2014

Reading In September

2014, Books in Bed, Reading /

Hell.

It was a children’s books/non-fiction kind of month. Which makes sense. A total of 24 books which sounds better than it really was.

3 audiobooks (all for children)
5 from the Cybils shortlist
11 Non-fiction.
1 adult fiction (which is not something I usually mention because duh but in this case, have to mention it since I really read so little this month.

I’m also still catching up a bit from the books I read with JMP while he was here. Since I haven’t been able to blog them, I’m going to count them in October even though we read them in September. It would be too complicated to do otherwise.

I really need to catch up on the book blogging… that’s my real October goal, I think?

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The Big Tiny

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I’m fascinated by tiny houses and the people who live in them. I’d like a tiny house except I wouldn’t because gah, tiny! I enjoyed The Big Tiny and I was all the sad there at the end. Sniff.

Maybe we could build a tiny house and let people come and stay in it and we could stay in it occasionally, but we aren’t carrying any damn dogs up to the loft to sleep. That’s just nuts.

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Again with the Perennials

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

More books about perennials and perennial vegetables — leftover from when TW and I were talking about gardens and perennials and well, umm, vegetables.

I really liked both of these books — much better than the others I read last month (or was it July?) Perennial Companions was supper pretty and had lots of interesting ideas for garden designs. All the pretty gardens. And, How to Grow Perennial Vegetables was awesome because it had a lot of ideas for plants that would grow well together, tons of charts about the types of root systems and the plants that are good for the soil or good for bees etc. I liked those charts a lot.

I think I’m done reading about perennials now.

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4 Children’s Books

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites /

Here are four books we read while JMP was here. All four were winners.

My Big Truck Book is a very big board book with a lot of trucks. Which means it was obviously a hit with JMP. Rough & Tough Tractors is a cute little book in the shape of a tractor wheel. Jenn ad-libbed when she read this one which means you always have to talk about the poop and the shovel and the bugs on the grill when you read it. Heh.

Because ThatGrandma’s dance party was such a big hit, I decided we needed some books about grandmas dancing — I ordered Dancing with Grandma and
Let’s Dance, Grandma. He liked them both.

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Mambo In Chinatown

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

Please don’t let the fact that it took me six weeks to read Mambo In Chinatown scare you off from reading it. Jean Kwok is wonderful and this book was terrific — the slowness of my reading was related entirely to JMP’s visit + this stupid cold that won’t go away.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book and I found myself wanting to watch ballroom dancing videos.

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Two Children’s Audiobooks

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature /

I’m still playing catch up with the books from JMP’s visit. I may never catch up…

We were listening to kids’ music on iTunes radio and I asked Jenn if she’d ever gotten JMP an audiobook. She hadn’t, so I reserved a couple from the library.

The Little Red Hen was fine… it came with a book that he enjoyed flipping through. You could just listen to the story straight through or you could listen to a version that had a signal to “turn the page”. I think he mostly enjoyed the music that played when each animal said “not I…”

The one I (we?) liked more was The Gingerbread Boy and Other First Tales — because more stories!

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Two Non-Fiction: Perennials!

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

When I checked out that cool flower gardening book, TW suggested we plant perennial vegetables so I reserved a ton of books about perennials of all sorts, but primarily veggies. I read two last week (or was that the week before?) Perennial Vegetabls from Artichokes to Zuiki Taro and Perennial Companions. Both were interesting — The first was super interesting but TW kept talking about “invasives” and crap so I think she was pretty much boycotting most of the veggies I found most interesting lol. The latter was… just ok. Kind of pretty but not super useful.

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2 Non-Fiction for Grandparents

2014, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Non-Fiction /

I impulsed picked a bunch of books from a Grandparents’ Day display at the library. The two non-fiction were Grand Activities: More Than 150 Fabulous Fun Activities for Kids to Do with Their Grandparents and Kids and Grandparents: An Activity Book.

The first was… not good. It was primarily things that kids can do with PARENTS in relation to the child’s grandparents or things to do and send TO grandparents. Not what I was looking for at all.

The latter was a nice enough book if you need help thinking about old-fashioned games and activities to do with kids. One thing that was interesting to me was thinking about the fact that so many of these activities are really REALLY old-fashioned. It won’t be long before grandparents have never done any of these activities as kids… which leads me to wonder what the next book of old fashioned fun for grandparents and grandchildren will look like. If I had more time or inclination, I’d write that book, lol.

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