Double-Stacked Bookshelves

This week's prompt for the Writer's Workshop is:  10 Things That Make Me Happy...   A Strong Cup of Coffee.  I like to taste my coffee and have it kick me gently in the face.  Mmmm. Rain.  The sound.  The smell.  The feel.  The atmosphere.  The...taste, I guess.  Being from the PNW allows me to experience the beauty of rain a lot.  However, we've had an unusually dry Winter/Spring...and going in to Summer, so I haven't been able to enjoy my delightful rain as much as I would love to. Hoppy Beer.  I am also thankful that I live in a region that produces seriously outstanding beers (You go, Oregon!).  As my preferences have changed over the years, I have become increasingly drawn to IPAs and the like.  The hoppier, the better in my opinion! A Plethora of Books.  I feel completely lost without a book on my person at all times.  What if I have to wait somewhere?  What if I get sto...

It's Wednesday...evening.  Oops!  Anywho...today's installation of Why I Love concerns book recommendations.  While I seem to be the main book recommender (huh?) in my circle, I have had two books recommended to me by a friend, and I have to say that I fell in love with both.  I was surprised by this because I don't tend to like what everyone else likes or go with the mainstream.  Regardless, these were the books: The Story of Edgar Sawtell e by David Wroblewski:  I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book...times a million.  I remember seeing a synopsis of this book (before it became part of Oprah's Book Club) and thinking to myself..."Self, that sounds really good."  Alas, I forgot about it.  Of course.  Then a year or so later, my friend says "Hey, I have this book you should read.  I think you'll like it."  And that's how Edgar and his amazing self came into my life.  The book is about Edgar Sawtelle (ironic, right?)...

I borrowed Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns over a year ago from a dear friend and am finally getting around to reading (it was in storage for about a year due to a house fire...yeah).  I've yet to read The Kite Runner , or see the movie, but it's on my list; my ever growing list.  Regardless, so far I'm loving this book...here's a teaser: "Maybe it was senseless to want to be near a person so badly here in a country where bullets had shredded her own brothers to pieces.  But all Laila had to do was picture Tariq going at Khadim with his leg and then nothing in the world seemed more sensible to her" (153). Definitely worth the read...

I'm halfway through with the dreaded week of finals; I still have a stack of final essays to grade and one department grading session to complete this week before I can sign off for a much needed week long break, but it's finally starting to wind down.  Added to the chaos that is final's week, the Euro Cup started a few days ago and I have watched every game (even if I had to DVR it and watch it later).  Naturally this takes time away from grading essays (whoops) and posting reviews.  However, this is a necessary evil because I LOVE the Euro Cup and football/soccer in general, as I stated in a previous post .  But that's beside the point.  It's Tuesday and that means one thing: teaser time!  I've picked up a quick read because I'm behind on my GoodReads 2012 Challenge quota and I'm trying desperately to get caught back up.  So today's teaser comes from Nora Roberts' The Last Boyfriend .  It's the second in the Inn BoonsBoro series and just ...

Sometimes a book comes along that has something special to it.  That spark or element that makes you fall in love with it and hope that it never ends.  Ruta Sepetys' Between Shades of Gray was one of those books for me.  I randomly picked this book up at Wal-Mart (it was cheap and sounded good) and I'm so glad that I did because I don't know if I'd have picked it up anywhere else...or even remembered that I read the back of it.  Gray follows the story of Lina and her family as they try to survive the terrible effects of WWII; including deportation, harrowing traveling experiences, Soviet labor camps, Siberia and the Arctic Cirlce, cruel winters, and even crueler captors.  What ensues is one girl's struggle to survive despite all odds.  Through all of this, she is able to take solace in her art; the one thing that her captors cannot take from her.  With her art, Lina is able to document the atrocities that befall her and her fellow capt...

It's Tuesday...and that means it's teaser time.  This week's excerpt comes from Nicole Krauss' The History of Love .  This book was the one I received to distribute as a book giver for World Book Night US , a great organization to promote literacy and a love of reading.  I thought it sounded like a wonderful story, so I picked up a copy for myself. "The moment had passed, the door between the lives we could have led and the lives we led had shut in our faces.  Or better to say, in my face.  Grammar of my life:  as a rule of thumb, wherever there appears to be a plural, correct for singular.  Should I ever let slip a royal We , put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head" (86). This book sounds promising and I'm looking forward to reading it.  Hopefully it will be the light at the end of an otherwise dark and incredibly sad week...

