We Have Always Lived in the Castle...

I didn't sign up for the RIP challenge this year just missed it, but thought I'd read some scary stuff anyway.  Last night I stayed up and finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle, it was good.  Not too scary, but good.  Of course at the end I had all kinds of resolution issues, but it is fiction after all, isn't it. 


Do read this one if you dare!

BeeKeepers Apprentice

my thoughts.

I must be living under a rock.  I never knew that Sherlock Holmes retired to become a beekeeper.  I must be honest this book while a good read, did not keep me wanting more.  I got rather tired of it about 40 pages in,  I knew the outcome would be a Moriarty thing. I'm on the last page and I cannot finish.  It just isn't happening, and yes, I'm tired, but really the last page.  Judge for yourself by all means, and certainly if you're a Holmes fan do read it.  But it's not going on one of the best books I've read in 2011.

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Where are You Reading- England

Between, Georgia,

I've had another assignment for our upcoming elections this weekend, Yes Canada Day and all.  I'm sure my boss wasn't working.  Anyway it required a great deal of walking.  I was so dead Saturday when I returned I had a tea and toast for supper. Then when I perked up, and that was not much, I couldn't bring myself to do laundry, so I finished Between, Georgia, Joshilyn Jackson. Boy, I must say Jackson certainly has some quirky characters, realistic nonetheless.  Loved it.




I really enjoy Jackson's books, they are out there, though.

Where are you Reading - Georgia

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Winter Garden...

Winter Garden.
Well, I finished reading this lovely story.  It not only hit home for me in many instances, it also was just a good story.  I didn't read further about the authors research, so I don't know if this was based on a true story, no matter, she did well.  There was a point there when Meredith was struggling with her mother's antics after the death of her father, and I'm thinking, " this is my life."   I think if I had to choose one part of the story that I didn't like, it would probably be the part of Meredith's mom acting strangely, and then suddenly not! Was this part of the healing process or what?  

Where are You Reading - Alaska
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gods in Alabama, or boy did I find out what happened to Jim Beverly

THERE ARE GODS in Alabama:  Jack Daniel's, high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus.

This is the first sentence of the book, gods in Alabama.  Even if I wasn't dying to find out what happened to Jim Beverly this sentence would have caught me. This is the second book of Joshilyn Jackson's I've read.  The first being Backseat Saints. I like them.

gods in Alabama is the companion book to Backseat Saints, or at least that's how I would put it.  In Backseat Saints Rose Mae Lolley, is running away from an abusive husband and in so doing looking desperately for her mom, and the one man she thought was "perfect" Jim Beverly.  Jim Beverly mysteriously disappeared one night, never to be heard from again. Well... In gods in Alabama we find out why.  Arlene/Lena is running from Posset Alabama, her family and her past all because of Jim Beverly.  

In Backseat Saints, Rose Mae gave us the impression that Arlene was shacked up with Jim Beverly someplace in Chicago, where he was a famous athlete. Arlene on the other hand had a very different view of the whole scene.  I don't know why but I could not recall Jim Beverly (and he's referred to throughout both books with his full "godly" name.) as being a white boy.  I always pictured him as the unattainable, forbidden fruit gorgeous black man.  Opps. 

Both books deal with family, disappointments,racism, and tragic life circumstances, but mostly LOVE.  Being that I'm one of those leftover hippies and still believe all you need is LOVE, these elements appeal to me. 

I have to admit that Joshilyn Jackson captured families like I like to see them, flawed and hilarious.  I love the character of aunt Florence.  She's an in control gal on the outside, but inside ...? Makes you want to think of the song Send in the Clowns.  Yet she's filled with a sense responsibilities, and reason she takes very seriously and she loves hard and forever.  If I took the time to do my extremely rude interview with her, I'm sure I'd fill in all the ugly blanks.  Makes for good reading.  

I can only say that if you're looking to read a good book that will keep you interested till close to the end, because I sure was close to the end before I got IT, take a chance and read these two books in relative closeness to each other. (not sure that's properly said, but ... you know what I mean.) 

