The books of October 2011

Didn't I just write one of these things?! How is it Halloween? I mean, tomorrow it's NOVEMBER! Actually, quite a bit of last month was spent working on the blog I did to archive my pictures from Italy so I could remember the trip. If you missed that, and want to see lots of old and beautiful things (and no, I don't mean me), then you should check out Pictures from Italy 2011. The first post you see is the last, so scroll down if you want to read it in order, or, just scroll and look at stuff. The pictures make me really happy.

I also made a few crafts this month. A friend at work had a birthday and I worked with another friend to figure out what he says the most. This is what he ended up with:

Totally different from being tanorexic.

I made an imaginary friend for the Iron Craft challenge. Her name is Ms. Flora Petalsworth and she is very into mischief. I'm pretty sure she's the reason all my plans to clean my room have been thwarted.

She looks so sweet and innocent...

For another Iron Craft challenge, the topic was just Halloween. That's fairly broad, so I narrowed it down in my head to something my friend would like to have for her Halloween parties. I gave it to her on Saturday.

Stitching this candy corn did not drive me batty.

I think I only bought one book for myself this month...I'm still pretty sad about the no Borders situation. No wait...I bought two...and a couple of friends have lent books to me that I swear I'll get to as soon as I can! I got Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory (mainly because it has a spaceship AND a tentacle on the front cover) and The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan.  

This month I stuck mostly with library books again...and got a new, smaller stack before I came home tonight (because I need to read my friends' books). I finished The Host by Stephenie Meyer, aka The Worst Book Ever. I also read Beauty Queens by Libba Bray and books one, two, three, and five of Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series: The Templar Legacy, The Alexandria Link, The Venetian Betrayal, and The Paris Vendetta (I accidentally read book four, The Charlemagne Pursuit, while on vacation last month).

A quick sum up of The Host: it never got any better. Never. It was really a bad book, but I'd committed and refused to give up. As badly written (and still much beloved) as the Twilight books are, the sparkley vampires and faux wolves have a great story to tell. These characters? Not so much. The hosts are bodies taken to "host" new souls. I'm pretty sure most doctrines don't refer to the host/parasite relationship when discussing souls, but whatever. The main host can't get rid of the original soul inside the body, so she ends up falling in love with the girl's past and helping carve out a new future. I don't know if you see potential in that, but if you do, I'm telling you, don't bother. It went unfulfilled. It was just not a good read...and because it was so long, it felt like for-ev-er before I finished it. I was completely happy to move on to any other topic by that point.

The Cotton Malone series. I know I gushed about this last month...and some of you began reading and some see the awesome and some don't. That's cool. I think part of what I like about these books is that Berry discusses how he researched things and lived in those places to get the best out of himself for the book that he could. I think it shows. The Templar Knights have long been a fascination for me. I think many of you know how I feel about that medieval time period and knights in general. Get me started on King Arthur and I'll probably never stop typing! Anyway, this was about the lost templar treasury from when the knights were killed off by the king's (and church's) proclamation. We meet Cotton Malone, dragged into his first mystery by accident, while trying to help out his friend and former boss, Stephanie Nell. The old Danish guy, Henrik Thorvaldsen, and the woman who (sometimes) works for him, Cassiopeia Vitt (what a great name), also become involve and lay the groundwork for the next stories with their teamwork to (a) thwart danger, (b) solve the mystery, (c) kill the bad guys, and generally (d) save the day. It's really the framework for all the novels in this series, but since they're based with some true history, I am hooked. The Alexandria Link is about the library of Alexandria, supposedly lost, but apparently kept going by a very secretive group of guardians who need help from Cotton to keep their treasure safe. In this one we meet Cotton's son Gary and his ex-wife Pam (who he throws out of an airplane...which she didn't like, even though they had to jump). They get a little closure and a better relationship...oh, and save the day. In The Venetian Betrayal, we learn more about St. Mark and Alexander the Great and the links between them. The people working against them find the cure for AIDS (oddly, a bacteria that attacks and destroys the disease) and the lost tomb of Alexander the Great. The Paris Vendetta is centered on old family rivals of Napoleon and finding his lost millions. There are lots of twists and turns as always, but I was surprised (SPOILER) that one of the main characters thus far is killed off. A new one was introduced, but I don't know yet if he'll play an integral part to upcoming plots. I've got the next paperback, The Emperor's Tomb, sitting on the nightstand and I'm going to ask for The Jefferson Key (book 7) for Christmas. I know this may seem like not great, very formulaic reading, but because the adventures take place all over the world and include researched historical facts woven in with stories you learned long ago, they're just great fun to read. 

Beauty Queens is about teen beauty pageant contestants that survive a plane wreck and get completely, and utterly, screwed by the company sponsoring the pageant because it's run by a woman with aspirations that can not be stopped. She's planning dirty deals with embargoed nations for arms and oil while covertly covering up that there are surviving teen dreams on the island The Corporation owns. Her plan? Kill them off...pretty much everyone involved...to achieve her goal of becoming possibly the least informed president ever. A smile and a wave don't always solve the problem. The girls (and one near girl) become extremely self-sufficient and are able to bounce back once the evil plot is discovered. All this, and PIRATES. Seriously? This book is insane. It was kind of funny though. Not laugh out loud, but satirically funny, if that makes sense.

