What am I reading?

WHAT AM I READING?

The beginning of 2014 I had such great plans. I had visions of books dancing in my head. The whole world lay ahead just waiting for me to devour it piece by piece. Fiction, non-fiction, biographies, children's books were just waiting for me to dine on them. I got cocky. I made a list of what I was going to read in 2014. I could not wait to jump feet first into the pile of books. Then life happen Barrett style. It truly all difficulties lay on my doorsteps. I could not even really blame the kids. In case you have not heard me say it enough, arthritis sucks! There is no elegant way to put it. I lost the use of my right arm. My days was limited on what I could do. In away it sounded like one of my fantasies. I cannot do anything so I must curl up with a book and just read. The reality of the situation was slightly less fun. I was doing quite a bit of living off of pain pills which equates to me doing nothing, well occasionally I would wipe the drool off my mouth but not really until Ma&M would say something.  All that got done was the basics and sometimes not even the basics. I no longer could take it day by day. It was far too much time. I broke the days down in the morning, afternoon and evening and sometimes we went hour by hour and a few times 5 minutes by 5 minutes. It was the only way I could survive. All I had to do is worry about the morning. The rest would take care of itself. 

I have read a lot of bad books the last few months. I am going to spare you those reviews. Here are my favorites from the last several months. 

Apparently as a child I lived under I rock. I love the Planet of the Apes movies in all its cheesiness glory. What I did not know was Rod Serling did the screen play for the original movie Planet of the Apes. How did I miss that one? But the bigger how did you miss that one was it was based on a book by Pierre Boulle. It was a very easy read consisting of less then 200 pages. It was originally written in French. I always suspect a novel is better in its original language. But that aside, it was my favorite read of this summer. There are some elements from the book that made it too the movie, such as the apes are the dominant life form. But the story is different from the movie. I loved the surprise elements in the book. The ending was fabulous! When I got done reading the book I thought to myself, they should make a movie from this book.

I do believe it was May 2014 issue of Good House Keeping had a short story from this book. It was captivating. It was set in the 60's and told how Violet Grant nabbed a doctor at the post office when she went to pick up a mysterious box that had been mailed to her from an Aunt who had disappeared years decades before. I had to wait a month for the book to actually be released so I could finish reading the rest of the story. It was just too good of a mystery not to continue reading. Why yes, this book was fun. 

How many times have I checked this book out at the library? I am embarrassed to say, but lets just put it out there, it was a very high number. One day Amazon Kindle had this book for free. Free, can you believe that? I grabbed it up faster then you can say, "Free". A well written book filled with short stories and a practical guide of how to grow food on limited space. The end of each chapter there is a recipe. It is a book that I will refer back to often. 

Anyone that knows me knows I am a supreme klutz when it comes to sewing. Until a few weeks ago, it is true, I had no idea who May Martin was. Apparently I needed her in my life for the last 35 years. She has taught me a lot in the last few weeks.  You can get your free copy of the book no 1 until the end of the month when the full length book will can be purchased. I will be buying a copy of the full length book since May Martin's knows I am such an idiot when it comes to sewing. I hate it when I am reading a how to tutorial and the author just assumes I know how to do the missing steps. May Martin literally broke every step down for me.  There is no missing steps for a klutz like me.

I read the first book in this series, Outlander over 20 plus years ago (okay so the year was 1992, and I was very pregnant with our second child patiently counting the days and waiting for the return of TFOLT). I was hooked within the first chapter of the first book. So basically my entire adult life I have had to wait for Diana Gabaldon to write another book and not only write another book but for that edition to come out in a copy I could afford. The characters feel like they are a part of my family. I have cried, laugh and screamed and proclaimed how dare she. I have reread the series literally dozens of times.I probably could recite pages verbatim from memory because I have read it so many times. At this time, I am not sure how I feel that Starz has made Outlander into a series. These characters are my people. I know exactly who they are in my head which I doubt Startz will be able to capture. Having said that lets talk about book #8 because I love the characters so much, I will forgive Diana for repeating some of the same story lines but in slightly different setting. If I think about it life it is long and hard and it does often repeat itself. I love the story and all the complications. I am not thrilled with the story line from present day though (actually a few decades back). So yes, I will reread this one again and again until the pages start to fall out of the book (not that it has happen ever before).  If you never read this series, do start at book 1 and plan on doing nothing because you will not be able to set the book down.

