a book by its cover

Today was a nutso crazy day! i had all my sisters and their kids over for a picnic.. What was i thinking?? anyway, my sister was investigating my "library" and she picked up my copy of Iris Murdoch's A severed head. it was an older copy... but she loved the cover.. she said she needed it.. so i let her have it.. but if she finds another copy she has to get it and replace the one she "stole"! I just think its funny that someone could pick out a book just because they like the cover. strange!

ch ch cha changes

i made some changes on the list of books i am going to read this year.. mostly because i barrowed some books and have to give them back.. it works!

google the monkey

HA... is that just about the funniest thing you have ever heard?.. and its not even supposed to be funny.. so you with your sick minds had better think of something else fast!.. The reality is, that I, your fav blogger gets to be clifford the big red dog in the great NY state fair.. woohoo.. and this year i get to have buddies to walk with me.. big bird and courious george are doing the deed with me.. how cool is that??????

snow falling on cedars is still going very slowly...

and after being told i wouldn't have to work tomorrow, guess what? i get to work tomorrow.. so life is looking more down then up today!

book in a day!

I never said i would be good at this blogging stuff.. sorry!

so anyway.. i read the coolest little book today.. it was called "the short and mysterious death of amy zoe mason" by kristine and joyce atkinson. It was a little artsy book, with a bit of a mystery and an overall very cool look. I can think of a handful of people that would just love it.

The other day i finished reading the secret life of bees.. and you know what? i didn't like it much.. there were good parts.. don't get me wrong. I thought it covered several issues pretty well..but there was other elements that just sucked!.. I just could not connect with this book, and if i had not been reading it with a friend, i would not have finished it at all!..

up next is david gutersons book snow falling on cedars. Ive started it, im on chapter 2.. and im not sure really if anything has happened yet... it is very very very slow going. Im hoping for the best. I picked up a second book to read when i just can't do snow falling. my alternative is "the old maid" by edith wharton. this one is going very fast, even though not much is happening in this one either.

oh well, life is good...

The Wednesday sisters

I was a little alarmed when looking at the cover of this book. The book claimed to be better then the yaya sisterhood... and it made me quite a skeptic. It didn't take long to realize that this book was as different from the yaya's as you could get. The one single thing that made them even remotely the same was that they are both about women that greatly care about each other. I read this book in 4 nights... and i loved it to bits.

The Wednesday Sisters takes place in the late 1960's and early 1970's and it is a book about 5 women who are new to the sunny state of CA due to their successful husbands new jobs. The five women, Frankie, Kath, Linda, Ally and Brett are all intelligent and young, with dreams for the future. The women meet at a playground, and talk about books, and writing, and life, and it it here that they learn about real friendship that has no boundaries except honesty, and true love.

This book covers topics like interracial marriage, unsuccessful pregnancies, cancer, infidelity, guilt, civil rights, women's lib, moon walks, .. you name it, its in here.. Even Johnny Carson. I cant think of a reason that I don't like the book, except that perhaps it could have gone on a little longer, but what would be even better would be a sequel... with perhaps the children of the Wednesday sisters?.. sounds good to me.

updated list

8 of 2008 challenge
old dead guys
1. sir walter scott- Ivanhoe
2. john Steinbeck- Cannery Row
3. Bram Stoker-Dracula
4. Ernest Hemmingway- a farewell to arms
5. D. H. Laurence- lady Chatterley’s lover
6. charles dickens- a tale of two cities
7. mark twain- a yankee in king Arthur’s court
8. James Joyce- Ulysses

Crazy dead ladies
1. L. M. Montgomery- Anne of green Gables
2. edith Wharton- the old maid
3. Iris Murdoch- Under the net
4. Jane austen- Mansfield park
5. edna Ferber- giant
6. pearl s. buck- pavilion of woman
7. irène Némirovsky-suite francaise
8. george elliot- Middlemarch

Mystery Mystery
1. Arturo perez reverte the Flanders panel
2. Agatha christie- and then there were none
3. janet evanovich- four to score
4. sue graffton- h is for homicide
5. laura lipman- the last place
6. kate mosse- the labyrinth
7. janet evanovitch-High Five
8. Jasper fforde- Thursday next

The books that take up shelf room
1. J. D salenger- Fanney and Zooey
2. Zadie smith- The autograph man
3. John Barth- The Floating Opera
4 Kristine and joyce Atkinson- The short life and mysterious death of amy zoe mason
5. sue monk kidd- the secret life of bees
6 mark Helprin- Freddy and Fredericka
7. Kent haruf- eventide
8. Tim o’brien- The things they carried

Books I waited all of 2007 to read
1. John Kennedy o’toole Confederacy of dunces
2. banana Yoshimoto- kitchen
3. Mark Helprin- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
4. CArlos Ruiz Zafón- Shadow of the wind
5. Rohinton Mistry- A fine balance
6. rebecca wells- the ya-yas in bloom
7. joanne harris-coastliners
8. Geraldine brooks- March

Sci fi/ Fantasy
1. Gregory Maguire- son of a witch
2. Robert A. Heinlein- Stranger in a strange land
3. J. k. Rowling- Harry Potter
4. J.rr Tolkien- lord of the rings(the fellowship)
5. ray Bradbury- Fahrenheit 451
6. Audrey Niffinegger- the time travelers wife
7. phillp Pullman- the golden compass
8 gregory Maguire- wicked

Books to movies
1. Anne prolux- The Shipping News
2. Boris Pasternak- Dr. Zhivago,
3. David Guterson-Snow Falling on cedars
4. Toni Morison- Beloved
5. Charles Frazer- cold Mountain
6. Richard Russo- Empire Falls
7. Sebastien Japrisot- A very long engagement
8. Tom Perrotta-Little Children