OK. Happy Halloween and I'll be back next month!

The books of September 2011

September completely flew by, didn't it? It was a good month though. I mean, it's hard for a month to be bad when you spend half of it traveling in Italy.

Why aren't all of the ceilings like this everywhere?

Before I left, I finished up a couple of projects: my wrist-warmers (which have already been worn at work) and my friend's birthday present as mentioned last month.

The Happy Birthday Monster is coming to get you!

It was the last month of Borders bookstore...so sad! I picked up a few titles before they were gone for good: Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge, The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna, and The Emperor's Tomb by Steve Berry.

I continued reading books from the library, but I needed to have things turned in before my vacation, so I took books I owned with me on the trip. Here's what I read in September: It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro, The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan, Un Amico Italiano: Eat, Pray, Love in Rome by Luca Spaghetti, Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge, Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, The Charlemagne Pursuit by Steve Berry, and part of The Host by Stephenie Meyer.

The Laurie Notaro was funny as always. I'm not a huge fan of her fiction works, but these essays on her life are hysterical every time. I recommend all of them. This one has a couple of appearances from Ambien Laurie who takes on a life of her own while regular Laurie is sleeping. Seriously, if you've not read her before, check out the first one from her, The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life. I remember laughing out loud while having coffee somewhere quiet and everyone looking at me because of the disruption. If you like that one, you'll like the rest.

Dead-Tossed Waves is the second book in the Forest of Hands and Teeth series. (The library has the third one, so it will be coming soon to this blog.) This story focuses on the daughter of the main character from the first book. It turns out the story is much more complex than I originally thought...apparently the daughter is not hers biologically and she has a twin who's been gone for a long time, but was alive the last time the new male interest saw her. There are a lot of twists and turns in these books, but for a post-apocalyptic teen book, it's pretty intriguing. It's not the Hunger Games, but it's a different take on survival and you root for the characters who are pushing the story forward.

The Luca Spaghetti book wasn't that great. It did fill in any holes you may have thought existed in the Rome portion of the Eat, Pray, Love story. Luca Spaghetti is a real person and in this book he tells his story and writes in depth about his friendship with Liz and what it's all come to mean to him. Reading it while in Rome was the only thing that saved it for me because he gave a lot of history/background stories to many of the places we visited, so sometimes I would know a little more about it than if we'd just walked there and looked at it. I left it at the apartment in Rome for the next person in case it was of interest.

Once in a Blue Moon was definitely my vacation book. I've read a few of Goudge's books before...they tend to be about families and twists in lives and trying to piece it back together...generally with a few well-written sex scenes to glue it all together. This particular story was about two sisters, living with a horrible mother who ended up in jail while they were farmed out to foster care. One thrived; one repeated their mother's patterns. Once reunited, they were able to come to terms with the different hands life had dealt them and it all ends happily...after more ups and downs. It wasn't the best novel ever written, but it was engrossing and passed the time. I left it at the apartment in Positano.

Commencement is one I read about on Jen Lancaster's blog. It's four unlikely friends who go to an all female college and how their paths cross and uncross after college. It was really well done and I loved reading it. I couldn't believe what happened toward the end and that's pretty amazing to me. I started picking up on the twist, but I had never expected that particular thing to be the twist. She's a good writer, and now I totally want to read the other one by her, Maine. This one stayed in Positano too after being read almost completely while on the terrace.

I read Steve Berry's The Romanov Prophecy sometime a couple of years ago. I loved it so much that when I noticed The Charlemagne Pursuit out in paperback around the following Christmas, I asked for it. I didn't get around to reading it until I was on vacation. Apparently the Romanov one was a one-off and I plunged into the middle of a series when reading the Charlemagne one. But that's ok! The series is about the main character, Cotton Malone. There are several in the series (most all currently on loan to me from the library) and a couple more one-offs. I plan to read them all. In this book, Cotton Malone, retired justice agent, is pulled into a huge mess, simply by trying to figure out more about his father's death on a submarine that was never found. He got a classified report and it turns out, the mission of the sub was not what they'd been told and only one ship was ever sent to look for it. The mystery of this leads to a huge amount of killing, both in the states and in Europe. I could not put this book down. When it was time to do stuff, it was really hard for me...and I was in ITALY and it was BEAUTIFUL and I wanted to read about people getting killed over something that had happened like 40 years earlier. It was really, really good. I can't wait to read the rest...he's a very strong character.

When I got back, instead of heading to the library right away (just went today), I decided to read whatever was on top of the night stand. Unfortunately, that was The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I read the Twilight series. I always said it wasn't the best written, but the story was compelling, so I kept reading, and yes, I've seen all the movies so far and plan to see the other two from the last book. This one though, it's just, well, the same writing style (bad) with a story that I can't seem to follow and kind of don't want to. One friend said she liked it and others have all said it was bad. I'm determined to finish the thing since it's been a chore to read at all so far but it seems like it might be picking up a little (I'm about a third of the way through). I don't think it's going to turn out ok though...not like Anne Rice's The Queen of the Damned - the first half was the worst book I'd ever read and then all of the sudden, POW! Awesomeness! Not many authors can pull that off, and most shouldn't even try. I'll let you know how it goes next month.

