I’m toying with doing a weekly update because I so enjoy reading the ones you all put together.  We’ll see if I can get it to stick. I’m currently on day three of pain meds so this should be fun 🙂

Fave pic of the week

Mom and I took our first trip to Duck Donuts and it was delish.

Best part of my week Mother’s Day with a movie and donuts with my mama and time spent with my boys.  Also, a friend dropped off Cleveland Orchestra Pops tickets for Jason and I to use for a fancy date night in a few weeks and I’m excited!

Worst part of my week (3 days so far) On Wednesday I went in to have an infected root canal tooth removed and I left an hour and a half later in tears.  The tooth came out in 32 pieces.  The nurse told me I was lucky that the doctor dug around and fished them all out   A bone graft and ozone were also done.  The current swelling and pain is outrageous.

Reading I’m still reading A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne and I’m really liking it.  For my meditative morning readings I’ve tried two books this week but neither are good enough to stick with (30 Perfect Days by Claudia J Taller and Praying Through the Psalms by Julie Walker Mitchell).

Listening to The Good Lie by Tom Rosenstiel and it’s a pretty good political thriller so far.

Watching on the big screen  My mom and I watched Longshot with Charlize Theron and Seth Rogan on Mother’s Day.  It was both charming and too much as I find all Seth Rogan movies.

Watching on the small screen  We watched a few episodes of the old show Justified on Prime and liked them,  We tried The Widow, also on Prime, but didn’t care enough to continue.  I’ve watched a few movies in my convalescence, but I’ve spent more time sleeping.

Plans for the weekend  Gage has swimming and an event at Barnes & Noble today and we have a birthday party tomorrow.  Honestly, I’m just hoping that the weekend offers enough healing so that I can function.

 

Hi everyone! I started this in December and it’s been fun getting feedback from you guys and exploring books that I forgot I wanted to read because they got lost in my Goodreads list.  Here’s an update #1 Kept 2/5 and read 1!  #2 Kept 7/10. #3 Kept 8/10 and tried 1 but didn’t make it very far before moving on.  #4 Kept 7/10 and I read 1 and am listening to another.  Yes, I need to be a bi more ruthless in the removing of titles.

So you know that drill.  Tell me if you think I should keep it on my list or get rid of it to make way for something else.  They have all been on my list since 2012.

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How to participate:

• Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf
• Order by Ascending Date Added
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or let it go?

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Martha Brockenbrough’s Things That Make Us (Sic) is a laugh-out-loud guide to grammar and language, a snarkier American answer to Lynn Truss’ runaway success, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Brockenbrough is the founder of National Grammar Day and SPOGG — the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar — and as serious as she is about proper usage, her voice is funny, irreverent, and never condescending. Things That Make Us (Sic) addresses common language stumbling stones such as evil twins, clichés, jargon, and flab, and offers all the spelling tips, hints, and rules that are fit to print. It’s also hugely entertaining, with letters to high-profile language abusers, including David Hasselhoff, George W. Bush, and Canada’s Maple Leafs [sic], as well as a letter to –and a reply from — Her Majesty, the Queen of England.

Maybe worth flipping through if I find it at the library?

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Daisy Drake needs Lucian Beaumont. Tired of being “on the shelf,” she craves adventure and Lucian holds all the clues to a long-buried Roman treasure. Too bad the devilishly handsome viscount doesn’t want her help.

Until she masquerades as a French courtesan who offers to teach him all she knows of the pleasures of the love couch. Of course, all Daisy knows about that she learned from the memoirs of a real courtesan, but she’s always been a fast learner.

I love a good historical romance but have no idea how this one made it on the list.  Nothing about it makes me think I need to read it.

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Roxanne Reeves defines her life by the committees she heads and the social status she cultivates. But she is keeping secrets that make her an outsider in her own town, always in search of acceptance. And when she is given a job none of the other white women want-researching the town’s African-American history for a tour of local sites-she feels she can’t say no.

Elderly Grace Clark, a retired black schoolteacher, reluctantly agrees to become Roxanne’s guide. Grace takes Roxanne to Catfish Alley, whose undistinguished structures are nonetheless sacred places to the black community because of what happened there. As Roxanne listens to Grace’s stories, and meets her friends, she begins to see differently. She is transported back to the past, especially to 1931, when a racist’s hatred for Grace’s brother leads to events that continue to change lives decades later. And as Roxanne gains an appreciation of the dreams, courage, and endurance of those she had so easily dismissed, her own life opens up in new and unexpected ways.

