Tag: Monday What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)31 Comments

Hola from Honduras!

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.

** Please note I am not choosing a winner this past week as I am out of the country – however when i return I will post a winner for this past week as well as this week on next Mondays post.

I am still in Honduras during this Monday!  What Are You Reading post but of course still want all of you to link up your posts so when I return I can drool over all your books.  😀

I am reading while I am here (I am actually typing up this post from my room in Tegucigalpa, Honduras) but have yet to finish an entire book.  What I am really working on reading right now is a book I actually picked up in Houston Texas airport (yes, I know… I brought three books with me!) called A Long Way Home by Ishmael Beah…. and uhhh…. WOW.  This one will be quite the review upon my return home this next weekend.

This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone’s civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare. Beah’s harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces. Beah then finds himself in the army—in a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter that lasts until he is 15, when he’s brought to a rehabilitation center sponsored by UNICEF and partnering NGOs. The process marks out Beah as a gifted spokesman for the center’s work after his “repatriation” to civilian life in the capital, where he lives with his family and a distant uncle. When the war finally engulfs the capital, it sends 17-year-old Beah fleeing again, this time to the U.S., where he now lives. (Beah graduated from Oberlin College in 2004.)

I will be reading your posts as I can – I do not have internet in some of the places we are traveling too and the days are full so I do not have my usual coffee and blog hop time that I usually do, however if I do not get around to you this week know I will be back and active next week!  😀

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on 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:

TBA (I did not have time to pick yet)

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

 

It has been a whirlwind of a week.  Chance has been staying with us since last Sunday and I have been prepping all week to get ready to go to Honduras this Wednesday.  In a nut shell (and that term is perfect) I have been running in several different directions this week and unfortunately reading didn’t always get on the agenda.


Here is my week in review:


Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows A Movie Adventure (Have you seen it?  Have you seen it?)


Don’t Sing At The Table… Life Lessons From My Grandmother by Adriana Trigiani (Book review – OH WOW!)


The GaMeS BiBlE by Leigh Anderson (Hey board gamers and card players – this is a “must have” book!


Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman (an audio review that is totally SSQQQUUUUEEEE worthy!)


Coffee and Fate by RJ Erbacher (a review of a book that still is making me wonder….)

The Secret Is Out… It Is I Who Has The Invisibility Cloak (my real tale of a recent shopping experience)

This week I have finally picked the three books that will go on the plane with me and the two audio books on my IPOD:

From the author of the bestselling The Good Women of China comes the uplifting story of three sisters who, like so many migrant workers in today’s China, leave their peasant community to seek their fortune in the big city.The Li sisters don’t have much education, but one thing has been drummed into them: their mother is a failure because she hasn’t managed to produce a son, and they themselves only merit a number as a name. Women, their father tells them, are like chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken. Men, on the other hand, are the strong rafters that hold up the roof of a house. Yet when circumstances lead the sisters to seek work in distant Nanjing, the shocking new urban environment opens their eyes. While Three contributes to the success of a small fast-food restaurant, Five and Six learn new talents at a health spa and a bookshop/tearoom. And when the money they earn starts arriving back at the village, their father is forced to recognise that daughters are not so dispensable after all.

In 1967, not long after the Six Day War, three young Arabs ventured into the town of Ramla, in Jewish Israel. They were on a pilgrimage to see their separate childhood homes, from which their families had been driven out nearly twenty years before during the Israeli war for independence. Only one was welcomed: Bashir Al-Khayri was greeted at the door by a young woman named Dalia.

This act of kindness in the face of years of animosity and warfare is the starting point for a remarkable true story of two families, one Arab, one Jewish; an unlikely friendship that encompasses the entire modern history of Israelis and Palestinians and that holds in its framework a hope for true peace and reconciliation for the region.

In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran’s sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari’s stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah’s secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice…

 

A young woman appears in a small NC town. She makes one friend, a woman who lives nearby, but other than that, she keeps to herself. Soon, however, a series of events pulls her into the circle of a local merchant, a widower with two children, and against her better judgment, she finds herself drawn to him and letting down her carefully constructed guard.

For this women has a secret, a secret that has forced her to hide her identity, run as far away as she can from home, and escape a past that still haunts and terrifies her.

It is inevitable that her past will catch up with her-in the form of an abusive husband who refuses to let her go. But what remains unknown is whether she will allow herself to love and trust again, and to what extent her husband will go to ensure that she’ll have a future…but only if it includes him…

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman’s love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

I hope in the next ten days to accomplish getting through all of these between the plane time and hopefully some down time between our travels.

