Books in Bed

Trigger, Trigger, Trigger

3 Comments / Don't Read This, Non-Fiction /

The only thing I can say about Girls of a Tender Age is that is one trigger after another.  Wait, I can say one other thing and it isn’t good.  Why would anyone read this book? Why did I read it?  Bad guy abuses and/or rapes very young girls and kills one in the process.  There was no mystery involved, we knew right off the bat that this guy was bad and he did the deed (or several deeds).  There was no redeeming social commentary.  It was just a recap of this horrible story, plain and simple.  Nothing we haven’t seen for ourselves or read in a newspaper.  It was almost boring, it was so normal and that is probably what bugs me most.  Don’t read it.  There’s just no reason to do so.

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Farewell Legs

2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Mystery /

I’m officially moving the Aaron Tucker Mysteries to my favorites category. I thought Minivan was really amusing and A Farewell to Legswas equally amusing. OK maybe not equally, but pretty close. Remember, I just finished a Chris Moore book so anything I read immediately after that tends to be a let down. This wasn’t. It might have been the perfect book to read after A Dirty Job.

If you’re looking for an amusing mystery from the suburbs of Jersey, this is your series.

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Dirty!

6 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

Dirtyjobcovsm_1
Do you know what the worst thing is about reading a Christopher Moore book? Finishing it and knowing you’re going to have to wait far too long til the next one appears on the shelf. The man is brilliant. Totally and completely brilliant. Not to mention clever and funny.

A Dirty Job takes place in San Francisco and the Emperor is back with his loyal canine companions. A couple of other characters from Coyote Blue and Bloodsucking Fiends and are in there too. (For those who’ve read both of those books, A Dirty Job isn’t a vampire book so don’t pick it up thinking it is.)

Sigh, I want another Christopher Moore book to read. Tell me I’m not going to have to wait another year or {gasp} more!

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Whale Season

2006, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Fiction /

I heard or read that Whale Season was similar to Christopher Moore’s books. I reserved it at the library and was excited when the email notification for pick-up arrived in my mailbox. TW read it first and she said it was sort of “Fluke-like” but not. I started reading it last weekend, at the Synchro meet, and I loved the first 100 pages or so. Those were “Fluke-like” or “Sequined Love Nun-like” but from there it went downhill quickly. Downhill because it no longer read like a Moore’s books and it was just plain boring.

I’ve plopped this into my “don’t read” category because I don’t have a “don’t read if…” category. Don’t read this if you’re hoping to find more books like Fluke, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Coyote Blue etc… If I hadn’t read those, then I might have enjoyed Whale Season a bit more. But Christopher Moore has spoiled me. Whale Season just doesn’t have what it takes. Darn it.

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I am not ashamed

14 Comments / Meme, Reading Lists /

I’m participating in yet another list thingy, you know the routine – bold the books you’ve read, italicize those you might read, cross out the
ones you won’t, put an asterisk beside the ones on your bookshelves,
and place brackets around the ones you’ve never even heard of , only because I felt badly for M MV and you all know how I feel about her.  She thinks she’s the only book blogger who has read and is not ashamed of reading The DaVinci Code.  Well she’s not alone.  I read it.  I’m not ashamed.  I actually enjoyed it.  I know there are more of us lurking – come out of the closet and admit you’ve read it.  And if you’re really brave, you might even admit you sort of enjoyed it.  A little.  (And admit to having read Angels & Demons too)

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
* The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
* The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
* The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
* To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman)
* Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J. K. Rowling)
The Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
* Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (George Orwell)
Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
* The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon)
* Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
* Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
* 1984 (George Orwell)
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J. K. Rowling)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
*Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
* Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
* Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
* The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)
* Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Atonement (Ian McEwan)
[The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)]
The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
* The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
* The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
* Sula (Toni Morrison)
* Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coehlo)
* White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
* The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)

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The Wright 3

9 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

Robiehouse
We really enjoyed listening to Chasing Vermeer so I was very much looking forward to listening to The Wright 3. I am a Wright fan, TW is not so much, so that was an added bonus for me and not so much for her. We listened to it on the way to Lakeland on Friday and then on the way home on Sunday and finished it up today on the drives to and from work. It was good. Lots of fun and full of math and coincidences and art and mystery.

