Morning Meanderings…. attack of the flannel man

Published on October 26, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)17 Comments

Good Morning! Happy Tuesday wherever you are. 😀 I am in a very wet Central Minnesota having not had any coffee yet and wondering when did I suddenly get so unorganized. I actually woke up for the first time in about a year and realized that I almost forgot to post the morning meandering today.

GAH!

I love the morning meandering!

This past weekend, myself and my friend Wendy went to the cabin up North. Finland Minnesota. We arrived about 7:30 pm and after bringing all our items into the cabin, we drove down a few miles to a nearby restaurant.

Wendy had never been to the cabin with me before and I was telling her that the restaurant would give her a little bit of Finland culture. We went in, found a booth and ordered big delicious mushroom swiss burgers. We were enjoying our conversation when “WHUMP” a flannel covered man sat in my side of the booth.

Yup.

AND… not sitting there to talk to us, but with his back turned to us. He was talking tot the people who had the large table in the center of the room and paid us no mind at all. My eyes got big and I looked at Wendy as we could not believe what just happened. His large flannel shirt facing away….

We stifled our laughs, and Wendy said she wished she could have taken a picture of the look on my face. I am quite sure it was priceless. Eventually he turned and asked if we minded if he talked to his friends a few minutes, I said that was fine. He left about ten minutes later and well… I guess we have the funny memory.

Welcome to Finland.

Other than that moment, the weekend was pretty uneventful. I did a little writing and little reading. It was good.

This week already seems to have gotten away from me. Yesterday I was so busy all day that i hardly had time to visit the Monday What Are You Reading people. I hope to do more of that later today….

after work…

after workout….

Eventually.

Anyhoo – I will get back on my game here…. just fuzzy yet from sleep and I think the lack of coffee. 😀 Have a super day!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on October 24, 2010October 24, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)72 Comments

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

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. You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

Last weeks winner (using Random.Org) was:

Alleluialu from Bookend Crossing

Congratulations! Please choose an item out of the PRIZE BOX and email me your choice with your mailing address as well! journeythroughbooks@gmail.com

I just got home about an hour ago from being at our cabin this weekend. We never get there enough! I was hoping it would be more reading time than it was, but instead my friend Wendy and I talked a lot (A LOT) and watched many episodes of Season One Gilmore Girls which was pretty cool too. 😀

So, looking back on a very crazy busy week of training a new office manager and regular life commitments, here is what happened at Book Journey:

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (audio review, my first Lippman and oh yeah – there will be more!)

Alice’s tea Cup by Haley Fox and Lauren Fox (super awesome book with recipes for a tea and scones, and other melt in your mouth treats!)

What would your name have been? (I am curious to know if you had been born the opposite sex, what your name was planned to be)

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (A late banned book review)

What is it with me and Jayne Eyre? Yes, I admit to my constant battle with this woman. 😛

Sylvia – Movie Review. The book The Bell Jar left me wanting to know more about Sylvia Plath and this movie fed that need to understand this woman more.

I did get some reading done this weekend and have a few exciting review to write this week on books and audio I think many of you will enjoy!

As for this weeks plan, here is what I will be reading:

This is our November book club read and I am curious about this one. Set in renaissance Italy in 1482, it is the story of a prostitute who steals a small portrait from a painter and opens up a whole lot of trouble she was not looking for. When people close to her start dying she flees with the one man she can trust, Brother Guido who has been trying to convert her.

For the love of Adriana Trigiani, look what popped into my mailbox recently? This book will be released tot he public on November 9th and I want to be sure my review is ready to roll. I will also be chatting with Adriana about this book, and her upcoming books to movies (SSSSQQQUUUEEEEEE!!!)

I want to list more but I have a few I want to finish this week from recent weeks so I am going to refrain. Seriously though, I had an amazing reading week so make sure you watch this weeks reviews because I can not wait to share them with you! 😀

In the meantime, I hope you are going to let me know what you have been reading this past week and what you plan to read this coming week. I love seeing what is on your agenda! Please add you link below:

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My Lost Daughter by Nancy Thayer Rosenberg – Hard Cover Giveaway!