There will be a It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading? Next week – I am pre-setting the post.  AND I hope you will stop by after Wednesday and check out the wonderful bloggers who have shared a Christmas story with you as well as a book recommendation.

I am excited to see what you are reading!  Please add your post to the LINKY below where it says click here.


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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)68 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:

Laurel!!!

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

Lots of reading completed this week as I could squeeze it in but really need to catch u on my reviews this week and my goal is to a book review a day.

Here is this week in review


Life Sentences by Laura Lippman (audio review)  Not my favorite Lippman but I have not given up!

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl (book review) LOVED this book about a food critic!

Book Blogger LOVE and a Pistachio Thumbprint cookie recipe


I have read none of what I said I would last week, because Tuesday I thought about it and decided it was INSANE to be reading all these other books on the week the theaters release Deathly Hallows .  SO…. I tossed my book list out and instead I have been re-reading The Deathly Hallows.  (Seen the movie Sunday afternoon – review coming up later on Monday!)

This Weeks Reading Plan

I leave for Honduras in 9 days so I am going to try to keep my plan real….

 

I met author Selene Castrovilla in New York in May and I am so excited to read her book!

Just a few months ago Jesse was junior class president, a star baseball player, the newspaper editor, and the crush of every girl at Midland Prep in Manhattan. Now he is fighting a rare cancer with only a 4 percent survival rate. When Samantha, his best friend and next-door neighbor for the last 15 years, turns her compassion for Jesse into a relationship, the teens fight the unknown with their growing love. Sam’s wavering voice, at times mature beyond her years and other times still needing her mother’s comfort, gives readers insight into both Jesse’s burden of dying and her own story of being the one left behind.


 

I met author Rhonda Hayes at BEA in New York in May as well, and can’t wait to read this delightful looking read!

Fifth-grader Abbie Adams is a witch in a family of witches. When her father, who is trying to find a cure for Witch Flu, brings home a kitten, she realizes that there is something strange about it. It turns out that the cat is Thomas Edison. Her parents do everything they can to make him comfortable while they try to find the right spells to break the curse and get him safely back to his own era before history is changed forever. Abbie is a likable character, and readers should relate to her. She loves her little brother (even when she has to clean up his magical messes), is nervous about her first school play, and wishes she didn’t have to keep secrets from her non witch friend.


 

Oh!  You have no idea how excited I was to get this one in my mailbox for review!  Seriously I have been drooling over this when I seen it on other blogs!

A volunteer for a French relief organization, Elsa Murphy, a young nurse, has left her tragic life behind in Boston in the hopes of finding a purpose by providing aid and medical care in Afghanistan. Living without running water and on rationed kerosene, the one comfort from home Elsa allows herself is lipstick, which helps her retain her identity behind the veil she wears. Elsa’s work engenders two relationships that will change her life: a friendship with Parween, a young, strong-willed Afghani widow whose hatred of the Taliban is born out of unimaginable loss, and a romance with Mike, a handsome, brave U.S. soldier with flashing blue eyes. Though the Taliban have largely been driven out by the soldiers, Elsa learns they are still very much a presence.

 

I think with the Thanksgiving weekend this list is pretty doable…. we do not have a lot going on during the holiday.  College son will be home on Thursday for the day but has to go back to Mankato to work the weekend.  Chance will be staying with us but he is super easy, so I anticipate a weekend of movies and board games… and of course a few books to!  😀

 

Now for my favorite part…. checking out what you are reading!  Last week I found five books by reading all your posts and four of those five are currently in my home thanks to my library!  Please add your link to your post below where it says “click here”.

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)104 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:

Liz of Roving Reads

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 have been a little late getting out the last few weeks winners and am doing that today.

I had a pretty sweet week here – my first ever Zumba class (which was hilarious but fun!), continued sessions for my book, a lovely low-key low commitment weekend where I was able to chill out and do a little research as well as veg out and watch several movies on Netflix:  The Cure, The Band Played On, When In Rome, and New In Town.  I know right?  What a total lazy head!  AND yes, I did get some reading in too and feel pretty good about all I managed to accomplish – even the chilling part.  😀

So…. What Did I Read This Week?

