Bookies Picks for 2009

Published on January 14, 2010January 14, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)37 Comments

We had our first book club meeting of the year last night and that also means we recapped 2009. Every December we do a survey on our picks from the year and then I put all of our reviews into a book format that everyone receives a copy of and in this book, I reveal the winners – and losers- of 2009 per their voting.

Now… I can share the results with you:

First of all here are the books we read as a book club in 2009

(all questions on the survey were to be answered by using these books)

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

Such a pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

The Book Thief By Marcus Zusak

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

Walking In Circles Before Lying Down by Merill Markoe

Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfork Cross

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty White

Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Home For The Holidays by Rebecca Kelly

And here are the survey results:

Favorite Female Character: Pope Joan

Favorite Male Character: Jacob from Water for Elephants *(with an honorable mention to Pope Joan)

Best new (to us) author: Sara Gruen (Water For Elephants)

Best Over All Author (new or old): Donna Woolfolk Cross/ Sara Gruen

Worst Book Of The Year:

Walking In Circles Before Lying Down

Best Book Of The Year:

There it is! We had a great recap meeting… laughed as always at our funny memories of the year (Dressing in Prom Dresses in a storm for our Queen Event, sharing our Christmas traditions, two of our members dressing in clown atire for the review of Water For Elephants…)

*The votes are based on the opinions of the 18 girls in the Bookies Book Club. Majority votes won.

Victorious Living For Women

Published on January 13, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)7 Comments

Victorious Living for Women is filled with the inspiration, wisdom and pathways to victory of 40 incredible women who share stories of their life experiences, from their heart to yours. They have endured personal pain and have come through empowered, encouraged and victorious. As they take you on their personal journeys you will find inspiration, encouragement and blueprints for victory embedded in each chapter. You will discover principles for transforming your life. You can learn how to overcome fear, find you purpose, define your destiny, recover from divorce, heal your heart, physical healing, dealing with the loss of loved ones and so much more. This stellar assembly of women with inspiring true-life stories will captivate you throughout each page as you read how their lives were transformed from anger to joy, disappointment to destiny and trial to victory. Their candor, wisdom and inspiration can help you to pursue your path of becoming a victorious woman.

Monday, January 11

All the Buzz Reviews
http://www.allthebuzzreviews.com

Debra Owsley
http://simplysaidreadingaccessories.blogspot.com

Shelia DeChantal
https://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, January 12

RAWSistaz Literary Group
http://www.rawsistaz.com

Kristinia Clos
http://www.lovingheartmommy.com

Stephanie McKenny
http://wordforwomen.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, January 13

SORMAG
http://sormag.blogspot.com/

LaTara Ham-Ying
http://www.momunplugged.com

Vanessa Richardson
http://thecertainones.blogspot.com

Black Authors Network
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Black-Author-Network
8:00 pm EST

Abundant Solutions
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/asemotivation
9:00 pm EST

Thursday, January 14

Black Pearls Magazine
http://www.edcmagazine.blogspot.com

Joey Reviews
http://www.joeypinkney.com/

LaCricia A’ngelle
http://authorlacricia.wordpress.com/

REAL TALK WITH TANYA WHITE Radio Show
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/realtalkwithtanyawhite
7:00 pm EST

WordThirst Literary Online Radio Show
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ashea-goldson
8:00 pm EST

Friday, January 15

APOOO Book Club
http://www.apooobooks.com

Sharon Ball
http://www.sharonball.com

Written Voices Blog
http://www.writtenvoicesblog.com

Chocolate Pages Show
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/chocolatepages
4:00 pm EST

Morning Meanderings…

Published on January 13, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)27 Comments

Poor Jennifer. Jennifer is my early morning workout friend. We have been meeting at the gym at 6:30 am several times a week. Over the weekend on my way to the gym I was thinking how every morning we meet our conversation always turns to books. Mainly because I turn it there. Sure we will discuss whats going on in our lives, and work, and then inevitably I will bring up something I just read or am currently reading. Jennifer is a reader, but not at the capacity that I do and not all the genre’s I do.

I was thinking how funny it was that I will chat away about books while we are on the treadmills. Really…. she cant get away from me… it is like having a captive audience. I think also with the level of passion that I talk about the books it is hard to shut me off and turn the direction around. I told her I was going to write about her this morning and she thought that was pretty funny.

