Raehink: May Reading

I'm going to make our May assignment really easy. It will be the same topic that our RS book group is tackling--read a gardening or food book. It can be fiction or non, your choice. You choose the parameters. Have fun with this one. We are heading into that time of year when we get to plant gardens and eat summer foods. So prepare and enjoy!

Lynness - re Lonesome Dove. I felt like you did at first until I went back and read McMurtry's entire "series" of books starring Gus and Woodrow. Now they are my buddies. I love the characters Larry created and even sometimes dream about them. They become almost like real people when you know their early years as well as their later ones. But, I agree, the books are a definite investment of your time...

Happy reading!

March and April

There are a couple of books that I read as a youth that immediately came to mind for March's read. Island Of The Blue Dolphin, by Scott O'Dell, being the first. Once it was available I checked it out from the library but never really got into it. I returned it on the next visit. Others on my mind were Go Ask Alice, which I would have read, I'm sure not finding the same outcome from the first time. I was about 14, or 15. I stayed up ALL NIGHT, read the entire book, and my Rae didn't make me go to school the next day. My mind was so blown!! :) A couple of Goosebumps, and Gooseflumps crossed my mind, but knew that they probably would NOT hold my interest now hahaha. BUT... when I was 15 I read Where Are The Children, by Mary Higgins Clark. I have always remembered how SCARED I was as I read this book. The first "adult" book, I had ever read. I had no intentions on re-reading it, until one afternoon, THERE IT WAS!!! On the swap shelf at our library! I gasped out loud, held it for a moment, and placed it into my bag! It was such a quick easy read this time ;D I don't know if I enjoyed it the same as I did then, but it was still a good suspense, which is probably my favorite type of genre for both movies and books!! I also learned that Where Are The Children was Clark's first suspense. That did intrigue me!! :) I own a couple more by her, and look forward to reading them!

Aprils Read's I cheated a listened to some more audio books! :)
Fahrenheit 451 which I only read because of the reviews I saw others give it. BUT!! I loved it! I was barely in chapter 5 when I called Chela and told her she HAD to read it! I loved the end! The idea that WE ARE BOOKS. We carry with us what we learn and know! That the men had memorized sections, and could be recalled mentally when the time was right!! Strange but SSOOOO enjoyable!! I also listened to Sidney Poitier's The Measure Of A Man. My desire to read this comes from my crazy want to read all the books Oprah has picked. (Don't ask me why!!) BUT i loved this book! It was performed by Poitier, and just like his work on the screen he drew me in! I love him :) want to know him! Want to see all his films, and actually rented some from the library. Lillie's Of The Field, with which he became the first Black American to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor! And Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Prior to the book I had no connection with this actor/man, but after reading his Autobiography I would love to see more of his work!!!

At the end of Measure Of A Man's recording, the Harper Books people suggested "thinking of the little ones around you" as far as listening to audio books. So... today at the library I did just that! I checked out Junie B. Jones (Ive never read these!) CD Edition: Books 1-8;..The Stupid Smelly Bus, ..a Little Monkey Business, .. Her Big Fat Mouth, .. Some Sneeky Peeky Spying, .. the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake, ..That Meanie Jim's Birthday, .. Loves Handsom Warren, .. a Monster Under Her Bed. We will be listening to these books in the car, just as before. Both Lany and I enjoyed it this afternoon. I think they are funny, and I am excited to be listening with her!

I am looking forward to May's topic, but really want to FINISH the books that Ive started: The Dream Giver, The Secret (a re-read), Catch Me If You Can, Spiderwick (to L&L), Desires Captive (hahahahaha awesome!! My first Harlequin, I picked a couple up for my April read :D), A is For Alibi, and A Journal For Jordan (the winner as far as length on my night stand!!!), also just picked up A Light In The Attic today. The children LOVE Falling Up, so I'm VERY excited to get this one started!!

