What I'm Reading 06/07/2013

For the past 2 years I've been on this kick where I've wanted to read every book that's being turned into an upcoming movie. So this past summer/fall I read a handful of books that have come out on the big screen or are going to soon. Here is a sampling of what I read:

• Beautiful Creatures
• The Great Gatsby
• The Host
• One For The Money*
• The Descendants
• Admission
• Cogan's Trade
• The Wettest County In The World*
• Savages
• Life of Pi*
• The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
• One Shot*
• The Lucky One

The ones with stars are the ones I actually watched the movies of. I do subscribe to the school of thought that "The book is always better" so that might be why I haven't actually sat down and watched the movies. I will say "Life Of Pi" was the closest to having a better movie than book and that's just because of the graphics & visuals. It was so hard to visualize his boat, the ocean, the island, the animals while reading the book and the movie really helped it become real.

Currently I'm reading:

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - I'm early into this book, but so far it is intriguing and different from my usual novels. Rumor has it Oprah & Tom Hanks are linked to the movie rights of this book.

Gone Girl - Husband & I have been listening to this on CD, so we are more than halfway done, but we've been listening to it for a while. We only listen when we are together on long car rides, so the process has been slow moving. However, I'm really into this book and can't wait to find out how it ends and what all happens. I'll hold off on whether I recommend it or not after I finish it, but for now, I know that it's coming out as a movie and it was one of the Best Books of 2012. 

Cloud Atlas - This is one of the longest books I've ever read. It's so slow-moving and is taking me forever to get through. (this might be because I put it down for months at a time). I've had to return it to the library twice and pay late fines on it, so I finally just got it on my kindle. I've heard the movie is epic and the book is worth reading. (Not convinced yet, but I'll let you know if I ever finish it)

City of Bones - This is not the YA book that's being made into a movie, this is by Michael Connelly author of the Mickey Haller series (The Lincoln Lawyer series starring Matthew Mcconaughey). I really got into Connelly's books after reading the first Lincoln Lawyer book (& watching the movie) and through that series I jumped to his other series on Harry Bosch. He has written close to 20 books with this character and City of Bones is the 8th book in the series. Bosch is a great character, he can be a little dark, but he's a great cop and the plots/characters of each book are unique. 

What I'm Reading 02/02/2011

So far this year, I've completed 6 books.

3 of these were Harlan Coben books in the Myron Bolitar series. I went threw them pretty fast, they are really good and even a little funny for murder mysteries. Coben has a new book coming out in the series this spring so I wanted to finish the series before then. They were very good. Promise Me was probably the best out of the 3. I highly recommend these series for anyone who needs a good beach-read or a fiction story. 

Another book I read is The Copper Bracelet. It is the follow-up to The Chopan Manuscript. A series of authors got together to create both books. Jeffrey Deaver wrote the first chapter then passed it on to the next author who wrote another story. Then they continued to pass it on until Jeffrey Deaver got it back and finished the book at the end. It's a cool concept. Both books were pretty good. Not amazing, but still good. The cast of authors is pretty impressive so the books are worth reading. 

What's the verdict???

So I didn't quite make it to my revised goal of 70 books this year...I did make it to 68 though! That's incredible. I'm quite proud. I just loved reading all these books this year and feel like I've learned a lot. My new goal in 2011 is 50 to 80. I know that's quite a range, but who knows what this year will look like. I plan on reading a ton this summer and now with my kindle I crush through books while working out on the elliptical. I plan on keeping that up.

Here is how 2010 ended.
I did not finish Middlemarch. (65% done)
I did not finish the NIV bible. (55% done)

Finished Forgotten God and loved it. I liked it better than Crazy Love and I felt it really changed my perspective on things. I think it's the type of book i would consider reading again. I also think it's the type of book that I want others to read with me and talk about it. It has a lot of substance to it and gave me a lot to think about.

Black Rednecks & White Liberals was also awesome. It's a collection of different essays topics about race. It was really good and Thomas Sowell is really well informed. It was a slow read, but worth it.

The Hour I First Believed was intense. So much going on. I can't say if it's good or bad. It was a challenging story, but like all Wally Lamb books it's a little depressing. I would recommend it to people who liked his other books and people who like that genre of books (Oprah book club books), but not anyone who reads non-fiction.

Generation Kill was interesting. I think it gives a clear picture of the Iraq war. Now I don't know this for certain and I know some of the reviews made it sound as if the author was biased, but I think it's accurate. It was neat how Evan Wright got to be right in the middle of all the action and you got to see what was happening through the eye's of the marines. So that's what made it interesting. To be honest it's 384 pages of similar things. Mortars, shooting, snipers, etc. But it was worth reading.

Faith Tango was a little cheesy and not what I wanted out of the book. I wanted it to teach me more about spiritual growth and it really just focused on marital issues. I wasn't trying to read a marriage book. I wanted something different. But the couple seems sincere and I appreciate their efforts.

Financial Peace was great. I've read it before and what really made it great was the class & the dvd series, not so much the book. I recommend the book, but only if you go through the DVD series.

I also read The Final Detail in 2010. That's #6 in the Myron Bolitar series. Funny, as usual and a quick read.

So far this year I've finished Darkest Fear, which was #7 in the Myron Bolitar series. Good stuff, as always.

I've also finished The Roots of Obama's Rage by Dinesh D'Souza. This was great. D'Souza & Michael Lewis are my favorite others of all time. The book was very informative and had a lot of supportive details. Definitely worth reading. It wasn't a biased Obama-bashing book, it was an objective, rational book that discussed Obama's history, childhood, and his presidency. Worth reading.

