2013 BOOK CHALLENGE! Are you in?

[PigletsPal2]

Goal = 75

34. Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella

This is the book on which the movie Field of Dreams was based. I'm a sucker for a good baseball book. This was one of the best. Very well written and quite a delight.

Don't know if you prefer fiction, non-fiction, biographical, how-to, etc. but here are a few suggestions. I LOVE baseball, watching it, listening to it, reading about it, EVERYTHING!

Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Story of the quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland A's through their general manager Billy Beane, Lewis has written what may be the best book ever written about baseball. Later made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hall. I loved the book and the movie.

Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball by George Will. (yes, that George Will!) Will travels from the baseball field to the dugout to the locker room to get to the root of the game we all love. I read this years ago, probably when I was 15, and enjoyed it very much.

Bottom of the 33rd: Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry. A beautifully recounted story of the longest game in baseball history -- a tale celebrating not only the robust intensity of baseball but the aspirational ideal epitomized by the hard-fighting players of the minor leagues. I would have loved this book even if it hadn't been about my beloved Orioles' minor league club, including at that time Cal Ripken, Jr.

The Unwritten Rules of Baseball by Paul Dickson. The title says it all, but it's a really entertaining read. For example, did you know that one unwritten rule is that In Areas That Have Two Baseball Teams, Any Given Fan Can Really Only Root For One Of Them.

As They See 'Em by Bruce Weber. Follows a New York Times reporter as he attends umpire school in Florida. This is an entertaining account of this experience as well as a lively exploration of what amounts to an eccentric secret society with its own customs, its own rituals, and its own colorful vocabulary. I got this one for Christmas and read it straight through Christmas night!

I've read all of these; let me know if you'd like any more recommendations.

Queen Colleen

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

10

Seventeen wishes

Christy is ready for a change of scenery, a change in friendships, and a change of heart. But she never knew all this reshuffling would prepare her to make-Seventeen Wishes
Working as a camp counselor is not exactly how Christy Miller envisioned she would be spending part of her summer. But as the week draws closer, Christy begins to realize all the wonderful possibilities that could come from it: meeting a handsome counselor, long walks in the woods, splashing in the sun-toasted lake with newfound friends.

But before long Christy is up to her ears with kids that won't obey her, camp rules to remember, and an embarrassing incident that makes her the camp joke. And after she debates giving her heart to the camp counselor, a moonlight picnic in a canoe leads Christy to make some decisions about her future and trust that God is in control and knows what's best for her. What will she be wishing as she blows out the candles on her birthday cake?

 

[Swimnoid]

Don't know if you prefer fiction, non-fiction, biographical, how-to, etc. but here are a few suggestions. I LOVE baseball, watching it, listening to it, reading about it, EVERYTHING!

Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Story of the quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland A's through their general manager Billy Beane, Lewis has written what may be the best book ever written about baseball. Later made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hall. I loved the book and the movie.

Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball by George Will. (yes, that George Will!) Will travels from the baseball field to the dugout to the locker room to get to the root of the game we all love. I read this years ago, probably when I was 15, and enjoyed it very much.

Bottom of the 33rd: Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry. A beautifully recounted story of the longest game in baseball history -- a tale celebrating not only the robust intensity of baseball but the aspirational ideal epitomized by the hard-fighting players of the minor leagues. I would have loved this book even if it hadn't been about my beloved Orioles' minor league club, including at that time Cal Ripken, Jr.

The Unwritten Rules of Baseball by Paul Dickson. The title says it all, but it's a really entertaining read. For example, did you know that one unwritten rule is that In Areas That Have Two Baseball Teams, Any Given Fan Can Really Only Root For One Of Them.

As They See 'Em by Bruce Weber. Follows a New York Times reporter as he attends umpire school in Florida. This is an entertaining account of this experience as well as a lively exploration of what amounts to an eccentric secret society with its own customs, its own rituals, and its own colorful vocabulary. I got this one for Christmas and read it straight through Christmas night!

I've read all of these; let me know if you'd like any more recommendations.

Queen Colleen

Wow! Thanks for the suggestions! I've read tons of baseball books but none of these. I have seen the movie Moneyball and liked it.

 

[quietgirll]

Just finished six years by Harlan Coben, and it was AWESOME! I didn't expect any less, the plot was great, good characters, and his element of surprise- highly recommend!

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72
#20 Red Rain by R.L. Stine

Travel writer Lea is on a small island off the coast of South Carolina when a hurricane hits the island. Everything is destroyed. She finds two 12 year old beautiful blond twin boys who seem to have lost their home and family, so she decides to adopt them against her husbands wishes. Turns out they are not quite the angels she thought.

OK, R L Stine is famous for his Goosebumps books for children. This was his first venture into a horror story for adults. From the reviews on the back of the book jacket from other authors, I thought this would be a good scary book.....fell way short of the mark for me.

 

[jenny105]

Just finished six years by Harlan Coben, and it was AWESOME! I didn't expect any less, the plot was great, good characters, and his element of surprise- highly recommend!

Completely off topic but I noticed your signature and avatar. I'm a Blockhead too!

 

[PigletsPal2]

Goal: 52 books this year

#22 down and done.

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini is a novel following the life of Elizabeth Keckley, a slave who managed to purchase her own freedom and that of her son by an influential white Southern man, The story follows Elizabeth's rise to renown as a premier modiste, or dressmaker, in Washington, DC and her unofficial appointment as Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker. Over the years, Elizabeth becomes Mrs. Lincoln's closest friend and confidante and weathers the ups and downs of the First Lady's tumultuous emotional swings.

Although this is a novel and the dialogue is of necessity made up by the author, many of the events depicted in the book are indeed true, including Mrs. Lincoln's life after the President's assassination and the publication of Elizabeth's memoirs and her life after Mrs. Lincoln's death.

