Fun Reading Facts for September:
Total books read: 8
New Authors: 5
Mystery: 5
Non-Fiction: 0
Fiction: 3
DNF: 0
Audio: 0
Pages: 2,429
The Strand Prophecy by J. B. B. Winner
Killer Pancakes by Diane Mott Davidson
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
I saw this on Sharon Loves Books and Cats who saw it on Fresh Ink Books. I thought it was a wonderful survey and a fun way to spread the word that this is Banned Book Week.
Have you ever read a banned book? Sure you have, you probably just didn't know it.
This list of the most banned books crossed my desk two years ago as a book survey. Feel free to try it yourself. All opinions and comments are welcomed.
"If you have read the whole book, bold it. If you have read part of the book, italicize it. If you own it but haven't gotten around to reading it yet, *** it."
1. The Bible
2. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
4. The Koran
5. Arabian Nights
6. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
7. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
8. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
9. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne***
10. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
11. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
12. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
13. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
14. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert***
15. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens***
16. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
17. Dracula by Bram Stoker***
18. Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
19. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
20. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
22. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
23. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy***
24. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
25. Ulysses by James Joyce***
26. Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
29. Candide by Voltaire
30. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
31. Analects by Confucius
32. Dubliners by James Joyce
33. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
34. Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
35. Red and the Black by Stendhal
36. Das Capital by Karl Marx
37. Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
38. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
39. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
40. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
41. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
42. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
43. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
45. Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
46. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
47. Diary by Samuel Pepys
48. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
49. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
50. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
51. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
52. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
54. Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
55. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
56. Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
57. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
58. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
59. Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
60. Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison***
61. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
62. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
63. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
64. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
65. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
66. Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
67. Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
68. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
69. The Talmud
70. Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
71. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
72. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
73. American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
74. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
75. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
76. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77. Red Pony by John Steinbeck
78. Popol Vuh
79. Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
80. Satyricon by Petronius
81. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
82. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
83. Black Boy by Richard Wright
84. Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
85. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
86. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
87. Metaphysics by Aristotle
88. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
89. Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
90. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
91. Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
92. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
93. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
94. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
95. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
96. Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
97. General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
98. Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
99. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
100. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
101. Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
102. Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
103. Nana by Émile Zola
104. Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
105. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
106. Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
107. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
108. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
109. Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
110. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
111. Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
112. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
113. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
114. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
115. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatly Snyder
****OH – I have read 35! Parents – you better keep me far far away from your kids, I'm a terrible influence!****
Michaela has a lot going on in her life. Her husband was cheating on her with a women much younger than her. She kicked him out but now they won't leave her alone until she signs the divorce papers, something she doesn't want to do until he agrees to take care of his part of the debt. Then one night she receives a phone call from her Uncle Lou. He wants to meet her for breakfast the next morning to discuss some things. Michaela can tell that he is upset, but he won't talk about it till morning. The next morning Lou never shows up so she goes to his ranch to see if he was there. She finds him in his prize stallion's stall – murdered.
Michaela doesn't plan on trying to solve the murder, but when her Dad, her Uncle's wife, and some other people close to her begin to look like suspects she decides to see what she can find out. Mix into this the badgering she receives from her soon-to-be-ex and his girlfriend, her roommate's boyfriend who is using her to try and buy up all the ranches, and the fact that her Uncle was being sued for fraud, Michaela soon feels overwhelmed.
As one can expect with an amateur detective, she finds lots of clues and goes in the wrong direction, but with the help of some great friends, she is able to figure out who murdered her uncle and why.
I have read a couple other books by this author, her wine lover's mystery series. This is the first in the horse lover's mystery series. Honestly, I loved it! I don't know why I waited so long to read this one. I really liked the characters. I also liked the horse aspect of it. This book kept me interested from the very beginning. I have others in the series and I can't wait to read them.
Have you reviewed this book? If so let me know and I'll list it below.
(sorry, no reviews yet)
(mystery.259pg)
Bex is a researcher for 24/7. Her job is ice skating. She gets a call from Toni, a figure skating coach. Toni tells her that she has a student who is the next best thing, but that his father won't let him compete. Toni wants Bex to research Jeremy and get 24/7 to do a piece on him so that maybe his father can be convinced to let him compete.