The other book I read this week was "Embraced by the Light"  Betty J. Eadie. (I waited for the bus a lot this week) The story of a woman who recounts not one but two after death experiences.  While I read the first portion of the book eagerly, it soon fizzled for me.  I found myself skimming through to the end.  This was a book gifted to me from my volunteering partners.  They've both been anxious to hear what I  thought of it.  Well on our next lunch stopover I imagine they won't like what I have to say.  Once again I'll have to rely on my feeling that everything boils down to LOVE, some of the descriptions and rationnel described by the author I found a little unbelievable.  I often wonder what qualifies a book as a #1 New York Times Bestseller?  How many books must be sold before they get that title.  This was one of those books?

Have a great day and read a little something.

Where are You Reading- Alabama, and Nebraska

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Page from a Tennessee Journal, Francine Thomas Howard

Do you remember that cigarette commercial for Virginia Slims, well if you don't it portrays a very modern woman with a mini skirt smoking, and the song goes "we've come a long way baby"... Boy am I ever glad we have, after finishing this book, I'm thinking what must it have been like to live in these times? So glad I don't like to time travel, except in my reading. 

I just finished reading this VERY good book. I m still thinking about it a day and a half later so I'm saying it's getting a 4 3/4 stars.




...and I did not see the end coming... a very GOOD read. I often put up what Amazon says about their product, and in this one as in many they have that part"customers who bought.... also bought" with this one The Help was what other customers bought.  I have the Help on my TBR pile but in our painting discussions one of my pals said she just couldn't read it.  I've put it on hold until I forget about that.



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Where are you Reading 2011- Tennessee

Violets of March

I just finished reading Violets of March.  I love violets and you all know I love old chairs, which is the book cover.

I should clarify, while I enjoyed Violets of March, it was an enjoyable read, I'm not saying drop everything and read it immediately.  It's an enjoyable summer read, you won't stay up nights reading it, as I did with Deloume Road or the Lonely Polygamist.

Where are you Reading-- Seattle Washington
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Marriage Bureau for Rich People...

"That's right," interrupted Mr. Ali. "Your daughter  won't have a mother-in-law. you know what they say: A woman without a mother-in-law is a very fortunate daughter-in-law."

As a potential mother in law, I take personal offence to this line. But, I know it to be true.  How sad.  I don't have daughters, so I was hoping... However...  

For a pleasant read in a country other than what we know do read "Marriage Bureau for Rich People" it will open new worlds to you.  Once again my poor bookkeeping skills have not yielded the blogger who recommended this, but thanks anyway.  My parents had an arranged marriage, and it lasted "till death parted them." So it's interesting to hear of the beliefs around this type of custom.  go for it, read it.

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Where Are You Reading Challenge, India

Tuesday and things are looking up... way up

Does this ever happen to you?   Do you hear a phrase and immediately think of something totally unrelated? For example when someone says look up, way up  I immediately think of the friendly giant, my son loved that show, and it was so simple. 
So I'm sitting on the train reading, and the phrase is ...She scrapped the martyr's share of the fry up onto her plate and joined us at the table.  This was in reference to the mother of the family.  I can't tell you how many times we refered to our mother as a martyr.  She always had a come back.  Now that I'm that martyr it's not so funny.  Just shows you that as original as you think you are, there is someone saying the same thing to their mothers. 

I'm in the beginning stages of our Irish Author Read a long.  I don't know if I can drag this out to be a month.  So I'm barrelling ahead. 

It was a beautiful crisp, sunny day today, I did a little walking and a lot of laundry.  Re-organized my painting bag and I'm off to do a little piece tomorrow.  I'm so glad the weather man was wrong.  Hope he's still wrong tomorrow.

Silent in the Grave, Deanna Raybourn

Once again I apologize to the blogger who recommended this one, didn't make a note of it and can't remember.  This was quite an intense read.  A little long.  But it had many of the elements I love to read about.  History, costume, old traditions, and one my husband would have appreciated gypsies.  (I didn't know about the gypsies when I chose this).  The one thing that sort of "gobsmacked" me was the "out of the closet characters."  Forgive me for being so naive.  I've  now read two historical fiction books  in the last 2 weeks and both had heavily focused on homosexuality.  I thought I was reading a murder mystery.  

