April 2008 Book Challenge

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

Since it's the First (no joke), I thought I'd get our new month's thread up and running. The rules are simple. Post the books you read throughout the month with a quick whether or not you liked it and/or you'd recommend it.

Some of us are number our books because we've set goals for the year, but that's by no means a requirement for jumping into the thread. Its mostly about sharing the good books we've read and steering away from the bad ones.

So, with that, avante and a happy reading April to everyone!



January's thread is HERE
February's thread is HERE
March's thread is HERE

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#38: The Body (Audio)
by Stephen King
read by Frank Muller
-Different Seasons, Book 3-

My review of The Body can be found here.

#1 The Time Machine, #2 The Shining (Audio): Redux, #3 Curious George, #4 Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, #5 The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice (Bantam Anthology), #6 A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, #7 "A Study in Emerald", #8 The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, #9 Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, #10 Quidditch Through the Ages, #11 On the Day You Were Born, #12 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bantam Anthology), #13 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, #14 Rubyfruit Jungle, #15 John, Paul, George & Ben, #16 The Merchant of Venice (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #17 Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, #18 Trent's Last Case, #19 Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts, #20 Animal Dads, #21 Faggots, #22 A Day with Wilbur Robinson, #23 And Then There Were None, #24 Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper's Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels, #25 Henry IV, Part One, #26 Zami, A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, #27 Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Bantam Anthology), #28 Murder Must Advertise, #29 Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, #30 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, #31 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bantam Anthology), #32 Stone of Destin: The Story of Lady Macbeth, #33 Ian Pollack's Illustrated King Lear #34 Celtic Folklore Cooking, #35 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika Revised Edition), #36 The Winter's Tale (Bantam Anthology), #37 Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England, #38 The Body (Audio)

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#39: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Audio)
by Stephen King
read by Frank Muller
-Different Seasons, Book 1-

My review of Shawshank Redemption can be found here.

#1 The Time Machine, #2 The Shining (Audio): Redux, #3 Curious George, #4 Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, #5 The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice (Bantam Anthology), #6 A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, #7 "A Study in Emerald", #8 The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, #9 Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, #10 Quidditch Through the Ages, #11 On the Day You Were Born, #12 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bantam Anthology), #13 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, #14 Rubyfruit Jungle, #15 John, Paul, George & Ben, #16 The Merchant of Venice (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #17 Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, #18 Trent's Last Case, #19 Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts, #20 Animal Dads, #21 Faggots, #22 A Day with Wilbur Robinson, #23 And Then There Were None, #24 Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper's Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels, #25 Henry IV, Part One, #26 Zami, A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, #27 Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Bantam Anthology), #28 Murder Must Advertise, #29 Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, #30 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, #31 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bantam Anthology), #32 Stone of Destin: The Story of Lady Macbeth, #33 Ian Pollack's Illustrated King Lear #34 Celtic Folklore Cooking, #35 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika Revised Edition), #36 The Winter's Tale (Bantam Anthology), #37 Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England, #38 The Body (Audio), #39 Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Audio)

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#40: Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog (Audio)
by Stephen King
read by Tim Sample

My review of The Sun Dog can be found here.

#1 The Time Machine, #2 The Shining (Audio): Redux, #3 Curious George, #4 Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, #5 The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice (Bantam Anthology), #6 A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, #7 "A Study in Emerald", #8 The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, #9 Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, #10 Quidditch Through the Ages, #11 On the Day You Were Born, #12 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bantam Anthology), #13 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, #14 Rubyfruit Jungle, #15 John, Paul, George & Ben, #16 The Merchant of Venice (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #17 Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, #18 Trent's Last Case, #19 Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts, #20 Animal Dads, #21 Faggots, #22 A Day with Wilbur Robinson, #23 And Then There Were None, #24 Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper's Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels, #25 Henry IV, Part One, #26 Zami, A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, #27 Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Bantam Anthology), #28 Murder Must Advertise, #29 Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, #30 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, #31 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bantam Anthology), #32 Stone of Destin: The Story of Lady Macbeth, #33 Ian Pollack's Illustrated King Lear #34 Celtic Folklore Cooking, #35 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika Revised Edition), #36 The Winter's Tale (Bantam Anthology), #37 Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England, #38 The Body (Audio), #39 Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Audio), #40 Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog (Audio)

[nancy926]

I finished this just before midnight on 3/31, but I'll include it here.

