Books in Bed

3 Hours In and a Mini-Challenge

2015, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon /

Oh boy. Three hours in and I’m all over the place, like I’ve never been before. This is weird.

I finished a non-fiction book about small fruit trees (168 pages). I’ve read a couple of chapters of a book on my Kindle (Boy, Snow, Bird), I’ve read another chapter of a non-fiction book I’d been reading before #readathon started (Lillian Gilbreth) and I’m 40 pages into Sisters of Heart and Snow.

Woo. Really not how I normally read at any time, much less #readathon. I’m also getting tired — I didn’t sleep well last night and have been up since 5am. I’m gonna need a nap, shortly.

But first, a mini-challenge! Seasons In Four Covers.

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall!

FullSizeRender(2)

3 Hours In and a Mini-Challenge Read More »

#readathon Begins with the Intro Meme

2015, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Reading /

Yippee! Another April, another #readathon. And I really, really need this #readathon. Too much work/life stress. In fact, I need it so much that I was sure #readathon was last Saturday until Friday at about 6pm when my mother Facebooked me confused because she thought it was the 25th, not the 18th. Hahaha. So we had a mini-fake-#readathon last Saturday. We called it a warm up for the real thing. Today is going to be awesome, except I woke up way too early and didn’t sleep very well, lol. I’m probably gonna end up having to nap, darn it. Enough of that, let’s get to the intro meme, shall we?

1) Still reading in Chicagoland. From my bedroom. With TW. And the dogs.

2) I’m most looking forward to read Sisters of Heart and Snow. #TeamMargaretDilloway for me!

3) This year we shopped for snacks a little differently than usual. Partially because we thought #readathon was last weekend and we needed to go to Costco. And, because we thought it was last weekend, Elly and the boyfriend were going to be here and needed different types of snacks than we do. So we hit up the Costco for some chips and dip and rootbeer and ended up with dried fruit and chocolate truffles and cheese and I don’t even know what else. Some of that we ate last weekend but a lot of it we saved for today. Hah

Then, we went to Mariano’s and bought some more snacks — special sodas, my favorite lucky charm donuts (which we ate last weekend and then went back to get more for today, haha.) We have gelato, and more stuff that we’ll never manage to eat in one day — which is amusing since we bought a bunch of this LAST weekend and didn’t manage to finish it all. Then we bought more and we’ll still never finish it all up. Hah.

4) Yea, I totally have to work on this particular line item for October’s #readathon. Something interesting about me… haha. Hmmmm. I’ve got nothing.

5) Oh, I did remember to find something new to say… I went back and counted up all of my #readathons. This is #10 for me. I’m going to go with last fall’s strategy and kicking it off with an easy book — a non-fiction gardening book and then I’ll dive into Sisters of Heart and Snow and then move along to an easy book, and then see if I can do a bit of alternating like that — finishing up, as usual, with a whole lot of children’s non-fiction. And now I’m going to stop typing and start reading.

Happy #readathon to everyone!

#readathon Begins with the Intro Meme Read More »

The Dragon Factory

2015, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I kind of love Joe Ledger but I’m having trouble separating the series from the Rot & Ruin series. I want to know if any of the people cross-over and it’s frustrating to not be able to figure that out. lol. I’m going to have to read the Rot & Ruin books and create a master character list or something before I read the next book in the series.

But anyway, The Dragon Factory — fabulous in the Joe Ledger sort of way. I had nightmares about people killing the Loch Ness Monster but I’m going to blame that on the cold meds I took right before I finished the book.

The Dragon Factory Read More »

Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule

2015, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Poop. I enjoyed Mrs Lincoln’s Dressmaker so I thought I’d probably enjoy Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule — and I did. Sort of. Mostly. Until the end.

It was more a story about the Grants, which I enjoyed, and less about Julia Grant and her relationship with her slave — particularly once Jule ran. And I waited and waited and waited for the two women to come back together and it never freaking happened. SO annoying.

Maybe it never happened. They really did never speak to each other again. But since there’s apparently so little written about it, and this was definitely a work of fiction, you’d think…

Whatevs. I’m trying to let it go. Moving on. Grrrr.

Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule Read More »

The Just City

2015, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I loved, loved, loved The Just City. I loved it a lot more than I ever loved Plato. TW says I prefer Plato fan-fiction over the real deal — I guess she’s right.

What I hated was the ending. Gah. It’s like the cliffhanger at the end of your favorite tv show and you have to wait months until the next season starts to find out who killed JR or something. Luckily, the next book is due in a couple of months. lol

The Just City Read More »

Lowcountry Boneyard

2015, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery, Women /

TW got Lowcountry Boneyard from Erica at Wild Iris when we were in Gainesville in February. It’s an advance review copy so I’m guessing she had just gotten it at the bookstore conference thing she’d been at right before we came to visit.

It’s the third book in a mystery series set in Charleston (and also in Greenville, oddly enough.) I often find myself picking apart books based in Charleston because they get things wrong and it bugs me. I thought that was going to happen with this one because the protagonist lives on a fake island and that should have bugged me. Turns out, it was a smart move. I can’t pick apart fake islands, heh. And, she got the important things right about Charleston and then made up some other stuff and it all worked for me.

Even the ghost part.

I liked it enough that I reserved the first book in the series and am looking forward to reading it during #readathon in a couple of weeks.

Lowcountry Boneyard Read More »

Greenglass House

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Greenglass House is from the Cybils shortlist and we listened to it on audio.

I had a little trouble settling into the story in the beginning because I didn’t particularly like Milo. Also all of the folks arriving at the Inn all at once made for a bit of confusion. Weird names, hard to keep people straight, but it all settled down and started making sense.

Even the ghost part. (Oddly, TW didn’t realize the ghost was a ghost until Milo did. I was surprised by that.)

I liked the mystery. I liked the role-playing game aspect. I liked the adoption storylines. I did not love the storyline that had Clem and Georgie trying to steal the guy’s heart. That bothered me. Which is probably the reason why I didn’t give the book 5 stars (TW asked me about that a couple of days ago and I couldn’t really tell her why… now I can. I really loved both of those characters until the reason they were both at Greenglass House came out. I didn’t like that. I didn’t think it was necessary. I don’t particularly want kids to read that and think that this is how young women behave. Or should behave. Or even consider behaving. That’s now how relationships work…)

Anyway. Good book. I enjoyed it.

Greenglass House Read More »

Reading In March

2015, Books in Bed, Reading /

Better month than I originally thought (particularly since I fell behind on blogging books… oh well, I’ll just add them to April and pad that month instead, hah.)

Total for the month: 18!

5 were from the Cybils shortlist
3 were graphic novels
2 were YA
1 was an audiobook
8 were non-fiction

I read some pretty good books in March. Huh. How’d that happen? (A couple of clunkers, too.)

Reading In March Read More »