Oh look, another book by a blogger I love! I’ve been reading A Bowl Full of Lemons for a very, very long time. So of course I was going to read her book, The Complete Book of Home Organization.
Like her blog, her book is super pretty and useful. I enjoyed it quite a lot. And, I even re-organized my kitchen a little bit after reading the first few pages on kitchen organization.
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Look at me finishing another book! I’m not sure it 100% counts though since I started reading The Gap of Time right before we leave Illinois. I only got about 50 pages into it because the beginning was slow and I hated all of the people and also because the last week before we moved was NUTS.
I like Winterson enough that I was willing to check it out from the library again and keep going. I’m glad I did. It will never be my favorite Winterson novel and I’m not really a fan of ‘The Winters Tale’ but I did end up enjoying the book and it really was the first 50 pages that were rough.
(I also like the video game idea… that’s pretty interesting. Someone should build that game.)
Look at me finishing another book. Yay me. Go me! Unfortunately, it took me a good two weeks to read an incredibly short book. But, it could be worse. Anyway…
During a really quick trip to the library, I spotted Wilkie Collins: A Brief Life on the shelf and grabbed it. This was not the kind of book I should have been choosing (which is why it took me weeks to read it) but I did because I love Wilkie Collins.
To be clear, I love “The Woman in White” and I have a complicated (ahem) relationship with “The Moonstone.” I’ve read TWiW multiple times and would love to read it again. (In fact, while I was reading this book I decided I should LISTEN to TWiW on audio because I’ve never done that. Hi TW, sorry… lol.)
This biography was… good. Not great. It was a little dry and I’m not sure the author really likes Collins very much. (Weird, right?) Whatever. I enjoyed it. (And, besides listening to TWiW on audio, I’m going to spend some time reading all of Collins’ books — I’m surprised by how many I haven’t read at all.)
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My friend Somer wrote a book. It’s horror, which makes sense because Somer loves to be scared and loves to scare people. I also enjoy reading horror novels so I was extra excited to buy Vicki Beautiful.
Until chapter two.
Good grief, Somer! Did you have to go there? REALLY? That was the most horribly awesome chapter, EVER.
It was so horribly awesome that I wasn’t sure I could continue. But I did — and then I couldn’t stop reading because OMG, really? REALLY???? NO WAY! OMG.
And as I got closer and closer to the end, I was more and more afraid about what was going to happen at the end.
Yep. That’s what I thought would happen.
OMG, Somer. REALLY?????
Totally awesome but shudder. It still makes me queasy just thinking about it.
Look! I finished a book! It took forever, which is ridiculous because Home is Where My People Are should have been a quick read, just like reading through the archives of a blog — because that’s pretty much what the book felt like. (Probably because I read BooMama’s blog for years and years.) But, my life is still not “normal” — did you know I have a new grandson? And, a new house? And, we’re having a housewarming party? And, and, and…
Anyway, I enjoyed Sophie’s book. This might surprised you because I’m not a religious person AT ALL but I do enjoy a good memoir. I sure wish our library had this in large print because I do believe TW’s mom would love Sophie. Maybe I’ll buy it for her for her Kindle. Yea, I’ll do that. Someone remind me.
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We were in desperate need of audiobooks after we got to Florida so I just plucked one randomly from the shelf. Hyacinth Girls.
Oh boy, depressing.
Teen girls, man. Teen girls. And, teens in general.
Just when I think it can’t get any worse, it does.
I read six books in May, which is a lie since one of those books I actually read in April and didn’t blog it in time for the end of month recap. Another one of those books we listened to on audio and had about half of the last disc to go before the end. So, yea. Reading in May sucked as much as all of the other months — probably more since one of the books this month was really crummy and I should have just quit it.
I cannot wait to get into more of a normal routine so that I can start reserving books at the library that I actually want to read rather than just grabbing any old thing from the shelves at our libraries.
Total: 6
1 audiobook
1 Cybil Challenge
1 Ya
1 Middle grade fiction
1 non-fiction
I should have quit The Photographer’s Wife. I didn’t care about a single one of the characters. It moved so darn slowly that I just couldn’t stick with it for more than a chapter at a time. Ho hum.
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When it was time to leave Chicagoland, we were on the last disc of the audio version of Dumplin’. Grrr. So frustrating, particularly since it wasn’t available on Overdrive or Hoopla. HMPH.
But, we got lucky because the first thing I did when I picked up my Alachua County Library card was to head for the audiobooks and guess what was there waiting for us? DUMPLIN’!
Woot.
We finished it today. It was awfully cute but it kept giving me Dolly Parton earworms. (Also, I would have liked to know who won, darn it.) And, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t expect the Willowdean in the beginning of the book to be the Willowdean in the middle of the book. And, I can’t decide if that’s good or not good.
I really don’t like it when teenagers have their acts TOO much together. It doesn’t ring true. So when the book started and Willowdean had her act together, I was skeptical. And for awhile there, I thought maybe the shift that seemed to occur was too big of a shift. But, as I thought more about it – it made more sense to me that she would have started to struggle more, or admit the struggle, with her body image as she got older, had to deal with changes in her friendships, relationships with boys, and the loss of her aunt. Makes total sense. I think.
Remember when I said we didn’t have any books because they’re all in boxes and because we didn’t have library cards? And also that TW bought some books at Wild Iris on Independent Bookstore Day? Well one of the books she bought was The Forever War which is amusing because I’m pretty sure we already own it. I also highly supported the purchase since Unca Joe was at Wild Iris to sign books and now we have a signed copy. Woot!
So TW immediately started reading it because she was desperate for books and because Unca Joe, obviously.
When I finished with a couple of books, it was my turn to reach for The Forever War at which point TW said, “Why are you reading that, you won’t like it.”
Yes, she actually said that.
My response was to remind her that I’ve already read it before and her response was that I still wouldn’t like it.
It’s at moments like this that I have to question why it is that we live together. I mean really? I’ve read it before. It’s Unca Joe. It’s THE gd FOREVER WAR. You’re really going to tell me I won’t like it? Whatever. (And I’m still rolling my eyes almost a week after she said this. I’m rolling my eyes so hard that I now I have a headache.)
So anyway. I re-read The Forever War and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Except, I don’t really like Science Fiction hahahaha, and this means that when there’s a lot of stuff about physics and math and shit that makes absolutely NO sense to me and can cause me to question why in the hell I’m reading this damn book… I skim ahead. Because while I can suspend disbelief and enjoy the make-believedness of Fantasy, I can’t quite do that with SciFi because of the damn math/science. Because math/science is real and yet the kind of advanced math/science/lord-help-me-physics that’s in SciFi just freaks me the hell out.
Which is probably why TW tried to tell me I wouldn’t like The Forever War.
She was wrong, obviously, because I totes did. I was really glad to have re-read it since it’s probably been 25 or 30 years since I first read it. But, she’s right — I don’t like SciFi. (lol)
PS. Joe Haldeman can really write. Seriously. If you don’t like SciFi either, you should still read this because really – the writing is stellar.