2013 BOOK CHALLENGE! Are you in?

[3smithboys]

I also have this book on my Kindle (and have had for a couple of years). I have read nothing but good reviews of it and I really don't know why I am so reluctant to read it, I suspect probably because I like books that are 'easy to read'. I will definitely get round to it though as it seems a shame to be missing out on a potentially great book because of some unfounded reservations.

The Book Thief was not as difficult to read as I thought it was going to be. I started to read it about a year ago and put it down because the beginning was a bit "strange" I thought... but after my son was assigned it for 9th grade Honors English summer reading and so many people were talking it up, I decided to try it again...

The 2nd time I started it, the beginning didn't seem so strange to me. Either I was expecting it or I was just ready to plow through it - not sure, but after that part - it was just a regular book. It is considered a YA book. The topic it pretty heavy... but it is a great discussion book! It was fascinating to read a Holocaust book from the German perspective as Death told the story. Once I started - I could not put it down!!! It drew be back every time I had to leave to do something else. (I love those kinds of books.)

It's being made into a movie...

 

[wvjules]

I just finished The Paris Wife. I loved it. After I finished the final chapter and the epilogue and author's notes I cried. I was just so full of emotion and sadness. Sadness at Hadley's life, sadness at Ernest's life and torment and suicide and also that I finished the book. I am now going to read A Moveable Feast then A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises. I have to know more about this man and his writing. I can't wait to go to Paris later this month and walk in Young Hemingway' Paris.
I've also added the biography of Zelda Fitzgerald to my list of want to read.

 

[portia9]

#76 Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Not really a fan of this. It wasn't what I expected at all.

 

[Christine]

Just completed Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie O'Farrell.

This book is the first I've read from this author. Amazon reviewers seem to like the author, so I thought I'd give this one a try. GoodReads rates this book with 4 stars.

I would have to say I kind of liked it. The character development was good which is important to me and the plot was interesting. Not overly thrilled with the ending. I mean, I pretty much knew the author's purpose with the ending but I thought she could have provided more detail.

The stunning new novel from Costa Award winning novelist Maggie O'Farrell: a portrait of an Irish family in crisis in the legendary heatwave of 1976. It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children — two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce — back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Book #46-Act Two by Kimberley Stuart. This is my first "Christian Fiction" book, and so far, since I've never read Christian Fiction, I'm very pleasantly surprised. I was afraid the religion might be kind of heavy-handed for me, but it isn't at all. The book so far (I'm only 20% into it) is very cute and enjoyable.

 

[StephMK]

Good to see all the positive comments on The Book Thief. My MIL just gave it to me so I'm bringing it on vacation with me this week.

#32 - Working It Out - this was a Kindle freebie from some time ago - British Chick Lit - a girl gets laid off and decides to work 12 different jobs over a year to figure out what she wants to do and also dating along the way. The romance is a little choppy but the book was cute & funny in parts. Nice, easy summer read and I may try another by this author.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

I feel like the freak of the thread.

I could NOT get into Gone Girl.

I read about 20% and gave up.

 

[GaBelle]

I feel like the freak of the thread.

I could NOT get into Gone Girl.

I read about 20% and gave up.

Don't. While it was a good book, I threw it down when I finished reading it.

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#44 Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

4 children trying to solve the mystery of Long Lankin. Ghost story but not scary. Maybe 3 out of 5 stars.

 

[RunningGirl]

I feel like the freak of the thread.

I could NOT get into Gone Girl.

I read about 20% and gave up.

I finished it, but I did not like that book either.

 

[nemofans]

Yeah, you're definitely not the only one. I did not like the ending.

 

[BearcatsFan]

I feel like the freak of the thread.

I could NOT get into Gone Girl.

I read about 20% and gave up.

Don't feel bad. I read all of it but hated the ending. Are you going to try either of her other books? They're a lot darker than Gone Girl, so if you didn't like it, you may want to steer clear of those.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Don't feel bad. I read all of it but hated the ending. Are you going to try either of her other books? They're a lot darker than Gone Girl, so if you didn't like it, you may want to steer clear of those.

I just wasn't into the story itself.

I do like dark. Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite authors. The other stories sound more appealing to me.

 

[BearcatsFan]

35/50 - When Mockingbirds Sing by Billy Coffey

What marks the boundary between a miracle from God and the imagination of a child?

Leah is a child from Away, isolated from her peers because of her stutter. But then she begins painting scenes that are epic in scope, brilliant in detail, and suffused with rich, prophetic imagery. When the event foreshadowed in the first painting dramatically comes true, the town of Mattingly takes notice.