This looks pretty good.

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Only on the internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely.
Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt is taking a year off before college to find her passion. Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke weed with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty-two-year-old film professor.
Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous blog, telling strangers her innermost desires, shames, and thrills. But when Dan stops taking her calls, when her alcoholic father suffers a terrible fall, and when she finds herself drawn into a dangerous new relationship, Katie’s fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge.

This could be good, but has anyone read it?

Kathy read it and lied it.

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It’s been days since reporter Elise McBride has heard from her sister, Ashley. She’s convinced Ashley has met with some kind of foul play, especially when she learns that bodies of other missing women have surfaced in and around Chicago–all victims of a brutal serial killer. Convinced her sister is still alive, Elise vows to risk everything to save her…

The last thing ex-cop Trent Brady needs is more blood on his hands. Yet when he catches Elise breaking into her sister’s house, full of reckless determination and fear, he knows she needs his help. But just as desire ignites between them, a twisted madman sets his sights on Elise. Hell-bent on possessing her for himself, this psychopath won’t rest until he has his perfect woman.

Looks like a quick escape?

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It’s almost forty years since they left the convent and went their separate ways, but now the old school friends are planning to meet again.

They had almost forgotten how it feels confide in women friends, but back together again, sharing their past lives, their secrets, their aspirations and their deepest fears Sylvia, Fran and Bonnie embark on a creative venture that will challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves and will change their lives for ever.

Gotta say this one isn’t calling to me.

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The last thing Libby Sawyer and her father expected upon their return from their summer home was to find strangers inhabiting a house that had been in their family for decades. Widower Michael Dobrescu brought his family from Romania to the town of Colden, Massachusetts with a singular purpose: to claim the house willed to him long ago. Since neither party has any intention of giving up their claim, a fierce legal battle ensues between the two families.

When important documents go missing from the house, Libby suspects Michael is the culprit. Determined to discover the truth behind the stolen papers, Libby investigates, only to find more layers of mystery surrounding Michael and his family. Despite their rivalry, Libby finds herself developing feelings for this man with the mysterious past.

This looks like a keeper.

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Thrilling, true tales from the Vidocq Society, a team of the world’s finest forensic investigators whose monthly gourmet lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders

Three of the greatest detectives in the world–a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor and lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as “the living Sherlock Holmes”-were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The three men invited the greatest collection of forensic investigators ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to the Downtown Club in Philadelphia to begin an audacious quest: to bring the coldest killers in the world to an accounting. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian eugène François Vidocq-the flamboyant Napoleonic real-life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes-the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch.

This looks interesting.

Kathy’s mom liked it.

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The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn’t be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration.

With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless and supposedly cursed copy of Goethe’s Faust for safekeeping.

Brooklyn suddenly finds herself accused of murder and theft, thanks to the humorless, but attractive, British security officer who finds her kneeling over the body. Now she has to read the clues left behind by her mentor if she is going to restore justice…

I’m not the biggest cozy fan, but this looks fun.

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A Grand Murder is the first book in the Catherine O’Brien mystery series. When a prominent local businessman and friend of the chief of police is murdered on the front steps of his posh Grand Avenue Hill home, Saint Paul homicide detective Catherine O’Brien a pithy, vertically challenged, St. Paul, Minnesota, homicide detective with a monstrous coffee habit and her partner Louise are given two days to find his killer. They soon discover their victim had a list of people with motives to murder him, including his fashion designer ex-wife, his mistress’s husband, and the chief of police. The only evidence they have to go on is a missing cell phone, a stolen book, the victim’s letter opener, and an ugly pair of Alpaca wool mittens.

Can’t say I’m interested in keeping two cozy mysteries this week and I’m leaning toward the other one.

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So, help me out.  This is a week with no authors I know or any books currently on my radar.  What would you keep on your list?

 

 

Okay, I’ve tried this twice and you guys have helped me so much.  Let me tell you why.  Obviously, I’ve shown you 15 and I’ve eliminated 6 off my list.  But it has forced me to actually look at the books on my list.  I mean the list is only useful if it really is what I want to read.  Not 6 years ago, but today.  And I’ve put on hold the ones available at my library!  So, I’m going to keep it going once or twice a month until my TBR list is reasonable (and no I don’t have a set number in mind for this).