I literally could not wait to get my hand onto this book. I really enjoy Jennifer's blog how she went from being an atheist to a practicing Catholic. The first 3/4 of the book was wonderful. Jennifer's story telling ability shines and then it just stopped midstream. I was laughing and crying, reading sections out loud to TFOLT and then just stopped. It was like she was granted so many pages for the written word and she realized that allotment was almost up so she had to wrap it up. There are huge chunks missing and I think if the person reading the book was not familiar with the life of Jennifer, they would question the conversion.

Have an afternoon to kill? Want to spend it giggling? Then I suggest White Whine. Honestly, 99% of the things we whine about our first world problems and Streeter (yup thats his name) has figured out away to make a living off society's whining. One of my favorite whines from the book.....

                             "It just seems to me that a billionaire can come in

                              and get whatever he wants and run roughshod over 

                              average millionaires like myself!".

It is tough being a millionaire now a days.

A Stephen King book that I have not read. It is a pretty dark book even for Stephen King. The characters are not as developed as Steven's other books.  But it kept TFOLT interested in the plot (You know how hard that is!). The thing that I found lacking, is I knew exactly where the plot was going. There was no elemental surprise of really? Seriously? As a matter of principal I never watch Steven King movies as I find the screen writer can never do King's books justice. 

As I stated before I seem to spend my days living under a rock. The only reason why I did not know that I had not read Odd Thomas is that I saw the movie clip on Netflix. Yes, you are following my train of thought, Netflix gave me a book recommendation. I love Odd. He is a wonderful character who sees ghost and the fact his girlfriend is named Stormy says it all. I thought Dean Koontz was a horror writer. 

There are so many classics that I have just not read. The Secret Garden is one of those classics. M&M choose it for us to read together. The first time through was wonderful. I love M&M's reaction to the horrible girl at the beginning. It about kills M&M off to meet characters like these. Thankfully, Mary redeems herself as the book goes on. The second and third readings have just become tedious for this mom. I have gotten wise. We bought M&M the audio of the Secret Garden for her kindle. Most nights I wake up to turn off the book as M&M was listening to it once again. 

I bought these two books to share with my 3-4 year old religious education class. The first one the art work is just outstanding. My 14 years of teaching these are the best books I found about how a Pope is chosen and a day in the Pope's life for little people. 

It is a children's book written by the author to celebrate their son's short life. It has a simple but sweet message plus it is beautifully illustrated. 

I am not sure if you are suppose to admit out loud that I read the Edgewood Series. For whatever reason Edgewood kept coming up as a suggestion for me on my kidnle. So I bit and I read and then I read some more. I was waiting for TFOLT to come home from work. I had an hour to kill. He came home, and I kept on reading. It was an engrossing story. The second book Wanderlust I started the next night. It was not quite as good as the first. and I have to admit I was surprised where the story went (that does not often happen). I have yet to read the third book. I think my two day gorge on the first two might have actually left parts of my brain rotting. 

I needed some light reading. This book hit the spot right on. It is a series of short humorist essays on the author's life growing up. There was a few factual errors in the book pertaining to his Catholic faith that he was raised in. I also have not spoken to his siblings, but I imagine they saw things very differently (isn't that how it goes in all large families). I always thought it would be interesting to go back to the families and see their take on what was written about them. Even if Tom Purcell might have slightly exaggerated some of his escapades of growing up, it did not matter to me, it still was a highly entertaining book. 

There you have it in a nutshell. My brain my rot if I do not start reading something with some guts and meaning soon. Every Sunday, I read the NY Times from front to back. I always cringe at the book reviews. I have stacks of books, I want to get to soon, yet I am always uncovering more books that I need to add to the stack.  Is it too late to involve Evelyn Wood?