Peanut Butter Balls cookie recipe from our Girls Weekend

Snicker Surprise Cookie Recipe from our Girls Weekend

The Boticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato (our Bookies Book Club read for November)

Glass Ornament Decorating **Bonus post**

Cake Boss by Buddy Valastro

Silence by Shusaku Endu (review coming this week)

Shoulder Bags and Shootings by Dorothy Howell (review coming this week)

Hide! by Jeff Foxworthy (review coming this week)

By Fire By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan (review coming this week)

The Last Queen by C W Gortner (review coming soon)

Don’t Sing At The Table by Adriana Trigiani (review coming soon)

I did get some reading done this week but did not get many reviews done.  I hope to catch up on some of that this week.

As for this week – I hope to read:


A Darcy Christmas has three shorter stories within the pages for fans of Austen!  I am excited to read this one!

Christmas Present
by Amanda Grange

A Darcy Christmas
by Sharon Lathan

Mr. Darcy’s Christmas Carol
by Carolyn Eberhart

 

Cydney Sanders thought she knew God’s plan for her life. She’d marry, have kids, and then snap her body back into shape by doing Tae Bo. But she’s celebrating her fortieth birthday as the maid of honor at her little sister’s wedding…and still single. Now her life is suddenly complicated by the best man. He’s the opposite of what she wants in a husband…and yet, he keeps defying her expectations. Starting with a lavendar rose–symbolizing enchantment–each rose he sends her reflects his growing love for her.

Cydney’s best friend Dana appears to have the perfect marriage–until she discovers her husband’s affair and her world goes into a tailspin. Then there is Phyllis–who is out of hope and out of prayers after asking God for six long years to help her husband find faith. When she runs into an old friend who is the Christian man she longs for, she’s faced with an overwhelming choice.

 

A mosaic of stories that follow the intertwined lives of three girls coming of age. Two young girls from Jewish and Christian families and their elderly widow next door try to find happiness in a seemingly cruel world. In spite of their different cultural and economic backgrounds, Rebecka, Helen, and Adelle all share the delicate and self-conscious journey to womanhood. All three search for love and meaning in a variety of places a charismatic church, a Depression-era orphanage, a moonlit Savannah park, an orthodox Jewish boarding school and end up finding lasting strength in the power of their friendships.

That is my plan as well as a couple I need to finish up on…. And now I want to know what you are planning on reading this week and what was the awesome and not so awesome reads of this past week!  My trigger finger is itching to get to see what you have been reading.  Add your What Are You Reading post to the linky below :D


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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)94 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:

Elisha from Rainy Day Reviews

 

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

Coming in a little late here…. I had a fun weekend at our cabin on the North Shore with friends and just got home this afternoon.  What a blast we had!  We baked cookies and completed craft projects and had a little fun with facials too…. (pictures will be coming of that on Tuesday..)  😀

Sara, Cindy, Me, and Heidi - showing off our wine glass charms we made

As for my reading this last week…. let’s just say it is not impressive… I have been reading most of the week one book- The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato for my book club on Tuesday…. weighing in at 514 pages… yeah….

Anyway here is what did happen this past week:

Random Things On My Chest (includes a pic of the Halloween costume….)

Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagizi:  An amazing book that I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read!

That’s it!  Can you believe it?  I have books finished that I need to review, just need to get caught up.  So….


Here’s what next this weeks plan is:

15th century Spain – YES!  A little Historical fiction… just what I am in the mood for!

1492 – Kings and Queens…. marriages and the battle for the throne…. I am just a flying through these historical fiction reads!

 

That’s it for this week.  I hope to get caught up on reviews and Tuesday evening will be our book club review and a surprise…. you can read more on that on Wednesday!

Now it is your turn….. my trigger finger is itching to get to see what you have been reading.  Add your What Are You Reading post to the linky below 😀

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HAPPY READING!  😎

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)72 Comments

First off – Happy Halloween or if you are reading this on Monday, November 1…. Happy belated Halloween.  I put up a fun interview late afternoon on Sunday and if you have not checked it out I hope you do as there is a giveaway attached to it.  (See link below)

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:

Sharon from Garden Of Books

 

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

 

This week was kind of funny as all three of the audio I had been listening to for weeks (one in the kitchen, one in the car, and one in my I POD) all finished this week.  It was like an audio rush…. not only to write reviews, but also to pick out three more!  (That’s the fun part!)  😀

Here is what happened in the House of Books this past week:


My interview with the Witch from Snow White (This is the one I mentioned above –  check it out!)


The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (audio review and wow – AMAZING!)

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand (audio review)

The Postcard killers by James Patterson (audio review – not a fav….)