Published on October 24, 2010October 24, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)49 Comments

Lily Forrester is a tough Ventura County judge who has overcome adversity and heartache to get to a place where she can help those who can’t help themselves. She’s put all of her passion and energy into this cause and has no regrets. That is, until she receives word that her daughter Shana, who is attending law school hundreds of miles away, seems to be having a nervous breakdown.

Feeling guilty at what she sees as a failure in her duty as a mother, Lily rushes to Shana’s side. With a major murder trial underway in her court, Lily faces an agonizing choice: stay with Shana — and possibly see a killer go free due to a mistrial — or return to work and possibly sacrifice her daughter’s sanity. In a desperate balancing act, Lily takes Shana to a supposedly prestigious treatment facility for help.

Unfortunately for the two women, the institution is far less interested in treating patients than it is in bilking insurance companies out of extravagant fees�Ķ and the staff is less than scrupulous about patients’ rights. After being stonewalled for weeks, Lilly discovers that Shana has been threatened by sadistic so-called caregivers, given mind-deadening drugs without consent, and held for hours in a tiny, bare cell without food or water. Lily will have to use all her knowledge of the law to find a way to free Shana. Lily does not know that Shana faces another danger — one that isn’t institutional. A sociopath is in hiding at the hospital, using the organization’s criminal activities for his own purposes. And Shana is his new obsession.

The cooler weather makes me crave mysteries that require a comfy chair, a warm blanket, and a cup of something steamy and delicious! This is where a book like My Lost Daughter pulls at my attention.

Thanks to Forge Publishing, maybe this book will call to you as well. Forge Publishing has graciously sent me two extra hard cover copies of this read to share with my readers. TWO WINNERS!!! I hope that is exciting news!

Here is how to enter:

Share with me in a comment what sort of books call to you this time of year as the temperatures cools and the days grow shorter. (*This question mush be answered to be entered)

Bonus Entries (but not necessary)

Subscribe to my posts (upper right side bar and let me know you have in a separate comment and I will add a bonus entry

Tweet or put this giveaway on Facebook and let me know here in a separate comment and I will add an extra entry

Blog about this giveaway and leave me a link in a separate comment here and I will add an extra entry

That’s it. Giveaway open to USA and Canada addresses only please. Giveaway will end on November 3.

Sylvia (The movie based on Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar)

Published on October 22, 2010October 22, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)35 Comments

I recently watched the movie Sylvia, the story of the turmoil life that was Sylvia Plath’s. Having recently read The Bell Jar for book club I found myself fascinated with the woman behind the words.

The movie is mainly about Plath’s life at the point that Ted Hughes (eventual husband) comes into her life. The start of their time together is much like a fairy tale of fun romance from meeting each other, to Ted tossing small rocks at her window at night. It appears to be the start of something beautiful. However, soon Sylvia finds herself struggling to write the poems she is known for and becomes more and more consumed with her husbands doings.

I really enjoyed seeing this side of the Sylvia Plath story. No, enjoyed doesn’t sound right…. I really appreciated being able to see this side of the story. Having read The Bell Jar and knowing the little bit that I knew about Sylvia and her life, this really pieced things together between the strange passion of the book, and the flame that burned inside Sylvia herself.

When I went on-line I was fascinated to see how many books are out centered around either Sylvia’s writing, or her life as well as her husband Ted’s.

Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and The Story Of The Birthday Letters

Birthday Letters: Poems by Ted Hughes

The unabridged Journal of Sylvia Plath

The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Letters Home: Correspondence by Sylvia Plath

Crossing The Water by Sylvia Plath

On February 11th, 1963, Sylvia Plath committed suicide. She was found dead in her kitchen having inhaled gas from her oven.

A year later Ted Hughes oversaw the publication of her last manuscript of poems. The collection, ‘Ariel’ became one of the most celebrated and widely read books of poetry of the 20th century,and made Sylvia an icon for generations of readers.

In 1998, Ted Hughes broke a thirty year silence about Sylvia with the publication of ‘Birthday Letters’, a series of poems telling the story of their relationship. He died of cancer a few weeks later.

Overall I would say this is a wonderful companion to The Bell Jar.

I rented the movie Sylvia through Netflix

Morning Meanderings…. What Is It With Me and Jayne Eyre?