Bex decides to tape Jeremy skating so that she can show Gil, her boss. While doing this, Jeremy's father shows up and takes the tape. He is very mad at Bex. He ends up taking Jeremy and disappearing. This gives Bex an idea for a different news story. She starts to research skaters who showed lots of promise, but ended up leaving skating and disappearing. She finds and interviews Robby, Felicia, and Rachel. Little does she know that everyone is connected in some way. A couple of days after Bex interviews Rachel, Rachel is murdered. Now Bex is determined to figure out what happened and how all of this ties together.
This is actually the 2nd in the series (I was confused and thought it was the first). I wasn't blown away by this book, but I did like it. I thought it was interesting to see how everyone was connected to each other. Sometimes Bex got on my nerves a bit, I think that's why I didn't like the book as much as I otherwise would have. Of course it could also be because I'm really stressed right now – who knows. Haha! I did like it enough to plan on reading more in the series though.
(new author.mystery.239p)
This is a historical fiction book about the rise and fall of Pharaoh Nefertiti. The story is told from her younger sisters view, Mutnodjmet.
Nefertiti was the pretty one, she was the older one. She was the one chosen to marry the next pharaoh on line, Amunhotep I (later called Akhenaten). All those in the royal family new that Akhenaten was rash. Once his father died and he became Pharah of both lower and upper Egypt, he decided to make Aten the main god that was to be worshipped. He also decided to move the palace and home of the Pharaoh from Thebes to Amarna. He decided to make soldiers do the building instead of protecting all of Egypt.
Nefertiti sided with Pharoah. However, the people loved her. She bore 6 children, all girls.
Mutnodjmet was a quieter person. She was good with herbs and knew their uses. She didn't want to be in the palace or caught up in that world, she wanted to solitude of her gardens. She soon fell in love with a general that the Pharaoh didn't like. When she became pregnant, the pharaoh made her lover go off to fight and she ended up loosing the baby. This is the first, but not the last time, that Mutnodjmet stood up for herself and did what she wanted and not Nefertiti.
This was such a wonderful story. I couldn't get enough of it! This is the first historical fiction book I have read about Egypt. I think the way of life was just fascinating. At first I thought it weird that the book was not from Nefertiti's view point, but I soon didn't care. I grew to like Mutnodjmet and not really like Nefertiti. I think the author did a great job of explaining everything to where the reader can understand what is going on and what the location was like. She describes the palace and the way of live very well. At least, I assume she does. I had wonderful images.
While I was reading this book I met one person in person who saw me reading it and couldn't say enough wonderful things about it. I also had at least two people online let me know that they loved this book, once they realized I was reading it. So...dont' take just my word..takes others...this is a great book. I know the author also recently had another book published. It is a sequel to this one, so I'm already looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of it. It's called The Heretic Queen
Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I'll list it below.
(sorry, no linked reviews yet)
(new author.fiction.460pg)
What was the most unusual (for you) book you ever read? Either because the book itself was completely from out in left field somewhere, or was a genre you never read, or was the only book available on a long flight… whatever? What (not counting school textbooks, though literature read for classes counts) was furthest outside your usual comfort zone/familiar territory?
And, did you like it? Did it stretch your boundaries? Did you shut it with a shudder the instant you were done? Did it make you think? Have nightmares? Kick off a new obsession?
Let me think…a couple of years ago I read my first memoir. I was never much of a non-fiction reader. I doubt I had ever read any for fun. However one of the members of my book group suggested we read Lucky by Alice Sebald. This was my first memoir, my first non-fiction book to read for personal enjoyment and not school. What did I think? I loved it! I loved both the story and the fact that it was a memoir. I then started to read more memoirs. While I admit they aren't the genre I read the most, I do look into them and buy them and even read some. Haha! So..to answer the question about, it didn't make me shudder – well, let me think about that. I shuddered at the way she was treated and what she had to go through, but I didn't shudder because I actually had to read a memoir. Did it make me think? Heck yeah it did! I think every memoir since has made me think. It's because I know the story is real (or at least it's supposed to be). So I think about what the person has gone through and I would do the same thing etc. Have nightmares? No...none of those. Kick off a new obsession? You bet! I love memoirs now. I don't read them as much as I would like, but at least I do read them. It even prompted me to actually read some other non-fiction books. Something I would probably not have done before.
This is the 1st in the young adult series.