xoxo

Lynness: Lonesome Dove

I read Lonesome Dove for my Western on the strength of it being on most of the "Best Westerns" short lists and that my grandmother taped it from TV when it ran as a mini-series.  Other than that I knew nothing about it: I had thought the title probably referred to a Native American's name, not a town set in southern Texas.  The writing is well done, the characterizations are excellent, the various storylines progress and converge nicely, but at the end I felt I had misused my time.  There was a lot of drinking and prostitution, but it didn't feel gratuitous or even overdone- it felt very true to life as I imagine it would have been around the 1870's on the frontier.  That wasn't the biggest part of the problem.  *Spoiler warning*  The problem was that EVERYONE that was more than someone you met in passing was either dead or despondent at the end of the book.  Especially the ones you care about most.  Now, I'm not saying it should've ended like a Disney movie: that would've been unrealistic.  But I think it's unrealistic, too, to leave everybody hopeless.  So my basic objection is that there's enough in real life to get you down if you let it- I don't need to add to it.  It did make me think about what the pioneers went through, though.

Abby: Answers for Annie & Lynness

Annie, Jim Dale has recorded ALL of the Harry Potter books! We love his recordings of them. Did you know that he's the "quack" doctor in Pete's Dragon? The one who always messes up when he says "Passamaquaddy". (And here I am totally messing up the spelling...but at least you know how to say it if you need it! hahaha) Your reading streak is awesome! I've added some to my list from yours. And my girls have also loved The Spiderwick Chronicles. There is another series called Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, but we haven't read it yet.

Lynness, thanks for looking up Eulalie. That is exactly the book we were all thinking of. It's funny, my dad emailed me with the title a couple of days after I posted that. I forgot to mention it here. I'll have to see if I can get it at our library here.

Reading!... and Listening!

Last summer I started to read To Kill a Mockingbird. I got over half way done, and set it down! I tried so many times to pick it back up, but I could never read more than one page, I just wasn't feelin it! Almost 6 months later, I decided to listen to it on CD. And woohoo I finished it! It was fun to listen to! I did have a problem though. From the very beginning of the book, I imagined Scout Her family, and her neighbors as black. I KNEW they were white, but my imagination made them black. Which made it hard to follow when the book spoke of differences between Cal, and Tom, and the black community!!! UGH!!

I read the Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. Very easy read. I enjoyed the story! Being positive, having positive energy is like a bus. You are the driver, and your positive energy will bring people 'on board'. :) One quote I took away and really want to remember is, "To blessed to be stressed"!!!

Going for my second book on tape, I listened to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets! It was performed by Jim Dale! I VERY MUCH enjoyed his performance!!! He did the different voices and all!! It was fun to be read to like this! I hope that Jim Dale is also the performer for the next book!

Ive decided to LISTEN to Fahrenheit 451 for my April read. Its not really anything I would just pick up and read BUT I have seen others reviews, so I was curious!

I am very much on a reading fix! If you follow me on good reads, you will see that I have TONS of 'currently reading". Currently on my night stand are: My Scriptures, The Love Dare by Stephan Kendrick, A Journal For Jordan by Dana Canedy (another book I started bazillion months ago and just have no desire to finish), Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale(I have been enjoying this book little bits at a time! I REALLY like this book!!), The Dream Giver by Bruce Wikinson (a gift from a friend <3), 'A' is for Alibi by Sue Grafton (picked up from the swap shelve), a re-read of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, and an out loud read to Lany of The Spidewick Chronicles #1 by Holly Black!!!

Yeah!! That's A LOT!!!!! <3

Lynness: April reading

I think I'll try a Western. I don't know if I've ever read one. Not
that I hate them or anything, I think I just had the conception that
they were too formulaic and something of a joke- you know, kind of like
the Road Runner cartoons. Actually, one of the few western-style movies
I've ever seen, "The Villain", was a parody of those cartoons, with
Arnold Schwarzenegar (sp?) playing Handsome Stranger, a beautiful damsel
in distress, a villain, and the guy who does the voice of Templeton the
rat on the classic animated Charlotte's Web as an Indian chief. I kind
of have the mindset that reading a western would be like that.