Published on October 22, 2010October 22, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)50 Comments

Good morning. Lovely (yet still dark) day here in Central Minnesota. I am sipping at my ever ready cup of COFFEE and doing what I enjoy in the mornings, reading my Shelf Awareness that magically appears in my email each morning and as reliable as a faithful dog. Love it. Love it.

Oh yeah… I love it.

This mornings edition had a couple interesting topics and then I was reading an interview with Erin Blakemore and she was saying that the book that changed her life was Jayne Eyre. She goes on to say that she has gasps of recognition as she rediscovers it for the thousandth time.

Jayne Eyre?

Thousandth time?

I couldn’t get through it once. It is like the kryptonite book for me…. I want to read it…. oh yes, I want to say that I have read Jane Eyre but I picked it up and I got lost in the what…. language? In the time?

I feel like I am a minority on this one… because I am constantly reading things like:

“Jayne Eyre changed my life – this is the best book I have ever read!”

“Through the years I always go back to Jayne Eyre my favorite book of all time!”

“A divine work of art that I will always carry within me!”

1aaaa — Why can't this woman and I just get along?

Wha? Why do I picture that if I was in Jayne Eyre times that her and my fictional self would have been like Laura Ingalls and Nelly Olson? And I am really not sure which of us would play what role as – like I have humbly admitted here…. I have not read the book.

So as I leave for work this morning, and to the cabin later today (there’s a big YAY!!!), I leave you with this question…. errrr…. questions.

1. Is it just me who struggles with Jayne Eyre?

2. What book is it for you that everyone raves about and you wish you could join the forces raising your glass to the author and to the book itself…. and yet you just can not get into it?

Anyway…. that’s where my head is at this morning.

Good morning Jayne…. coffee this morning? 😀

1aa — "Sheila, I take my coffee black because I do not have time to harvest sugar or make the creamer."

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (a late Banned Book Review)

Published on October 21, 2010October 21, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)32 Comments

At the far end of town

where the Grickle-grass grows

and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows

and no birds every sing excepting old crows…

is the Street of the Lifted Lorax.

And so begins the sing-song rhythmic read of The Lorax. Do you remember this book? The pictures of the colorful and fluffy Truffula Trees. That is until The Old Once-ler came round, and decided he need to chop the trees down (intentional rhyme) 😛

Then the Lorax showed up to speak for the trees, he said do not cut them I am asking you please!

(Ok… now I can’t stop so I am just going to go with it)

The Lorax tried to stop the factory that was built, but progress was already moving full tilt!

With no more trees the Bar Ba Loots had nothing to eat, but really its just business so sadly they retreat.

As the story goes the end came at last, with no trees and no animals all was in the past…

Yet one seed did remain and plant it we must, for the future is ours and to us it must trust.

I checked this out from the library for banned book week. This book just brings back the memories of all sorts of Seuss moments, and while this is not one of the big names I remember (Cat In The Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, Hop On Pop…) it is one that does hold a message.

I just loved reading it again!

Why was The Lorax a banned book?

The Lorax was banned because it was felt to cast a negative look on the forestry industry.

In 1989, the Laytonville, CA Unified School District tried to do just that. They challenged the book based on someone’s belief that it criminalizes the foresting industry.

I borrowed this book from my local library

1aaa — Did you know The Lorax was also a game?

Morning Meanderings… What Would Your Name Have Been?

Published on October 21, 2010October 21, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)62 Comments

Good Morning. I am off from work today, Chance and I are going to Staples to speak to a group about Kinship Partners. Chance has been in our families life for 8 years now and we are going to talk about what we have done the past 8 years and how Kinship has really brought to each of us a better, fuller life.

A conversation I really enjoy having with people is discussing what our names would have been if we born the opposite sex. If I would have been a boy my name would have been Rory. Apparently, my parents had told me, there was a great western actor Rory Calhoun who I would have been named after.

Hoo boy… maybe that’s why I really don’t like country music…..

Oh… and just to clarify…. Rory is the one on the right. 😉

So just for fun… do you know what your name would have been?