The books of August

I can not believe it's the last day of August! I feel like I just put up the last post and poof! It's that time again. I saw a couple of movies this month: Crazy Stupid Love and The Help. Crazy Stupid Love, I gotta say, had no pull on me when my friend asked me to see it. I thought it looked kind of funny, but imagined that all of the laughs would be in the same previews I had seen. I was delighted to be absolutely wrong. It was freaking hilarious! And while I've not been an avid Gosling fan in the past, I was struck mute...and possibly temporarily blind...by the glory of his possibly photoshopped abs. It was insane. There were times when I was laughing so hard I was crying and I couldn't talk. The Help was every bit as good as the book. Funny, sad, just a great, great movie with great performances.

I've been busy trying to get lots of crafts done as well. An ex-boss left my current place of work...he used to always tell people how mean and angry I was...which took everyone by surprise because I'm actually not. So, I made a joke of it and decided since he was the one who thought that, then he could take it with him:

The real question is why was I mean and angry...was it all those vampire books?

Later on in the month after his departure, I actually did feel both mean and angry. It made me think for a little bit and I decided to sublimate my rage through my inner artist:

I also made a few birthday gifts...I'll post those next month though...after people have received their gifts!

I did pick up a few books this month...all at Borders: The Last Summer (of You & Me) by Ann Brashares, It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro, and Avec Eric by Eric Ripert.

The library got a lot more of my business this month...as did my stash of books scattered around the apartment. Here's what I read this month: The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine by Lauren Willig, Walks with Men by Ann Beattie, Let's Talk About Pep by Sandy "Pepa" Denton, Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby, Man Camp by Adrienne Broduer, The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz, Ransom My Heart by Meg Cabot and Mia Thermopolis, and Lips Unsealed by Belinda Carlisle.

First, the Sittenfeld book. I know I read Prep a long, long time ago and maybe I should've expected this style, but I'd completely forgotten. The story follows Hannah from elementary school all the way into adulthood. Every relationship is screwed up somehow...although maybe that's because it's all from Hannah's viewpoint. After seeing her dysfunctional family fall apart and slowly pick up the pieces, it's not like her life choices were unexpected. The relationship with her shrink seems to be the most stable one she has. I was glad that she grew throughout the book, but when it ends, you kind of feel like there should be a more positive resolution after all of that crap. You want that nice, neat, storybook ending all tied up with a pretty bow. But what you get is something more realistic and outlandish at the same time. Not a bad read, but makes me want to avoid that other one...what was it? Oh yeah, American Wife.

Another fun Lauren Willig book! I swear, this series might be my favorite. It's not one I actively seek, but when I remember it, I look, and there's always a new one that absorbs me. This one I should've read between the two I read last month, but it wasn't on the shelf at the library. I could sit here and gush and go on and on about how I enjoy her novels, but I want everyone to just go read them! You can see all the titles (and get the order of release) on Amazon. As a bonus, there's supposed to be a new one coming out in February. There's the modern love story, the historical love story (stories), the historical settings, and the mysteries. Just so much fun. When I start one, it takes all my will to leave the house if I don't finish it in one sitting.

Walks with Men was an odd little book. I knew nothing about it...I was looking to see if some other book I wanted was in and this was in a row nearby...it was very short and small and portable, so I checked it out. I never connected with the main character. She didn't seem to need the reader to do so. You felt bad for her at times, but then you were brought back to the reality that she brought it all on herself with her choices in men and her life. What it really did was make me think. I know I've made some INSANE choices when it comes to men, but like the character, I don't feel too bad about it. It happens; you move on. Granted, the ending was actually sad, but not a tear-jerker. Just kind of an awful way for it to all go down. And she got through it...just like we all do, all the time. While this one was a work of fiction, it could've easily been a memoir and I doubt I would've caught on that it was in the wrong place.

Salt and Pepa's here! Let's Talk About Pep...shall we? All I knew about S&P was that they were a ground-breaking female group and that I liked quite a few of their songs. Wow. She wasn't up to Vince Neil levels, but her choices? Oh my, her choices! What was she thinking?! Staying with men who repeatedly beat her?! It wasn't easy to read...and she knew it. She just told it like it was, said what she did, and kept moving forward to the next stage of life. She's clearly a survivor. Mostly what I got out of this book was that I needed to listen to "None of Your Business" on a repeated loop for about a week straight.

Juliet, Naked was so great! Totally Hornby. I just love the way he writes. The main characters start out on the road following the male's musical hero. The female, she's not as into it. They drift. She writes a thoughtful post for his blog about the musician. The musician contacts her and all of it comes together so well. You can visualize the characters and you like them all, even with their flaws and craziness. I really need to just re-read everything he's done. Sigh.

Man Camp was silly, but a decent read. Two friends in New York jokingly come up with a business for one of them to date men and tell the men what they do wrong so the men can become better mates. The dating thing only proved that the problems were too complex for one date and one review/advice meeting. They had to have a week or two to spend, showing these NY guys how to be real men and take care of women. Of course, being a work of fiction, everyone learns something, and everyone already had useful skills, and everyone lives happily ever after. Complete fluff, but sometimes, you just need fluff.