Sam's parents spend their summers searching for the lost city of Atlantis. While they do this, Sam stays with her grandfather on the family farm in North Carolina. Sam loves her grandfather but wishes she could go with her parents or stay in New York to hang out with her friends, but at 11 years old, she is still too young.
The second day at the farm Sam goes into the forest to revisit the mirrored pool she found yesterday. Little did she know this would change her life forever. While at the pool she rescues a little boy who was flying on a bee but was bumped off and is now stuck in a cobweb, with the spider looking forward to dinner.
The little boy, is actually a bit older than Sam, just small (about the size of her thumb). The boy was actually looking for Sam, because his race is in trouble…and Sam is the one destined to save them.
Sam is up for the adventure and travels to Innerworld with Buzz. Sam soon realizes that this adventure will take her to different worlds and she will meet different races of man and animals. Sam must find the crimson crystal. This is what is needed to destroy the Zogs, the evil beasts trying to take over Innerworld.
So there you have it, a brief description of the book. What do you think? Does it peak your interest? I hope so! While I am much older than the age group targeted for this book, I still enjoyed it. Sam is a girl who has asthma and feels she is nothing special. She is thrown into a world where she is an entire races only hope for survival. She must succeed. I liked the characters in the book and loved how it ended. I'm excited that there is already a second one in the series that is set to be published in Oct. So return sometime later this year for my thoughts on that book.
Have you reviewed this book? If so please let me know and I'll list it below.
Sorry, no reviews yet
(new author.fiction.189p)
I am in love with The Tudors on Showtime. I'm almost finished with season 2 and can't wait for them to show season 3. I even had to go online and make sure they were doing a season 3. Haha!
I have always been interested in the history of the Royal family, especially Henry VIII. So of course this show was perfect for me.
However, after watching this show, I'm interested in the real history. How much of this show is real and how much was created for entertainment? What especially got my interested was watching The Other Boylen Girl and seeing how some of the story is different. It left me wondering which was more historically accurate?
I thought I would ask my loyal readers for recommendations for non-fiction books on the Tudors. Do you have any recommendations? Either one(s) you have read or one(s) you have heard are good? If so, please let me a comment and I'll add the reviews to this post. I did find this website, Tudorhistory.org, but I think we all know that I would much rather have a book to hold in my hands and read.
Readers Comments:
Lezlie has heard that The Six Wives of Henry VIII is a good book
Taminator recommends The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George. Taminator does warn that it is a huge book, and she was right! I looked it up on Amazon and it has 944 pages!
Ladytink_534 recommends Brief Gaudy Hour: A novel of Anne Boleyn by Margaret Campbell Barnes
In my Booking Through Thursday post I mentioned that I like to read paranormal books in October – you know – due to Halloween? Karen commented and wanted to know what I had any recommendations for this year.
So that got me thinking…what do I plan to read this year? Before I answer that…let me just say that when I say paranormal books, I mean any books that have a witch or ghost or vampire or somebody with psychic abilities or…well…you get the idea.
And back to what I plan to read this year….not saying I'll get to all these…but these are ones are possible:
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris (I don't own it yet…but I might not be able to resist buying it)
Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris
The Witch is Dead by Shirley Damsgaard
Death Perception by Victoria Laurie
Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire by Derek Landy
The Dead Room by Heather Graham or another Heather Graham book – depends on what I find since my books aren't unpacked yet
So that gives you an idea of what to look forward to. I have a ton of review books piled up that I need to read, so while I wish I could read all those books next month, I don't think I'll be able to. I hope to get in at least a couple of them though.
Other recommendations I have:
Alice Borchardt – the wolf series (sorry…can't remember the name of the series but the first book is The Silver Wolf)
Jim Butcher – Dresden files series (ok, so I've only read the first…but it was good!)
Kay Hooper – she has several different series, I've liked all of the ones I have read
And…I can't think of any more at the moment.
How about you guys? Any paranormal books/authors you recommend? Let me know in a comment and as I approve the comments, I'll try to be good and update this post with what people say. I would love to get recommendations because while I try to read a lot in October, I do read them all year round. So I would love to find some new authors.
Your recommendations:
Kerry recommended Moon called by Patricia Briggs
Ladytink_534 has also recommended Patricia Briggs, she said the Mercy series and Cry Wolf
I don't think I tend to read more or less, I read about the same. I'm assuming it's this way becasue I don't have kids, so kids being back in school has nothing to do with me. I assumed I would read more this past summer due to having a new pool, but my plans were spoiled by having to actually work in the house. Perhaps next summer I'll see that I read more in summer due to floating around on a raft all weekend long.
