Author: stacybuckeye

Regina Brett book signing winner and Words with Friends

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Regina Brett is a local columnist for the The Cleveland Plain Dealer and a breast cancer survivor.  I’m not a regular Plain Dealer reader, but I have read some of her columns and really enjoyed them.   One man asked at the signing last week why she felt the need to write about every aspect of her life and she explained that it’s just the way she writes and it resonates with a lot of people, saying, “I can’t be anybody but Regina Brett.”  I like that.  In her last book, God Never Speaks, she shares some life lessons and my friend Molly is doing a wonderful series of posts on them.  If you check out Tuesday’s post you’ll see the most adorable picture of Sammy and Tedy.

I found Regina Brett full of energy with lots of enthusiasm for journalism and bookstores, both under fire and no one is sure what the future of either will be.  On her most cynical days she sees her job as “the best seat on the Titanic.”  Her new book, Be the Miracle: 50 Lessons for Making the Impossible Possible, tells about everyday heroes that make a difference.  I loved the few stories that she shared and look forward to reading more.

So, who was the big winner of the signed book?  Gage chose Kathleen by picking her number out of his bowl.  For some reason I can’t find the pic right now (grr).  I’ll add it if I do.  Also, we had a second book signed for Molly since she is the one who made me think I would like this new book, which is all about everyday miracles.  So, Kathleen and Molly, Be the Miracle, is already on its way to you!!

Also, I don’t have this blog connected to my Facebook account for a few reasons and for a long while I thought I would keep Facebook for face to face friends only, but a few bloggers have snuck in there with requests.  Jason and I love playing Words With Friends and if you do too, please friend me so we can play 🙂  I look forward to some stiff competition!

Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens

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Still MissingFinished audio 2-17-12, rating 4/5, suspense, pub. 2010

Listened to this on a Playaway.  9 hours unabridged.  Read by Angela Dawe.

Annie is a real estate agent and after an open house she finds herself kidnapped by ‘the freak.”  She is held captive for over a year, repeatedly raped and forced to endure truly unimaginable things.  You know right from the beginning that she survives and is somehow set free because the story is told by Annie’s sessions with a psychiatrist after the fact.

I may be one of the last bloggers to read this and I’m glad I finally got around to it.  I’d read so many reviews that I was amazed that a few things still surprised me.  For the gripping thriller everyone says it was, I thought it took awhile for me to really get interested in Annie’s story. It wasn’t until a certain point in her captivity (no spoilers here) that I really wanted to know that she would be okay.  I was worried about her!  Also, I was under the impression that this was mainly the story of her being kidnapped, but in reality much of the story deals with what happens after.  And there is no shortage of things that happen upon her return to the real world.  Just when you think Annie will catch a break, another twist will keep her and the reader guessing.  My heart really did break for Annie even if when we meet her in the sessions she has a hard edge and is pretty messed up.

I liked this debut novel even if there were a few things that kept me from loving it.  One of them being what my expectations were and what this story really was and the other being the somewhat slow start for me.  I think lovers of thrillers with sometimes graphic descriptions will love this one.  If you are more the cozy mystery type then this is probably one to skip.  I am looking forward to reading her next one.

I really liked the reading by Angela Dawes.  I thought her voice really captured Annie’s spirit, broken as it was.

I checked this out of the library.

President Who? Quiz- guessing closed

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We just celebrated President’s Day so I thought I’d see if you could identify these presidents.  Tell me the president for 6 points and the name of the movie OR actor for another 4 points.

You have until noon Saturday to submit your answers as a comment.  Comment will be hidden until I post the answers.  No Googling!

This round lasts til the end of March and the person with the most points will win a B&N gift card (total $ based on # of total participants, so please play) and a randomly selected participant will win a fun prize from me.

Have fun and Good Luck!

1. Teddy Roosevelt. Night at the Museum. Robin Williams.

2. George Washington. The Crossing. Jeff Daniels.

3. George W. Bush. W. Josh Brolin.

4. Richard Nixon. Frost?Nixon. Frank Langella.

5. John F Kennedy. JFK. Bruce Greenwood.

6. John Quincy Adams. Amistad. Anthony Hopkins.

7. Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson in Paris. Nick Nolte.

8. Franklin D Roosevelt. Pearl Harbor. Jon Voight.

9. Abraham Lincoln. Young Mr. Lincoln. Henry Fonda.

10. Ulysses S Grant. Wild Wild West. Kevin Kline.

Last week’s Agatha Christie Quiz here.  Leaderboard and rules here.