And apparently sometimes, you need more fluff because the next book I read was The Family Fortune. Jane Fortune and her family fall upon difficult financial times and Jane, being the level-headed one, becomes the focus as she's the only one in the family with a lick of sense and an actual job. Turns out the family has really done a number on her and it took this separation of them all to put it into perspective so she could get a real life...as she had the chance to do several years before instead of locking herself up with them. It was entertaining.

Another fluffy tale was Meg Cabot, writing as Mia Thermopolis (The Princess Diaries). Ransom My Heart was the story Mia wanted to write about a girl who decides to ransom a stranger to get money for her vapid sister who spent her dowry on trinkets...which wouldn't be a problem if said sister hadn't gotten herself knocked up by a wandering minstrel. Unfortunately for our heroine, she captures the returning man of rank, back from being imprisoned during the Crusades. Hilarity ensues. As does plenty of sex. This was a nice read and I liked most all of the characters (except the villains)...as I tend to do with all of Cabot's books.

Last, but not least, just an hour ago, I finished Belinda Carlisle's Lips Unsealed. If you didn't know, I love the Go-Gos. I bought this book a long time ago and have been waiting for a good time to dig into it. Apparently, the good time started last Saturday morning. Belinda has certainly led a life. She clearly wasted almost half of it in a fog of drugs and alcohol, but it did make for some excellent, gossipy reading. She could have dressed it up and made it less real, but she didn't, and I admire that. She told what she felt about a lot of my favorite songs (some were not her faves at all) and she talked about the band and her life as a musician afterward. It was nice to read that the songs were snapshots of their lives at the times...I think that's part of what makes those songs so fun...that you can feel what they were feeling and doing (although I guess you could also call that a contact high without inhaling). She also talked about what the drugs and alcohol were doing and how she couldn't face it. When I finished it, before I fired up the computer because I knew it was blog night, I knew that I'd be listening to the Go-Go's for a while, being really glad that she caught herself in time and got help before it was too late.

So that's August. September is going to be awesome, although I might not be reading that much. With that in mind, and the Go-Go's, I'll leave you with some lyrics: "Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away..." It's nearly vacation time and I can't wait! See y'all later!

The books of July 2011

Seven months gone. Seems way too fast, doesn't it? I saw the last Harry Potter and it was awesome! I also liked Captain America - it was a lot of fun.

Book buying will be more scarce throughout the year with Borders going out of business :( I loved my time working there and I loved shopping there. It's not gone yet, but I'm really going to miss it. I bought the following books this month: Un Amico Italiano: Eat, Pray, Love in Rome by Luca Spaghetti, Overbite by Meg Cabot, and The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure.

I did make a few trips to the local library...something I guess I'll be doing more of without Borders. So, this month I read: The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate, Passion by Lauren Kate, The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig, Orange In the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman, The Department of Lost and Found by Alison Winn Scotch, Time of My Life by Alison Winn Scotch, The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater by Frank Bruni, Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag by Michael Tonello, and A Hollywood Ending by Robyn Sisman.

The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove was an okay teen book. The main character has little conscious and really, having read the whole book, I can't say that I felt se had earned any sort of redemption. She came from nothing, turned her back on her roots, and lived it up as a spoiled brat. More than anything, this was just an unfortunate tragedy where no one seemed to grow or learn things until it was too late and then you didn't really care about them. Also, I like my teen books a smidge more chaste than this one was. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I really don't like to think of teens that way...even if they are.

Passion was the third in the series of the Fallen novels. This one explains more of the history of the angels and the fall and their fighting to gain control of Luce and her soul. Apparently there's another book to come in the series. I like these books...begrudginly. I didn't mean to like them. They are written about as well as the Twilight series...mostly, there's something about the storyline and the loyalties of the characters that's very intriguing. It's another series that could be seen on the big screen, but probably not as lucrative overall...no sparkley vampires or cool werewolf-like packs...just beautiful, beautiful angels with wings!

Lauren Willig is an author I found by accident. A few years ago, I read a few books by her about a graduate student who went to England to research a spy network working against the French. The books are highly entertaining and take you back to the era using dispatches, letters, and notebooks that the grad student is studying. It helps that her boyfriend is a distant relative of one in the spy network and that his aunt (she owns the archive) was clearly involved as well. The Mischief of the Mistletoe is a short Christmas story made from two characters who are in the books, but never the main characters. Here they get their chance to solve their own spy problem. It's a charming tale, full of comical little intrigues that bring the two together and compel them to stay together throughout the ordeal. The Betrayal of the Blood Lily was another introduction of main characters, these moving the Hellfire Club's intrigue to India through a bad marriage of one of the main characters and the introduction of a few more of the spy ring. The plot is well-written and the twists and turns are fun to follow because while you can tell where the path is going, you occasionally make a wrong turn in your thoughts, much like you're the grad student trying to figure it out as you go. The student in modern times may never finish her dissertation, but her research is certainly entertaining. I've got another of these from the library to read and I hope the author keeps writing them.

Orange Is the New Black was a departure from things I would usually read. I saw it on one of Jen Lancaster's book lists from last year. Piper did some really, really stupid things earlier in her life and ten years later, it all caught up to her. While she'd made a life for herself, she realized that she needed to pay for what she'd done, so she served her time and chronicled it for the rest of us. The women she met in prison were, and this is weird because I didn't expect it, very inspirational. They propped her up when she was down; they took care of each other. It wasn't a good place to be but they made it home (as much as possible) by recreating their sense of family. Together they got through a lot of horrible things. This book portrays something I hope not to experience, but something that I'm glad I took the time to read.