This was an exciting mystery, it certainly kept me reading, but it did follow the formula for a romance, and that was my assignment.  The ending was a surprise, and it looks like there will be more adventures.  I give this book a 4  stars,(read it if you like historical fiction)  I'm sure I'll be thinking about it for awhile but it did not knock my socks off as the Josephine B Trilogy did. 

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Where are You  Reading Challenge

Chunkster Challenge.
(509 pages)on my way to "do these books make my butt look big" (six books)

The Lilac Bus, Ireland Challenge.

An number of years ago I was standing in a line, on a very hot day, and the lady ahead of me finished Quentin's she sighed heavily and said what a good read it was, and asked me if I'd like it. Since there were still many, many people ahead of me, I said " yes". Well that was it for me, I needed to read more, so the next was Scarlett Feather and Echoes and Evening Class, and now when I need a comfortable read I add Maeve Binchy to my list of choices.

This is my first book of my Ireland Challenge.I'm going for "Kiss the Blarney Stone Level 6 books.  I just felt after reading The Bells, I needed to relax a little with some regular folks, with ordinary family problems. What I like most about reading Maeve Binchy is quite honestly the net she weaves with the individual characters. This book is no exception. It  is simply the story of the passengers of the Lilac Bus. As one who travels on buses daily, I think this is an awesome account of those passengers. Ordinary people leading ordinary lives and yet quite extraordinary.

Not a very long read only about 200 pages. I believe this is Maeve's 2nd book, I've decided to read them all in order just to watch her style evolve. I've read quite a few, but there will be re-reads. 

Ireland Challenge-
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Where Are You Reading 

photo of book I own. 

The Bells, Richard Harvel

I've just finished reading The Bells , Richard Harvel. 
This was a most interesting book, I found it hard to stop reading.  I loved Moses, and Nikolai, and even Remus.  The subject matter was one that I don't know anything about, or should I say the opera world setting is one I'm not familiar with, because after all it's a love story.  Perhaps not the romantic one I'm suppose to be reading but, a love story nonetheless less. The official classification is historical fiction.

 
I chose this book for two reasons, first it was a recommendation from one of the bloggers I read regularly, can't remember who, sorry I'm keeping better notes this year.  The second reason is this, when I was probably in grade 8 I read a story about bellringers.  It was two young boys who did this job in their town, and one of the boys drown in an accident, and the other boy rang the bells at his funeral just for him.  All these years later I still think of that story, can't remember the name of it, (so if you know it, give a shout). I knew going into this book this was not the story I had read, but it appealed to me anyway.


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Where are you Reading.

Backseat Saints....

Well I finished it last night.  I was waiting again, you know waiting for my family to come home and have supper, waiting for my son to finish his writing assignment, (and me staying quiet), waiting for the snow, to decide weather/whether  or not I'm going to  travel tomorrow. Hmm...

Backseat Saints, Joshilyn Jackson is the story of Rose Mae, a young woman with many, many issues.

I read this book on the recommendation of Jenners at Life ... with books. 

Borrowed from the Library in Support Your Local Library Challenge

Take Another Chance Challenge #3 Blurb Book,.

Where are you Reading Challenge. Texas

Where are you Reading?, January 2011

This is my monthly summary of Where are you Reading ?  I've done well this month with the reading, and I haven't even started to travel on a regular basis.
Colorado, (Denver)
Massachusetts, (Boston)*
West Virginia (Shenandoah Valley )

Russia, Moscow *
Africa, Kenya

*Russian Winter, was set in both Boston, and Moscow.

Russian Winter...

I've just read Russian Winter, Daphne Kalotay and I have the urge to polish all that amber I've amassed from various sources.  I remember wearing some little bobble when I was in design school, and my pattermaking professor pretty much attacking me to buy it.  Well I didn't sell that particular piece, but one of my mother's friends wanted to sell a few pieces and so she got some at a very reasonable price.  The other thought that kept popping into my mind was " I should have stuck with art history" forget sewing.  Oh well on to the story.  This novel was reviewed by Mary of bookfanmary.  Towards the end of 2010 I was easily led astray of my challenges, so when Mary reviewed this and gave it a 41/2 stars I thought I'd check it out.  I was not disappointed. It had all the elements I love, history, ballet, historical romance, and AMBER. 

