Monday, March 28, 2011

Magazines

Do you keep magazines? I do. I am, perhaps, a magazine hoarder. I have every issue of Taste of Home ever delivered to my mailbox, probably close to 10 years worth at this point. Unfortunately, it's not just Taste of Home. It's pretty much every magazine I've ever laid hands on...cooking, running, reading, life. It's a problem.

Before we moved to Kansas, I did purge my Real Simple magazines, tore out anything I wanted to keep and put the rest in a pile to donate to the library. I had set aside, oh, maybe 8 that I really wanted to keep. Unfortunately, my dear husband who was taking the magazines to the library for me didn't know there was a distinction between the two piles and donated every last one. Tears may or may not have been shed.

One magazine that I no longer receive but cannot bear to part with is "Bookmarks". It rates and reviews all kinds of literature and is a priceless resource for readers. (It's also kind of pricey, which is why I no longer subscribe). My favorite feature is the article where they highlight a book club each issue. It's fun to see what other book clubs have enjoyed reading, what they haven't liked and how they're structured.

Recently, I was looking through some of my mom's old issues (she's still a subscriber) and noticed that in several issues the featured book clubs mentioned "The Other Boleyn Girl" as one of their favorites. I figured it must be worth a read.

I'm disappointed to say that it was not a book I enjoyed and not one I would recommend others read. Perhaps it's because it was so long (not normally something I dislike) and about a story that I already knew the end of. If you don't know the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry the 8th, you may find it more enjoyable, but reading 600 pages and knowing the end of the story...not my favorite thing. The story is told from the perspective of Anne's sister, Mary, and follows history to some extent. I know the author took great liberties, though. I didn't stop reading, so it obviously wasn't horrible, and parts were fascinating. But, I think what disturbed me the most was the complete and utter excess and self-indulgence of the royalty in that time period. Wow. It was repulsive.

Anyway, I don't normally post about books I don't like, but this one made quite the impression. After finishing, I read one of CJ's books that he LOVED, City of Ember. And, then I read it's sequel People of Sparks. They were great books with really good messages.

What's next? I don't know. I'll probably tackle either Green or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I am reading The Hole in Our Gospel...and committed to reading some of it each day. It's about that time.

happy reading!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Spring Reading Thing 2011

Can you believe that spring has arrived? I have to tell you if there is one season where I am inclined to read less rather than more, it is spring. I'm not sure why but I think it has to do with getting out of the rut of winter, and I definitely do a lot of reading in the winter.

Nevertheless, I am going to participate in Callapidder Days Spring Reading Thing. It's an easy challenge. Just make a list of books you want to read this spring and then read them. :) Want more information? Go here.

What's on my list? I'm going to try to keep it shorter this time.

Non-Fiction:
The Whole Life Adoption Book (this has been on numerous lists)
The Hole in our Gospel (this one too)
The Good and Beautiful God

Fiction:
Green by Ted Dekker
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (book club, a re-read for me) by John Berendt
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

There are others on my nighstand and on my library list. But, this is it for my list...for now.

Want to see what others are reading? Check out all the links HERE. (I'll let you in on a little secret...my favorite part of the challenge: finding out about new books/authors from the other readers).

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

March Reading

Ack...I'm kind of falling behind on posting and feel like I've forgotten what I've read recently.

Let's see. My book club picked "Room" by Emma Donoghue which was already sitting in my TBR pile. I waited to read until last week, so that hopefully I would remember a little more of it than last month's book (Bridget Jones's Diary -which I read too soon). Another book on the list for this month was "The Summer We Got Saved" - definitely one I hope to get at the library.

Also, this month I read Robert Whitlow's Tides of Truth series, three books about a female law clerk set in Savannah, GA. They were super quick, light reads. I actually got the first one on my Kindle for free and used the text-to-speech feature to listen to it as I drove to my parents'. The computer-generated voice takes a little getting used to and occasionally had some pretty funny pronunciations...for example, it pronounced Zach phonetically. So, once I started reading the books, I couldn't help but call him Zach (with ch- as in church).

I'm also taking part in a read-a-long of Jane Eyre hosted over at We'll Always Have Books. I'm a bit behind but should finish before the end of the month.

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting something...

What's next?

I'm looking forward to book club on Thursday where we'll pick a book for April. I also still have "Green" and "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" from the library. I've started "The Other Boleyn Girl" and need to get back to it. And I'm waiting on about 5 books from the library. I'll save those for the next post.

Happy Reading!