Originally, I was looking for The One That I Want by Alison Winn Scotch...and I still am since it's been checked out every time I've gone to the library. So in the meantime, I read The Department of Lost and Found and Time of My Life. Both were very well-written books that I had trouble putting down. In The Department, Natalie is the main character. She's a work-a-holic for a senator and she develops cancer. Around the time of that little announcement, her boyfriend walks out on her. After some wallowing, she slowly regains her footing in life to find that maybe it was time for some changes anyway. She lost some things and some people, but she found herself and started to take better care of herself. It was really good. In Time of My Life, Jill had a perfect life with a good husband, an adorable little girl, and a crap-ton of issues she's shoved into a tightly closed bag. The bag comes open and one morning she wakes up in her old life, with everything to do over however she pleases. It takes her returning to the past and doing things differently to realize things about herself and her life. Again, this was an entertaining page turner.

The Washingtonienne was just, well, smarmy. The main character cheats on her boyfriend and moves to DC from New York to start over. She lives a life of partying - drinking, drugs, and sex. She takes a job on the Hill and starts a blog to keep her friends apprised of her comings and goings. She juggles men, finds a decent one, and manages to completely mess up her life again. It's possible that she learned something at the end, but it's hard to tell if she really means it. I was pretty much appalled at this girl and felt a little dirty when I was done reading it. She didn't even like herself or what she was doing and yet she wrote it all down for everyone to read. Ugh.

I turned quickly to some non-fiction to cleanse my reading palette. Frank Bruni's Born Round is about his life with food and family. Bruni shares his problems with food, going all the way back to his childhood. His struggles to eat and to be happy are something anyone who has ever yo-yo dieted or made excuses for meals has felt. The increasing pant sizes; the binges; the misery...it's all there. As well as the food. I love how he tells his story. Sometimes, his descriptions of food were too accurate and I would find myself wandering to the kitchen for a snack while I read. He talks about being in Italy and still managing to stay on track...as well as finding happiness while maintaining a decent relationship with food and exercise and family. This book is pretty inspirational without being preachy. Read it when you need a boost.

Bringing Home the Birkin was highly entertaining. I kept laughing and wanting to read it when I should have been doing things like sleeping. Tonello's travels to retrieve the elusive handbags are near insane. At the end of like every chapter I'm thinking, "Hello! It's a freaking BAG" and he's dropping thousands and thousands of dollars on them. It's completely nuts and I loved it. It has some downer moments...and some scary ones, but his descriptions are quite lovely and make you want to experience these places and things yourself...maybe minus the price tags.

Last on the list was A Hollywood Ending. A cute book about an actress who takes off to London to try her hand at Shakespeare in the theater. All of her problems seem light-hearted to us readers and the way out of awkward situations pretty simple. It was a fast read, easy to follow, and generally just a nice way to spend a few hours in the air-conditioning on an extremely hot day. Plus, you can just hear the accents if you ficus hard enough :)

I've got another stack from the library and some books that are calling to me from the night stand. I need to start working on a lot of craft projects too. Let's just hope the weather starts to cool off...I am totally over this whole heat index and sweating thing. Later!

The books of June 2011

Another month down and we're halfway through the year. It's insane how fast it goes! So far summer is ok (although today in particular was ridiculously hot...and still is, but with the air conditioning running, it's not so bad inside)...I've been hanging out with friends, seeing movies, doing crafts...you know, the usual.

I did two more Iron Craft challenges this month: You Are Here and Scan This! I think that brings my total done so far this year to 5. I was hoping to hit 13 by the end of the year since that's a quarter of the challenges.

We're all Snooki to you

I made several cross-stitch gifts...some were QR codes (like the one for the Iron Craft above) and others were fun sayings, like this:

I'm feeling like everyone needs a biscuit...right now!

I also knit myself a pair of wrist warmers and am currently working on finishing up a matching scarf. I realize that it's now July as I write this, but some places, like the movie theater, are always chilly inside.

I didn't buy too many books this month. I got The Host by Stephanie Meyer (out of the bargain bin...score!), The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate, Passion by Lauren Kate (third of the Fallen books), Makoto's Cross-Stitch Super Collection by Makoto Oozu, and Cowl Girls: The Neck's Best Thing to Knit by Cathy Carron.

I was feeling the need for books, but not feeling the need for giving up money, so I went to the library in addition to raiding my own shelves and night stand. Overall, in June I read: Under the Blood Red Moon by Mina Hepsen, Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, Tattoos and Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen by Vince Neil and Mike Sager, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson, and in preparation of the July 15th final movie release, I re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling.

I grabbed the Hepsen book from the library. It was a fluffy, little vampire tale with some twists into Victorian London...and some odd tie-ins to history. It was fast read...something I was able to put down, but still, fairly well done and interesting enough to keep me reading through the whole book.

