Double-Stacked Bookshelves

We're coming to the end of the A-Z Blogging Challenge and, I'll admit, my last few posts are going to have to enter the "creative" sphere.  So bear with me.  Today is all about the letter Y, so here's my solution... You've Arrived:  The Oregon Trail When the Willamette Valley was being promoted as "the promised land" in the mid-West and East of the US, hordes of people started moving west.  Most travel was done in covered wagons pulled by oxen and loaded with supplies and family heirlooms.  Sadly, most of those heirlooms would be tossed along the trail when the wagons encountered poor weather, swollen rivers, or the Rocky Mountains.  The end destination for these families was Oregon City in the Oregon Territory. The journey was a harrowing 2,000 miles of rugged terrain.  Originally only able to be traversed on foot or by horseback, thanks to the mountain men and fur traders from the early 1800s, the route was slowly widened and impr...

Ah...another easy smut novel to breeze through.  Jude Deveraux's Highland Velvet was one of my 50 cent finds at the Friends of the Library book sale and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  One reason being that it was quick to get through (as all romance novels are) and another reason was because it was set in Scotland...I LOVE SCOTLAND! Velvet follows the arranged marriage (or marriage for services rendered to the king) of Stephen Montgomery, a British aristocrat, and Bronwyn MacArran, a Scottish clan leader.  Of course these two don't see eye to eye at all.  For one thing, Stephen is convinced, before meeting Bronwyn, that she is absolutely hideous and Bronwyn is a very strong, independent woman who is used to being a leader of men.  These two butt heads from the very beginning and continue to argue despite the fact that they are falling deeply in love (obviously).  There are trials and tribulations added to their constant bickering, but this forced the two to r...

Well, hello Wednesday.  It's nice to see you again!  I'm getting a little bit of a late start on my "Why I Love" post this week because it's so hard to come up with one favorite book family , which is this week's topic.  Now, because I couldn't narrow it down enough to not include these three families, I simply ranked them in order! #1 The Weasleys This should be a given for anyone who knows me (and for anyone who's read some of my past posts) because I always manage to weave in a little Harry Potter reference somewhere in my discussion.  However, this one is completely applicable.  Every single Weasley family member is so fully developed, even those who don't show up often.  The dynamics between the members are beautifully portrayed and each character is lovable in their own way (even Percy at times).  The Weasley family is one that makes the most of their situation, doesn't begrudge anyone who might have more in a monetary sense, and l...

“We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.” It's that time of the week again for my contribution to "Why I Love."  I thought long and hard about this edition because there are so many series that I love, but, in the end, the choice was obvious.  So, my choice for favorite book series goes to...drum roll please... Harry Potter .  I mean, come on!  How can you go with anything else?! I remember not wanting to jump on the Harry Potter bandwagon when it first arrived on the scene.  And I didn't.  It wasn't until a fateful camping trip during the summer before college, well after the third book had come out, that I managed to finish both of the books I had brought with me before the weekend was over.  Because of this I had to scrounge around the camper for something stashed away by my mom.  Low and behold, I found Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter ...

I've had Teresa Neumann's Bianca's Vineyard for a while now, thanks to my grandmother, but have been skipping over it to read other books.  I don't know why I did this because it was actually a great read.  Neumann is a local author who decided to write a novel about family history.  The majority of the novel is based on factual evidence and personal family interviews.  There is one portion, which I won't give away, that is only speculated at by Neumann, but what she does choose to speculate is a highly probably scenario. The book is written in a way that suggests it is being told to the reader, as well as Egisto's son and his wife, through flashbacks from Bianca in her 80's.  We know this because the font and boldness of these sections gives personal reflection from Bianca and foreshadows what she will eventually reveal.  She takes you back to the beginning of what changed the course for this family, mainly one brother of the Bertozzi family moving to A...

Julia Glass' Three Junes is by far, hands down the BEST book I've read this year.  It was the 2002 winner for the National Book Award for Fiction and definitely deserved it.  I picked this book up for my scattered Edinburgh bookclub and I can honestly say that it's my favorite of all that we have read in the past nearly three years (ugh).  It makes you laugh, cry, smile, and think.  That's what makes this book so good. The story centers around the McLeod family, natives of Scotland, and follows members across continents, years, relationships, sexuality, heartache, anguish, and happiness.  It's told in sections from the perspective of the patriarch, Paul, his oldest son, Fenno, and Fern, a woman who manages to weave herself into the lives of these two men without much effort and who, after the first section of this book, the reader does not really think about again. We first meet Paul in 1989 and are welcomed into his personal anguish over the death of his w...

I had to check David Besmozgis's The Free World out twice just to finish it (stinking two week limit and other responsibilities).  I just got it back this past Thursday and finally finished the last 200 pages or so and I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. The novel centers around the Krasnansky family; three generations of Russian Jews.  Their goal throughout the entire book is to escape the Iron Curtain and make it to the West and the "Free" world.  The story is told from several different perspectives; mainly Samuil, the patriarch of the family, Karl, the straight-laced oldest son, Alec, the charismatic playboy and youngest son, and Polina, Alec's wife.  There are other members of the family who've made the journey:  Emma, Samuil's wife and Karl and Alec's mother, Rosa, Karl's wife, and Zhenya and Yury, Karl and Rosa's sons.  The journey they go on eventually lands them in Rome, Italy.  It is here that the majority of the story plays...