1 Month Left

So there is only 1 month left in 2010. Even though I already accomplished my goal of 50 books in a year. I set a new one to try to do 70 this year. That comes out to be 10 more this month. I know, I know, it's crazy.  But here is the breakdown...

1. Forgotten God...it's an audiobook (that still counts!) and i'm already 33% done, I figure I will finish it on one of my walks with Schmuffin or my trip down to Myrtle Beach for New Year's.
2. Black Rednecks & White Liberals...I'm 75% done...it's a hard read, but if I read a little bit each day I'll finish in a couple weeks.
3. The Hour I First Believed...this is by Wally Lamb. I really liked his other 2 novels when I was in high school. But, they are hard to read. I don't want to say that they are dark or twisted. But they are in a way a little depressing. But usually they are uplifting and reflective. I think I'll read through it quickly though it is a big book. I'm 12% done.
4. Generation Kill...so interesting! I need to finish this for book club (we picked it like months ago). I'm 27% done.
5. NIV Bible...I'm SO determined to finish this. I don't want to rush through it though. If I don't finish it by the end of the year, I'm ok with that. I do have to read like 6 chapters a night to finish. I'm halfway done with it so far. 
6. Faith Tango...I should be able to finish this by the end of the week, I only have 92 pages left.
7. The Final Detail...I'm 100 pages in, I'll easily be able to finish this by the end of the month. So funny. I love the Myron Bolitar character. He had this funny monologue about the song from Sound Of Music, "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things." He was like, "whiskers on kittens??? Really. That's one of your favorite things. Raindrops???" I found it comical mostly because Grandpa Fisher was watching it over Thanksgiving and it made me think of it again. 
8. Middlemarch....UGGHHH. This book is so long. I'm 54% done and I need to read a lil bit each day to finish. Like 2% a day. 
9. Financial Peace...This is the 2nd time I've read this book. It's a quick read. I haven't been keeping up with the book in accordance with the Financial Peace Class/Video Series that we're doing with our small group. But I'm confident I will finish this book by the end of the month as well. 
10. In 50 Years We'll All Be Chicks...I haven't started this yet, but it's by Adam Carrolla and I'm sure it's hysterical and I have a feeling it will line up with my conservative values. We'll see..

What I'm Reading 11/15/2010

My job is getting in the way of my leisure time. Don't you just hate when that happens??? I just haven't found the time to read as much as I've liked this fall. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving & Christmas Break. I plan on doing a ton of reading to finish up the year. In the past week and a half, I was able to finish The Twelfth Card by Jeffrey Deaver, One False Move by Harlan Coben, & Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen.

Ice Cold was THE BEST book in the Rizzoli & Isles series. So good. I read the first 50% of the book in one night. It was suspenseful and genuinely scary. I was so creeped out -- the thought of being trapped in a snowstorm of an abandoned cult community where there may or may not still be people or there may or may not be reminisces of a mass suicide -- that is some freaky stuff. Great book. Highly recommend it if you are a murder mystery junky like myself.

One False Move w/ Myron Bolitar - always funny, always a good read.

Twelfth Card was also entertaining and had some good twists. I never go wrong with a Lincoln Rhyme novel.

I just started Faith Tango & Generation Kill. Faith Tango is an anti-legalistic view on devotions for couples. Generation Kill is the book we picked for book club months ago that I only started getting around to reading. It's a true account about a reporter who follows a group of recon marines in the Iraqi War. It's a long book and might take me a while to get to, but it's interesting so far. It's also really interesting to think back to 2002 when the war started, when we had a different president, and what was going on in my life. It's weird because I can remember sitting on a friend's sofa watching the coverage on TV on Free Rita's day. We were discussing why we thought the war was sad, but necessary. I can remember texting my husband (back then we were just friends) and commenting on it. So it's weird to be reading this book and seeing the attacks on Baghdad from their perspective. It's surreal.

The Four Loves

Approximately 6 years ago I purchased the audiobook, The Four Loves by CS Lewis on iTunes. (it's an original recording so it's CS Lewis's voice) I tried listening to it while I went for walks but always zoned out or couldn't understand what he was saying. So it just sat there on my iPod for years. Recently, I tried listening to it again on one of my many car rides to Myrtle Beach. I've matured a lot and have grown a lot in these past 6 years and have to say I'm so glad I picked it up again. Maybe with what I know now I can connect to this book in ways that I couldn't 6 years ago. It is still hard to get through, just the way he talks/writes and it's always hard for me to listen to books on tape, period. He offers a critique of each of the four types of loves described in the bible. Storge which is affection. Phileo which is friendship. Eros is the "being in love" like we know it in a romantic relationship, not necessarily a lustful or sexual love. And lastly we have agape which is the most charitable form of love. Lewis believes this is the love that should be unconditional and the way God loves. It was an interesting book, I learned a lot. It challenged me in some ways and it was a nice expansion on the different types of relationships in my own life and how I view love.

Murder Mystery Junky

Now that school has started my brain has just been fried. Dealing with kids all day, when I come home I don't want to think all day. I just want to relax and read. So I've been defaulting to mystery books and beach-read books. I finished The Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen on Monday night and picked up Twelfth Card by Jeffrey Deaver last night. (I had put it on hiatus). Don't get me wrong, they are both good books and well written. The Tess Gerritsen series that inspired the Rizzoli & Isles tv show is fantastic. Can't wait to read the last one! But they are "easy reads" compared to Middlemarch or Black Rednecks & White Liberals. I'm learning a lot more with these last two, but moving very slowly through them. I'm convinced I'll finish these and the bible by 2011.