Linger was just as good as Shiver. For some reason, I don't get into Stiefvater as quickly as some of the other teen series books that I've read. Which makes no sense. Werewolves are something I read about on a fairly regular basis at this point <cough>nerd alert</endcough> but these books move slowly for me. They don't take a lot of time to read, but it's not the first thing I want to do as soon as I get home. But I do know the characters now and am invested enough that I want to read more. The ending for the second book is a sad twist in the tale and I wonder where she's taking the story...huh. Looks like I was intrigued by it...more than I thought. Although maybe the reason I don't think I'm as intrigued is because there's no Jacob whipping his shirt off every other scene :)

Every summer, I like to read a blond celebrity bimbo book. The Cybill Shepherd biography stands out as a pretty good one. I'm sure I'll read more than one, but this month, I took the focus off of the ladies and read the Vince Neil biography. Everything I knew about Motley Crue at this point, I learned from The Dirt (an AWESOME book about the band). I remember reading it a long time ago and thinking that it was weird that the frontman didn't feature prominently in that book. Later I read Tommyland (an AWFUL book on Tommy Lee) and learned pretty much that Tommy likes himself...a lot. I have not read the Nikki Sixx bio. After reading the Vince Neil bio, I gotta say, I am totally rooting for the guy! He has had so many huge ups and downs and still manages to be alive and trying to get through things. He's clearly got a lot of problems, but it seems like he's trying to put the past behind him and I really hope he succeeds. This book was great fun and I'm kind of sad that I got it from the library and had to return it. It's a good conversation piece (be careful how you carry and place the book on the table...he's being a little "cheeky" on the back cover and I had to explain myself /reading choice several times)...and it made me listen to "Dr. Feelgood" for like three days straight once I was done with it.

I finally finished the new Erik Larson. I read it while I was reading these other books. It's a heavy one that feels better if it's broken up by other tales. Hitler...man...that guy was seriously uncool. Reading about his rise to power in the year leading up to WWII was very interesting and disturbing. Like a couple of other Larson books, it's slow reading, possibly because you do know the topic and it is a heavy, complex, sad topic. You wanted the ambassador to do more, but you felt sympathy for him being in this impossible situation and really, what more could he have done before someone decided he and his family were just unnecessary? I did like this book, but it wasn't something I'll talk about a lot because it's just depressing. I do not think it's as good as Devil in the White City, but it's still well done.

Sigh. I so do not want Harry Potter to end. In a bad, bad way. And yet, I'm so excited to see the movie that I took the whole day off from work so that I can see it the day it releases. No, I'm not doing the midnight show...I enjoy sleeping too much for that...but I will see it early the first day...and possibly more than once. My roommate realized she hadn't seen the first half of the movie, so we watched it last Saturday night. That prompted me to re-read the Deathly Hallows last Sunday. I just sat and read. And reminded myself of the story and tried to gauge my crying/sobbing tendencies because I'm sure it'll be much worse watching it on the screen...it always is. Also, I'd completely forgotten about (blocked from memory on purpose) the spiders joining the fight. SHUDDER! I was hoping maybe it would be one of the things they would cut from the movie, but no-o-o-o-o. I watched the preview and there they were, crawling in the background on their creepy, ginormous legs. Ugh! It won't keep me from the theater, but it will keep me form looking at the screen during a crucial part or two :\

It's time to continue cleaning and start cooking. Hope everyone has a great July 4th!

The books of May 2011

This month seems to have gone way too quickly...which is fine, but I feel like I haven't really done anything. Oh well. I did manage to see the movie Bridesmaids in the theater and it was hilarious! Also, a Memorial Day weekend marathon of Pawn Stars filled my brain with lots of crazy stuff.

With Lent safely in the past, I was able to purchase some of the fine, fine books that came out this month: If You Were Here by Jen Lancaster, Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris, Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, Cooking Light's 200-Calorie Eat Smart Guide, Incendiary by Chris Cleave, How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood by William J. Mann, Hungry Girl: 300 Under 300 by Lisa Lillien (a mom purchase), In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, Fa La La La Felt by Amanda Carestio (another mom purchase), and at some point, but I can't honestly say it was this month...it may have been sitting on the nightstand for a while, but I only read it this month, What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell.

This month I had a little blip. Because of the Harris book and seeing the promo for season 4 of True Blood before we got rid of HBO, I kind of wanted to re-read a lot of the Sookie Stackhouse books...so I apologize in advance to anyone who was expecting some sort of substance to appear in this post. In May, I read: What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell, Cooking Light's 200-Calorie Eat Smart Guide, If You Were Here by Jen Lancaster, Dead to the World, Dead as a Doornail, Definitely Dead, All Together Dead, From Dead to Worse, Dead and Gone, Dead in the Family, and Dead Reckoning all by Charlaine Harris.

What the Dog Saw is a collection of Gladwell's essays. I've read another one by him and I really like collections like this. He covers lots of interesting ground from Ron Popeil's empire, ketchup, and hair dye to plagiarism, the Challenger tragedy, and the dog whisperer. It was nice to actually learn something while otherwise miring myself in vampire land.

The Cooking Light book is a great cookbook! I read through most all of the recipes and then began by making the chicken salad with asparagus and radishes. It was extremely tasty and I plan to make many more items from this book!