Alice’s Tea Cup by Haley Fox and Lauren Fox

Published on October 20, 2010November 14, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

Once upon a time in New York City, there were two sisters. Their father was a spinner of tales, always armed with a freshly brewed mug of English Breakfast Tea.

Their mother was a seamstress who loved to be out and about, and together, they would take the sisters to afternoon tea wherever it was served. The sisters learned at a very early age that tea was more than a beverage – it was an even to be shared and protected. Tea was a sacred experience, whether at a hotel or at a home; it was a time to connect, share your thoughts and drams, and escape for a spell.

And that is how Alice’s Tea Cup came to be…

Ahhh….. Alice’s Tea Cup is memories of May…. I was here with several wonderful book bloggers and the amazing Adriana Trigiani during BEA. At that time this book was not out yet, but we were each promised to have the book sent to us once they had it ready. You can imagine my SSQQUUUEEEE level when it arrived at my home recently. What a treasure!

Filled with gorgeous pictures and recipes of cookies, muffins, scones, frosting and more… I literally drooled over the pages and remember the mouth-watering treats that we were served that day. Authors Haley and Lauren show us how to celebrate with tea and festival foods, not only the delicious treats but also soups and salads that I can not wait to serve in my own home.

My only regret with this book…. the pictures were not scratch and sniff. 😉

This is a lovely gift book that I am beyond thrilled to own not only this treasured book… but the memories it holds for me inside the pages.

Alice's Tea Cup in May 2010 with Adriana Trigiani

Book Journey has updated the 2010 reading map to include Alice’s Tea Cup

Thank you thank you thank you to Harper Collins

and of course to Adriana Trigiana who was the reason I experienced the amazing Alice’s Tea Cup!

Morning Meanderings…. Do I Have Ennui?

Published on October 20, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

Ennui: pronounced ahn – wee

–noun a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom: The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.

I do not have ennui. I actually just heard it used in an audio I was listening to. They referred to it as teenage ennui, and I don’t know… I just liked the sound of it.

And of course… it reminded me of this:

No worries. I think I have the opposite of this. I have Off-wee. Which would be defined as:

–noun a feeling of total ENERGY and contentment resulting from interest; excitement: The things happening in my life have produced an abundance of off-wee.

😛

(I can almost feel the dork meter rising within me…..)

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Published on October 19, 2010October 19, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)26 Comments

Eliza Benedict has a good life. She has a loving adoring husband. She is a mom of two children, Isobel (Iso) who is every bit the thirteen year old girl she should be, and eight year old Albie. Life is good and as it should be…

Right?

But Eliza has long-held on to a deep dark secret in her past and it is about to arrive on her door step in letter format. The letter is from Walter Bowman, a man on death row for the rape and murder of one girl, and who is also the man who had kidnapped Eliza for six weeks and raped her at the age of 15.

What could he possibly want and why is he pushing his way into Eliza’s wonderful life now after all this time?

“Dear Elizabeth,
I’m sure this is a shock, although that’s not my intention, to shock you. Up until a few weeks ago, I never thought I would have any communication with you at all and accepted that as fair. That’s how it’s been for more than twenty years now. But it’s hard to ignore signs when they are right there in front of your face, and there was your photo in Washingtonian magazine, not the usual thing I read, but you’d be surprised by my choice of reading material these days. Of course, you are older, a woman now. You’ve been a woman for a while, obviously. Still, I’d know you anywhere.”

So…. what if your past did come back to get you?

I listened to this book on audio and really enjoyed the narrator, Linda Emond (who also narrates in Lippman’s The What The Dead Know and Life Sentences).

The audio/book flashes back and forth to Eliza’s younger life at fifteen (then she was Elizabeth) and back to her current life and age of Thirty-eight. The story line is fantastic…. what do you do if you are the reason a man is on death row? What do you do if many years later he is reaching out in the last hours of his life saying he is wanting to apologize for the wrong he has done? And is that truly all he wants?

This was the type of read you didn’t want to stop, but instead I wanted to rush through to the ending to find out what was going to happen. What decisions would Eliza make for herself? For her family? What does Walter really hope to get out of contacting Eliza and is he truly a changed man?

Fast paced, well written. I definitely plan to read more from this author.