is one of the worst books I have ever wasted the time to read….
I just needed to vent that — and also to thank my high school and college english teachers for not making it part of the curriculum!!
Archive for the ‘books’ Category
catcher in the rye
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007another fun book meme
Thursday, March 8th, 2007I got this from Snackie’s World:
And to continue on with this theme, a book meme stolen from Kevin over at his Fun With Dead Trees blog:
Look at the list of books below.
* (Bold) the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave unchanged the ones that you aren’t interested in.
* If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK!!!
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) Another huge favorite — have read all but the most recent one!!
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling) (known as Sorcerer’s Stone in the US)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) another great classic read
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) — i tried to read it — got about 50 pages in and it’s not for me….
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) — this is my Dad’s all-time favorite book and I have tried twice to read it — going to give it one more chance before I give up on it lol
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) really like her books
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) tried to read this one too — gave up
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible really good book!! 
I’m italicizing it b/c you can never read it enough!
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) — am currently reading this
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) okay yes — i’m sad — i have read almost all of her books
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) –one of my top ten fave books — which says a LOT
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) really loved her books
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Okay — what about you ?? What have you read??
mental note to self…
Friday, January 5th, 2007okay — the library system doesn’t have the title for the new book in yet…
I’m pretty sure it will be called Inkdeath… based on something that happened in the story… just a hunch…
but this is a mental note to myself to try again in a few months to see if it’s called that…
some great quotes…
Friday, January 5th, 2007One fab thing from that book I just finished — is that she puts a quote from another book, poem, or play at the head of each chapter, and each quote is actually related to what will be happening in that particular chapter…. the quotes are from all over the world, and from all different styles of writing.
Two quotes in particular struck me — I think mainly because of my other love – scrapbooking…
The first one I have heard before but didn’t know where it came from… and in Inkspell it is listed as being a Chinese proverb –
“The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink.”
One of the best reasons to scrapbook — because even if you didn’t use acid free papers or any other extreme archival efforts… your memories would last 500 times longer than your memory! (especially if you are like me, and already forgetting things at age 34!!)
The other quote is actually from the text itself… the main character, a girl called Meggie, is a book lover and is looking over her favorite books (she keeps them in a box and takes them with her everywhere she goes) –
“How well worn they all were… “Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo (her father) had said when, on Meggie’s last birthday, they were looking at all her dear old books again. “As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells… and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…. both strange and familiar.” ”
When I read that it kind of sent chills up my spine — because I have experienced that, re-reading a book I read when I was much younger, and kind of feeling time go backwards, remembering some of the feelings, thoughts, smells and sounds from that time… very amazing.
read any good books lately?
Friday, January 5th, 2007I sure have — and one of them is a sequel to a book I loved — and both are actually kids books…
They’ve got about 630some pages each, mind you — but the pages are smaller (not paperback size). They’re originally written in German and then translated into English. I came across the first book when I was working at Cheshire County Council’s libraries — got to take a tour of the two places that the book selection folks choose the books for the libraries from — talk about awesome… I could have spent all day there!! It was fantastic — we went with Claire to this really nice warehouse-y room and we got to pick children’s books out for our libraries (at the time I was working at Crewe Library).
I remember going up and down the aisles (many of the books are newer titles, but they did have some new editions of older titles too) … and seeing all these wonderful books — I had a big trolley cart behind me to load up with my choices — whohooo for shopping on someone else’s dime!!!
And then I saw the cover — the size attracted me too — it’s more of a square shape… and about three inches thick… with a magnificent red cover… and all kinds of fairies and things illustrated on it… and it was called “Inkheart”.
One of the bonuses of being able to go to this place is that you are allowed to make up to 3 personal purchases at their discounted prices!!
Guess which book walked out in my own bag?? Yep — Inkheart — by Cornelia Funke.
