Books 2007

WELCOME BOOK DISCUSSION 2006-07
OCT 20	The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet (unfinished)
NOV 17	Abducted by Susan Clancy (done)
DEC 15	A Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber (done)
JAN 12	The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin (done)
FEB 16	Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (done)
MAR 16	So You Wannabe on Reality TV by Jack Benza (done)
APR 20	The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (done)
MAY 18	The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard (done)
JUN 15	The Lost German Slave Girl by John Bailey (done)
JUL 20	The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (done)
AUG 17	Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

1-26-07: I finished Ender’s Game tonight. I really enjoyed it, even though I wouldn’t think that science fiction was my thing. It was easy enough to figure out references to computers and the internet, even though the book was written in 1977, before the internet became a big thing. I kept wondering what was going to happen to Ender, in the end! LOL! My next book is Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella. This is a “for fun” book, since I’m ahead on my book-group reading, by several weeks, since I finished Ender’s Game. I’m already 40 pages into it. I’m not sure what the secret is yet, though!

2-3-07: I just finished Can You Keep a Secret?, by Sophie Kinsella. I just love her books. She always makes me laugh! Really the whole book was about keeping secrets, or not, along with some romance, too. It was a nice, light read and I read it quickly! Now, I’m trying to finish Mississippi Howl!

2-22-07: I have finished Mississippi Howl, and really enjoyed their exploits of canoeing down the Mississippi with an Australian cattle dog! Sounds like quite the feat!

I have also read So You Wanna Be on Reality TV?, for my book discussion. It’s going to make me skeptical about what I see on “reality” shows from now on! Now, I wonder if some of the naughtiness you see on the nanny shows is more scripted than I thought. Bummer.

I also read Nights of Moon and Stars, by Maeve Binchy, after seeing the picture on someone else’s blog! It was a nice easy read and kept me riveted to find out what happens at the end. Also, since it’s so cold in WI, it was nice to picture a warm, sunny Greek village, by the sea. I thought it would just have to be so pretty.

For Christmas, I got a Book-a-Day calendar. One of the first selections was Julie and Julia. It’s a book about how the author managed to cook every recipe in the book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. I’ve only read a little bit, but I’m already enjoying it! Now, my calendar has disappeared off the kitchen table and I need to find it, since I’m way behind pulling off the sheets.

3-22-07: I just read two books and haven’t updated. I enjoyed reading Julie and Julia, and reading about all her joys and trials trying to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook. Some were easy. Some were hard. Sometimes they didn’t eat until 10:30pm! It seemed she enjoyed eating most of it, though! LOL!

The last one I read, was The Memory-Keeper’s Daughter. A woman gives birth during a snowstorm and ends up having twins. The girl twin has Down’s syndrome and he sends that baby off with the nurse and tells the wife, that the baby died. It isn’t easy being the memory-keeper and I wanted to keep reading to see how it all pans out in the end. It doesn’t quite the way I had pictured it, but I still enjoyed the book, anyway! I read it in a week, but if I’d had more time, it probably would have only been a couple of days.

Now, I’m going to read Shopaholic and Sister. I read just a bit of it already and it already made me laugh! LOL!

4-1-07: I just finished Shopaholic and Sister. There were parts that made me laugh and parts that made me want to take her credit card away, and parts where I wanted her to just tell the truth, for once! I did enjoy reading about Becky Bloomwood’s exploits, yet again, though! LOL! Now, I find out that there is yet another book and throughout the whole Eastern Shores Library System, the book is either checked out, being held, or in transit to someone else! LOL! I’m 63 on the queue! Argh! Well, I will have to wait! I don’t really like to buy books, because when you are done reading, you have to find a place to put it! I can be patient, I think. I already know, though, that nothing is going to be too good for this baby! LOL!

4-18-07: Finished reading River of Doubt and loved it. Last night, I could NOT put it down. I read for hours! The beginning was a little slow, leading up to them getting to South America and getting to the river, but once they were on the river, the pages started flying by! I loved the detail of how the adventure went and how the rainforest lives, with people, animals, and plants. I don’t know if I would want to visit the rainforest anytime soon! There are too many bugs! Still, I bet it’s beautiful!

I’m down to #50 on the queue for Shopaholic and Baby! Today, at the library, every book I wanted, I had to put on hold! Oh well. One of the docs at work, has read, My Last Chance to Be A Boy, also about Theodore Roosevelt’s adventure in the Amazon rainforest. That book I will get fairly quickly, because it’s just at another library and not checked out by someone.

Wow, over 3,000 pages. They really add up, after awhile!

May 5, 2007: Finished The Truth About Forever and The Lost German Slave Girl. Truth was about a teenage girl trying to figure out her way in the world. Her father died and her mom is burying her grief in work, and she is trying to grieve and go through normal teenage anxieties. Then she finds some really good people, and because they have some black marks in their past, her mom forbids her to see them. Argh. You’ll have to read the book to see how it turns out!

Lost German Slave Girl was about a German immigrant, who was sold in slavery, when she first got to the US and was held as a slave, until she was in her 30′s. She was almost five, in 1818, when she came. It’s about her family discovering that she lives among them and trying to free her of her slave status. Many arguments ensue, with people saying she’s just a very white slave, and her German relatives saying that she’s white! I couldn’t put it down!

Next on my list is My Last Chance to Be a Boy, about Theodore Roosvelt’s Amazon trip. I’m down to #31 in the queue at the library for Shopaholic and Baby.