ARC and book club
1Stephen King- Duma Key
2 Nicole krauss- history of love
3 l.j. sellers- the sex club
4 Candice bushnell- lipstick jungle
5 Elizabeth Noble- Things I want my daughters to know
6 Meg Waite Clayton-The Wednesday sisters
7 Lori Handeland -Any given Doomsday
8, Katherine Neville- The Fire

king of horror

ok.. so im almost 30 years old.. and im just now reading my very first stephen king book.. and its not even one of his "classics".. its the new one Duma Key.. and i like it(Haha). What did i think when my friend picked it as one of our "together faraway" books?.. i thought"groan groan groan.. because my other option was the kite runner and i have no interest in that what so ever.

back to duma key... im 442 pages into it.. never felt like throwing it away, putting it down never to pick up again, or afraid to keep going.... the plot is fun, its full of symbolism, its very modern.. perhaps it may even have a bit of king's personal anguish after he had his own accident back in "99". Anyway, there is a lot of freaky stuff in there.

People have told me that kings older stuff is better.. better how? they can't say,... but they say i should try it. Someone told me that the Stand was his all time best but can't give me a reason why. perhaps next year ill give it a try.

Other stuff im reading... i finished Flanders Panel. i was disappointed because i thought it was going to be more enlightening,.. but it kind of ended up being an average murder mystery... a sort of easy one at that, because i was half right about the who donnit... i was only wrong about the accomplice.

I finished reading Kitchen. For me it was a major bomb... good thing it was short or i may have given up on it and never gone back.. the only thing that was even remotely redeeming was the last part, it was a separate entity... and it was lovely.

I have also picked up the 4th stephanie plum mystery.. FUNNY! I think that is ok that the mysteries in these books are not so thought provoking and worthy of so much contemplation because lets be serious for a moment, how many books do you have an armature getting into all kinds of scrapes.. and having a cross dresser and a no games ex prostitute as sidekicks.. and lets not forget grandma here.. haha.. love it

that's about it.. what next?.. not sure yet. lets play it one at a time.

Bad blogger!!!!!!

ok.. so im not so good at this blogging thing.. i have a hard time keeping up.. finding time ,.. and thinking of things to say...i still think its a fun way to carry on about all the good and bad things i read .. and so i will continue.

for starters, this year i have decided that im not going to do a weird personal challenge like reading only books that were written by women.. i spent some time before the new year started and i found a really good, and hard challenge.. its 8 of 08.. ie, 8 books in each of 8 category's, in the year 2008.. very cool... i found it here on this site

http://triple8challenge.blogspot.com/

here is what i picked, to read.. the pink ones are done...and im having a blast doing it!!!

8 of 2008 challenge

old dead guys
1. sir walter scott- Ivanhoe
2. john Steinbeck- Cannery Row
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald- Tender is the night
4. Ernest Hemmingway- a farewell to arms
5. D. H. Laurence- lady Chatterley’s lover
6. charles dickens- a tale of two cities
7. mark twain- a yankee in king Arthur’s court
8. James Joyce- Ulysses

Crazy dead ladies
1. Virginia Wolffe- Mrs Dollaway
2. edith Wharton- the old maid
3. Iris Murdoch- Under the net
4. Jane austen- Mansfield park
5. edna Ferber- giant
6. pearl s. buck- pavilion of woman
7. irène Némirovsky-suite francaise
8. george elliot- Middlemarch

Mystery Mystery
1. Sir Arthur conan Doyle- Sherlock Holmes
2. Agatha christie- and then there were none
3. janet evanovich- four to score
4. sue graffton- h is for homicide
5. laura lipman- the last place
6. kate mosse- the labyrinth
. kate atkenson- one good turn
8. l.j. sellers- the sex club

The books that take up shelf room
1. J. D salenger- Fanney and Zooey
2. Zadie smith- The autograph man
3. John Barth- The Floating Opera
4 wally lamb- shes come undone
5. sue monk kidd- the secret life of bees
6 Rohinton Mistry- A fine balance
7. Kent haruf- eventide
8. Tim o’brien- The things they carried

Something new
1. Elizabeth Noble- Things I want my daughters to know
2. Jasper fforde- Thursday next
3. mark Helprin- Freddy and Fredericka
4. rebecca wells- the ya-yas in bloom
5. Mark Helprin- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
6. Gregory Maguire- son of a witch
7. Geraldine brooks- March
8. CArlos Ruiz Zafón- Shadow of the wind

Books I waited all of 2006 to read
1. John Kennedy o’toole Confederacy of dunces
2. banana Yoshimoto- kitchen
3. umberto echo- the name of the rose
4. jonathan saffron foer- everything is illuminated
5. Nicole krauss- history of love
6. Christopher moore- the stupidest angel
7. joanne harris-coastliners
8. Arturo perez reverte the Flanders panel

Sci fi/ Fantasy
1. Stephen King- Duma Key
2. Robert A. Heinlein- Stranger in a strange land
3. J. k. Rowling- Harry Potter
4. J.rr Tolkien- lord of the rings(the fellowship)
5. ray Bradbury- Fahrenheit 451
6. Audrey Niffinegger- the time travelers wife
7. phillp Pullman- the golden compass
8 gregory Maguire- wicked

Books to movies
1. Anne prolux- The Shipping News
2. Boris Pasternak- Dr. Zhivago,
3. mona simpson- anywhere but here
4. Toni Morison- Beloved
5. Charles Frazer- cold Mountain
6. Richard Russo- Empire Falls
7. Candice bushnell- lipstick jungle
8. chuck Palahniuk-fight club