Throughout the book there were bits that I recall my mom talking about.  My parents were exiled to Siberia and my mom became quite fluent in the language and the NKVD was a big deal.  I remember watching the Olympics with my parents and them commenting on the security the Russian teams must have, and how they would be punished if they did not perform well.  Well, you can imagine, as children/teens, we really didn't believe what they were saying.  It was not until visitors from the western world were allowed to visit that I started to think those comments were sincere. I can even remember when my dad visited his family in Poland and had to report to the local police station, his family were very nervous during his visit. 

Now Russian Winter was not only a romance set in a politically turbulent  time, but a further record of what many couples, like my parents, must have experienced.  Imagine living with your mother-in-law with just a plywood door between you and your new husband.  I can picture it.  We here in Canada and the United States should be far more grateful for our freedom. 

P.S. I must add a post script to this post, I'm suppose to be reading romance novels, according to my teacher Dee Lloyd, and while I'm sure I'd love to write my book in this wonderful style, it's not happening just now. I believe I'm suppose to read shorter, less complicated versions of love/romance.  It's really hard. Until I met up with Dee I had no idea there were groups associated with the various genres. I always thought authors were hold up in  a cold, drafty cottage in the woods with their typewriters, secluded from the real world, and their creativity shone through. Not so, apparently they bounce ideas off each other. That's not working for me.

Author: Daphne Kalotay
Hardcover: 480 pages
Published: September 2010

Genre: Historical Romance
Source: Library

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Where are you reading. Boston, Ma, and Moscow, Russia 

Where are you reading?

I'm taking on yet another challenge.  I found last year I had a hard time remembering what I had read, when and where the story of the book was set. So once again I got this invitation from Jenners at Life ... with books. So I'm really excited about marking my reads on a map (if I can figure out how to do that) Sheila from bookjourney is our hostess. check it out. and join us on a trip around the world ? maybe or at least 50 states.  For me, being a Canadian, I'll be happy to get some Canadian provinces/cities read about. Oh did I mention there will be prizes.

If Irish Eyes were smiling.

I've decided to participate in  the second annual Ireland Reading Challenge hosted by Books and Movies in the next week or so, Carrie will be posting a list of suggested titles and authors to help with your challenge.

For those of you interested in joining me in the challenge, here are the details:

~ The challenge runs from January 1, 2011 to November 30, 2011.

~ Any books read for this challenge can also apply to other challenges you are working on.

~ Re-reads are allowed.

~ Any book written by an Irish author, set in Ireland, or involving Irish history or Irish characters, counts for the challenge – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, audiobooks, children’s books – all of these apply.

~ Choose your commitment level:

Shamrock level: 2 books
Luck o’ the Irish level: 4 books
Kiss the Blarney Stone level: 6 books

~ Write up a post indicating that you are participating (feel free to copy the lovely graphic at the top of this post), and then add your challenge post’s link to the Mr. Linky on the main challenge page.

~ You don’t have to list your books ahead of time – just have fun reading throughout the year.

~ I will put up a page for the challenge in my left sidebar, and add a Mr. Linky for reviews and wrap-up posts.

~ Everyone who fulfills their challenge level and writes at least one review is eligible for the giveaway prize at the end of the challenge: a copy of Tipperary by Frank Delaney. Wrap-up post and giveaway details will go up at the beginning of December, which is why the challenge ends on November 30th.

My level is going to be Shamrock Level and I haven't decided what to read yet, Pssst I'm sure Maeve Binchy will be on that list.  There will also be a read-a-long in March.  Looking forward to it. In my library adventures I do put a four leaf clover on the spines of the books written by Irish authors. My husband's cousin was stationed in Ireland during his time in the military and boy did he bring home some lovely antiques. So I'm thinking an antiques book?