#15: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan

I read about this series on one of these threads, and picked up the first book. I enjoyed all the mythology references, but I admit to skimming through some parts. It seemed a bit formulaic...can anyone say "Harry Potter does Olympus"?....but I will probably check out the rest of the series at the library.

[Jenifer76]

1.) Song of the cuckoo bird : a novel by Amulya Malladi

Started in March but had to carry it over. I number mine by the month instead of the year.

[snozzberry]

#17 The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Beautiful, beautiful book! I would imagine kids who have a hard time reading novels would really enjoy this novel in pictures and words. I love fiction that's based on real people, so I enjoyed it for that reason too.

[nancy926]

#16: Snapshots, by William Norris

I picked this up on paperbackswap...I know Bill from college, and have always meant to read his book. I admit to skimming the last 50 pages or so, though, once I realized he was going to just keep going back and back in time and I would never find out what happened to the people that were introduced at the beginning.

There was some good imagery here and the writing was solid....but I have to say that it did read a lot like a first novel. Which it was, so I can't really fault him for that.

[eco_mama]

#13 Happy Yoga By Steve Ross

In Happy Yoga, Ross reveals that everyone is inherently happy, but that our true self is shadowed and concealed by the layers of worry that, through habit, become our daily thoughts. In each chapter, he examines one of our seven greatest human fears -- depression, ill health, loss of love, career failure, war, death, and emotional stasis -- and uses yoga wisdom to explain how to strip away these worries to reach your core of calm radiant joy. By sharing his system of yoga postures, diet, meditation, music, supplements, and philosophy, Ross has effected profound physical and mental changes in both his life and the lives of his students.

Ross's power is that he goes back to the source -- five thousand years of ancient yogic wisdom -- and decodes the abstract Eastern ideas for a Western audience. Happy Yoga is not just a set of movements and facts to consume, it is a way of shifting your awareness to bring the spirit of yoga into each movement, each meal, each relationship, each thought, and each breath.

With love and joyful abandon, Ross offers us a new way to practice and live yoga. The result is profound calm, a dramatic release of anxiety and pain, and the realization that there really is nothing to worry about.

#1 A Midwife's Story By Penny Armstrong & Sheryl Feldman
#2 Jesus and The Essenes By Dolores Cannon
#3 The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life By Deepak Chopra
#4 Spiritual Midwifery By Ina May Gaskin (4th Ed.)
#5 A New Christianity For a New World By John Shelby Spong
#6 The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore By Deepak Chopra
#7 Paths to Becoming a Midwife: Getting an Education
#8 Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing By Caroline Myss, PH.D
#9 Ina May's Guide to Childbirth By Ina May Gaskin
#10 Medicine Women: A Pictorial History of Women Healers By Elizabeth Brooke
#11 Sisters on a Journey: Portraits of American Midwives By Penfield Chester
#12 Pushed By Jennifer Block

[snozzberry]

#18 Semiprecious by D. Anne Love
I really enjoyed this story of a mom who leaves her two girls with her sister while she chases her dream of being a star in Nashville. At one point, the main character talks about feelings of love and hate for her mother bouncing around inside her at the same time, and it was such a perfect description. I wish I had written down the page number so I could include an exact quote! The emotions in this book are so real you can taste 'em.

[Holiztic]

Finally finished Madame Bovary (Flaubert) and enjoyed it, not exactly a page turner, but a classic I have been meaning to read for a long time. I was very amused by the very straightforward portrayal of this woman that yearns for so much excitement in her life that she destroys herself in the chase. Seems to me a modern telling of the story would have had her living some fabulous life by the end, with some more subtle karmic punishment taking a backseat.

I am now taking a short break from books (gasp) so I can catch up on the myriad publications piling up on my nightstand. I am caught up on TIME, but have a Money, World Ark (Heifer International magazine) and Wise Traditions (Weston A Price Foundation journal) to work through before moving on to How Children Learn by John Holt.