Linda Lael Miller's The Rustler was...kind of blah actually.  I mean, the story was decent.  The characters were fine.  But there wasn't anything that really captured my interest in the entire story.  That's sad and disappointing. Rustler follows Wyatt Yarbro as he decides to give up his cattle stealing, train robbing, saloon frequenting ways and relocate to Stone Creek where his brother, also a reformed rustler, just happens to be the local sheriff.  At first Wyatt thinks he's just going to lie low until the ruckus from his last cattle raid blows oven, but then he meets Sarah Tamlin.  Sarah works at the local bank, which her father owns, and is considered quite the catch despite her additional years compared to other first time brides.  In addition to running the bank in lieu of her father's failing health, which must be kept hushed, she has several rather large secrets from her past.  To keep track of all the lies she's had to tell to surviv...

Alexander McCall Smith's La's Orchestra Saves the World was a pretty decent read.  Although, for me, it does not stack up to some of his serials ( 44 Scotland Street , etc.), I rather enjoyed it. La's is set, for the majority, during the span of WWII in the countryside of Suffolk.  The story begins with La (Lavender) and her developing relationship with Richard Stone.  The two share a whirlwind of a romance that leads, rather quickly, to marriage.  Not even two years later La is alone.  She then moves from Cambridge to Suffolk county into an old farmhouse owned by her in-laws.  It is here that La's life gains new purpose and she becomes a more self-assured individual.  While working on the home-front to help the citizens of Britain during a time of war, she meets a Polish soldier, Feliks, who has been sent to work on a neighboring farm.  Naturally La develops feelings for Feliks, though he's so uptight and reserved that she has no idea where he...

I am not, by nature, an emotional person.  I don't cry when I get upset.  I don't cry when I get hurt.  Honestly, I don't cry...at least it's a rare occasion if I do.  In fact, several friends have described me as having a heart of stone because I never cry (jokingly, of course).  However, there are a few things that get me every time:  Selena , The Notebook (film version), The Family Stone and some other films.  But for the most part, I'm a stone wall.  Now that all changes when it comes to certain books.  There are a few books that I will cherish forever despite the fact that they make me cry.  For that reason, they belong in the Why I Love...Tear Jerkers category.  First, and foremost:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows This was the only installation in the boy wizard series where I cried.  It's not that I wasn't upset about things that occurred in the previous books (Cedric's death, Sirius' death, Dumbledore's ...

Leda and the Swan   (1928) A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thights? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.                                  Being caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with is power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? When I first read this poem as an undergrad in college, I was shocked and in awe of how brilliant William Butler Yeats was....

I've heard so many good things about Pam Jenoff's The Diplomat's Wife and it's predecessor, The Kommandant's Girl , but I've never felt like reading either for some odd reason.  Both are set during my favorite time, WWII, and both are books that I would probably like.  Why wouldn't I want to read them?  Well, I finally remedied this conundrum, though probably backwards from how I should have done so.  I found a copy of The Diplomat's Wife for two dollars in a used bookstore some time back and picked it up (I mean, it was ONLY two dollars).  Now I can say that I'm really glad I did! Diplomat follows the trials and tribulations of Marta Nederman after the war has come to an end.  She's been rescued from the Dachau concentration camp by an American soldier, Paul Mattison, and placed in a DP hospital in Switzerland.  Though she doesn't know it at the time, this chance meeting with Paul will shape her life in ways she never could have imagin...

This week's teaser comes from Linda Lael Miller's The Rustler .  I've never read much of Miller's writing, but my mom really likes her; so I thought I'd give it a try.  We'll see how it goes. "Men like Mr. Yarbro didn't marry, they dallied with foolish women, and then moved on" (65).