In case you weren't sure, I heart all Jen Lancaster books. Would she and I see eye-to-eye in a political debate? No. Would we agree that having five animals share your house is a great idea? No. But, I fully believe we could sit and drink some wine and chillax talking about the 80s for hours and hours. If You Were Here is Lancaster's first foray into fiction. Loyal readers will see many of her friends in the book as fictional characters and even heavy doses of herself and her husband as the main characters in search of their dream home. Can any of you make the same instant connection I did? And if so, did you squeal a little out loud when you realized what it was? If You Were Here is the lovely Thompson Twins' song that plays at the end of Sixteen Candles when Jake Ryan gives Samantha a birthday cake, her undies (lent to a dork to help him win a bet), and a kiss. I love that movie...and like most women my age, I still love Jake Ryan...the boy knew how to work a sweater vest. Anyway, this book (I don't want to give away any more than I already kind of have) is great! It made me super nostalgic for all the John Hughes movies (which were watched immediately after reading) and it made me laugh out loud...many, many times. If you like the 80s movies and you like laughter, you should totally read this book.

And now we come to the vampire portion of this post. I like the Sookie Stackhouse books. They are completely enjoyable fluff. I like the HBO series True Blood. It is completely enjoyable fluff and filth with pretty, pretty people (<cough>Eric, Sam</endcough>) to look at and not a bad take on the books. I know a lot of people complain, but I started with the visuals and trust me, reading those books with those particular people playing out the parts in your imagination is super hot...I mean, quality literature ;) I read the most recent one, Dead Reckoning as soon as I bought it. It's as fluffy as the other ones, and left me hanging on pins and needles, wanting another one RIGHT NOW! The story picks up where it leaves off with vampires, werewolves, fairies, shifters, and the crazy world of supernatural politics and fighting...all the things I like about reading these. They totally take you away from the here and now. Then I saw the preview for season 4. Oh. My. Goodness. It's my favorite book in the series, Dead to the World. Because of the different turns the TV show has taken from the books, I didn't think they'd ever use this one. I am ecstatic that they are! In this book, it's a departure from super-couple Sookie and Bill (Billkie?)...which has gotten old very quickly...and the forming of the new and improved super-couple Sookie and Eric (Sooric?). It starts with her finding Eric wandering alone at night, half-dressed, and suffering from amnesia (a spell put on him by a witch). It's not hilarity that ensues, it's pure fantastic reading. I can not wait until I can see the season...I think iTunes will be carrying the episodes.

And in other news, Jen Lancaster used some of her free time this weekend to post the first part of her summer reading list. Hurrah! I have read several of her selections before and she's got great reading tastes. Make sure to check it out...I'm pretty sure The Wilder Life is going to make my nightstand as soon as I get another Borders reward!

The books of April 2011

This has been an unexpectedly full month. At the beginning of the month, I saw Source Code with my roommate (very entertaining), went to lunch (and hung out forever) with a couple of friends I don't get to see that often, went to the abCU event (see last month), hung out with friends, went to a bachelorette evening out, had Easter lunch with a friend and her family (always tasty!), took some time off, watched the Royal Wedding, and read. But as usual, my month had ups and downs.

Down: I said bye to a friend who moved to Chicago to start a new job. I made her a parting gift:

Aren't they always?

Neutral: I worked on a new Iron Craft challenge that will end up being my mom's Mothers' Day gift:

Proportionally, I think the bee will crush the teeny flower.

Ups: My BFF and I went to see a couple of great bands, The Delta Kings and The Whiskey Daredevils. Those of you who know me understand that I'm no gardener. Heck, I killed a cactus one time simply because I forgot I had it. My BFF bought some pansies (a lot of pansies) in a frenzied flower spree on the only nice day earlier this month. She was kind enough to give me a few, knowing that I would eventually kill it. I did really well and managed to keep it alive for a couple of weeks.

It was so pretty while it survived. It will be missed.

With Lent still in effect most of the month, I couldn't buy books until after Easter. I bought two: Candace Bushnell's Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel and Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later. Luckily, there's a library in town, so I did read some items that weren't waiting for me on the nightstand.

This month, I read some very good books. I finished The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan that I had started at the end of last month. I also read This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cask, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl About Love by Justine van der Leun, Between a Heart and a Rock Place by Pat Benetar with Patsi Bale Cox, Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! by Jonathan Goldstein, A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel by Candace Bushnell, and just under the wire, finishing it up late last night, Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a teen novel...part one of three so far. The beginning of the story follows the heroine as she watches her mother die, her dreams fall apart, he brother abandon her, and then things got worse. The town is surrounded by fences that are under constant watch by the town's guardians. The sisters (church women) are the holders of all the town's history and knowledge. At some point in the history of the planet, a disease swept through turning those outside of the town's fences into zombie-vampire things that live only to eat and kill and make others of their kind and then die. One night, a stranger appears at the church...fueling the heroine's beliefs that there's more than what they've been taught...that there are other towns with other people, trapped by the monsters outside their own fences. The stranger is promptly given to the monsters and the heroine's journey begins. A very small team of people make it out of the town with her when the final attack destroys everything and everyone. Following the secret gate to other towns' secret gates, the heroine and small team make their way to safety...and more disaster. The survival rate is extremely small and to keep traveling in search of a dream is basically a death wish. I haven't started the second book, but based on the chapter or so at the end of this book as a teaser, it looks to be the next generation doing their own dreaming. 

