The book meme–page 56 November 19, 2008

Nessie tagged me for a book meme!
The rules are :

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST

My book is Web of Dreams by V.C. Andrews, and hot damn, I just blew right past page 56 while I was on the elliptical this morning!

“When she finally stepped out of her suite to attend the ball, I thought she looked stunning.”

As a standalone sentence . . .bor-ing.  I’m currently re-reading all of the V.C. Andrews books (since I read them WAY before I was mature enough to handle them!), and I have a general idea of what happens in the rest of this book.  And since this is the fifth book in the Casteel series but was written as a prequel, I know of the wicked goings-on that happen with Jillian (the “she” referenced in the sentence) and just how important her beauty is to her.

So now I’m passing this on to three fellow bloggers:

TheAngelForever

Keeping the Dream Alive

Mrs. Sour Britches

Jump in if you want to, and make sure to comment or link back to let me know you’re playing!

100 books in 2009 November 18, 2008

I’m doing this challenge–read 100 books in 2009.  I’ll be updating my list HERE.   Want to do it too?  Go sign up and let me know you’re in!

I read a lot, although 2008 is the first year that I’ve kept track of just how much (thanks, goodreads!).  I should end up at about 150 books this year, although it irks me to read back over the list and see that there were only a few that I really loved, there were a lot that were entertaining, but there were some that were just a big time-suck.  So in 2009, I’m going more for QUALITY instead of just sheer QUANTITY.  I have to learn to put down a book I’m not interested in, to just walk away. 

Come join in on the fun with me!

Lead me not into temptation July 11, 2008

When Mike and I were trying to save money when our house was being built, we started referring to it as OFS.  OFS stands for “Official Financial Shutdown”.  OFS meant that there’s no frivolous spending–no take out food, less nights out with friends for drinks and/or dinner, no unnecessary expenditures.

Over the past few years, OFS has been kind of a running joke with some of our friends.  If we’re not going out with them, they’ll ask if we’re on OFS. 

Since we just took a somewhat-unplanned, somewhat-spontaneous jaunt across the country, I said to Mike that we need some OFS time to recoup.  We need to cool it for a little while and let the balance on our savings account get back to where it was, and sock some more cash away for emergencies (although I counsider a trip to Vegas to be an emergency!). 

The thing that’s hardest for me to not spend money on while we’re on OFS is shoes is books.  I love books.  I love to read.  I somehow accumulate books.  I walk into a bookstore and walk out with a big bag.  I open the newspaper and my eye is drawn to an announcement for a used book sale.  I walk into Target and walk out with 2 books, but not the toilet paper I went there to get.  It’s like I go into a trance or something.  Maybe I can blame it on alien abduction?

Mike was going to the Pirate game tonight with a friend that’s in from out of town (Pirate games and other sporting events are exempt from OFS, by the way.  They are NECESSARY).  I offered to drive him to the game and then pick him up because I knew that there was going to be an excessive amount of hops and barley consumed.  The stadium is about 45 minutes from our house in stop-and-go traffic.  That would mean 45 minutes there, 45 minutes back, and then repeat a few hours later.  A big waste of gas and time.  So my thinking was that since Mike wass having some “guy time”, I would have some “me time” and do something by myself close to the stadium instead of driving back and forth.  Healthier for the environment, healthier on my bank account at the gas pump, and healthy for me mentally.  So what did I choose to do?

Why, I went to a shoe store bookstore of course!  I actually thought about it earlier today, when I agreed to the drop-off/pick-up arrangement.  I scoped out two potential bookstores (both with adequate reading areas and comfortable chairs), looked them up online to see how late each was open, estimated the drive time and ease of access between each one and the stadium, and made my choice.  I grabbed the laptop, thinking it would be a prime opportunity for me to catch up on all of the online stuff I fell behind on in the past week.  I even brought MY OWN BOOK with me to read.  How wrong is that, to take your own book to the bookstore to read!?! I wasn’t going to the bookstore to BUY, I was going there just to vegetate and hang out and at the same time be in an atmosphere that I love.  I’m sure the bookstore would love to know that there are non-revenue generating patrons just milling about.

So now I’m here.  Surrounded by books, all of which look more appealing to me than the one I’m reading or the 258 that I own and haven’t read. Oh wait, two more came in the mail today thanks to bookmooch.  260 books?  Yup, I counted.  I counted because I wanted some justification other than OFS for not buying any new books.  And isn’t it enough that I have hundreds of books at home to read?  Isn’t that enough to keep me in my comfy chair in this bookstore, reading my own book, or stalking people catching up on my blog-reading?

No.

I want to check out the sale books, the newly-released books, the “look what’s hot now” section.  I want to get up out of my chair, and browse.  And browsing leads to buying.  And buying leads to me walking to the car with a bag of books.  Or two.

So instead, I’m typing this long rambling post about my bank account and my book addiction.  It’s keeping me in my seat.  Away from all of the books that I want to explore.  I feel like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Maybe just one bite book won’t hurt . . . .