Wig Begone by Charles Courtney ( book review -fun read!)


The DUFF by Kody Keplinger (book review)


A Fine White Dust by Cynthia Rylant (audio review)


Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza (review to come this week)


HIDE! by Jeff Foxworthy (review to come this week)


Silence by Shusako Endo (still completing)


This week I am hosting my first special event in my new position so that will take up some of my reading time and this coming weekend I have a girls weekend at our cabin where we are spending the weekend making crafts, baking cookies for Christmas, and watching chick flicks.  YAY!!!  That too will swallow up some reading time so in light of all of that – here is my plan for this week:

I haven’t read Lehane in a long time but loved his writing in Mystic River and Shutter Island (both movies I couldn’t stand but LOVED the books!  I cant wait to try him in the new release!

I have watched this one be raved about all summer from afar….. and now FINALLY I have captured this read for my  I POD and I am starting it today!

Audio for my kitchen CD player and I started this one today as well.  The synopsis of this one is haunting and something I have come to appreciate in Laura Lippman’s writing…. which you are about to see because look below…..

Yup – another Laura Lippman, this one is for my car.  My Lippman phase was not intentional, they both just came into the library for me at the same time so… well, here we go!  😀

You can click on any of the above pictures to take you to more information about the reads.

 

So that is where I am this week.  I can’t wait to see what you are all reading.  It seems like life has been so busy lately I hardly have time to get around and see your posts and if I have missed you recently I apologize, and am hopeful that as my life is getting somewhat back to normal that I will be able to visit all of your posts today.

Please add your link to your Monday What Are You Reading post below and have a super fantastic week!  😀

 

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on 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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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)86 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:

RAnn from This That And The Other Thing

 

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 knew a week like this was bound to happen.  Between my busy schedule and battling this cold and fever I accomplished very little in the reading department.  Very little.

Here is my week:

SPEAK the movie (review)

Noah’s Castle by John Rowe Townsend (book review)

Loving My Book Club and a meeting in “Classic Hats”

Are You In A Book Club?  Why or why not?

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (book review and Bookies Book Club Review)

Pics with Area Bloggers

Pictures With Minnesota Authors (Twin Cities Books Festival)

The Changing World Of Publication:  Getting Books To Readers (this was what took up all my weekend time, the Twin Cities Book Festival – but sooooooo worth it. 😛

 

Ok… I guess looking at that it does look like I was active.  It didn’t feel like it, but two reviews, a movie review and a bookish topic isn’t bad with being gone all weekend.  😀

 

I have a lot of reviews to write yet.  This week I am keeping it light so I can catch up on some of last weeks reading goals.  Coming off of the festival I am going with a book that was given to me for review, and one that was a blogger recommendation.

 

This book was given to me for review from author Carl Brookins at the Twin Cities Book Festival.  Carl currently has 9 books out and I am interested to see what this author, who is a member of the Minnesota Crime Wave, has to say.

 

 

I was reading My Friend Amy’s Faith in Fiction post this past weekend and she mentioned this book that I had never heard of.   When I mentioned that in a comment on her post she replied saying it was one of her favorite books.  On my way home today I stopped at Barnes and Noble in St. Cloud and they had a copy which is now… my copy.  🙂

I am ready for a little down time with a cup (or two) of tea and seeing what you are reading!  This is one of my favorite things to do each week.  Add your What Are You Reading post to the Linky where it says CLICK HERE and we all can visit the posts!

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)127 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:

Donna A Novel Review


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

 

What a great weekend!  I had a great time being a part of the Dewey read-a-thon and I am hoping many of you participated too.  If you did, you probably have a few more books read this week than usual.  I do!  I have yet to write reviews but I did make a small dent in the TBR!  😀  I think Lynne, from Lynne’s Book Reviews, put it best… today is like a book hang over.  Little groggy…. but happy.  😛


So here’s what this past week looked like for me:

When Life Throws you Lemons Make Cranberry Juice! by Shari Bookstaff (review)


In The Presence Of My Enemies by Gracia Burnham (review and author sighting post from my friend Barb!)


The Wife’s Tale by Lori Lansens (Review with Wordshakers on line book club)


Lori Lansens HUGE Book Giveaway – 9 books – ALL SIGNED!!!  YOu don’t want to miss this!!!


The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Fantastic Book!  Did I mention it is also banned?)