I tend to read more paranormal books in October because of Halloween. I like to read them all year round, but in the past I have tried to save some to read in October. I doubt I'll be doing that this year, but you never know.
I also want to add that I also love to read Christmas books - so anytime after Thanksgiving through Christmas is fair game for those! It's the only time of the year I read them.
Otherwise, the changing of seasons normally has no effect on my reading.
This is the 3rd in a series that features Joe DeMarco. DeMarco works for Mahoney, the current speaker of the house. While most don't realize DeMarco works for Mahoney, he does, and Mahoney wants to keep it that way. The current problem that DeMarco is set to investigate is a series of what appears to be Al-Qaeda attacks in the US. The problem, Mahoney and DeMarco believe there is somebody else behind them, somebody who wants it to appear like Al-Qaeda is masterminding the attacks. They don't believe Al-Qaeda is behind it. While this is happening, a Senator Broderick proposes a bill that will make all American Muslims go through a security checks to make sure they have no ties with Al-Qaeda. Mahoney knows this would be a problem in the future, and possible now. All the Muslim American's would be pissed for having to go through interrogations. He feels there is no way this bill will be passed. But then…it is passed by the Senate. Mahoney tries his hardest to keep the bill from being voted on in the House.
While all this is happening, we are also getting another story. The story is a Muslim in the US looking for younger boys that he can use in attacks. He has found the perfect kid. He starts finding the next site to have an attack and educating the boy on what needs to be done.
Investigating this issue causes DeMarco to try and take down a huge meth dealer that the DEA has been working on for years. Of course DeMarco and his helpers have lots of plans to figure all this out, but something always goes wrong. Then, they come up with another plan, and try again.
I haven't read any by this author before but had heard he was good. Overall, I really enjoyed this story. It's a bit different from the mysteries I normally read, it's more of a political mystery than a romantic thriller or cozy mystery. Also, I didn't feel like I was reading a book in a series, didn't feel like I was missing something. Now, while I say I enjoyed this book, I will also admit that I didn't pick the best time to read a book that deals with terrorist attacks in the US. (IE – 9/11). So I did take a couple days off and read another book. So, yes I enjoyed the story and felt it was well written, but I just picked a bad time to pick up this book, so that's why it took me so long to read it.
Have you reviewed this book on your blog? If so let me know and I'll link it below.
(sorry, no reviews yet)
(new author.mystery.371pg)
This is the 7th in the Sookie Stackhouse series.
Sookie has been hired by the vampire queen of her area, Sophie-Anne Leclerq, to go to the U.S. Vampire summit. Sophie wants Sookie to use her "gift" to read the humans minds and let Sophie know if business deals are good or if Sophie-Anne is in trouble. The queen will also be going to trial for the death of her husband and Sookie is the only witness to what happened.
Nobody wants Sookie to go. Many believe there will be problems. However, Sookie knows she can't back out. Once she gets to the summit, she meets Barry. Barry the Bellboy showed up briefly in a previous book. He is the only other telepath that Sookie has met. It seems Barry is working for one of the other vampire kings.
While at the summit, Sookie realizes that something is wrong. She feels like something is going to go wrong, but she hasn't been able to figure out exactly who is behind it and what is going to happen.
Many things happen while at the summit, but I'm not going to say anything else. I don't want to ruin it for anybody!
I wasn't planning on reading this book right now, I like to spread out these books because I enjoy them so much. However, after watching the seasion premier of True Blood, I just couldn't help myself. Haha!
And for a little info on True Blood….here's what I'm hearing. Some have mentioned that it is darker than the books, others that the story line is kinda slow, still others that it reminds them of soft porn. What do I have to say about all these comments? True, true, and true. I think it does appear a bit darker than the books, but I think humor comes through more in the books and that makes it lighter. As for the story line…I think if you are familiar with the books, the story line will move along fine, if you don't know the books, it probably does seem slow. As for the soft porn – well – sex sells on tv so I'm sure that is why they are putting it in there. Sure, sex is in the books, but I do think it's more graphic on the show. I'm still enjoying the series. I think its fun to see the characters come to life. I have the series set up to record on my DVR and will continue to watch it.