This Is Where I Leave You was a book I'd been eyeing at the store for a while, but ended up borrowing from a friend. It was about one extremely dysfunctional family and how the main character deals with them and his own unraveled life in his small hometown after his father's death. Apparently death does funny things to people and this book ended up being something that made me laugh out loud over and over. I don't want to spoil anything, so just read it.

I did not finish The Last Supper. Mainly because at about a third of the way into the book, I found that I didn't care about any of the people, but I also wasn't pulled in by the writing. I thought it would be about food and Italy and it's more about history in small towns in Italy...which is normally something I enjoy, but I don't know. This one just didn't work for me and I took it back to the library.

On the other hand, The Help was amazing! Kathryn Stockett built on her own experiences and created a fictional world in the south in the 1960s. The African-Americans who waited on the wealthier white people have a very complex story to be told in this book and Stockett does an amazing job with it. Each character has secrets and vulnerabilities...even the bullies that you want to see fail. She takes a turbulent time and writes a story that you can't put down despite your horror at some of the things she tells you. All of these women, whether they are the employers or the employees, are people you want to read more about. I was very sorry to see it end, but glad to hear it's being made into a movie.

I checked out Marcus of Umbria because I saw it on a reading list and I liked the synopsis. Girl goes to Italy; girl falls for boy; girl goes home; girl returns to Italy to be with boy she barely knows; girl finds dog/true love; girl names dog Marcus and then discovers Marcus is female; girl leaves boy but keeps dog; girl goes back home with dog. This dog. I totally wanted this dog while I read the book. She has loads of energy and you just know she had way more little adventures than are described to us in this book. Leun's love for the dog and the dog's love for Leun is a constant from the moment they meet. It never waivers. No talking, no arguing, no grumpiness...just a friend who'll never give up on you. Leun thought she went to Italy for love, but really, she ended up finding a completely different relationship that ended up lasting much, much longer.

The Pat Benetar book has been on my list for a while. I've always liked her music and I knew that she was one of the forerunners for women in the rock industry today. What I didn't know was how normal she is. If you want a crazy, rock'n'roll, madcap, drugged-out adventure book, this is not the one for you (may I recommend Motley Crue's Dirt for that?). She's been married to her music partner for around 30 years now I believe. She's pretty amazing, but nothing in the book was shocking. I guess the parts where women were treated badly in the industry simply for being women is bad, but it's not a shock...that still happens every day, at any job, all over the world.

Eating the Dinosaur is a collection of Klosterman's essays. I always enjoy his books, laughing out loud and rereading the funnier bits to friends. I'd forgotten this one was on the nightstand and I squealed a little from happiness when I saw it there. He covers music, sports, and everything else. It's always nice to read collected essays by him because the topics jump around and it's something you can read while reading other things as well...although, I'm generally entertained enough to plow through the whole thing without changing books. He's someone you'd definitely want at a dinner table...the conversation would never be boring!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! was an impulse buy a while ago. It takes some of the most well known stories (Adam and Eve, Noah, Jonah, etc.) and turns them into more modern day fables that have funny dialogue. It was a short read, but I will admit it felt a little strange to read reinterpretations of these Bible stories so close to Easter.

A Reliable Wife is another one I've had for a while. It looked interesting and it was getting good reviews, so I bought it. And then a couple of friends read it and didn't like it. I've started it several times, but never stuck with it until this week. It wasn't what I expected at all. Whether it was good or bad, I've not decided. Once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. It switched your expectations more than once during the story, trying to guide you away from the real story that you didn't finally get until about halfway through...and even then, not really until the last chapter do you get each characters' viewpoints and knowledge of the situations around them. I don't know if I would read another one by him, but this definitely kept my interest. I think I like the real-life mysteries better...like Devil in the White City.

Yesterday morning, I finished some fluff, the latest of the Carrie Diaries from Candace Bushnell. This is the second diary...the first one took place during her last year of high school and included no one we knew but Carrie until the very end when she left for New York. This second book picks up right where it left off...Carrie meets Samantha (she's a cousin of a girl she knows from high school) and several others that are mentioned in the grown-up series: Miranda, Capote Duncan (a bit player in the adult TV series, he's a major character in this book that takes place the summer between high school and freshman year of college), and at the end of the book, she also meets Charlotte, bringing the core group together when she's only 18 years old. A lot of people don't like these pre-packaged prequel-type books, but I enjoy them. I already know the characters and it's fun to imagine what they were like before we knew them. Should teens be introduced to this particular group of women? Possibly not, but as a grown-up, I want to read the books too, so clearly there's a market.

Due to a glitch with the blogging system, I couldn't post yesterday after working on this thing for over an hour. So, I decided to start...and finish...the Sweet Valley High book. I read a few when I was young...and saw a few of the tv episodes, but I never totally got into this particular series. I knew enough about it to justify the purchase and I was curious to see what had happened to the twins. I enjoyed the book...the way I enjoy a book like a Harlequin. It was a fast read; I didn't really feel invested in the characters (mainly because of my lack of teen knowledge of them); and in the end, it was just a decent way to pass time between sneezing and coughing and napping.

Hope everyone had a happy April! We've definitely had enough showers to have LOADS of May flowers.