The Hunger Games and Catching Fire

These pictures are out of order, but I'm too lazy to fix it right now. This series by Suzanne Collins is very well done! She takes us to a future time where each year there is a reality TV show in which 24 kids between the ages of 12-18 (2 from each of the 12 districts the land seems to be divided into) fight to the death. One cannot read these book without thinking about modern day television. Told from the perspective of a teenage girl but with enough action in them that my teenage son was equally hooked.

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

This is book 5 in the Isabel Dalhousie Series. I love these books. I love most of what Alexander McCall Smith writes. ("The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, and "44 Scotland Street" series.) Most books I attack with voraciousness and gorge myself on. These books I can appreciate at my lesiure. They seem to be written to simultaneously calm and entertain me.

A Wind in the Door

The summer after I completed the  third grade, we spent a week at a resort in Vermont where my Dad had a business trip.  A co-worker of his discovered that I enjoyed reading and started listing all her most favorite books that she had read as a child.  At the time, I was more interested in going back to play in the pool some more, but one suggestion stuck with me.  "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle.  It was years later that I finally picked it up, but I was in the mood to reread it last year.  It's a different book to me now than it was then, and a part of me wonders that I got anything out of it when I was younger.

This is book two.  I am reading through the rest of the series because that's what I do.  But, also because they are different than anything else that I read as a child.  I wonder how kids today would perceive them...  Anybody know any kids reading this series?

Melting Stones

This book begins what I hope is another Quartet for Pierce.  I love that Pierce sticks with characters for so long, and that they make appearances in some of her other books as well.  This particular book is about Evvy, a young stone mage who has been asked to accompany two adult plant and water mages to an island to discover why everything is dying.  

Evvy was rescued from the streets and also has memories of war which make trusting those around her particularly difficult and lead to a number of problems throughout this story.  She does begin to thaw a little, but not so much that we are left with a tidy happily-ever-after ending.

It's been so long since last Evvy was in a book that I wished I had reread "Street Magic" before picking this one up.  There were holes in my memory of her story.  Still, it was enjoyable and I look forward to the rest of the quartet.

(AND it shows a girl wearing a dress on the cover.  I just mention it...)

The City of Ember

I picked up a copy of this book a few years ago at one of the Scholastic warehouse sales and sort of forgot about it until I recently saw a movie trailer for it.

I really enjoyed this story much more than I thought I would. I was tempted to hand it right over to my eight year old to read, but I think waiting one more year would help him enjoy it better.

The premise is sort of like "The Giver", but it seemed less creepy to me. Two twelve year olds, Lina and Doon, decide to switch job assignments and each come to realize that things aren't going so well for their dark city. Lina discovers an old document and together with Doon they are able to puzzle out "The Instructions".

"Breaking Dawn" by Stephenie Meyer

Oh. My. Gosh.

Twilight series, book 4. Just finished.

I am in need of some virtual discussion, broads, because I am in the middle of nowhere. Please leave comments!!!

Blood Noir

I have read all of the books in the Anita Blake series. This one is the latest. Not her best. The only thing that kept me reading was the tiny bit of story line mixed in with all the sex. The first books in the series are really good. A story line that is not the norm. About a woman who when she was a child raised her pet from the dead. (It wasn't pleasant) It's about a time when vampires are citizens with rights, there are werepeople, (wereswans, wererats, werebears, etc..) and she becomes a Federal Marshal who has to keep them all in line. She is also a Necromancer. She raises people from the dead so their family, lawyers, etc. can ask them questions that need answering and then she puts them back to death. Really fun books. BUT.... the last couple have been more about sex than good story line. I would recommend the first ones, but I can't say I would recommend the last 2.

Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter

I discovered the Aunt Dimity books shortly after we moved to Ohio. They helped me smile through that first sunless winter and are just as fun in the sunny summertime. They are about a divorced and recently orphaned woman from Chicago, named Lori, who is endowed with a rather strange bequest from someone who she grew up thinking was a fictional character. Aunt Dimity had been the name of her favorite childhood heroine in all the stories her mother had told her. In actuality, Dimity was her mother's best friend from England. Dimity leaves Lori, among other things, an empty journal. Through this journal she and Lori have chats from the great beyond.

It's quirky, but lovable. There are quite a few books in the series, and it really does help to read them in order...except for the first two. You could read the 2nd one first. Anyway, they hop back and forth between the U.S. and the U.K. and always feature a recipe. Uncle Tom's butterscotch brownies are like crack as far as I'm concerned. LOVE them. This book featured "Jammie Biscuits" which I fully intend to make after we go berry picking. Mmmmmmm....

These books are quick and light without making you feel less intelligent for having spent your time with them.

Children of God

I FINALLY READ IT!!!!! I know that most of you have already read this book, but I just got around to reading it. I either always checked out The Sparrow by mistake(I checked that book out 2 times thinking it was the one I hadn't read) or it wasn't at the library when I looked for it. (I know there is such a thing called reserving, but my mind didn't go there at the time) Anyway I fell like I have completed something left undone. Now I just have to read the These are my words series. NOT ENOUGH TIME!!! Also look I figured out how to put the pictures of the books up. (I just hope I'm not doing anything illegal.)