Leah attributes her ability to foretell the future to an invisible friend she calls the Rainbow Man. Some of the townsfolk are enchanted with her. Others fear her. But there is one thing they all agree on—there is no such thing as the Rainbow Man.

Her father, the town psychologist, is falling apart over his inability to heal his daughter . . . or fix his marriage. And the town minister is unraveled by the notion that a mere child with no formal training may be hearing from God more clearly than he does.

While the town bickers over what to do with this strange child, the content of Leah’s paintings grows darker. Still, Leah insists that the Rainbow Man’s heart is pure. But then a dramatic and tragic turn of events leaves the town reeling and places everyone’s lives in danger. Now the people of Mattingly face a single choice:

Will they cling to what they know . . . or embrace the things Leah believes in that cannot be seen?

I have mixed feelings about this book. Most of the reviews on Amazon were glowing, but I don't feel strongly about it one way or the other. The writing was good, the message was good ... but I guess I wasn't as "moved" as others were by reading it.

3/5 stars

Next up: Keeping Watch by Laurie King

 

[WowLookAtThat]

Book #52 Exit the Actress by Priya Parmar
Review: Nell Gywnn is more than the mistress of Charles II. She was an orange seller, oyster seller, actress and a vibrant woman. I thought this book was well-written, descriptive and was a treat to read. I couldn't put it down!

 

[CaliBear]

I feel like the freak of the thread.

I could NOT get into Gone Girl.

I read about 20% and gave up.

I feel like the freak of the thread almost every time I post. I seem to have very different taste than most people here, but I do have Gone Girl on my Kindle, thanks to this thread. Haven't started it yet...

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #43- The Prison Angel by Mary Jordan

This book was for my book club. It's a story of a real life, twice divorced woman who decides to devote her life as a nun to help the poor & prisoners in Tijuana. She did so much to help so many without fear for her own life. It is very inspiring. The trouble I had was the compassion & respect she had for rapists, murderers, & drug lords. I just can't get past what they did.

The winners of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting tell the astonishing story of Mary Clarke. At the age of fifty, Clarke left her comfortable life in suburban Los Angeles to follow a spiritual calling to care for the prisoners in one of Mexico's most notorious jails. She actually moved into a cell to live among drug king pins and petty thieves. She has led many of them through profound spiritual transformations in which they turned away from their lives of crime, and has deeply touched the lives of all who have witnessed the depth of her compassion. Donning a nun's habit, she became Mother Antonia, renowned as "the prison angel," and has now organized a new community of sisters-the Servants of the Eleventh Hour—widows and divorced women seeking new meaning in their lives. "We had never heard a story like hers," Jordan and Sullivan write, "a story of such powerful goodness."

Next book: On Folly Beach

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Well...

Organizing/updating and rearranging a Goodreads profile is as fun as doing it to a Pinterest account. It always sounds like WAAAAAAY more fun than it is.

 

[DisneyWalle]

Ok I have finally made it back over to this thread to update my book list. Sorry its been so long --- life has gotten busy.

Goal: 30
Read: 16

Completed:
A Stolen Life: Jaycee Dugard
Cellar of Horror - Ken Englade
The Blood of Innocents -Guy Reel
House of Evil - John Dean
Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
Perfect Poision - M. Williams Phelps
For the Thrill of It - Simon Baatz
Shroud of the Nightingale - P.D. James
Unspoken - Lisa Jackson
Shiver - Lisa Jackson
Absolute Fear - Lisa Jackson
Lost Souls - Lisa Jackson
Hot Blooded - Lisa Jackson
Cold Blooded - Lisa Jackson
Devious - Lisa Jackson
Malice - Lisa Jackson

Currently Reading:
"All the Pretty Girls" by J.T. Ellison
I keep picking this book up and laying it down. I am determined to read it since I bought it.

 

[PigletsPal2]

Goal: 75 books this year.

#60 down and done.

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny. It is the height of summer, and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife are celebrating their anniversary at the luxurious, isolated Manoir Bellechasse. But the Finney family - rich, cultured and respectable - has also arrived for a celebration of their own. As some surprising guests turn up, and a terrible storm leaves behind a dead body, Gamache soon learns that the seemingly peaceful lodge is a place where visitors come to escape their past, until that past catches up with them.

I love this series! Louise Penny has a real talent for plot development, character and scene description, and witty, believable dialogue. One silly little thing that tickles my fancy is that from time to time the characters speak French (the setting is in and around Quebec) and I understand it!

Queen Colleen