I am planning on writing a post on my Mt. TBR of unread books, but I’ll give you a heads up- during our mold remediation I got rid of every. single. one.  So I really am ready to utilize my 895 Goodreads list 🙂

Help a middle -aged gal out!

How to participate:

• Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf
• Order by Ascending Date Added
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or let it go?

 

Ginny Young is on a plane, en route to see her mother, whom she hasn’t seen or spoken to for thirty-five years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. At that time, a series of dramatic events–beginning with the arrival of a mysterious and sensual next-door neighbor–divided the family, separating the sisters from their mother. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she’s become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman’s life, and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best. 

I love Berg but this just looks okay to me. Have you read it?

Les and Sheila are a Yes!

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We Are All Welcome Here, features three women, each struggling against overwhelming odds for her own kind of freedom.
It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis’s birth, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently-and violently-across the state. But in Paige Dunn’s small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her daughter, Diana, in the way she sees fit-with the support of her tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.

I really want to read this!

Sheila says yes!

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Det. Roland March is a homicide cop on his way out. But when he’s the only one at a crime scene to find evidence of a missing female victim, he’s given one last chance to prove himself. Before he can crack the case, he’s transferred to a new one that has grabbed the spotlight–the disappearance of a famous Houston evangelist’s teen daughter.

Anyone vouch for this series?

Kay says yes!

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Detective Inspector Tom Thorne now knows that three murdered young women were a killer’s mistakes — and that Alison was his triumph. And unless Thorne can enter the mind of a brilliant madman — a frighteningly elusive fiend who enjoys toying with the police as much as he savors his sick obsession — Alison Willetts will not be the last victim consigned forever to a hideous waking hell.

I’ve been wanting to read Billingham since I saw him at Bouchercon.

Kay says yes!

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The New York Times bestselling and extraordinary true story of the critical events leading up to and following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as told by the Secret Service agents who were firsthand witnesses to one of America’s greatest tragedies.

I go through my Kennedy phases for sure.

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Katherine and Michael meet at a New Year’s Eve party. They’re attracted to each other, they grow to love each other. And once they’ve decided their love is forever, they make love.

It’s the beginning of an intense and exclusive relationship, with a future all planned. Until Katherine’s parents insist that she and Michael put their love to the test with a summer apart…

Don’t know how I can call myself a girl of the 80’s and not have read this.

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Darlings, what a to-do at the Daily Mail today! After fifteen years as Chicago’s gossip guru, Rebecca Covington has been demoted from divulger of secrets for the city’s elite to headlining recipes in the Home and Food section. Apparently, a touchy senator is threatening legal action for Rebecca’s latest extramarital scoop. But Windy City rumor has it that new CEO and dreamy Pierce Brosnan look-alike David Sumner downgraded Rebecca in favor of fresher, younger blood on the social beat.

This sounds trite, but that cover!!

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If these three sisters don’t change direction, they’ll end up where they’re going.

Darlene Caldwell has spent a lifetime tending Sycamores, an estate located five miles south of a small town called Peculiar. She raised a family in the spacious home that was her grandfather’s legacy, and she enjoys being a pillar of the community. Sycamores is the kingdom where she reigns as queen . . . until her limelight-stealing twin sister unexpectedly returns.

Carlene Caldwell, veteran of the Broadway stage, is devastated when she realizes that an unsuccessful throat surgery has spelled the end of her musical career. Searching for a new purpose in life, she retreats to Sycamores, her childhood home. She may not be able to sing, but she hopes to use her knowledge and experience to fashion a new life in Peculiar, the little town she left behind.

Haunted by a tragic romance, Magnolia Caldwell is the youngest of the Caldwell girls. Nolie has never wanted to live anywhere but Sycamores. She spends her days caring for her dogs and the magnificent gardens she’s created on the estate, but when she meets a man haunted by his own tragedy, she must find the courage to either deny her heart or cut the apron strings that tie her to a dear and familiar place.

Eh.

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Ray and Marie Benson killed 13 women before they were caught, tried and imprisoned. Five of their victims were never found. Six years later, psychologist Alice Quentin discovers a woman’s body on the waste ground at Crossbones Yard. The wounds are horrifyingly similar to the Bensons’ signature style. But who would want to copy their crimes? When Alice is called in to consult, her first instinct is to say no. She wants to focus on treating her patients, not analysing the mind of a murderer. But the body at Crossbones Yard is just the start, and the killer may already be closer than Alice knows.