1) The Mermaid Chair (Sue Monk Kidd) 2) A Good Year (Peter Mayle) 3) The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde) 4) Lost in a Good Book (Fforde) 5) The Well of Lost Plots (Fforde) 6) The Unschooling Handbook 7) Something Rotten (Fforde) 8) First Among Sequels (Fforde) 9) The Lady and the Unicorn (Tracy Chevalier) 10) Atonement (Ian McEwan) 11) Madame Bovary (Gustav Flaubert) Next Up: How Children Learn (John Holt)

[superstella]

FInished #18 The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs. I really enjoyed this book! It was witty, funny, and interesting to note how different religions interpret various passages of the Bible differently. I had taken his Encyclopedia book off my TBR list, but may have to give it a try after reading this one.

I also finished
#19 The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. I got a lot out of this book as well, it was quite inspiring for me.

On to #20 A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. He has received such rave reviews, but I am having a really difficult time reading this! It has put me to sleep every night for the past 3 nights, and I've managed to read the first chapter. I don't know if I can stick with it. I'm heading out of town for the weekend, and I'm taking Water for Elephants with me.

#1 -Buddha Mom #2 -When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution #3 - Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs #4 Secrets of the Sacred White Buffalo: Native American Healiing Remedies, Rites, and Rituals by Gary Null #5The Birth House #6Coyote Healingby Lewis Mehl-Medrona #7 In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez #8 True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh #9 The Lovely Bones #10 The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy #11 I'm Looking Through You: Growing up Haunted: A Memoir #12 Why People Don't Heal and How they Can by Caroline Myss #13 The Mother Trip: Hip Mamas Guide to Staying Sane in the Chaos of Motherhood by Ariel Gore #14Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power by Psyche A. Williams-Forson #15 Internal Bleeding: The truth behind America's terrifying epidemic of medical mistakes by Robert M. Wachter and Kaveh G. Shojania #16 Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez #17 All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space #18 The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs #19 The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

[Bufomander]

#41 The Secret School by Avi

short-ish chapter book about Ida, a 14 year old girl in rural Colorado in 1925. When her teacher has to leave before the school year, Ida decides to become the teacher (the school board decided to simply close the school instead of finding a new teacher). A good story, I would've like it when I was 10, certainly.

[mamadelbosque]

I finished The Last Colony by John Scalzi a couple days ago, it was very good and an extremely intereesting closure to the mini CDF series (Old Man's War & The Ghost Brigades precede it).

[Sage_SS]

I didn't know this was here! All these months I've missed out!?!?

I just read Abarat by Clive Barker. It was great, but I didn't know it was part of a series so I really didn't expect it to end so abruptly. It reminds me alot of Imajica, which is my favorite book. Very adventurous and creative!

[Sage_SS]

I also just read The Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell. Its an alright story, but short and ends abruptly. I don't like what she's doing with the characters.

[mata]

Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri-excellent
American Wives, Beth Helm-excellent
Dervishes, Beth Helm-this one really, really spoke to me (cliched but true!)

there are more-gotta go for now though

[Neldavi]

#15 Learning All the Time by John Holt

excellent book about how children learn (and don't) .. kind of an unschooling manifesto, lol.

#1 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone #2 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets #3 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban #4 Little Children by Tom Perrotta #5 Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parents' Guide by Aviva Jill Romm #6 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire#7 Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning #8 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
#9 The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende (audiotape) #10 Homeopathic Medicine at Home by Maesimund B. Panos, M.D.
#11 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd#12 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire#13 Dumbing Us Down John Taylor Gatto #14 The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

[snozzberry]

#19 Book Crush: For Kids and Teens - Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest by Nancy Pearl

Another great book of book recommendations from one cool librarian. As if I needed more ideas for my to-read list!

#20 Home, and Other Big, Fat Lies by Jill Wolfson

I ended up skimming this after the first 50 pages. I didn't really care about the main character--actually, she annoyed me. She was putting up such a front to protect herself emotionally that it was hard to connect with her at all. And she kept making mistakes with common phrases and words, which I guess was supposed to be funny, but it just got on my nerves after a while. (For example, she would say "in a dizzy" instead of "in a tizzy", another character would correct her, and she would say that no, she meant "dizzy" and here's why.)

And the environmental themes and morals fell flat for me because they felt contrived.

[Daffodil]

#5 - Indian Creek Chronicles by Pete Fromm

Fromm spent a winter - 7 months - living alone in the Montana wilderness, guarding salmon eggs. I loved reading about it.