Sundays with Gage – A Neighbor AND an Author

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It’s no secret that the Cleveland area is left-leaning politically.  I consider myself an independent voter, but due to some unfair laws in Ohio I had to declare myself a democrat to vote in a chosen primary.  I wasn’t very happy about it, but it did lead to one good thing.  I was able to be a polling location coordinator (only possible if you are the party of the current governor, sort of, there are some really weird laws out there).  Anyway, election days are long and can be made longer if the people you are working with are, um, let’s just go with ‘fun-challenged’.  That day I had a great group and that was due in large part to My Republican and his lovely wife.  As a coordinator I was in charge of lots of paperwork and most things had to be signed by a republican and a democrat.  All well and good unless there is a big shortage of republicans.  Bob, spent the better part of the day laughingly responding to my frequent calls of “Where’s my republican?”  He was seriously such a great sport about it and he was full of positive and happy energy all day long that he made my day a lot easier.  Don’t worry, I think this story is going somewhere.

Flash forward a few years and nice fall day when my parents were visiting and we all went out for a walk and decided to stop by an open house down the street.  The door opens and Bob greets me by name and I greet him with, “My Republican!”  Come to find out that Bob wrote a children’s book (and turned independent) and I knew I’d have to get my hands on a copy.  So, Gage and I went by this week to pick up a copy of The Littlest Lamppost.  As you can see, Gage thinks Bob is a fun guy 🙂

This is the story of a real highway lamppost by the Cleveland airport.  Why is he so small compared to all the other posts around him and how does he feel about it?  This is the story of how and why he was made the way he was.  The story is a sweet one to read with an older child and has a great moral lesson.  It’s all about loving yourself and others even when some of us may be different from everyone else.  It just means that we have a special reason for being here.

I thought the story was great and I know that Gage and I will be reading it together in a year or two.  It’s never too early for children to understand that different is just different, and it doesn’t mean it’s bad or something to make fun of.  I am looking forward to my next trip that takes me by the airport so I can look for the littlest lamppost.

The Littlest Lamppost is available through Amazon and directly through the Littlest Lamppost’s website www.littlestlamppost.com.  The Littlest Lamppost also tweets ( @llamppost ) and has a facebook page www.facebook.com/littlestlamppost !

I told the story about how I met Bob because I thought it showed what a great sense of humor he has.  He never once took offense and instead spread good cheer the whole day long and was also very gracious when Gage and I stopped by.  I am happy to recommend his book!

Book vs. Movie – Under the Tuscan Sun

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When I posted last week about one of my favorite movies, Under the Tuscan Sun, I was surprised by how many of you hadn’t seen the movie.  I read the book in 2010 (here) and watched the movie, again, last week (here) so I can easily compare the two, and it’s made easier considering that the two are so completely different.

The Story/Plot  The book is a travel memoir of a San Fransisco couple that buys and restores a house in Tuscany, on a part-time basis.  It is very detailed, includes recipes and makes you feel like you are in Italy.  The movie is about a San Fransisco woman who has been jilted by her husband and goes to Italy on vacation but stays because she has nowhere to go.  She finds the life she always wanted while immersing herself in another culture.  I did not think there was much of a story in the book, but the movie had a great story of discovery.  Thumbs Up- Movie

The Visual  No description can compare to the beauty of Italy.  The movie did an excellent job of showcasing Italy while still telling a story.  Thumbs Up- Movie

Characters vs. Actors  Frances Mayes seems like a fine person, but trying to compare to Diane Lane is tough.  Frances’s boyfriend was nowhere to be found in the movie, but again hard to compare with Diane’s first Italian boyfriend…

The secondary characters in each were completely different too.  Thumbs Up- Movie

The Ending  In the book Frances and her boyfriend go back and forth between Italy and California and in the movie Frances finds a home and new life in Italy.  Again, nothing wrong with the book, just a preference for the movie.  Thumbs Up- Movie

And the winner is… Obviously, I think the movie was a runaway winner.  Just goes to prove that the book isn’t always better.

Now it’s your turn to vote

Other book vs. movie polls you can still vote on: (It Ends With Us) (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) (The Sun is Also a Star) (We Have Always Lived in the Castle) (Good Morning, Midnight/The Midnight Sky) (Before I Go To Sleep) (The Little Prince) (Charlie St. Cloud) (Far From the Madding Crowd) (The Girl on the Train) (Tuck Everlasting)  (Northanger Abbey) (Me Before You) (And Then There Were None) (Still Alice) (The Blind Side) (The Fault in Our Stars) (The Hound of the Baskervilles) (Gone Girl) (Jack Reacher) (Ender’s Game) (Carrie, the original) (Under the Tuscan Sun) (The Secret Life of Bees) (The Shining, the original)

The Murder on the Links, by Agatha Christie

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Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot Series)Finished audio 2-11-12, rating 4/5, mystery, pub. 1923

Unabridged audio 6 hours. Read by Hugh Fraser.

Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are off to France to answer a letter from a man in trouble, but they are too late.  Paul Renauld has been murdered and left in a shallow grave.  His wife is overwrought and his son is suspect, and what about his supposed mistress and her daughter?  There’s no shortage of suspects.

This is Christie’s third book and second with Poirot and narrated by Hastings.  Poirot grew on me a bit in this one.  I like smart guys and he wasn’t quite the insufferable know-it-all he was in the first (The Mysterious Affair at Styles).  This time around he had to outsolve the French Detective Geraud.

Hastings had a love interest and I wasn’t that crazy about his infatuation with the mysterious Cinderella.  The only other complaint I will make it about this cover and the title, really.  Renauld was found on the border of a golf course, but that is the only connection to golf.  Seems a bit misleading to me.

I thought the mystery was good and even though I had my suspicions about certain characters, the truth was so much better!  This was a fun audio book with a solid narration.

I read this for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, where I am reading all of her books in order.

Agatha Christie Quiz – guessing closed

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I’ve seen lots of Agatha Christie reading around the blogosphere lately and thought I’d combine Christie titles with my favorite game on m-w.com, Dictionary Devil.  Each number is a title of a Christie mystery and the word choices will each be used only once.  I’m seeing lots of guessing in your future 🙂

You have until noon Saturday to submit your answers as a comment.  Comment will be hidden until I post the answers.  No Googling!

This round lasts til the end of March and the person with the most points will win a B&N gift card (total $ based on # of total participants, so please play) and a randomly selected participant will win a fun prize from me.

Have fun and Good Luck!

Five     Pigs     Death     Appointment     Black     Coffee     Murder     Mousetrap     Then     Body     Elephants     Were     None     Easy     Death     Nile     Curtain     Little     Library     There     Remember

1. Black Coffee

2. Death on the Nile

3.  Appointment with Death

4. Murder is Easy

5. Curtain

6. Five Little Pigs

7. The Mousetrap

8. And Then There Were None

9. The Body in the Library

10. Elephants can Remember

Leaderboard here.  Last Week’s A Day Late and a Dollar Short quiz here.

Sundays with Gage – Eating is necessary, right?

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I thought we all needed food for energy.  Not just adults, but everyone.  I mean when you have an infant it is a very big deal that they eat enough.  So, why is it that toddlers can take or leave food for days at a time and still run around the house like a whirling dervish?

We have been too reluctant to add lots of things to his diet because we weren’t sure of his allergies, but now that we know we only have to avoid dairy and peanuts I really have to get busy and find some good recipes.

Some days the biggest part of his calorie intake consist of oatmeal, cereal bars, and baked potato fries.  He went through a period of resisting soy yogurt but now he likes it again, but is off the chicken.  Sigh.  Getting him to eat has become the biggest frustration of my day.

Any tips from you experienced mothers out there?

Fave Film #17 – Under the Tuscan Sun

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Under the Tuscan Sun2003

Cast- Diane Lane, Sandra Oh, Lindsay Duncan

Frances finds out her husband is cheating and to cheer her up her two friends offer her a 10 day vacation in Tuscany traveling with a gay bus tour.  Frances goes and falls in love with the house Bramosole which she impulsively buys and plans to restore, leaving her life in San Fransisco behind.  She throws herself into the renovation, making friends as a way to heal her broken heart.

Why I love it – This is a story one woman’s heartbreak and the strength that led her to healing.  I love Diane Lane, she can do little wrong in my eyes and this is one of my favorites.  She shows Frances’s emotions in a way that we can all recognize.  She was mad, hurt, sad, funny, endearing, and full of life.

Who hasn’t imagined (even just for a second) leaving everything behind to start over somewhere new?  And what better place to do this but in Italy?  I love the boldness of her decision, egged on by the exuberant Catherine who encouraged her growth at every turn.  It was the eagerness to live the life she always imagined that had me rooting for her happy ending.

I saw this after it first came out and liked it, but after our 2008 trip to Italy I saw it again and fell in love.  I don’t know if it was the beauty of the movie that took me back to the beauty of the country or if it was the few years of perspective that enabled me to see her choices as beautiful.  Either way, the scenery is breathtaking.

Loved the cast surrounding Diane.  Sandra Oh was perfect as her best friend and I loved Lindsay Duncan as Catherine and Vincent Riotta as the ever faithful Martini.  This was a true adventure story full of possibility.

I would normally show a clip of the movie, but instead here are pictures from our trip that I posted back in 2008.  Venice Florence Rome Parking in Rome (by far my most viewed older post) And if for some reason you want to scroll through my Italy posts as I was here you can do it here.  Since my blog was only a few months old I used it as a way to keep all of my family and friends up to date with our daily schedule.  It’s actually funny to go back and read it now (at least for me :))