Time is running out

So time is running out and i've only read 18 books so far this year. I'm not gong to give up. I'm going to try to read a few more before the end of the year. also, I'm going to try again in 2010. Maybe that will be my year.

Book club has been awesome.

What I'm Reading 09/09/09

Wow. School has started, but I've still made time for reading. Hurray! I love having a couch in my classroom that I can just crash on. Spent the weekend in Nashville, got a lot of reading done on the plane, was able to finish The Cold Moon. I'm now switching gears with my book genre. I went from mystery to fantasy. I loved Brian Jacques as a kid. I can distinctly remember when he came to speak at my elementary school. He said that he always loved reading and he would read whatever he could get his hands on, including the back of the cereal box if that's all he had. Last year I re-read Redwall, because that was my favorite book as a child. It was still good the 2nd time around. Now I'm planning on reading the whole series. I'll take breaks in between books, but I'd like to read them in chronological order. (Not by when he wrote them.) So I'm currently reading Lord Brocktree. We'll see if I can keep this momentum up once we get our cable back.

What I'm Reading 09/02/09

Just finished The Vanished Man. Two thumbs up. My fave Jeffrey Deaver so far. Lots of twists & never predictable.

Picked up another Lincoln Rhimes right after I finished this one, so i'm currently reading The Cold Moon. It's just as catching as the previous one. So I look forward to reading that while on vaca in Nasvhille, TN!!!

What I'm Reading 08/16/09

I just started The Vanished Man yesterday. I'm confident it's going to be a good one, but so far all of Jeffrey Deaver's books have been a hit for me, so i'm hoping to continue the trend.

I'm in the middle of reading Finally Alive with my summer small group from church. It's John Piper - he is good. I'm enjoying it, but I'll reflect more once I'm finished.

Getting ready to start Crazy Love in the fall, also with church.

I realized yesterday that I probably won't make my goal of 50 books this year, but am confident I can get to 26. So let's shoot for that and then work on 50 for 2010!!!

August Reading

Here are my "guilty pleasures" from my time in Myrtle Beach

Jeffrey Deaver's The Stone Monkey was a hit.

Tami Hoag's Cry Wolf was was better than ok, but not great. Her books are all starting to sound the same, emotionally wounded hero (or heroin) carrying around baggage from the past has one last shot at redemption & love when they stumble upon a murder in their hometown. Makes for a good read, but somewhat predictable.

Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously however, was AWESOME!!! I laughed out loud, I got emotional, I got inspired. I'm in love. (I haven't been this excited about a book since Twilight!) Last year my sister-in-law & I wrote a blog about running our first marathon, so I could relate to what Julie Powell went through -- The uphill battle of accomplishing the impossible. Plus her freak outs and spazzes remind me of myself. Plus I love the relationship with her hubby. Great read. Excited to see the movie as well. It's great that she became a writer after starting her own blog and i'm interested in reading her next book: "Cleaving"

Myrtle Beach is my happy place

I had the opportunity to spend several weeks this summer in Myrtle Beach. I was able to accomplish a lot of reading during this time. I spent my days by the pool, lounging at the ocean's edge in a beach chair, on the front porch soaking up the heat, on the screen porch in the back enjoying the sounds of summer, or on the coach enjoying the cool AC most of all. But during all these I always had a book in my hand. It was great. Now, i must be honest, I really want to read books that are going to stretch me and teach me things. I usually try to read books that educate me on politics or Christianity or whatever i'm interested in at the time. But when you are at the beach, you just want to rip through a "beach read" so I have to confess that is what I mostly did. Here are my guilty pleasures from June...

When coming back from San Diego (after running 26.2 miles) by plane I stopped off in one of the gift shops to pick up an "easy read", I came across Dark Horse by Tami Hoag and wanted to give it a shot. I had finished Kill The Messenger by her last Christmas and liked it, so I thought I would like Dark Horse as well. I managed to finish it in 2 days. It was a good read.

