Library Visits

Once in awhile I list the books I got from the library on my blog. I thought maybe I'd make that a regular thing - I'll post what I get each visit (well whenever I can, I may not always have time to do this). And then I'll post again and let you know what I thought of each book. It probably won't be more than a rating or a brief comment, but I'll do what I can.

The last time I listed my library books I had checked out:

Broken for You - Kallas
The Giver - Lowry
The Stone Diaries - Shields
Design on a Crime - Aiken
Desperate Pastors Wives - Kolbaba & Scannell
Julia's Chocolates - Lamb
Love Me if You Must - Young
The Horizontal World - Marquart
Hattie Big Sky - Larson
10-20-30 Minutes to Sew for Your Home - Nancy Zieman

It wasn't a very successful library trip! As I posted last time, I wasn't all that crazy about Broken for You. I liked The Giver well enough and rated it a 3.5/5. I didn't like The Stone Diaries, Design on a Crime, Desperate Pastors Wives, Julia's Chocolates, Love Me if You Must, The Horizontal World, OR Hattie Big Sky ! I only read anywhere from a few pages to up to 5o pages in each of these and then scrapped them. This one, 10-20-30 Minutes to Sew for Your Home, was just something to look through which I did and then returned it.

After that visit I picked up a few other books: Catch a Rising Star by Tracey Bateman. It was...."eh". I loved her Claire series but I wasn't really crazy about this one. I read it all in one day, toward the end just to get it over with. Also when I was getting a parenting book off the shelf, I saw the pretty pink cover of a book so I took it off the shelf to look, never heard of it before. It was called You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again by Suzanne Hansen. She was a "nanny to the stars" in Hollywood. I loved the book! I thought it was so interesting and well written.

I had reserved a few books for my son's research paper from another library, and when I went to pick them up when they came in, of course I had to get some books for me. LOL They are:

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
Blessed are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak
Peony in Love by Lisa See
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

So far I haven't started any of them except Year of Wonders. I am about halfway done with it and I LOVE it! I will be rating it a 5/5 at the end of the month.

Yesterday I was at the library again. Since I still have that stack of books waiting to be read, I only picked up a few that I had placed holds on:

Snitch by Rene Gutteridge
Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin' by Paula Deen with Sherry Suib Cohen
Knitspeak: an A to Z Guide to the Language of Knitting Patterns by Andrea Berman Price

I'll do an update on all these books after I'm done with them. Whew!

Edited 3/2: Yesterday we had family over for my husband's 45th! birthday. My fellow bookaholic sister told me that I called the book by Rene Gutteridge "Stitch" and it is actually "Snitch" (I have knitting on my mind all the time, what can I say?) As she said that I was taking a bite of pizza and I laughed and a whole section of cheese and sauce (HOT!) flipped off and landed on my chin. Owwww! Don't know why I shared that but it is sort of related to books. LOL)

Broken for You

Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos was loved by Small World and Mommy Brain and Musings of a Bookish Kitty. I liked it in some ways, but overall I didn't care for it that much! I thought it was sort of strange, I didn't quite "get" most of the characters, I couldn't relate to them. When I had just over 100 pages left, I just wanted to finish. I give it a 3.5/5 stars. I like so many of the books the above bloggers recommend, I don't know why I have such a different opinion this time. I guess we can't always agree.

I started a more fluffy book this morning, well fluffier than Broken for You anyway - Catch a Rising Star by Tracey Bateman. I loved her Claire series, so far so good with this one (but I'm only on page 26).

Perfect day for reading today, they are predicting blizzard-like conditions today with up to a foot of snow. Just want I want after a very long winter already. Yeah right. Gotta just hang in there a little while longer! Spring will come eventually.

Have a great day!

Winter Wonderland

Here's what my street looked like after the snow we got yesterday, the snow that was falling when I went to the library. Isn't it pretty? (But I'm ready for it to all go away! Spring can't come fast enough this year!)

1 Kings and Library Visit

So I finally finished 1 Kings. Of course then ahead of me is 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles. Can't say I'm super excited about this! I know all of the Bible has value and there are parts of these books that are very interesting. But there are other parts, well not so much! But I plod on.

I am really enjoying Split Ends.

I went to the library today and checked out 10 books - 8 fiction and 2 non-fiction. They are:

Broken for You - Kallas
The Giver - Lowry
The Stone Diaries - Shields
Design on a Crime - Aiken
Desperate Pastors Wives - Kolbaba & Scannell
Julia's Chocolates - Lamb
Love Me if You Must - Young (eeek, sounds like a trashy romance novel but it's not, LOL. It's a mystery written by a Christian author)
The Horizontal World - Marquart
Hattie Big Sky - Larson
10-20-30 Minutes to Sew for Your Home - Nancy Zieman

Most of these were recommended on various book blogs and a few of them I saw in CBD's Christian fiction catalog.

If you've read any of these books, tell me what you thought!

I actually made 2 trips into the library, first time I've ever done that. First I loaded up my book bag with books to read to my girls, and a few CDs for Lindsey. I checked those out, took them back to my car, then went back in and loaded my book bag up with books for myself. The same guy checked me out both times. He noticed it was me again the second time, LOL.

