Book Challenge: July 2005

[MamaBug]

Here we are ladies, already past the half way point! Hope everyone still enjoys the thought behind these threads. I for one have gotten some amazing ideas for reading, which I am going to try to get to this summer.

I know I am 30 minutes early but I didn't want to forget! :LOL Hope you all are having a great summer and getting lots of reading in!

[Astrid]

#57 A Perfect Day by Richard Paul Evans

Almost 10 years ago, Evans's first novel, The Christmas Box, became an enormous bestseller, thrusting him into the international spotlight. In his present novel, good guy protagonist Robert Harlan writes a novel titled A Perfect Day, about his wife, Allyson, and her relationship with her beloved father. The book comes out to popular acclaim, rockets up the charts and thrusts Robert into a new life of fame and fortune. An extended book tour, constant interviews, the adulation of millions of women, and a greedy Hollywood agent soon begin to erode his perfect marriage to the patient, loving, beautiful Allyson. There have been other books about authors self-destructing after great success-Youngblood Hawke by Herman Wouk, to name a notable example-but it's a story that seems timeless, still able to enthrall readers. Evans freshens the material by bringing in a hipster angel with attitude ("Actually, angel folklore is the height of nonsense, right up there with the Easter Bunny") and some bad news for Robert: in 40 days he's going to die. Robert begins to see his life in a new light, realizing that his pre-fame love for his wife and daughter is what he has wanted all along. But is it too late? Robert learns man's purpose on earth ("It's about learning how to love") and returns to hearth and home, hoping Allyson will take him back before he dies. The inevitable twist is clever, the writing throughout assured, the sentiment unapologetic and the author confident that he knows just what his readers want and that he's the man to give it to them.

It was an okay quick read, with a bit of a twist. It bothered me that Robert was blamed for the breakdown of their marriage when it felt to me that "patient, loving" Allyson was not really either of those...

[konamama]

checking in...

am taking a break from the Narnia series, have read hte 1st 3 and will finish the rest later - am currently reading Gangs of NY and liking that, I enjoy historical books a lot - and waiting for Harry Potter!!!

[MamaBug]

I like historical fiction as well, but I like to have a wee bit of romance thrown in for good measure! :LOL

[Red Sonja]

#47 for LB

"Immaculate Deception II - Birth and Beyond" by Suzanne Arms

Well, I'm not sure if this one even counts. : I ordered "Immaculate Deception II: Myth, Magic & Birth" from eBay a little over a week ago and received this one instead. It has some nice pictures in it, but it's only 16 pages long and is *not* the book represented in the auction. I contacted the seller today, hopefully I will hear back from them soon.

[Hollysmom]

MamaBug - Thanks for setting up the new thread...still loving this!

#13 - The Curse of the Singles Table - A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex
By: Suzanne Schlosberg

From the back cover:

Suzanne Schlosberg calls it "the Streak": 1001 days sex (just 36 days shorter than the Kennedy administration). She's on the mother of all dry spells...a Sahara devoid of initmacy, one-night stands, and commiteed relationships. The question is, Why? Is she too picky, too bitchy, or too shy? Does she have chlamydia? No. She's a smart, good-looking freelance writer who, at thirty-four, has inexplicably crossed that dreaded line from single to...still single.

Now, in hilarious detail, Suzanne chronicles the true story of the Streak and her outrageous attempts to end it....

This was a really quick fun read.

[MamaBug]

Your welcome, I am just glad that ppl are not getting bored doing this

[Alkenny]

Originally Posted by MamaBug

Your welcome, I am just glad that ppl are not getting bored doing this

Never!

[MamaBug]

Thanks! This is the one thread that makes me proud! So many of my others get ignored! But I really love books and reading so I am glad that ppl seem to like this!

[Astrid]

Originally Posted by Alkenny

Never!

:
I have gotten some great reads on this thread, books that I probably wouldn't have heard about otherwise! And I still have a long list of books to go

[cathe]

#78 My LIttle Blue Dress by Bruno Maddox

What a weird and wonderful book. I really enjoyed this a lot - especially because it was so original. The book is a memoir of a 100 year old women . . . . or is it?

#79 Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith

Third in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series - didn't love it quite as much as the first two but it was still good and I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next one.

Boy - can't beleive it's July already . . . . this thread makes the year seem to be moving very fast!

[Alkenny]

Since half the year is over, have we reevaluated our goal and are we halfway through it? Though I've been going kind of slow the last couple of weeks, mine was 100, so I'm well over.

#76 The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyon

Doyon, the author of series books for teens, peoples her adult debut, a sprawling, bustling chronicle of smalltown life, with a passel of intriguing characters, first among them the sad-sack town itself. Schoolmarm Delia Pratt calls her charges "Cedar Hellions" and bums cigs from the older girls at lunch; the nine Pinkham tomboys are depraved viragos who bully their young brother, Francis. Valiantly keeping up standards at the ramshackle library is Kitty Higgens, who receives a godsend in the form of an assistant, Robert J. Cutler. This model youth and citizen—the anomalous paragon of the title—wins a pivotal contest called the Lawn Rodeo by forming a star pattern instead of the required straight line mowed by rightful winner Francis. Years later, Robert—who remained loyal to Cedar Hole despite opportunities elsewhere—dies in a freak accident, leaving his wife embittered by his obsession with town matters at the expense of family, and Francis with an open field to venture into something extraordinary. Doyon writes pungently, with a wry slant, and pulls no punches regarding gossip, jealousy, schadenfreude and the myriad human foibles that are the backbone of farce, so the warm feeling when we close the book—with virtue rewarded and fences mended—feels earned.