Meanwhile, I asked my mom to pick up some books from the library for me and I requested "anything by Tami Hoag". [Why did I ask my mom to go to the library for me, you ask? Why couldn't I go myself? Well, it's a long embarassing story, and I will be happy to post about it soon.] I was happy to see she selected Alibi Man because that was a follow up to Dark Horse that I had read only 2 weeks before. She also picked up some Jeffrey Deaver for me. That is when I was introduced to Lincoln Rhymes a quadriplegics forensic scientist. Great stuff! The Broken Window was great, it had me guessing every step of the way. Plus it was fascinating how the killer uses cutting edge data mining techniques to stalk his victims. Just goes to show The Man is always watching.

Prior Bad Acts is prob the best of the Tami Hoag novels I've read but still follows the same pattern of most of her novels.

I don't read much Grisham, but I decided to give this one a try. King of Torts sucked. I knew all along how the book was going to end so i couldn't stand reading knowing full well what was going to happen. It was ineresting for the first part of the book at least.

Summer Reading

I was able to do some reading now, but not as much as I wanted. I was so excited when the new James Patterson came out. I love his "Women's Murder Club" series, I even watched it when it had it's own TV series for a millisecond. But I have to say 8th Confession was a disappointment. I even splurged and bought the $15 hard cover instead of waiting it to come out in paperback. I pretty much enjoy all James Patterson, especially this collection, but I wasn't feeling it. It was unmemorable. It wasn't bad, his books never are, but it wasn't WOW.

I may try to squeeze in Swimsuit before the school year starts. However, it just doesn't feel right unless I'm reading it pool side.

Disaster

So, i'm a little behind in blogging - but that's only because I fell incredibly behind in my reading. I've only read 7 books, and I probably should have read 25 by now. Oops. So maybe if I just read a ton this summer (now that school is over!) or a ton this week (since i'll be on vaca!) I can catch up. I'll let ya know...

What's in store for February

   

Done & Done

So I've officially finished 5 books in 5 weeks. I'm on track to read 50 this year. But, alas, I probably compare every boring, education, slow-moving book I read to twilight. I finally finished Breaking Dawn this morning. Thank goodness for snow days!!! (Or as one of my students likes to call it, Barking Fawn.) I'm finally finished with the series. I've been raving about the series since I started but I guess I feel like Twilight has been my guilty pleasure but I don't think i really need to feel guilty about it. I get it, vampires probably go against my religion, the church may frown upon these books, but in reality, that's not what the books about. They aren't smutty or or inappropriate. In fact, they have a lot of good moral lessons in them. And the book isn't about a bunch of blood-sucking vampires, it's a love story and a really good love story at that. Only taking 2nd place to my own. :-)

What I'm Reading 01/26/09

We're going to finish up Velvet Elvis at The Living Room this week (that is unless it gets canceled due to the 4-8 inches coming tomorrow night) and it's bittersweet. I'm sad that it's wrapping up, but exciting to see what's next. I think I've learned, but more so I feel like it's helped me describe better what I've understood in my heart all along. 

I started The Truth Of Catholicism and i'm soooo bored. It makes me want to read more Twilight ;-) Such quick reads! (one of my students is bringing in Breaking Dawn tomorrow!) I'm sure it'll get better, but right now my main focus is the differences in Catholicism and Evangelicals not the differences in Christianity and the rest of the religions, so I'm ready to get into those messy details. I think that's a few chapters away.

What I'm Reading 01/24/09

Yes! Finally finished with book three & happy to report about a happy ending. I was so worried about what was going to happen. Like, i said, i'm obsessed i'm attached to the characters. I'm starting The Truth of Catholicism. I'm hoping to be finished by Wednesday. I've decided to educate myself on stuff that I'm curious about, but don't know enough about to really support my thoughts. I'm going to read books on Catholicism, conservatism, homosexuality, education, etc. I want to be able to learn more so that I can talk to others about my view points with supporting evidence. I really want to grow this year into a smarter person.

