a pediatrician fulfills her—though it is stressful—and her daughter, Megan, is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old juggling homework and the swim team.

But Jill’s life is turned upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet Jill can’t turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own.

Sounds good to me!

 

That’s the week.  I am excited to see what you are reading this week!  Since I have not been home all weekend I need my blog visit fix 😀  Please add your Ir’s Monday What Are You Reading Post below where it says click here!

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and those of you who read mainly children’s through YA reads – please also link your post here:

When You Don’t Love That Book That EVERYONE Seems To Love

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)75 Comments

Recently I feel as though I have hit a couple “must read” books that I just didn’t feel the love.  I t starts out the same, I heard about the book through lets say:

  • Book friends

  • magazine

  • Book sites like shelf awareness

  • Book Blogs

The book sounds… well, AMAZING.  The reviews are AWESOME.  I read the synopsis and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!  I then:

  • Purchase it from a book store

  • download it on to my NOOK

  • pick it up in audio from audible.com

  • cross my fingers and rub my lucky rabbits foot and hope I am offered it for review

And then I dive in… reading it or listening to it on audio….

and occasionally it happens….

it sucks. 😯

Ok, ok, maybe sucks is a strong word, but it doesn’t fit for you.  It’s unclear, the characters are not developed well, you are lost within the story line with the first 30 minutes, it’s too long, it’s too short, the language makes you cringe, the crudeness makes you wonder why everyone raved about this book, in the end story lines are left wide open, there is no closure, there is too much closure, it quite possibly is… dull.  (and by saying this I do not mean all of the above, I mean a book may be disliked for any one of these reasons… or well, yeah, all of them.  😀

You get my point. 

And then, for those of us who review… you review.

I have noticed one of two things happening on these reviews.  1.  You write your honest and truthful review.  You are fair, you keep it light, you don’t use words like “it made me want to vomit” or “I could have thrown this book across the room, picked it up and thrown it again, preferably into a burning fire pit”, no instead at the end you may add warnings or be aware of: and you quietly and accurately list things to watch out for in the book if said book has things to watch out for (ie. language, crudeness, graphic). 

and 2.  You let it all hang out in the review.  You put your emotion into it, you DO mention if it made you want to vomit or if you wanted it to burn in a fire pit.  If you screamed or yelled or cried or groaned out loud… you say it. 

Honestly, I tend to lean more towards #2 in my reviews.  I like to know how a book affects people, even if it is negatively… I like a little spunk in my reviews….  😛

So here are my questions:

When you do read these awesome books that turn out to be not so awesome, how do you review them?  Are you more of a #1 style reviewer, or a #2?  When reading a review (book bloggers and non book bloggers) which style of review do you prefer?

Home Front by Kristin Hannah

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

Michael Zarkades was a busy man.  His job as a lawyer kept him at the office late at night, and back again early in the morning.  His wife Jolene handled everything else, groceries, home upkeep, the needs of their two children, Betsy (12) and Lu Lu (4), bill paying, carpooling, and a pilot for the National Guards.  Their lives went 100 miles and hour – in opposite directions.

With a marriage already on the rocks, the news of Jolene’s deployment could not have been worse timing.  Michael had just taken on a tough case.  Betsy was practicing (and very well I might add) at being the “oh poor me” teenager, Lu Lu valued all her mommy time. 

With Jolene gone for what looks like will be a year, Michael gets a full dose of what it is like to try to manage  career and family.  When the unthinkable happens, this family with all of its frayed ends, will need to use everything they have to pull it together…. or unravel forever.

 

 

I have dabbled a bit through the years in Kristin Hannah’s books and have enjoyed what I have read.  Home Front was one that was introduced to me by a friend, and I was due for another audio so really, why not?

The narration was done by Maggi-Meg Reed and at first I could not get over how much she sounded like Kathleen Turner, A very strong, self-assured, sometimes over dramatic voice that at first bothered me, as it felt too strong for Jolene… and then later in the audio, I decided it was perfect for Jolene… in fact the parts where she reads the overly spoiled and whiny Betsy actually cracked me up.  (Even though seriously if there was ever a character I wanted to slap and tell her to grow up, it is Betsy).

The story told here is interesting as usually when we think of someone going off to war, it is the husband, or the son.  Kristin Hannah twists that up with the “what if instead it was a woman, and not just a woman, but a married woman with two small children.  What if it was the man left at home to handle things?

Jolele’s time away is riddled with her seeing war first hand, yet trying to make her family believe through the occasional phone call or email that she is in a safe zone, mostly flying around VPI’s.  While you see all that Jolene is hiding, you see Michael go from angry at his wife, to coming to more of an understanding of how serious where she is can be. 

It’s hard to say much here without giving away major plot points so I will just say that Kristin Hannah does a fine job of surprising the reader of what will happen next.  The easy answers, are not what we find here, but in the end, I think we can make peace with the way it is. 

While come parts of this book/audio felt unnecessarily drawn out, in the end, I liked it. 

 

Here are a few other fine Book Bloggers thoughts:

S. Krishna’s Books

A Bookworm’s World

My Friend Amy

A Musing Reviews

Amazon Rating

Goodreads Review

Morning Meanderings….Bike Rides past….

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)49 Comments

Good morning!  😀

This weekend I am right on top of some great picture happenings (I hope!).  Later today I think I am going to a friends property to help her when the BEES come in.  Yes, she is a new Beekeeper!  I didn’t know that Bee Keeper outfit was on my bucket list… until I seen her in, and now I must got here.  SO… she is supposed to call me if that is going to work out for later today.

Then tonight, me friend Amy and I will take off for the first bike ride in Minnesota that starts tomorrow morning.  It is called the Ironman, mainly because it goes no matter what the weather and not once, has the weather been nice in my five years of this ride:

2008:  storming and lightning:  30 degrees out

2009:  Rain and snow flakes

2010:  Light rain (the best we ever had for conditions)

2011:  Hail and storms – my friend Wendy and I skipped the ride went shopping and to a movie instead.

Now, tomorrow calls for isolated thunderstorms, 80% chance of rain.  100% annoying…

Just once… if it could be nice.

The ride is a 30, 45, 60, or 100.  My goal is always the 100, but the weather messes that up.  I will leave it up to Amy what we do. 

In the meantime, for Saturday snapshots I thought I would post a few pics from last years rides to hopefully get me ready to RIDE!

Brainerd Ride

 

Hard boiled egg… on a stick
MS150…. a two day ride where we call this the Bike Cemetery.

 

..ummm… later that same day of the MS150… mile 71 to be exact.

 

Me and my cousins wife Rhonda

 

My bike!

 

Stop by At Home With Books and see what else is being discussed at Saturday Snapshots.  As for me, I will be back in a nit, helping with a seminar this morning… need to write a couple posts and pack!  😀