Book Challenge 2005: February

[MamaBug]

Ok so here is the new thread for this month! We got so many wonderful entries in the last thread, that I look forward to getting some new ideas. My reading has stalled in the last few weeks, but I have been compiling a list of books to start this month off right!

Thanks to all those who post and lurk for joining me in this wonderful reading adventure!

[Meli65]

Subscribing....
I love this thread too. Am thrilled to be a part of it -- I am so much more intentional about my reading!

[MamaBug]

Me too. I am going to try and really get more done this month. I have been such a slacker! I will never reach my goal if I keep this up. My only saving grace will be summer when we go to the lake and the kids let me have HOURS to read while they play :LOL

[Astrid]

Just subscribing!

Thanks to this thread, I have so many books on my hold list at the library! I can't wait to read them

[MamaBug]

Your very welcome! I am glad that so many ppl seem to enjoy this. I know that it is nice to discuss books as well, but I for one don't really have the time to do that. I like that this is a place where I can come and browse titles and content and then put them on hold right over the computer.

[konamama]

back for another round - on #4 and liking it - will write more when I have finished it.

[annettemarie]

So, what exactly do we do here?
Annette

[Indigo73]

#21 The Devil's Door by Sharan Newman

Stayed up way too late last night to finish this one. But it was so good. I am definitely going to have to find some of Sharan's non-fiction as well as gobble up all of her books in this series. If you like medievel history and mysteries - a must read.

From Publishers Weekly
Countess Alys of Tonnerre, victim of a brutal beating, is barely alive when her husband Raynald brings her to the Abbess Heloise at the convent of the Paraclete in medieval France. Young Catherine LeVendeur, who helps care for Alys, is disturbed by scars that attest to the woman's prior mistreatment. Upon the Countess's death, the Paraclete inherits a small piece of unimpressive land, which sets off a furor: Raynald claims the convent stole the property, and the prior of a nearby monastery makes a handsome offer for it. Catherine maintains her intense curiosity about Alys's unhappy end even through the arrival of her betrothed, Edgar of Wedderlie, with Peter Abelard; after Catherine and Edgar's wedding, the pair travel to Troyes and, at Heloise's request, search for information on the mysterious bequest. Catherine soons stumbles on another mystery: the discovery of a headless corpse that may ignite the anti-Semitism that is running high during this Easter season of A.D. 1140. With this meticulously prepared work, Newman ( Death Comes as Epiph any ) adroitly crafts a puzzle in which the intriguing medieval material, providing much more than mere background, informs the entire novel with a vivid sense of past and guides the responses of the engaging, lively cast.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

[MrsMissy]

I finished reading "Bergdorf Blondes" today. Does that count? I started it on Sunday.

My review:
I kept reading it thinking "This is so stupid! Why am I reading this? What happens next?" Then I couldn't put it down. Not a positive review, but not a negative review.

[MamaBug]

Annette. Is started this thread as a way to set a goal for myself for the year to read a set amount of books. This is basically a way for us to keep track, tell others about the books we read and find some new books to read ourselves. What most ppl do is post the title and author of the book and then a summary of it, and then whether they liked it or not and why. I usually post the summary from amazon because it makes it easier on me :LOL

Some ppl have set a goal for themselves, like mine is 120 for the year, others just want to come to see what books others are liking and also to give recommendations of their own. Last year I only started the thread at the end of the year. And we got ALOT of responses, so we all thought that since we are starting again in January that we would start a new thread for each month. If you look you will see there is also a thread with the same title, but for January.

MrsMissy, yes of course it counts. I usually add to my list the day I finish the book. BTW I have been wanting to read that book and forgot about it, added it to the list today! Thanks!

[annettemarie]

Great! I'm in.

I have no goals, though.

Annette

[chefkath]

I'm going to stop lurking and join this thread. This will be fun - I love hearing about what every is reading and getting ideas for new books.

I don't have a goal for myself, but I read as often as I can - usually an hour or so at night after the kids are in bed. I usually have a couple of books going at a time, since I have a need to match my reading material to my mood. And my mood changes pretty often these days! Right now I'm reading America (the book) and Einstein Never Used Flash Cards. Next up: The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer.

[MamaBug]

OMG Kathleen I do the same thing. Right now I have 5 books going and I only read what the mood calls for!

Welcome to both of you!

[Nosy]

#5 Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent

I know lots of people have already read this, but this is the best book I've read in a while! I'm a birth junkie, though. I loved this book-great stories.