I’m intrigued.

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Anidora-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree spent the first years of her life listening to her aunt’s incredible stories, and learning the language of the birds. Little knowing how valuable her aunt’s strange knowledge would prove to be when she grew older. From the Grimm’s fairy tale of the princess who became a goose girl before she could become a queen, Shannon Hale has woven an incredible, original and magical tale of a girl who must understand her own incredible talents before she can overcome those who wish her harm.

I’m on board with this I think.

Jill and Heather say yes!

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Okay, I really want to know your thoughts on these – especially the ones you’ve read.

 

I found this fun way to clean up my GR wishlist and want your help.  I’m listing the 10 oldest titles on my list and want you to help decide what’s worth keeping and what’s not.  I kept 2 out of 5 last week.

How to participate:

• Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf
• Order by Ascending Date Added
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or let it go?

Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn’t know much about her background – the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip – but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island.

I’m leaning towards keeping it.

Kay says yes!

She said she wanted only to start a new life—wanted only a husband who truly loved her. She had to leave him to learn how to meet his world on her terms. So Lily agreed to earn her keep as his aunt’s companion and study the genteel arts. Soon she was the toast of the ton, every inch a countess fit for the earl, who vowed to prove to his remarkable wife that what he felt for her was far more than desire, that what he wanted from her was much more than… One Night for Love

I’m a sucker for historical romance so I probably want to keep it. Right?

Lunch In Paris is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs–one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world’s most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate souffle) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon).

I love Paris, but am not feeling the pull of this right now.  Have you read it?

Kathy says read it!

Twelve-year-old Steven Lamb digs holes on Exmoor, hoping to find a body. Every day after school, while his classmates swap football stickers, Steven goes digging to lay to rest the ghost of the uncle he never knew, who disappeared aged eleven and is assumed to have fallen victim to the notorious serial killer Arnold Avery.

This has potential.

Kay says keep it 🙂

One day, without warning, Jasmyn’s husband died of an aneurysm.  Since then, everything has been different.  Wrapped up in her grief, Jasmyn is trapped in a world without colour, without flavour – without Liam. But even through the haze of misery she begins to notice strange events. Even with Liam gone, things are not as they should be, and eventually Jasmyn begins to explore the mysteries that have sprung up after her husband’s death… and follow their trail back into the events of his life.

This one still sounds intriguing.

Bold, sexy, and daring, these stories portray a world twisted on its axis, an unconventional place that resembles nothing so much as real life, in all its grotesque, beautiful glory. Bender’s prose is glorious, musical, and colloquial, an anthology of the bizarre. In ‘The Rememberer’, a man undergoes reverse evolution — from man to ape to salamander — at which point a friend releases him into the sea, while in another story a woman gives birth to her mother. A grief-stricken librarian decides to have sex with every man who enters her library. A half-mad, unbearably beautiful heiress follows a strange man home, seeking total sexual abandon: He only wants to watch game shows. A woman falls in love with a hunchback; when his deformity turns out to be a prosthesis, she leaves him. A wife whose husband has just returned from the war struggles with the heartrending question: Can she still love a man who has no lips?

I loved the one Aimee Bender I read but I’m not crazy about short stories.

Scott says read it!

Willful Creatures conjures a fantastical world in which authentic love blooms. This is a place where a boy with keys for fingers is a hero, a woman’s children are potatoes, and a little boy with an iron for a head is born to a family of pumpkin heads. With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotion, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterful chronicler of the human condition.

Again with the short stories?

Stefano Benni’s enormously popular and distinctive mix of the absurd and the satirical has made him one of Italy’s best-loved novelists. This is his twelfth bestselling book of fiction. Fifteen-year-old Margherita lives with her eccentric family on the outskirts of town, a semi-urban wilderness peopled by gypsies, illegal immigrants, and no end of bizarre characters: a reassuring and fertile playground for an imaginative little girl like Margherita. But one day, a gigantic, black cube shows up next door. Her new neighbors have arrived, and they’re destined to ruin everything.

No idea how this ended up on my list but it sounds fun!

Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble—foundations shift, marble ornaments fall—even as efforts to preserve them are underway. The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi’s operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective—inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city—while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.