So I was walking through Barnes & Noble a couple weeks ago and had a bit of deja vu — saw the same shaped cover …. and similar fairies/doodlings — but this cover is a dark navy blue… almost a black really… sure enough — the sequel — Inkspell by Cornelia Funke…
Soon as I got home I reserved it from the library — to see if it was as good as the first — I am often disappointed when I run out and buy a sequel of a book I adored only to get 20 pages in and realize that it isn’t anywhere near as good as the first…
But this one held me captive just as the first one did — and so for three mornings of this week I’ve been plowing through page after page, devouring it really… and just got to the “end” (not really an ending as there is a third book coming!)…
Now I’m off to go reserve it from the library… and to put Inkspell on my wish list for purchase!!
snuffles seem to be lessening…
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005so hopefully I am nearly back to myself!!
I still have the occasional sneezes and snuffles and a cough or two, but it feels like I’m almost better.
During the course of my cold I read a bunch of fantastic books though! I polished off:
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (am now halfway through Big Cherry Holler — the sequel to the Gap)
The Dead Don’t Dance by Charles Martin (an EXCELLENT read — Christian author)
Thr3e by Ted Dekker (also Christian author — thriller)
Fame by Karen Kingsbury (also Christian author — this is the first book in her second series that picks up where the first series left off — all about a family called the Baxters — first series includes 5 titles (in order of course!) Redemption, Remember, Return, Rejoice, and Reunion)
Wrapped in Rain again by Charles Martin <— this is probably my most favourite book of all time.
I’m a librarian.
I’ve read thousands of books.
So when I say it’s probably my most favourite book… that means a LOT! It was just such an excellent story with superb characters and it just drew me in and I was mesmerized — I think I read it in 3 sittings over the course of one day… 320 pages just FLEW by.
So it is definitely on my recommended reading list!!
Apparently they’re making a made-for-tv movie out of his first book (the Dead Don’t Dance) and this second book would make a great film.
books to look up and reserve at a later date…
Tuesday, July 12th, 2005because they’re not yet in the CML ordering system yet!!
Predator by Patricia Cornwell
Faithless by Karin Slaughter
Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Just above a whisper by Lori Wick
good book but hard to read…
Monday, June 20th, 2005Ages ago I intended to read “And the Shofar Blew” by Francine Rivers but didn’t, for whatever reasons.
So when I saw it in the library, I checked it out and read it over the last few days. It was a difficult book to read especially at first (because of the issues it presents for its characters) and just like all my other experiences in Francine Rivers’ books, for most of the book there were characters I just plain didn’t like and felt completely turned off by (nearly to the point of putting down the book). It’s got a lot to do with their humanity and how raw-ly she projects it. She doesn’t create fairy tale characters, perfect apart from one little flaw that everyone sees past. She creates real human beings, with selfish natures and without the insight that fairy tale characters have — her characters don’t see their sins and flaws because they’re too busy living. Just like real life.
I very nearly gave up on the book a third of the way through. Just like in real life, I don’t like watching people make huge mistakes (I struggle with liking some movies because of this — once I figure out what’s going to happen, I don’t like watching the characters hit rock bottom).
But, like all other books of hers I’ve read (which is all but the bible study/devotional ones), I know that I will learn things about myself and about life and Godliness if I read to the end. Even to the point of coming away from the finished book saying I liked it!!
This book was no exception — I watched the characters in their descent to rock bottom, watched how some of them relied on themselves for strength and wisdom and how others relied on God for strength and wisdom. And another thing I love about her books is how those who rely on God don’t have an easier time because of it! How true is this?! VERY! Just because we are Christians, does not mean our lives just fall into place without struggle or pain! If anything, sometimes we experience more struggle and pain because we see the evil in life and we are trying to resist temptations and resist natural human reactions and selfishness!!
So if you want a challenging read, but one that you will be thankful for afterwards (not to mention will make you grow!!) then I recommend this one… And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers. I also recommend any of her other books — Leota’s Garden, the Mark of the Lion series, Redeeming Love (recommend this one big style!!), Scarlet Thread and Atonement Child.
hilarious book I just bought!!
Monday, March 21st, 2005and it’s about Cups of Tea and Biscuits and a Sit Down…
and there’s a website that talks about the book
and the authors also do a website that is really cool!! I haven’t fully explored it yet, but here it is in case you fancy a nosy round!
my favourite authors website…
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005Just so I don’t lose track of it, my favourite authors website (for looking up bibliographies and especially character serieses)…
is Fantastic Fiction — it’s a British website, very good!!