June 6: Wow, I haven’t updated in a month! LOL! I’ve read two Sarah Dessen books, which are about teen problems and the confused adults around them, recommended by my daughter. I’ve read Devil and the White City, for my book discussion group. That one definitely took me out of my comfort zone, since it’s about murder and people so obsessed with a project, that they barely see their family! I probably wouldn’t have picked that one, myself, but it was an interesting read. Finally, I read Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Teddy Roosevelt, about this Amazon River adventure, back in 1913-1914. His version was interesting enough, since it was his journal entries, from actually being in the Brazilian rainforest, but he repeated some thoughts, over and over and over and it got tedious to read. Yeah, we get that this was an uncharted river and that exploring something in the middle of nowhere is dangerous! I knew that before I started reading the book! Argh.

On to much lighter reading now! I just got Wedding Ring, from the library, after it came highly recommended, from the mom board that I go to. Also, Shopaholic and Baby is ready for pickup, at the library! Yay! Also, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs is ready for pickup, too! I think I’m ready for some reading, that isn’t about portaging heavy canoes around rapids and hearing about how horrible rainforest bugs are!

June 30: I got Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, but it’s not that interesting and full of rude and crude words. I don’t think I’ll finish reading it. However, I did finally get my turn with Shopaholic and Baby and finished that recently. Along with being pregnant, she spends most of the book wondering if Luke is having an affair, along with buying too much baby stuff. It wasn’t quite as funny, as the other books I’ve read. It seems the earlier Shopaholic books were a lot more funny.

Now, I’m reading Susannah’s Garden, by Debbie Macomber. Susannah, the main character, is still grieving for her recently-passed-away father, while trying to figure out how to keep her aging mother safe, and obsessing about a long lost love. I like it so far, but haven’t read that much yet.

August 14: I finished Susannah’s Garden a long time ago already. I forgot to update! Yikes. I did like the book and love that she figured out things and got her family closer together, in the end.

I just finished Blessings and it didn’t quite end how I thought it would. I was sad that Skip had to give up the baby, but I could tell the mother didn’t really want to give her up, either. That house and land sure sounded like a lovely place. Having the baby around mellowed Lydia and that sure shocked everyone around her!

Sept. 1: I finished Harry Potter yesterday and thought it was excellent! I was consumed by getting it read, especially about the second half! I went to work, when I had to and still slept, but nearly every waking moment, was spent reading! I loved it and it kept me on the edge of my seat, throughout the whole book. I even liked the epilogue, although it didn’t cover a lot of people. It seems that Grandma Weasley would have been at the train station to say good-bye to the grandkids going to Hogwarts, though, don’t you think? All in all a good read! I’m sad that it’s the last book, though, except for the encyclopedia that JK Rowlings says she is going to write.

October 27:  Wowza, am I behind on this!  I think there might have been one more book, but I forgot to write it down and have no memory of it.  Darn it.  Oh well.  I don’t quite think I will make it to 10,000 pages, though.  It’s already the end of October.   What a Girl Wants was a cute book and I will probably read Kristin Billerbeck again.  The Tennis Party was an interesting book, but the people in it, seemed a little too self-absorbed and concious of their own agendas, than caring about other people.  I’ll have to try something else by Madeleine Wickham, though, before I blow it off. Infidel was my first 2007-2008 book discussion book.  I thought it would be boring and dull, but I was fascinated and couldn’t put it down!  She’d had a hard life and still was trying to make life better for others.  Back on Blossom Street was a joy to read.  I love the Blossom Street series. This is about the 4th time I’ve had this book in my house, and finally got to read it!  The first time was way back in August, when I was reading Harry Potter.  That’s the only thing I hate about putting books on hold. They just randomly show up in your life, whether it’s a good time or not!  At our library, you get charged .50 if you don’t check out your reserved book, so you really have to get it, anyway.  I suppose that’s it, for the Blossom Street Books.  Boohoo.  Anyway, Back on Blossom Street features a wedding that is out of control. I would have hated having a BIG FANCY wedding, too!

Books Read 2007
No.	Title	Author	Pages
1	Ender’s Game	Orson Scott Card	357
2	Can You Keep a Secret?	Sophie Kinsella	368
3	Mississippi Howl	Dianne and Allan Roden	309
4	So You Wanna Be on Reality TV?	Jack Benza	193
5	Nights of Rain and Stars	Maeve Binchy	294
6	Julie and Julia	Julie Powell	320
7	The Memory-Keeper’s Daughter	Kim Edwards	432
8	Shopaholic and Sister	Sophie Kinsella	389
9	River of Doubt (Teddy Roosevelt)	Candice Millard	353
10	My Last Chance To Be a Boy	Joseph R. Ornig	258
11	The Truth About Forever	Sarah Dessen	374
12	The Lost German Slave Girl	John Bailey	256
13	Someone Like You	Sarah Dessen	288
14	The Devil and the White City	Erik Larson	396
15	Through the Brazilian Wilderness	Theodore Roosevelt	395
16	Wedding Ring	Emilie Richards	460
17	Shopaholic and Baby	Sophie Kinsella	368
18	Susannah’s Garden	Debbie Macomber	394
19	Blessings	Anna Quindlen	226
20	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	J. K. Rowlings	784
21	What a Girl Wants	Kristin Billerbeck	293
22	The Tennis Party	Madeleine Wickham	239
23	Infidel	Ayaan Hirsi Ali	353
24	Back on Blossom Street	Debbie Macomber	393
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