I LOVE Venice and this is the same author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil so I’m leaning towards yes unless one of you tells me it’s a snoozefest.

Exhilarating short stories of women breaking free from convention
Every now and then, right in the middle of an ordinary day, a woman rebels, kicks up her heels, and commits a small act of liberation.
What would you do, if you were going to break out and away? Go AWOL from Weight Watchers and spend an entire day eating every single thing you want-and then some? Start a dating service for people over fifty to reclaim the razzle-dazzle in your life-or your marriage? Seek comfort in the face of aging, look for love in the midst of loss, find friendship in the most surprising of places?

This doesn’t sound all that great, right?

Okay, so let me know if you’ve read any of these and whether I need to keep them on my reading list 7 years later.

 

I read 63 books this year. That’s 12 less than last year and 8 short of my goal but given everything else going on this year I’m cutting myself some slack 🙂

10 were published in 2018, but 2017 was my most read year with 19 titles.

48 Fiction and 15 Non-Fiction.

Of those 48 fiction 24 were authors new to me.

43 female authors, 19 male authors and 1 with both.

20 were audiobooks.

Favorite Covers

I continued with 4 series (Penn Cage #2, Ravenels #3, Lucas Davenport #27, Cormoran Strike #3) and started 2 new series (Inspector Rebus, Jack & Jill)

I read 4 classics for the Classics Club (Far From the Madding Crowd, A Wrinkle in Time, Number the Stars, Our Town)

Oldest book read- – Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, 1874

Shortest book – Night Shift by Debi Gliori, 32 pages

Longest novel- Turning Angel by Greg Iles, 672 pages

Most read authors with 2 books a piece – Alice Hoffman (Faithful and Water Tales) and Susanna Kearsley (Named of the Dragon and Season of Storms)

My 5 favorite books 

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  “ What a joy it was to discover a children’s book that could entertain, engage and educate.  I was hooked from the get go.“

Faithful by Alice Hoffman. “I fell in love with Shelby and her journey of guilt, grief and forgiveness.  This was not an easy read (or listen in my case) since Shelby was such a lost soul, but little by little, as she survived and discovered her value, the emotional pull ultimately satisfied.  Do yourself a favor and give this bald, young adult who believes she doesn’t deserve to be here a chance.“

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. “What a treat this book was.  The story reveals its secrets at just the right pace.  Her struggles yanked at my heartstrings at the same time she made me laugh out loud.”

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. “There once was an evil woman who stole children from poor, loving parents and sold them to the highest bidder.  These children were forced to live in horrifying conditions and it’s completely heartbreaking.  That is true.  The book is the fictionalized account of the kids she abused.“

 

 

 

 

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. “I loved Lale and Geta and the other prisoners we were able to meet.  This book showed the strength of the human spirit in the darkest of circumstances and I recommend it for everyone.”

If you’ve posted a best of list this year please leave a link so I don’t miss it!

 

After many years of hosting this meme The Broke and the Bookish has passed it on to one of  their own, Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic is Bookish Worlds I’d Want to/Never Want to Live In.  I decided to focus on the worlds/places/lives I’d be willing to live in.

1. The Shire and Rivendell in the The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings series.  I’ll skip the rest of Tolkien’s geography, but those two places?  Sign me up!
2. Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory from Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It’s more than a little bit creepy, but I think I could find a few happy places 🙂
3. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Barcelona is a place I wouldn’t mind spending some time.  (Shadow of the Wind by Zafon)
4. It’s 2019 and the world has discovered music coming from another planet and they send a ship to Rakhat.  Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and Children of God took us on the ride and I’d be willing to go.
5. When Frances buys an old villa in Tuscany, I was living vicariously, so this is a no brainer!  Under the Tuscan Sun sounds good to me.
6. In Stephen King’s 11/22/63, time travel from a good cause goes awry.  Maybe if he had a willing partner with some sense he would have been more successful.
7. Hogwarts from the Harry Potter series was a magical place.  Yes, some scary things happened there, but it never lacked for excitement.
8. If I could jump into Claire’s life I’d choose her travels in the Outlander series.  With Jamie being played by Jason of course 😉
9. A chocolatier in a small French village in the 1950s would be a nice little life, even when dealing with the worst of the worst the village has to offer.  (Chocolat by Harris)
10. I think the late 1700s in New York would be a fascinating place to visit for awhile.  I loved the story in Into the Wilderness by Donati.