Have you reviewed this book on your blog? If so, let me know and I'll link it below.
Ladytink_534 reviewed this book (she was on the ball...she reviewed it last year!)
(mystery.323pgs)
(I'm happy to be part of the virtual book tour for Ben Furman – continue reading for his guest post on Not Enough Books)
Okay, okay, here's the answer to one of life's mysteries, "How a former special ops and FBI terrorist chaser came to write a young adult fantasy adventure trilogy." I wish I could say it began as a back channel, black ops, one-way suicide mission to infiltrate the ranks of terrorist kids' book writers, which would certainly be much sexier than the truth – shutter, a girl was behind the whole thing!
Let's dial back about three ticks when my sister directed, "Get off your fat butt and do something with this!" She didn't bother looking back as she dangled some age-yellowed paper over her shoulder and continued poring through stuff in the closet. You've guessed it, my older sister, who didn't care that I was a leader of men and able to jump tall buildings (well, if my dog Jake's dog house could be considered tall). To her I would always be the lumbering Neanderthal capable of carrying large, amorphous things for her and strong enough to spell Mabel, our mule, when she tired of pulling the plow on the south forty. But in fairness, I must say my sister's Joe Frazier's right cross was used once to ward off unsavory mutants that had chased me up and down the football field and then had searched me out afterward at the school dance. Sorry, I wander, a first sign of brain atrophy.
I had returned home to help pack essentials my mother would need in the full care nursing facility. Every scrap of paper that had anything to do with her kids she had meticulously tucked away in stacks of labeled shoe boxes – even my drawings and scribbles.
Our small rural school, centered in the California San Joaquin Valley farm country, seldom added anyone new, and that included Mrs. Higgins the history teacher, who had the school built around her. Higgins delighted in telling me what an incorrigible (I looked it up) my father had been, and asked ad nausea why I couldn't be more like my sister, "The Saint!" Sins of the father, and she had a second crack at his son.
So, quite a buzz started on the first day of my fifth grade class when a cute girl with long red hair and green eyes entered the room and sat a couple of rows away from me. Samantha instantly became my favorite girl's name. I wracked my brain trying to come up with something to impress her. Johnny, who was sitting directly behind Samantha, refused to switch places with me. Higgins' cataracts had restricted her effective field of fire (she could zip a chalk-filled eraser with the best of them) to the first row seats, which would have provided me adequate cover, but no sale.
I could draw and spin a pretty good tale. A fantasy adventure story-boarded with drawings of the characters – that was the ticket! As the project gained speed I heard the whispers. Samantha had asthma! Asthma? Was it contagious? The "Incorrigible One" said no. I added an aspirator to the drawing that Samantha used to spray in the eyes of the villain, thus defeating him and saving Innerworld! I slipped the finished story on the real Samantha's desk and held my breath as she read it, shoved it aside, and turned to smile at Johnny, who had just pulled her hair. She never acknowledged me, and feeling like a complete dunce I retrieved the story during the safety of the next recess. Thankfully, at the end of the school year Samantha moved away, thus ending my gnawing embarrassment.
The decision to write the book was made on the plane ride back home when I read through the story and decided, "Hey, this is better stuff than I'm writing now!" The original story with the positive message was still viable, and the core characters, Sam, Buzz and Patch, made their way into the book. Besides, I knew better than to disobey a superior officer's direct order, and my sister brewed a helluva cup of coffee.
Today is the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I know that not all of you who read are in the U.S., but still, it's vital that none of us who are decent people forget the scope of disaster that a few, evil people can cause–anywhere in the world. It's not about religion, it's not about politics, it's about the acknowledgment that humans should try to work together, not tear each other apart, even when they disagree.
So, feeling my way to a question here … Terrorists aren't just movie villains any more. Do real-world catastrophes such as 9/11 (and the bombs in Madrid, and the ones in London, and the war in Darfur, and … really, all the human-driven, mass loss-of-life events) affect what you choose to read? Personally, I used to enjoy reading Tom Clancy, but haven't been able to stomach his fight-terrorist kinds of books since.
And, does the reality of that kind of heartless, vicious attack–which happen on smaller scales ALL the time–change the way you feel about villains in the books you read? Are they scarier? Or more two-dimensional and cookie-cutter in the face of the things you see on the news?