Stress

All the stress in my life this past week has prevented me from reading as much as i've wanted to. With the end of the marking period & all the fundraising i've been staying up too late. I start to read and fall asleep before I get too far. As I read Ecclipse, I start to get nervous. I'm at the point in the book where everything is building towards this final battle. I'm getting really really nervous. I think something is going to happen to Edward. If he dies, then I'll probably stop reading the series altogether. I can't understand how a 26 year old like me is so drawn to this teenage book. But I just love it!

Faith

Reflections on Velvet Elvis: It is important to have faith in God, but more importantly to know that God has faith in me...

The Shack

So I finished (finally) The Shack last night. I have mixed thoughts. It was good, but not great. It took me a while to see where the author was going. But I like where he went. It does make you think. What would it be like for me if I spent a weekend, with God, alone, in a cabin? What lessons would I learn? What would He show me? I only really ask these questions because I don't know if my experience would be anything like Mack's experience. I think he had a very warped view of God & religion. Not that anyone can really blame him, his life experience definetely shaped the view he had on God, the Father (Papa). But I guess part of the reason I didn't really like the book was because I don't think I took any new profound beliefs on God away from it. Not to say that I don't have more to learn or that my perception of God can't be 100% accurate. But I do know that God gives us a freedom and he loves us when we screw up, no matter what. He does not force His will on us because thats not what love is about. So I guess for me, based on my past, it wasn't hard for me to understand intimacy with God. But I think a lot of people struggle with seeing God as someone they can be up close and personal with. So i think in that way this was a good book. I think it reached a lot of people's hearts. I on the other hand was partly wanting to finish it up to move on to the next one. Judge me if you will, I'm okay with that...

All Twilight All The Time

So far, so good. I'm on track for a book a week. I may even finish my first 3 weeks of the new year tonight. Only 50 pages to go! However, thats going to be hard to do because the whole time I'm reading The Shack, i'll probably be dreaming about Eclipse.

Funny story, after my amazing Vermont weekend with The Living Room I couldn't wait to get my hands on the third twilight book. (Since when I did I become obsessed with Teen Fiction???) I asked my students in studyhall on Monday if anyone owned a copy. One of my students held up the book right then and there. However, she was still currently reading it. So I called around requesting people to bring it into school tomorrow. Hoping that someone would put an end to my misery soon. Well wouldn't you know that same student stayed up until 3 AM, finished the book, and remembered to bring it into me the next day. Awesome! I haven't had any time to read. I've been too busy with the return to work, Living Room last night, Team in Training stuff, etc. (oh and the return of 24! I heart Jack Bauer!)

I'm hoping tonight I can skip out of wings early and finish the shack (aka start Ecclipse)

Twilight

I had all these plans for all the non-fiction, educational, intellectual books I was going to read over the weekend. But that all went out the window when I was able to borrow the 2nd book in the twilight series from a co-worker. We went on a trip with The Movement to Killington, VT. We stayed in a sweet sweet cabin. While everyone was out enjoying the slopes a bunch of us stayed behind and enjoyed the day. I finished the book in 24 hours. Couldn't put it down. I'm not one for vampires. But the books are well written and I really enjoy trying to figure out what's going to happen next. I'm done with New Moon and looking forward to Eclipse. 

Obsessed

For some reason Moneyball has become one of my new favorite books. It's outstanding. I'm not really that huge of a baseball fan. But the book tells a great story. And I love looking at it from a statistical point of view. I find it fascinating. The way the GM of the Oakland A's looks at baseball compared to how the rest of the world looks at baseball is very different. I've found a new appreciation for math in the real world. And even though i won't give up my loyalty for the Yankees. I've come to appreciate the underdog. I wouldn't really consider them underdogs anymore.

What I'm Reading: 01/02/09

Happy New Year! I'm starting the new year off right! I finished Twilight on Christmas Eve, too bad that doesn't go towards my 50 books of 2009, it only took me a day and a half to read. I'm in the process of finishing up The Tragedy of Ameican Compassion & The Worm In The Apple. But I started 2009 by reading Moneyball. I'm halfway through it already! Next up: The Shack or What's So Great About Chrisitianity. I'll post some of what i've digested tomorrow.