I recommend this one if you like quirky little small town tales. I really enjoyed it. It took a bit to get through, seemed to go on and on, but in a good way.

[MamaBug]

WOW Lish!!!! That is great! : Maybe you should adjust and make it 200! :LOL

My goal was 200 ( a continuation from the 100 last year, I had only gotten to 84) I am now up to 112: I doubt that I will make the 200 but I am reading more now that it's summer and also in the fall my youngest goes off to kindergarden so I will then have many mornings on the treadmill to read my head off, I may catch up yet!


#112

The Revelation by Beverly Lewis

I really love this series. It always makes me want to bake something and read the Bible and try to be a better person. Great ending, though it would be nice to read more about this family. I can't wait for her next series to come out.

amazon: Abram's Daughters Book 5 Spanning three generations, the compelling novels of the ABRAM’S DAUGHTERS series feature five courting-age sisters, their extended family, and their quaint Old Order community, whose way of life and faith in God are as enduring as their signature horse and buggy. Or so it seems... In this suspenseful conclusion to the series, readers will thrill to another gripping story with Lewis’s trademark captivating twists and turns, and startling answers to the compelling questions set into motion in the first book, The Covenant

[Alkenny]

200? Ummmm....no! :LOL If I hit that, it'll be great, but I'm the type that if I make a goal for myself I'll be doing anything in my power to make it and I think the kids would start getting neglected. :

With that said....I finished:

#77 Shipshewana: Indiana's Amish Community by Dorothy O. Pratt

In this careful community study, Pratt (a professor and assistant dean at Notre Dame) analyzes the tension between assimilation and cultural distinctiveness among the northern Indiana Amish in the 19th and 20th centuries. A focal point of Pratt's discussion of Amish boundary-setting is World War I, when being a German-speaking pacifist was not exactly an asset. Pratt shows that even beyond their young men's refusal to fight, all Amish were suspect because they wouldn't buy war bonds or support the Red Cross. She also examines the 1921 state law that required all children to attend school until the age of 16—a law that many Amish strenuously defied. The book contains some digressions, such as a history of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana and a dry detour into Amish farming techniques, but in general this is a worthy case study of resistance to change.

I live nearby (and remember the flea markets from when I was a kid...need to get back over there!) so this was interesting to me.

[Hollysmom]

#14 Eat to Live

By: Joel Fuhrman M.D.

I am sure this has probably been reviewed here before so I won't give an outline. I have heard how good his ideas are and I really enjoyed the book. I think most of what he says about food makes perfect sense.

[PancakeGoddess]

Thanks to whomever it was that posted about Peace Like A River. It was indeed beautifully written. The story itself really wouldn't have held my attention alone, I think, but I loved the language, and I loved the miracles.

[Red Sonja]

#48 for LB

"R is for Ricochet" by Sue Grafton

Another Kinsey Millhone mystery, always good for an enjoyable read.

[cathe]

benjalo - that was me that posted about that book - and I totally agree with what you said.

[Alkenny]

#78 The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage is not so much a novel as a really long argument. Michael is a good boy from a Polish neighborhood in Baltimore; Pauline is a harum-scarum, bright-cheeked girl who blows into Michael's family's grocery store at the outset of World War II. She appears with a bloodied brow, supported by a gaggle of girlfriends. Michael patches her up, and neither of them are ever the same. Well, not the same as they were before, but pretty much the same as everyone else. After the war, they live over the shop with Michael's mother till they've saved enough to move to the suburbs. There they remain with their three children, until the onset of the sixties, when their eldest daughter runs away to San Francisco. Their marriage survives for a while, finally crumbling in the seventies. If this all sounds a tad generic, Tyler's case isn't helped by the characteristics she's given the two spouses. Him: repressed, censorious, quiet. Her: voluble, emotional, romantic. Mars, meet Venus. What marks this couple, though, and what makes them come alive, is their bitter, unproductive, tooth-and-nail fighting. Tyler is exploring the way that ordinary-seeming, prosperous people can survive in emotional poverty for years on end. She gets just right the tricks Michael and Pauline play on themselves in order to stay together: "How many times," Pauline asks herself, "when she was weary of dealing with Michael, had she forced herself to recall the way he'd looked that first day? The slant of his fine cheekbones, the firming of his lips as he pressed the adhesive tape in place on her forehead." Only in antogonism do Michael and Pauline find a way to express themselves.

[Red Sonja]

#49 for LB

"It's In His Kiss" by Julia Quinn

from Amazon:

Trust Quinn to deliver the most entertaining romance so far this year—and to set a high bar that other authors will have a tough time hurdling. Madcap, touching, laugh-out-loud funny and thoroughly satisfying on all emotional levels, her latest London-set historical focuses on Hyacinth, the eighth sibling in Quinn's bestselling Bridgerton family series (following When He Was Wicked). Too intelligent for her own good and best friends with Lady Danbury, one of society's most outspoken grande dames, Hyacinth is in her fourth season on London's Marriage Mart and again unimpressed by the male selection. Only Lady Danbury's handsome, pockets-to-let grandson Gareth St. Clair can hold his own in a conversation with her and sometimes even leaves her in a speechless, stomach-flipping state. When Hyacinth offers to translate the diary of Gareth's deceased Italian grandmother, the pair find themselves comparing notes, then exchanging kisses and finally burglarizing his estranged father's house at midnight. But the diary also holds secrets that could jeopardize their new love. Practically bouncing with humor, this book will keep readers happily on edge, waiting to see how the final unmarried Bridgerton will fare in Quinn's talented hands.