Do you tend to turn conversations to books when you are hanging out with others? Do you have friends who share your passion for books?

Live Longer by Jonny Bowden PHD

Published on January 12, 2010January 14, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

Author Jonny Bowden looks at what he calls “The Four Horsemen of Aging”—free radicals, inflammation, glycation, and stress—and shows how they can harm your health and shorten your life. Bowden then unveils an arsenal of anti-aging strategies culled from cutting edge research and lessons learned from the longest lived people on the planet. He examines how the major organs, such as the heart and the brain, age and how you can prevent damage to these vital parts of the body. In total, readers learn what they can eat, do, and take to feel great, avoid illness, and live a long life.

It is never to early to start putting healthy habits in place and this book is a wonderful example of just that. Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a nationally known expert on weight loss and nutrition. In The Most Effective Ways To Live Longer Jonny focuses on what he calls the four horseman of aging:

Oxidative Damage
Inflammation
Glycation
Stress

As the book says, the four horseman of aging is anything that’s happening to your body that you wish were not happening, from the beginning of disease to the breakdown of systems to the loss of functionality… all this is being driven by the engine of these four processes.

Yes the above paragraph is depressing. This book is all about taking these four steps and through diet and exercise how to keep the horses at bay. And this…. I love.

Foods like wild salmon (a perfect anti aging food) to blueberries (filled with antioxidants and cancer fighters)…. we are walked through delicious choices that keep you young and healthy – inside and out. Exercises like crunches for the abdominal muscles, squats for legs and lower body, weight resistance and more. This book is a wealth of knowledge.

The Blue Zone chapter was fascinating! Every so often, a team of researchers will discover a little corner of the globe where- inexplicably- people routinely live to 100 or more. These areas have come to be known as “The Blue Zones” and scientists have spent hundreds of research hours trying to uncover their secrets. Some of these secrets are reveealed within the pages of this book.

This book is a wonderful reference that with slight adjustments to our everyday lives we can apply. Through these steps we can slow even stop the aging process. What is not to like about that? Big bold pictures and written in an easy to follow, even funny tone… page by page you are going to eat up this knowledge and truly be better for it in the end.

Who Is Jonny Bowden?

He has been featured in The New York Times, The New York Post, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune, Time, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Oxygen, Remedy, Family Circle, Self, Fitness, Allure, Essence, Men’s Health, Pilates Style, Prevention, Woman’s World, In Style, Fitness, Natural Health and Shape and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS as an expert on nutrition, weight loss, and health..

*My Amazon Review

I received this book from Pump Up Your Blog Promotion

Morning Meanderings…

Published on January 12, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)27 Comments

Morning! Tonight is my first book club meeting of the year, We will be reviewing The Heretics Daughter and unveiling our best book club read of 2009. I will reveal that information tomorrow to all of you as well as who they chose for their favorite male and female characters from our 2009 reads and yes, even the book they voted the worst book club read of 2009. I cant wait to share the winning book….but I can’t reveal to all of you… before I share it with all of them.

I have tons to do yet today to get ready so I will be in the office early. I have a report to prepare as well as the layout for 2010… and yeah… I have procrastinated on getting this done so this is my own bad. 🙂

Are you in a book club? If so, do you have any fun things that you do that you could share? If not, why not?

What To Do When The Roof Caves In by Merilyn Meberg

Published on January 11, 2010January 13, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

This book opened my eyes to things I did not know were out there… what an eye opening tool for keeping the “roof” of your world intact.. Sheila

We all walk through life with nagging questions – questions that spring from fear, doubt, guilt, and pain. And the harder we fight to ignore them, the faster they weaken our defenses. Like hail on a weak roof, they pile up until the sky comes falling in.

Marilyn addressed some hard topics in this book. In a gutsy format that is not only informative, shocking, and at times even funny…. Marilyn tackles the tough topics of addiction, adultery, pornography, divorce, and death. In her book, What To Do When The Roof Caves In Marilyn gives hard facts of situations that are happening all over our world. With stories of her own life incidences, such as when many years ago she discovered her 5 year old had a poster of the voluptuous Raquel Welch. Once Jeff came home from kindergarten (KINDERGARTEN!),over two Mystic Mint cookies, their conversation went like this:

Marilyn: “Why don’t you tell me about your Raquel poster.”

Jeff (5): ‘ I think she is really pretty.”