Author Chat with Lori Lansens (Author of The Wife’s Tale, The Girls’ and Rush Home Road)


Author Chat with Bill Walker (author of Titanic 2012 and A Note From An Old Acquaintance)


I read several books during the read a thon and have not wrote a single review yet.  GAH!  Oh well….  😛


Here’s what my plan is for this week

I loved this author’s book, Water For Elephants.  I was excited to see this book come out and hope it is a wonderful story!

 

This book looks fantastic.  Doesn’t it?  Look at it.  See?  I told you. I seen this on another blog and thought it looked sooooo good.  😀

Pete is 13 the summer the Preacher Man comes to his small town, vulnerable with both adolescent yearning and the need to find religious fulfillment. His parents are lapsed church-goers, who neither share nor encourage their son’s deeper convictions. The Preacher Man, with mesmerizing blue eyes, is a traveling evangelist who holds revivalist meetings in Pete’s town that summer; Pete finds in him a companion who can understand his feelings about God without speaking a word. As the Preacher Man takes on Christ-like proportions in his mind, Pete decides to travel with the man when he leaves town. Pete waits for him all night, his bags packed, feeling as if he were called to this journey. But Rufus, his best friend and a confirmed atheist, is the one who tells Pete that the Preacher Man has run off with a woman. A year later, Pete understands that the Preacher Man’s fallibility was of this earth, not to be confused with a betrayal by God.

I am keeping it light this week.  I have meetings Monday, Tuesday (BOOK CLUB!) and Wednesday evenings.  Then Friday I leave for the cities for the Twin Cities Book Festival and Minnesota/Wisconsin meet up.  Seven of us will meet there!  More on that later this week.  😀


I am so looking forward to stopping by and seeing what you are reading!  This is actually one of my favorite things to do each week.  Add your What Are You Reading post to the linky where it says CLICK HERE and we all can visit the posts!


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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)94 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:

Kathy Martin   Inside Of A Dog


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 feel awesome!  I had a great reading week and really think I lived out Banned Books Week to the fullest.  I had a chance to read and review books that were ones I have wanted to read for a long time – but also new titles to me that I enjoyed as well.  Let’s recap shall we?



Are You There God?  It’s Me Margaret. by Judy Blume (For Banned Book Week and well… its Judy Blume… so it might have been for me too :D)


When Reality Hits You Right In The Face (Seriously – did you see this?  You have to see this!)


Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix by J K Rowling (Oh yeah a BANNED BOOK review)


SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson (the BANNED BOOK that has recently caused quite a stir!)


The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel pie Society – book review (remember the pinky swear?)


I am going to be a part of a book panel and need your help


Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – Banned Book Review


Reminder that the Wordshakers On line Book Club will be discussing The Wife’s Tale by Lori Lansen this week – not to late to join in!


Last week to jump on the group meet up of Minnesota and surrounding area Book Bloggers,  check this post for details 😀


I did have a good week!  *pause while I review the list again with an odd pride and a little rebellion*


This week I think will be exciting as well as this week will end with the Read-A-Thon on October 9th and if you have not signed up I have to tell you that you are going to miss out on some FUN!  Scoot on over there and get your name on the list.  I will wait here.  😛

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Ok, awesome – you are back!  Anyway, as I was saying, I think the weekend will provide some good reading time and I hope to add to what I am posting here – but the plan this week is:


Hoo Hoo!  I have been wanting to read a cozy mystery for a while now and this one has double – or triple excitement for me!  One is that of course the book looks fantastic!  Two is that the author is a Minnesota author and seriously lest give it up for the home team!  Three is that Laura Childs is so super awesome that she will be author chatting with me about this book and what’s new and whats what…. and well…. I am a little exited!



This is another one that as I read the back of this book I get a little chill as to what could be inside – I have high hopes for this one!  Oh and guess what?  I have two.  TWO!  What to do… what to do….. OH!  I think we will have a giveaway!  Watch for that this week.  😀



This one looks like it will just be a fun lite read.  I am hopeful that it is funny and that when I am done with it I can pass it on to College Son .


So that’s my plan as well as the reviews I need to post from last weeks non Banned Books read.  I have to confess… once I got into the banned books theme it was and is hard to back my way out.  I need more time!  I still have several on my kitchen table that I am hoping to read before they have to go back to the library.  I love being able to read these tiles and then being able to discuss them.  😀


I am so looking forward to stopping by and seeing what you are reading!  This is actually one of my favorite things to do each week.  Add your What Are You Reading post to the linky where it says CLICK HERE and we all can visit the posts!  :razz:

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