I had to laugh, as I was driving there I was thinking of my southern friends, and how the tiniest bit of snow shuts everything down. Here, it was snowing pretty good, and there was just as much traffic as always. It certainly wasn't going to stop me from making a trip to the library by myself! (HEAVEN!!!) When I got to the library I couldn't even find a place to park! It was packed! No, things do not shut down here in Wisconsin unless it's a blizzard. LOL

Happy reading!

Reading Update

It's been a rather humdrum sort of reading month for me. I read 2 books I really loved - The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out, and The Kite Runner. I started and quit 3-4 books I couldn't get into. Then I read some okay books - Every Sunday, How Strong Women Pray, and Broken on the Back Row.

Oh, one of the books I started and quit, that I mentioned before, was Queen of the Oddballs. It started out good, and then I found out the author is a lesbian. I don't automatically say no to book with a homosexual author, character, whatever. (I do believe the Bible says homosexuality is a sin and I make no apologies for that, nor will I debate that here on my blog.) But when she started getting into the details of her first "relationship" - well no thanks.

I did finish I am the Messenger. I thought it was just "okay". The swearing (tons!) combined with the sexual references, I didn't like that at all. Because of that I can't believe it is for young adults. I wouldn't let my young adult read it!

Then there's the 2 non-fiction books I just finished - How Strong Women Pray and Broken on the Back Row (Sandi Patty's story of adultery and lies, and healing and restoration). The first one was okay. So much of it was just surface-y about prayer, and I didn't agree with some of the things the author talked about in the chapters about her own life story (I don't feel like getting into details!). But it did get me thinking about prayer in a few new ways. Sandi Patty's book was okay reading, it wasn't a riveting story or anything. But the themes of repentance and grace and forgiveness are excellent.

Next up is Split Ends by Kristin Billerbeck. I'm not expecting deep reading but I've enjoyed her other books so I'll probably like this one too. I hope anyway! I am in desperate need of a really, really, moving, awesome, riveting, can't put it down book - ANY SUGGESTIONS?????? My TBR list for 2008 is already a mile long so hopefully I can find some good ones off of there when I go to the library on Friday.

I'm really embarrassed if any of you have noticed in "What I'm Reading" in my sidebar that I have been stuck on 1 Kings in The Message Bible for months. For the record, it's not the only Bible reading I do (though certainly I don't read it as much as I should or aspire to). I was only reading from that Bible if I read in bed right before I go to sleep. I don't do that very often anymore so it was sort of forgotten. But I don't want to take 30 years to finish it (and I have this self-imposed rule that I'm going to read it from beginning to end). So I am going to start reading it whenever I read my other books.

What I have been doing is listening to a Bible in a year podcast. There is a reading from the OT, NT, Psalms and Proverbs every day. I'm enjoying that. I really need to get into more deeper Bible studies using the methods in the book that I really love, Rick Warren's Bible Study Methods. I was doing so good with that for awhile then it dropped off. Story of my life unfortunately.

Supper's almost ready so I have to run! Happy reading!

Sigh

Back to your regularly scheduled reading....

I'm so disappointed that the Packers lost last night. Sadness in Packerland this morning. Hats off to the Giants though who deserved to win, and I hope they crush the Patriots in the Super Bowl. What a horrible game. They couldn't move the ball and they couldn't stop the Giants. Except for the 90 yard TD by Driver the whole game was miserable. But, life goes on. We didn't expect this season to go the way it did, we had a blast, it was a great ride. Too bad it didn't end better but what can you do.

I'm actually reading 4 different books at the same time right now. I used to do that quite a bit, at least have one fiction and one non-fiction book going. For the last several years though I've only liked to read one book at a time. But here's why I'm reading more than one. First of all I'm reading Every Sunday by Peter Pezzelli which I won from Lynne (thanks again Lynne!). I like it well enough, but I'm not enthralled with it. So I started reading other books along with it. Two of them I didn't keep reading, but then I read The Kite Runner. I loved that one so I wanted to read another great fiction book right away. So I started I Am the Messenger by Zusak (which is pretty good, I can't stand all the swearing though). I had another book in my TBR pile called Queen of the Oddballs that I just felt like starting. I like that one since she's talking about growing up in the 70's as I did (60's and 70's) but there are some things about it I don't like. I'll finish it though. Then a book I had put on hold at the library came in, and it is a short loan so I thought I would start it so I can finish it on time. That one is How Strong Women Pray by Bonnie St. John.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sorry to bore you with all those details! I have to do something to work off the frustration of that game last night. :-) Or I could just yell......

THE PACKERS LOST!!!
I'M SOOOOOO MAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDD!!!
THEY COULD BE HEADED TO THE SUPER BOWL RIGHT NOW!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!

Okay, I'm better now (not really). Happy reading!

WAHOO!!!

We interrupt this book blog to bring you breaking news......
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

THE PACKERS ARE IN THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME AND IT'S COMING TO LAMBEAU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!GO PACK GO!!!!!