So, tell me, if you could choose ONE place to visit for an extended amount of time what book would you choose?

After many years of hosting this meme The Broke and the Bookish has passed it on to one of  their own, Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week it’s all about favorite bookish quotes.  I love this!  I have a love for quotes that I write and keep close and when I started looking at my favorite book list I didn’t have to go far.  All of these are from the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  This classic published in 1960 still has so much to say to us today.  Which is your favorite? I’ve highlighted a few of mine.

1. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

2. “Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” 

3. “The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it – whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.” 

4. “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” 

5.“Things are always better in the morning.” 

6. “Atticus—” …said Jem bleakly. “How could they do it, how could they?”

“I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before & they did it tonight & they’ll do it again & when they do it— seems that only children weep.” 

7. “Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It’s knowing you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” 

8. “It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike- in the second place, folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do.”

9. “Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.” 

 10. “Just remember that sometimes, the way you think about a person isn’t the way they actually are.” 

 

After many years of hosting this meme The Broke and the Bookish has passed it on to one of  their own, Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The prompt is ten books I could read forever.  In the past re-reading books was something I did do, typically with favorite romances, but since I started blogging ten years ago not so much.  I always start the year with the intent of rereading a favorite book, but it rarely happens. It doesn’t stop me from making it a goal.

What about you? Do you re-read books?

Books I have re-read

1. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover several times.
2. Quite a few of the Judith McNaught romances.  Some of hers are romantic perfection.
3. The Deadly series by Brenda Joyce. I read this a second time and talked about the historical romantic suspense series on the blog in the first few years.
4. The Miracle of Mindfulness or any other Thich Nhat Hanh meditation book.  These books really do help me stay in the moment.
5. I re-read The Awakening by Kate Chopin for a readalong.  A classic worth the time.

Books I’d like to re-read soon

1. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle is a childhood favorite I’d like to read again before seeing the movie.
2. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende was my first magical realism experience 20 years ago and I’d love to read again to see if it’s a good as I remember.
3. I fell in love with Emerson in college and would love to dip back into his writing.
4. I remember falling in love with The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly and immediately buying the next two in the trilogy.  That was 8 years ago and now I want to read it again and do the trilogy back to back to back.
5. Maybe this will be year that I finally re-read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

After many years of hosting this meme The Broke and the Bookish has passed it on to one of  their own, Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week it’s all about love.  Here are some of the more memorable couples that I’ve discovered in the last ten years on this blog…

1. Louisa & Will  – Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
2. Elizabeth Bennet & Fitzwilliam Darcy – Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. Anne & Wentworth – Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. Meg & Ted – Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
5. Michael & Miles – The Innocent by Taylor Stevens (+the rest of the series)
6. Becky & Felix – The Actor & the Housewife by Shannon Hale
7. Francesca & Calder – Deadly series by Brenda Joyce
8. Claire & Trevelyan – The Duchess by Jude Deveraux
9. Mariana & Richard – Mariana by Susanna Kearsley
10. Faith & Levi – The Best Man by Kristan Higgins (I love all the couples of this series)

I’m a sucker for romance.  Where can I find some of your favorite couples so I can put them on my TBR?

After many years of hosting this meme The Broke and the Bookish has passed it on to one of  their own, Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week it’s all about our bookish goals for 2018.

1. Reread a favorite book.  It seems every year this is a goal and I rarely accomplish it.
2. Read 15 classics.  I need to read 30 books over the next two years for the Classics Club so I need to get reading before I break down and read the Spark Notes 😉
3. Read a new/favorite author’s backlist.  The first ones that comes to mind would be: Fredrik Backman (5), Susanna Kearsley (6), Paula McLain (4).
4. Read review books in a timely fashion.  I’m terrible.  Unless I’m part of a tour they sit on my shelves way too long.
5. Accept fewer review books.  See #4 🙂
6. Finish a series.  I hate to start new series when I’m still behind on so many that I already read.
7. Read 30 books in September.  I started this on my 30 Day Challenges blog and have done it twice.
8. Spend more time reading other blogs.  I find it challenging to find time to blog so I find it extra hard to set aside time to visit my bookish friends.
9. Read More!!
10. Don’t worry if I fail at all of these goals.  Life will go on and it will still be full of awesome books.

Do you have any bookish goals for the year?