From Amazon: "Each time she knelt to "catch" another wriggling baby -- nearly three thousand times during her remarkable career -- California midwife Peggy Vincent paid homage to the moment when pain bows to joy and the world makes way for one more. With every birth, she encounters another woman-turned-goddess: Catherine rides out her labor in a car careening down a mountain road. Sofia spends hers trying to keep her hyper doctor-father from burning down the house. Susannah gives birth so quietly that neither husband nor midwife notice until there's a baby in the room.


More than a collection of birth stories, however, Baby Catcher is a provocative account of the difficulties that midwives face in the United States. With vivid portraits of courage, perseverance, and love, this is an impassioned call to rethink technological hospital births in favor of more individualized and profound experiences in which mothers and fathers take center stage in the timeless drama of birth."

[konamama]

I loved THE BABY CATCHER - such an interesting book in many ways - worth reading for anyone who is into the "birth shelf" as my husband calls it :-))

[Nosy]

Yeah, I have a "birth shelf", too. BTW, we got married (planned elopement) in Kona...awesome place!

[Suzannah]

I am subscribing to this to lurk and get suggestions...last month was waaaaaay too long, though; it's hard to get the titles and synopsis...

[loftmama]

Okay, I finally finished my last book. It took waaaay too long.

Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

I don't remember what number it is. I'll have to go back and find my last post. I'm really looking forward to moving through some books. But I'm not a fast non-fiction reader and I've got several non-fiction books in queue.

Anyway...

This was a very interesting, very educational, very thorough historical-type book. Publisher's comments:

Slaves in the Family is the winner of the 1998 National Book Award for nonfiction and hailed by The New Yorker as "a brilliant blend of archival research and oral history." First-time author and award-winning journalist Edward Ball confronts the legacy of his family's slave-owning past, uncovering the story of the people, both black and white, who lived and worked on the Balls' South Carolina plantations. It is an unprecedented family record that reveals how the painful legacy of slavery continues to endure in America's collective memory and experience.

Author Edward Ball, a descendant of one of the largest slave-owning families in the South, discovered that his ancestors owned 25 rice plantations, worked by nearly 4,000 slaves. In Slaves in the Family, he confronts his past — scouring family archives, parish records, telephone directories, and historical-society collections. Ball's fact-finding took him slogging not only down the back roads of Carolina's low country but also to West Africa to meet the descendants of the traders who sold slaves to the family.

Through meticulous research and by interviewing scattered relatives, Ball contacted some 100,000 African-Americans living in the U.S. today who are all descendants of Ball slaves. In intimate conversations with them, he garnered information, hard words, and devastating family stories of precisely what it means to be enslaved. He found that the family plantation owners were far from benevolent patriarchs; instead there is a dark history of exploitation, interbreeding, and extreme violence against the slaves.

Slaves in the Family is an extraordinary and poignant account of interwoven lives and one man's effort to come to terms with his disturbing family legacy and his nation's past.

I like to breeze through books and, as thought-provoking as this one was, I couldn't do that. Though parts of it did read easily b/c it was so fascinating, toward the end I felt like I was really working to get through it - at least through all the details about emancipation. Anyway, a very timely read since it is Black History Month.

Speaking of Black History Month, may I take this moment to recomend a fascinating book: Dreams from my Father, by Barack Obama, 1st black Senator, I think.

books in queue:

Old School by Tobias Wolff (f)
Sibling Rivalry (non-f) by Adele Farber
Another Country (non-f) by Mary Pipher

There are some really great fiction books out there, but I have to get on the library waiting list first! I'm so ready for some fun fiction.

[broodymama]

#10 for LB

yet another tasty little bit of fluff... I love her novels, but this one not quite so much.

"Wait Until Midnight" by Amanda Quick

from Amazon:
Those who have enjoyed Quick's popular Regency mysteries featuring Lavinia Lake and Tobias March (Late for the Wedding) may find some pleasure in this Victorian romance/mystery, but others, particularly fans of Quick's earlier works (Mistress, etc.), will feel shortchanged by its weak plotting. Caroline Fordyce, who writes a popular fiction serial, and mysterious gentleman Adam Hardesty make a likable couple, but since virtually no obstacles stand in the way of their union, there's little suspense in watching them come together after only a few heated kisses. Both skeptics, the pair become involved in the Victorian craze for mediums and all things spiritualist after Adam stumbles across a murdered medium and finds a list of names, with Caroline's figured prominently. Alas, there are only two viable suspects, and Quick's sleight of hand is scant. Her characters are given to chunks of exposition that reveal the mechanics of the plot. (For example, a medium delivers a convenient monologue in an empty room.) Despite these flaws, this book remains a pleasant enough diversion, even if it pales in comparison to the author's best work.

[Queen Gwen]

#9 The True and outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson. Very well written, as Cathe said. My aunt (and family) went through an almost identical oncology scenario over the past year+, so this was quite a wrenching read for me.