I would love to live in the Robie… as a kid I always preferred the Fallingwater house but now I think the Robie would be more interesting. It would probably drive me nuts before the first dust bunnies settled under the bed though.

Oh and speaking of coincidences… I didn’t realize Florida Southern was in Lakeland or that there were Wright buildings there… was it a coincidence or was there some hidden meaning… we didn’t find a talisman or a copy of The Invisible Man so probably just a coincidence…

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Anyone But YOU!

5 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites /

Anyone But You was pretty darn amusing – for a mindless bit of chick lit for 40ish women. Particularly mindless chick lit for 40ish women who like dogs.

Nothing new or unusual happened in the book. Older woman meets younger man. Older woman and younger man are both attracted and have to figure out how to make a move, when to make a move and why to make a move. Moves were made and then older woman tries to screw it up because she’s sure the younger dude couldn’t love her old flabby body and younger dude tries to screw it up because he’s sure the older woman wants a more high money/high profile kind of life. The dog, of course, pretty much saves the day – with a little help from the dysfunctional brother and dysfunctional best friend.

Even though there wasn’t anything “new or unusual” it was fun and I like fun.

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Don Aslett

4 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I didn’t know who Don Aslett was til I somehow wound up with one of his books last month. Clutter’s Last Stand somehow ended up on my library reserve list – I probably saw it mentioned on a blog or in a magazine article or something. Whatever the reason, it came home with me and TW talked about this guy like he was famous or something. Apparently he is if you’re into cleaning tips and stuff. I am not that kind of person sooooo I obviously have never heard of him.

I skimmed that first book and returned it pretty quickly. It was booorrinnngggg. But, I reserved another. Weekend Makeover – ack, that one was a wee bit boring but it is also dangerous. It makes me want to get up and throw things away. A lot of things. In fact if anyone who lives in my house notices something that belongs to them is missing – it might be because I got throw it away fever because of this book and ummm. threw. it. away.

I would really, really, REALLY like to stay home one weekend soon and get rid of about half of the stuff in this house. Looking at the calendar, we might have a stay home weekend sometime around the end of September. Maybe.

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Booking Through Thursday

1 Comment / Meme /

Booking Through Thursday

This was suggested by Mary.

Connect any six books in your library to each other by any way you want. One book will remind you of another because the author’s name is similar, a fictional character shows up in someone else’s book, another author is talked about by characters in a book, maybe the same friend recommended both books, or whatever. Books from a series count as one entry in your list.


OK I went into the office, faced the two big shelves, closed my eyes and reached out for a book. (1) Epitaph for an Angel by Lauren Maddison is a Connor Hawthorne Mystery. This reminds me of (2) Sleeping Bones, a Kate Delafield Mystery by Katherine Forrest because they’re both lesbian detective novels. Sleeping Bones reminds me of (3) Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold which is not in any way shape or form a lesbian detective novel but it has bones in the title. Lovely Bones reminds me of cornfields which leads me to (4) Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres because the kids in the book lived out in the country, and there was a lot of child abuse in that book. Jesus Town leads me to (5) Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver because it’s the first “Christian Missionary” type book that pops into my head. Though the two are pretty different, they’re connected in my mind. From PWB I’m reminded of Mental Multivitamin and my surprise at seeing her post that said she had not read it and anytime I think of MMV I think of (6) Night by Elie Wiesel because her blog is where I heard of Oprah’s choice for the HS Essay Contest.


There you go – my six – odd but sort of fun.


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Weird, Weird, Weird

4 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction /

I wish someone had told me that the first 20 or so pages of Emotionally Weird were so insane and boring… getting through those first 20ish pages was hell. (I should start reading the Amazon reviews for these things) It took me 10 days to get through that section and then just a little more than a day to finish the rest of the book.

It was, indeed, emotionally weird – and weird in general. Pretty amusing and fun little book. Too bad about the beginning, though.
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