Books I read so far this year March 31, 2008

I love to read.  This year has been a heavy reading year for me so far, between being sick and then being snow/ice-bound.  Once summer comes, the book-reading volume diminishes somewhat.

• The Time Traveler’s Wife–Audrey Niffenegger
• Stone Cold–David Baldacci
• Me Talk Pretty One Day–David Sedaris
• Outlander–Diana Gabaldon
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim–David Sedaris
• The Closers–Michael Connelly
• The Lovely Bones–Alice Sebold
• Dragonfly in Amber–Diana Gabaldon
• The Tenth Circle–Jodi Picoult
• Stalemate–Iris Johansen
• Where the Heart Is–Billie Letts
• American Psycho–Bret Easton Ellis
• Jack & Jill–James Patterson
• A Simple Plan–Scott Smith
• No One to Trust–Iris Johansen
• Voyager–Diana Gabaldon
• The Divide–Nicholas Evans
• Atonement–Ian McEwan
• The Brethren–John Grisham
• A Thousand Splendid Suns–Khaled Hosseini
• Water for Elephants–Sara Gruen
• Marley & Me–John Grogan
• Beautiful Lies–Lisa Unger
• Playground–Jennifer Saginor
• The Shape Shifter–Tony Hillerman
• The Fuck-Up–Arthur Nersesian
• The 6th Target–James Patterson
• Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress–Susan Jane Gilman
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, Indian and Indonesia–Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Innocent Man–John Grisham

That’s it.  My last list for March’s NaBloPoMo.  It was fun!

Next on my reading list March 17, 2008

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m an avid reader. Sometimes I get to the point that I feel overwhelmed with books to read. There’s so much I want to read about, so many authors I like, so many books that I own that I haven’t read yet. Definitely self-inflicted pressures, but I can’t help thinking about what I’m going to read next. Here’s the 10 that are on my mental to-read list:

Drums of Autumn–Diana Gabaldon
Memoirs of a Geisha–Arthur Golden
Duma Key–Stephen King
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil–John Berendt
My Sister’s Keeper–Jodi Picoult
Paint It Black–Janet Fitch
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography–David Michaelis
Serpent on the Rock–Kurt Eichenwald
The Complete Maus–Art Spiegelman
The Satanic Verses–Salman Rushdie

Addicted September 1, 2007

I stopped at a Barnes & Noble last night (yeah, I know, the exciting Friday nights I have).  I was by myself, about a hour away from our house and had some time to kill while my husband was at a fantasy football draft.

I love books.  I always have.  I won every damn summer book reading library contest throughout my childhood.  I can lose myself in a book and be totally oblivious to everything around me for hours on end.  I never get “tired” of reading.  I get tired of cleaning the house, but never tired of reading.  If you’d see my bookshelves and my perpetually dirty house and piles of laundry, you’d be able to fully understand.

But once I’m done with a book, I basically forget it.  Details and character names from a book I just finished will fade into the distance once I open the next one.  I may be able to recall general plotlines, but that’s about it.  Only few books have touched me and intrigued me to the point that I can describe the book to another person in terms more explicit than “Well, it’s OK, I guess.  But let me tell you about the book I’m reading RIGHT NOW.”

Because of my fascination with human perception, and because I was frustrated with not being able to ABSORB a book entirely, I started reading memoirs.  I’ve found that I’m able to retain more, relate more, and enjoy them more than your run-of-the-mill novel.  These are REAL PEOPLE.  And reading a certain memoir led me to that person’s blog, which led me to another person’s blog, which led me to another person’s blog, which eventually led me HERE.  So I like memoirs.

Where is this leading to and what does it have to do with my trip to the bookstore on a Friday night, you may ask?  At Kerflop’s suggestion, I decided to check out the first book in the Stephenie Meyer Twilight series.  How in the world had I not heard of these books before?  What rock have I been living under?  Really, I do need to get out more.  You would think that someone who spends the majority of every day on the computer and who loves books as much as I do would have once thought to check out a bestseller list or two.  I had seen the newest book in the bookstore, picked it up, saw that it was about vampires, and put it down because I don’t like fantasy and vampires do not interest me at all.

Anyhow, back to my point . . . After just reading “a page or two” of Twilight, I’ve found that I quickly discarded the library book that’s due back on Tuesday in favor of it.  I can not put it down.  Good thing I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person, because I bought all three of the books.  They don’t stand a chance.  I will sit here and read them all straight through, and I’m already thinking about how I’m going to start over again as soon as I finish the last page of Eclipse.  I DO NOT READ BOOKS TWICE.  EVER.  Harry Potter?  One trip through, and I haven’t even touched the new book yet.  It’s been put on the back burner (behind the library book that it looks like I’m going to have to renew).

You know why?  These people/vampires are REAL. To me, at least.  I will remember these books after they’ve sat on my bookshelf for years.  I will be able to describe them in detail to other people.  REAL, I tell you.  REAL. Memoirs of a vampire, in a way.  Thanks Kerflop!