Marilyn: “What is pretty about her?”

Jeff (5): She beautiful eyes and a beautiful face. I like to look at her.”

Marilyn: “Do you think she should be wearing a blouse with a higher neckline?”

Jeff (5): “Oh no. Her blouse is perfect. It goes with her eyes.”

Marilyn: “Were you hiding the poster? Is that why it was under your bed?”

Jeff (5): I wasn’t sure you would like her eyes as much as I do.”

At other times Marilyn’s topics are much harder to grasp like her chapter on children having sex at unheard of young ages that would break your heart. How school playground monitors have much more serious things to watch for then the petty fighting or name calling that went on in playgrounds when we were growing up. This chapter alone left me with a sickening twist in my stomach…. I had no idea…

For anyone who is dealing with hard life opportunities…. or for anyone who wants to help keep the roof intact before these opportunities arise, Marilyn has a message for each of us. Somewhere, something in this book will touch you or someone you know.

Each chapter ends with discussion questions to go over with your children, spouse, or your friend. Marilyn arms us with tools, topics, and scriptures to refer to that will keep our roof in good working order through the unforeseen storms of life.

Marilyn Meberg is a speaker at the Women of Faith Conference that I have attended the past 4 years. I honestly have to say the first time I seen this woman I felt she couldn’t possibly have anything to say that would be of value to me. I was extremely wrong for judging this woman. She is witty and funny and at the same time her message gets right to the heart of the matter.

Women of Faith is a Conference that I highly recommend. I have gone for 4 years now when it comes to Minneapolis each October and it is a weekend event like you would not believe. The speakers are humorous, outrageous, and at the same time they remind us of how important it is to have women friends and times like these weekends to get away and refill our spirits. Every year I laugh with the crazy humor of Anita Renfroe, and love the wisdom that Sheila Walsh brings to the table. Add Patsy Clairmont who will make you laugh until you cry and music by Steven Curtis Chapman… well, it is a great time that I highly recommend.

This book is counted in the following Challenges:

2010 100+ Reading Challenge

My Amazon Review

I received my copy of this book from The Women Of Faith Conference, MPLS MN. Oct. 2009

Its Monday, What Are You Reading?

Published on January 11, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)36 Comments

Its my favorite time of the week when I get to go and look through the books and chose who’s playing this week. Thanks to the weekend Bloggiesta I completed some reviews that will be up throughout this week. Thank you to J Kaye’s Blog for hosting this weekly meme.

Here are some great things that went on here the past seven days:

I reviewed the book Mass Casualties

I got a Library Card!

I am hosting The Gilmore Girls Mini Challenge

Review of Monique And The Mango Rains

I posted the giveaway for The One Day Way (three copies)

I posted the giveaway for three copies of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

I had an Author Chat with the wonderful author of hush hush, Becca Fitzpatrick

I have reviews to post from last weeks reading and looking at last weeks post, I finished all but the Harry Potter book….(which I never even had time to open!) and Heretic’s Daughter which I need to have finished for tomorrow nights book club!

This week I am hoping to read:

The Mother Daughter Book Club... doesn’t this one look great?

The Gospel According To Lost ... I am excited about this one!

How To Train A Rock Short insights and fictitious fights from this authors newspaper column!

Penguin Luck Looks interesting!

The Male Factor Finishing up for this weeks book tour! This author Shaunti Feldhahn is so good!

So there is my reading plan for the week. How about you? What read is waiting for you?

Morning Meanderings…

Published on January 11, 2010January 11, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

What a really good weekend. I put my best time management forward and was able to not only accomplish household opportunities (laundry, dishes, dusting, sweeping…. ) and a housewarming party Saturday evening, but I was able to put in a lot of effort into the Bloggiesta. The result is a cleaner and updated blog that stands before you today.

A moment of silence please….

Ok! One of my favorite things to do during the Bloggiesta is to visit all the participants. This is not a requirement or even a suggestion… this is just my own personal thing. Like an unofficial cheerleader who donned the outfit from someone’s unattended locker and off I went! I just love to see the blog layouts and what every one else is working on for the challenge. Granted it added to my own list… but that’s ok.

So as I leave you this morning while Coffee Cup and I head off to the gym (groan!) I ask how your weekend went. Anything fun? Were you part of the Bloggiesta?

