Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Book Club Recommended Reads

At our June book club meeting, everyone shared a few books they recommend. Here's the list:
The Tunnel series (Erin)
The Sookie Stackhouse series (Erin)
The Hunger Games trilogy (Erin & Jimi)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Jimi)
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (Jimi)
Boundaries by Cloud & Townsend (Sarah)
Raising Great Kids by Cloud & Townsend (Sarah)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Emily) - our July pick!
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Emily)
Dangerous Beauty by Mark Ross (Emily)
Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange by Amanda Smyth (Emily)
Bringing up Girls by James Dobson (Jade)
Jane Austen (Jade)

Book Club books that have been a hit (for those of you who may not have been around when we read these):
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Kite Runner/A Thousand Splended Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Art of Making Money by Jason Kersten
Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Friday, June 11, 2010

A Book Binge

So, CJ (my 10-year old) has been gone to camp this week. Overnight camp. As you might imagine, his absence opens up some significant time in my schedule, time that should be filled with things like cleaning out the linen closet, organizing the office, catching up on laundry. Or, even more importantly, planning my in-law's 40th anniversary party or preparing freezer meals for my sister-in-law who will be delivering TWINS any day. I had plenty on my list to keep me busy this week.

What did I do? Well, I tackled a few projects here and there. We shopped for curtains and rods for our living room, since one of our cats decided to tear down what we had. And, I did get the invitations sent for the anniversary party. But, each night, after dinner, I pulled out a book and read, read, read. In fact, it's a little embarrassing how much I read this week. Oh well, here's what I finished (so far...I have until 5:30pm tonight though. I may squeeze in a little more reading):

U is for Undertow
Percy Jackson & the Olympians - The Lightning Thief (read this one to see if it was okay for CJ to read)
Beatrice & Virgil (by Yann Martel, author of one of my very favorite books, "Life of Pi"
The Recipe Club

Up Next: I should probably get started on my book club book (we meet next Thursday) "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", but I also just picked up a non-fiction book from the library "The Other Wes Moore" that I need to get started on...14 day loans don't give you much time.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Summer Reading Program

I finished "The Pillars of the Earth" a little over a week ago. I'm making myself hold off for a bit on the sequel, "World without End". I must get to the library books that don't have any renewals left. I did find out that "The Pillars of the Earth" is being made into a mini-series (I guess that's what you would call it) to be shown on Starz (we don't have it, but some friends do). And, it was rather appropos to watch the new "Robin Hood" just after finishing this book. The movie is set in the same time period.

This weekend, I finished "The Housekeeper and the Professor". If you love math, you should read this book. If you don't, you might (like me) be a bit confused at points, but it's still a sweet story set in Japan. The Housekeeper works for a Professor whose memory only lasts 80 minutes. Can you imagine?

I'm still working on and loving "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop". And, I'm picking up "Unveiled" by Francine Rivers from the library today. And, I need to get started on re-reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" for this month's book club.

On my nightstand (it's kind of like the on-deck circle in baseball): "The Book Thief", "World without End", "The Whole Life Adoption Book", and many others.