If you havn't guessed by now, my kids stay hungry, my house dirty, and clothes unwashed. I have been reading a little too much. I also have read "In the Courts of the Crimson Kings" by S. M. Stirling and "Many Bloody Returns" a collection of short stories.

From Dead to Worse

I must admit I am a Charlaine Harris junkie. (The Dead Series) It truly is like potato chips for me. Most of you have heard me talk of the Sookie Stackhouse books. (You know Elvis as Bubba) Well this is the 8th in the series. Fun books.
Warning: R rated, not so much this one, but in general.

Young Adult Fantasy...it's ok to look.

Here's my current library haul...and a few favorites:

Artemis Fowl (read them all, loved them all...the graphic novel is also cute)
His Dark Materials (just finished Golden Compass, 'coz I want to watch the movie - well done)
Land of Elyon (read the Dark Hills Divide - book one; cute, very fast read, talking animals)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Through the Looking Glass...shops at Hot Topic!)
Stardust - not sure if it qualifies as YA, but the movie was kinda marketed that way. Very entertaining...the book - haven't seen the movie yet.

That's all I've finished for now...I've also borrowed the Inheart/Inkspell...Cornelia Funke series and Theif Lord and Dragon Rider of hers. Should be fun.

Something Borrowed

No worries, broads. Just these two in the "series". They were sort of like "Sex in the City" meets "The Mermaid Chair". (Note: I was very disappointed in the Mermaid Chair, and didn't enjoy it very much, but it's that sort of self-analytical tone in exploring breaking points that I'm using for comparison purposes.)

These books are about a pair of friends, Rachel and Darcy, who have grown up together. You start off hating the one and loving the other, but realize throughout the books that it's not that simple. Everyone is a little bit wrong and a little bit right.

In short, I really enjoyed these books, but was a little surprised that I did.

Heather enters the world of the cyber broads

I don't have a book to post yet, but I am so inordinately proud that I sat butt to chair and got onto this site that I had to post something. I am currently halfway through Sarah's Quilt, the second book after These Is My Words. I am enjoying it quite a bit, but I have Emilia's copy of The Host lifting it's skirt at me, flashing a lot of leg and making come hither glances at me. I am trying to hold out and finish one before I start the other. Wish me fortitude.

One For the Money

I like uplifting stories. I really enjoy stories that make me think and look at things from a new perspective. I love stories that make me smile, or giggle or laugh out loud.

But then there are times when I just read filler books. I read all of Meg Cabot's books because they are mental cotton candy that make me laugh a lot. I am a firm believer that while it is delicious and fun to eat, cotton candy probably shouldn't be the main staple of my diet.

Meg hasn't come out with anything recently, so I needed to borrow someone else's cotton candy. Janet Evanovich was recommended to me as "candy bar reading". I can go with that. A little more substance than cotton candy, but with similar nutritional break down.

That said, I enjoy Evanovich's writing style. It's just enough that you don't feel stupid for reading it, but not so much that it can't be enjoyed while lounging on a beach somewhere...or in my comfy green wingback chair.

I should warn you, fellow compulsive I-can-not-read-only-one-in-a-series, that there are 14 books in the Stephanie Plum series.

I should also say that this first book is set in Trenton, NJ. And she gets that part right. Trenton is gross and disgusting and depressing. (I'm sure there are lovely parts, I just never saw them. I went to college in a suburb of Trenton and even the gorgeous old mansions were all crumbly and surrounded by ickiness. Right downtown isn't bad, but everything else is not so nice.) This series is about a woman from Trenton who becomes a bounty hunter for her sleazy cousin, Vinny. It's not quite what she expects, but she survives the hard knocks.

Not bad for some summer reading, Broads. Or in between stuff, either. And yes, I will be reading the other 13 in the series. I promise I'll seek help someday for this bizarre compulsion. No, really. I will. Someday....

Queen of Swords

Just so everyone knows that there isn't some strange book club blog stalker out there with an odd title name, I am RicRacSally, AKA Dena--my sister and I (these days, I must confess, it is mostly my sister) write another blog with this title, so all blogs that I am involved in would have the same name!

Just finished "Queen of Swords" by Sara Donati. 'Tis part four of an ongoing saga, much like Jamie and Claire, about an early american family growing up in the forests of New York State. If you liked the Outlander series, this is a nice filler while waiting for Diana to hit us with her next 15 pounder.

The Miracle At Speedy Motors

I just finished this, the ninth book of "The #1 Ladies Detective Agency". The first one is still by far my favorite. I was amazed that a man could write such a wonderfully believable female character. Alexander McCall Smith has become one of my favorite authors because his books calm me and transport me to wherever the characters are. It is always a slower paced place with time for reflection and enjoyment of one's fellow people and surroundings. His books are wonderful to read if you are looking for something to take in while you have a few minutes of quiet in your day or want to enjoy a chuckle before bed. They won't keep you up at night, but they will make you smile often.

Hi all. I've just finished the first three books in the Saxon Chronicles (starts with Lords of the North) by Bernard Cornwell and thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of swordplay and pillaging during the reign of Alfred the Great. I'm in a medieval historical fiction rut and loving it.

Also, in a medieval fantasy vein, the new George R. R. Martin Song of Fire and Ice book, Dance with Dragons, is supposed to come out in September, so there's plenty of time to read the first four books in that series in anticipation. :)

Happy reading....I miss you all.
Amy