Bloggiesta – I can see the finish line!

Published on January 11, 2010January 11, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)30 Comments

First of all thank you so much to Natasha at Maw Books for hosting this incredible event!

So it is now time to recap this weekends Bloggiesta. I had a BLAST! I love this event and I always learn so much and have so much fun visiting the blogs of others. On Friday when I started the Bloggiesta I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish. As I traveled to other participants blogs and seen their goals… my list grew. So here is my recap:

Catch up on writing all the reviews for the books I have completed (Yes! I have 5 posts written and hope to do a couple more tonight after floor hockey!)

Have back up posts ready to go (Yes! Created 4 conversation/idea posts ready to go when needed)

Send out invites for authors chats with a few authors (3 invites out and one positive response back at this time!)

Clean up my Wish List link (Yes! Now I just need to add more to it…LOL)

Organize all my pages (Yes! I went through and cleaned up outdated info…)

Create a new Blog Badge (Yes and I love it – upper right sidebar)

Love a bit on my blog roll…. it needs a face lift! (I cleaned it out and need to enter some new ones)

Love a little bit on my blog (Yes! I actually loved a lot on my blog and the new color is the result of that)

Clean up my book related emails (I went through and categorized those I needed to save and eliminated the ones I no longer needed. I went from 98 to 33)

Get out and visit other blogs! Life has been so busy lately I have not had a lot of time to do this part of blogging which I love! (Yes – I visited all blog participants as well as many others. I still have some regulars I hope to stop in and sat hi to tonight)

Post the awards that I was planning to do at the end of December (That is my Sunday night task… I hope to do this monthly after this)

Revisit last Bloggiesta’s mini challenges to see if there is anything I may have missed (I did and it was fun to do some of them again or to be reminded of where I had learned a particular task to begin with!)
Take a look at My Review Policy (written during the last Bloggiesta) is it still current? (Yes – looked at and tweaked)

Catch up on the giveaways that I still need to post (I have two more to go but I have posted three over the weekend so I am getting here. Trying not to crowd them)

Stop in and see and comment on every participants blog (Yes done with the exception of one bad link and two that wouldn’t take a comment)

My Blog Buddy is now Esme from Chocolates and Croissants! Thanks Esme!!!

As for the new Mini Challenges:

Over at Rebecca from The Book Lady’s Blog I made some blog resolutions.

At Pam from Mother Reader’s Blog I set a goal to visit at least 5 book blogs a day and leave a comment. I am going to make this goal be that I visit 5 new blogs to me and leave comments.

At There’s A Book blog I discovered a great idea to make a cheat sheet for all the links we use again and again in our posts to save time. I saved mine to Google Reader and have already put it to use!

At Pam’s Bookalicio.us blog I was reminded the importance of putting a copyright on our blogs. This is the one challenge I was unable to finish because I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

At Beth Fish Reads there was a great reminder about labels and for the most part I had this one down but it was agood reminder and I did make a couple corrections.

Thanks to Farm Lane Book Blog I backed my blog up for the first time ever. 🙂

Karin at Karins Book Nook linked me up to a couple places that would check my blog for dead links.

Chelle from Tempting Persephone was probably my favorite challenge because it was such a great idea! I chose three of my posts that had a lot of traffic and comments and put them on my sidebar. I love this!

At Bookworming in the 21st Century I signed up for the Mentor program. This idea is brilliant!

At Jenn’s Bookshelves I brainstormed a list of future blog ideas…. some of which I have already prepped posts for.

I am ending this Bloggiesta tired and happy. I invested 23 hours and I think it was time put to good use. I commented on probably close to 200 blogs over the weekend, all of the participants, all of the mini challenges (old and new) and about 50 others in there. Because of this event I can relax a bit knowing I have back up posts. For upcoming reads I have put the initial pieces already into posts for them so I can update them with my thoughts when it is time to post. My blog once again has a whole new look.

Pedro says , “Good night!”

Next Bloggiesta: June 2010

YAY BLOGGIESTA!

When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson GIVEAWAY

Published on January 11, 2010January 13, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)87 Comments

Thank you to Hachette Book Group for allowing me a chance to give this book away!

On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason’s family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna’s life is changed forever…
On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound..

At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency…

These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the latest novel from Kate Atkinson, the critically acclaimed author who Harlan Coben calls “an absolute must-read.”