I happen to read more of the romantic suspense and cozy mysteries, so for the most part, no my reading hasn't change. But I think that's because what I was reading didn't involve terrorists, etc. They are, well, cozies. However, I will say that I am on my 2nd book that I would say is more of a political thriller. The one I'm reading right now actually deals with Al-Qaeda and terrorist attacks in the US. While I like the book, in a way it does bother me because it is too close to home. Especially when I'm reading it on 09/11! (That's probably why I haven't read it today and don't plan to).
So overall, it hasn't really changed my reading habits, but I doubt I'll read a lot of political thrillers in the future.
I did watch the much anticipated season premier on Sunday. I've been waiting for it for so long, that I was afraid I would be disappointed. There was no way it could be as good as I wanted and expected it to me. Let me tell you – it was awesome. I didn't want the episode to end. So far I think the actors are all doing a really good job of being the character. Of course..it is only the first episode. But so far…I'm very happy and can't wait for the next episode. I will also mention that it has been awhile since I read the first book, so the story line isn't too fresh in my mind. So I don't know if that helps me like it more than others might who have just read the story or not.
I believe this is the 5th in the series. Fun Reading Facts for August:
Total books read: 7
New Authors: 7
Mystery: 3
Non-Fiction: 1
Fiction: 4
DNF: 0
Audio: 0
Pages: 3658
The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris
A+ Comptia A+ certification Study Guide (6th edition)
Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke
Love Today by Maxim Biller
Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva
Blue Smoke and Murder by Elizabeth Lowell
The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Trophies by Heather Thomas
**Sticky Post**
Last year I hosted a cozy mystery challenge in September, and I'm ready to do it again! The goal is to decide on a number of cozy mysteries you think you ran read in September, and then, well, read them in September!
In order to participate you need to:
See, that's it! That's not so hard now is it?
Last year I asked people to read only cozy mysteries for the month of September, but that proved to be a little hard. So basically the only change is that you can read other stuff, just pick a number of cozies that you think you will be able to read, and try to stick to it.
***REQUEST: I'm pretty busy right now and not sure I'll have time to create a challenge picture. If you like to create these and have the time to create one for this challenge, I would really really appreciate it.***
***AUTHORS: Any authors out there willing to donate one of your cozy mystery books as a prize? I had a couple of authors offer to do this for me last year and loved being able to give away a book to a challenge participant. If you are interested, please notify via email. Thanks!***
This is the story about how Strand is trying to protect the human race, but nobody (well…almost nobody) is listening to him. He has realized that our dna is changing, it seems to be accelerated by the moonlight. Oh, and it's not just humans who are changing, it's animals too. Strand is really Steve Cutter. Steve realized what was happening and has written a chapter that he feels people need to read. He becomes Strand due to technology, I'm not going to get into all that, you'll have to read the book for more. Let's just say that when he is Strand, he can stop bullets. Anyway, he tries to get the President of the US to start investigating these changes and warn the people. However, the President doesn't believe him. So Strand has to go to the people and hope they listen.
Throughout this story we go to Brazil, where we meet Howlers and jellyfish like animals who can stun a person/animal and then eat them. (Personally, after my jellyfish incident last year, this freaked me out. Haha!). We travel to Africa where we meet the Mariners. They are men who evolve until they can survive under water, with fins and gills. We then go on a fast paced journey to reach Florida, hopefully before the T-Rex alligators get there and attack the humans on the beaches.
Yeah, this is a bit of a sci-fi novel. Strand is awesome. He is pretty much a man that becomes so much more due to technology and smarts. His side-kicks are great. His family ends up being Dr. E, Anna (his niece that he has guardianship over), a Howler monkey who is fitted with the same type of suit as Strand, Vit – who becomes Cotar, and a Mariner. Together they try to save the innocent but also stay alive, since by now the President has the military looking for Strand and hoping to kill him.
This is the first in the young adult series. I went on the website for this book and it didn't have a release date for the second one, but I'm already waiting for it! I assume it will be sometime next year. This was such a great book. I loved the characters, I loved the adventure part of it. This is a book that kept my interest pretty much from the beginning.
Have you reviewed this book on your blog? If so let me know and I'll post a link to your review below.
Sorry, no links yet
(new author.YA – fiction. 312pg)