Going to be starting a quick read to catch up on my Goodreads Challenge list...I'm a few books behind.  So here's an excerpt from Julia London's The Secret Lover : "They were two scarred people, two outcasts in an imperfect world....But they were perfect for each other" (170). Sounds promising as a quick read...and unbelievable in its romanticism...joy! 

I found a copy of Pam Jenoff's The Diplomat's Wife for a measly two bucks at a secondhand store recently and have decided that I'm going to plunge into it!  Because of that, here's a teaser: "'Before we could escape, the Kommandant found Emma and discovered that she was Jewish.' I recount hiding in the shadows, watching the Kommandant confront Emma.  'I had hoped she might be able to somehow talk her way out of it.  He seemed to have genuine feelings for her so I thought he might understand.  But when he pulled out his gun, I had to do something.  I shot him.'" (112) Oh man...I love novels set during this time period.  Despite the horrific atrocities that occurred, for some reason it is my favorite point in history.  I'm excited for this read.

Hands down, my favorite book in the 44 Scotland Street series so far!  Alexander McCall Smith's Love Over Scotland takes the reader back to those quirky characters on Scotland Street, as well as bringing in a few more to mix things up.  There is a lot that happens to each of the characters in this installation and all come out in a different place than they started. Pat finally has a viable love interest...or two, though one might not be as honest as the other, and has started at the university studying Art History.  Domenica is off on her anthropological study of pirates in the South China Sea.  Angus is missing Domenica tremendously.  New character Antonia Collie, an old friend of Domenica's, is subletting her flat in Scotland Street while she's away.  Angus does not like this.  Poor Bertie has been forced into yet another extra-curricular activity; one that provides him with utmost embarrassment:  the Edinburgh Teen Symphony.  Embarrassi...

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...

I don't know what it is about books written by Nora Roberts (excluding her alter ego, JD Robb), but I love every single one of them!  It probably has a lot to do with the fact that they are easy to read, they keep you engaged, and they end happily.  Always pluses in my mind and a nice change from the books I normally pick up to read :) Nora Roberts' The Next Always , the first book in her new Inn  Boonsboro trilogy, begins with the story of Clare and Beckett.  Beckett, his two brothers, and his mother have purchased a landmark building in their hometown of Boonsboro and are working to restore the building to its former glory.  Clare has moved back to Boonsboro after the death of her husband, who was killed in Iraq, with her three young sons.  Beckett and Clare grew up together and Beckett has always been in love with Clare, though he probably didn't classify it as love when he was younger.  As the two begin to form a deeper relationship, there are pa...

Sometimes you just need a romance novel to lose your mind in.  Thank you Diana Palmer for providing me with something mindless and fun to read in Nora .  Of course, as nearly all romance novels do, Nora follows a pretty predictable pattern:  boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy sets out to get girl, boy gets girl, boy and girl fight, boy and girl make up and live happily ever after.  It's pure romance gold!  Nora follows Eleanor "Nora" Marlowe out West from her comfortable, sophisticated, SNOBBY home in Virginia and chronicles her time spent in Tyler Junction, Texas.  Here she meets Cal Barton, who might not be exactly what he seems, and quickly falls in love with his rugged persona.  There are ups and downs, social constraints, personal heartaches, legal deals gone bad, secrets kept and told, and so much more. You really don't have to stretch your imagination far in these novels and that's exactly why I pick them up.  After spending years rea...

I quickly plowed through Suzanne Supplee's When Irish Guys are Smiling yesterday around midnight (finishing after getting back from an evening of drinks with a couple friends) and have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.  Having picked this book up at, of all places, the Dollar Tree (I found twelve such dollar gems there recently), I'm rather proud of my investment.  Even if it had sucked I would have only been out a dollar.  Nothing to break the bank!  Thankfully, it didn't suck. The book is technically a young reader (sometimes you need mindless, easy reads) and I was attracted to many aspects of the novel:  1) the cover art is attractive in a cartoon-y way.  2) the title reminds me of my first trip to Ireland with my good friend, Lindsey, in 2008.  3) it makes me reminisce over my time spent living in the UK (sigh...).  And 4)  I pretty much love anything set in Ireland or Scotland. Irish Guys is part of an ongoing series called S...