I had read good reviews about this book and I enjoyed Chiaverini's other books about the Elm Creek quilters, so I was eager to read this one. I was definitely not disappointed.

Queen Colleen

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #17: Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

This was okay. It was interesting to read about the difference of girls growing up in China & in America. I got confused on which mother's stories went w/which daughter's stories. The mothers' stories were more interesting & tragic with the daughters' stories more boring and unaware of who their mothers really were.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

 

[Swimnoid]

Goal = 75

35. Outcasts United: A Refugee Soccer team, an American Town
by Warren St. John

This book tells the true story of how a woman from Jordan built a soccer team in Clarkston, GA. comprised of all refugee children from all over the world. The book was very interesting as it delved deeply into the individual families involved as well as the reasons they fled their homes. It also dealt with the reaction of the small southern town's resident to the their arrival and the obstacles for all involved.

 

[StephMK]

#15 Into the Darkest Corner - girl meets guy, guy slowly drives girl crazy in subtle ways, then she has to pick up the pieces of her life later. I didn't like the book at first because the chapters change between the before and after of their relationship. You read about how they met then a chapter about her current life. Once I got used to it, it was ok.

The book was maybe a 3.75? I thought the timing in parts was slightly off but overall, it was really good and I had trouble putting it down. It wasn't quite as good as I had hoped but it held my interest.

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

Book 11

A time to cherish

An adventure-filled weekend sets the stage for some romantic times ahead. Love is in the air, and Christy is positive her senior year will be-
Christy Miller's school year promises to be full of exciting possibilities, especially now that Todd decides on a houseboat trip that he's ready to make a deeper commitment to their relationship. But Christy feels like her life is turned upside-down when her best friend, Katie, decides having a boyfriend is worth whatever price she has to pay. And just when things couldn't get worse, their good friend Doug becomes distant and withdrawn. What is happening to the happy friendships Christy used to have?

Juggling the stress of not having enough time with Todd, trying to understand Katie's relationship with Michael, and making Doug happy forces Christy to evaluate what's most important to her. Can Christy find a way to keep her friendship with Katie even though they're not in agreement on much anymore? What will become of these long-cherished relationships?

 

[hulagirl87]

I haven't posted in a long time. It's been a little crazy around here and I just found out that I'm pregnant with #2 so I don't know if I will be able to finish my goal of 100 for the year!

But since it's been awhile since I posted what I've read, I'm just going to list them here...

book #10 - Elsewhere - Gabrielle Zevin (loved this!!!)
book #11 - One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell (this was ok)
book #12- #18 - I read the whole Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (these crack me up!)
book #19 - Diary of a Player - Brad Paisley (this was pretty good)
book #20 - Answered Prayers - Danielle Steel (her books are hit or miss for me, but this one was ok)
book #21 - The Ghost - Danielle Steel (now THIS one was good!!!)
book #22 - The Future of Us - Jay Asher (this one was good. 2 teens in the 90's find Facebook on their computers 15 years in the future. pretty neat story)

so I'm up to book #23. I have a lot of reading to do to reach my 100!

have fun reading

 

[Swimnoid]

I haven't posted in a long time. It's been a little crazy around here and I just found out that I'm pregnant with #2 so I don't know if I will be able to finish my goal of 100 for the year!

Congrats!!

 

[Ginny Favers]

My book 15/50: EVERY DAY by David Leviathan

It's about a person who is in a different 16-year old's body every day. He falls for a girl while he's in the body of her boyfriend, and spends the rest of the novel trying to find a way to be with her. It was an interesting, quick read, even though I've already forgotten how it ended.

 

[Caseheidi]

Book 18 of 100 - Partials (Partials Sequence, #1) by Dan Wells

Summary from Goodreads:
The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials--engineered organic beings identical to humans--has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them--connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulsepounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question--one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

I loved this book, and am eager to read the next.

Next up is Unenchanted by Chanda Hahn.

 

[Kathi OD]

Since my last update, I've read 2 books: Calling All Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray and Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce.

I enjoyed both, however, as happens frequently with me, I was unhappy with the ending of Some Kind of Fairy Tale. It seemed to just hang there, leaving me to wonder what comes next.

Now it's off to read Angel Falls by Kristin Hannah.

 

[Caseheidi]

Book 19 of 100 - UnEnchanted (An Unfortionate Fairy Tail #1) by Chanda Hahn

Summary by Goodreads:
Mina Grime is unlucky, unpopular and uncoordinated, that is until she saves her crush's life on a field trip, changing her High School status from loser to hero overnight. But with her newfound fame brings misfortune as an old family curse come to light. For Mina is descended from the Brothers Grimm and has inherited all of their unfinished fairy tale business. Which includes trying to outwit a powerful Story from making her its next fairytale victim.

To break the fairy tale curse on her family and stop these deadly events, Mina must finish the tales until the very Grimm end.


This was a fun read, but the editing was a little hit or miss (wrong words or poor sentence construction at times.) I will be picking up book 2 soon to read as well. My little one is sick, so I have lots of reading time as she has decided to use me a furniture while she watches cartoons or sleeps for the past few days,

 

[quietgirll]

Completely off topic but I noticed your signature and avatar. I'm a Blockhead too!

Ohhhhh just noticed this! I just preordered the collectors set for 10! Can't wait till the show this summer!

 

[hulagirl87]

I just finished book #23. I read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. It was really good, but a bit sad.

 

[threeboysmom]

I haven't posted in a long time. It's been a little crazy around here and I just found out that I'm pregnant with #2 so I don't know if I will be able to finish my goal of 100 for the year!

CONGRATULATIONS!!