Thursdays have become my most and least favorite day.
I spend every Thursday with my two year old grandson Jack. It is great fun and he's such a sweetheart. We play games, read books, and he graciously takes a two hour nap so I can rest up from our morning of revelry.
What isn't so great is that I have to be in Dublin by 8 am which means I have to leave my home by just a bit before 7 am and drive through rush hour traffic on Interstate 270. Lisa or Jeremy arrive home about 5:30 or 6 pm and I get to reverse my drive on Interstate 270 to Rte. 161. Route 161 is a breeze so the trip would be fine without the exact time I am on the road. When I retired, I decided the shop wouldn't open before 10 am so I wouldn't have to get up early any more.
Oh, well, Jack makes the trip worthwhile, and I do it for totally selfish reasons as I want him to know his Grandma which he has turned into "YaYa." So tomorrow, Jack and YaYa one more Thursday!
Recently things changed and I didn't have to be in Dublin until 10 am! Hurrah! But tomorrow again I will be on the road at 7 am one more time. I have decided that getting up at 6 am one day a week is well worth it and makes all the other mornings even more delicious! See you tomorrow Jack. YaYa is on her way.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Not All Winners
I may have given the impression that I unerringly cull the best reads from the library shelves. That is not the case as this last two weeks can show. I have tried to read six books recently and only two have been read all the way through so far.
I finished Fear by Grant, the fifth book in the Gone series. I did like it and he managed to reel me in once again to the world of the FAYZE. There is a sixth book and I've been promised by my daughter Lisa that it will be the last one. It's her responsibility that I'm hooked on this series as she buys the books and passes them on to me.
I also completed Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann. It's a futuristic novel of Greater Thans, Less Thans, and Fractionals referring to the individual's integration of his brain functions and therefore superior abilities. I found it a little silly and too much instant gratification for the characters on the sex part but I read it anyway. It was definitely an entertainment read, no serious value.
I am still reading two others: Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell and Wicked by Gregory Maquire. I am sure I'll finish Beautiful Sacrifice as it has enough plot hidden in the endless descriptions of Mayan culture and artifacts that I do want to know how it ends. I was fortunate enough to see the musical Wicked at the Palace Theater in Columbus, and so thought I might like to read the novel it was based on. There is quite a difference in tone or perhaps I am just missing the music but I may not struggle though the whole novel. I think I will be picking and choosing and reading parts just to see the development of the characters that interest me. Reading a book doesn't always mean reading every single word.
The other books, Margaret Coel's The Perfect Suspect and Monica Ferris's Threadbare were non starters. I thought I'd like them when I picked them off the shelves but was never able to get beyond the predictable plot and boring, at least to me, characters so I read about two chapters each and was done. Perhaps if we were trapped in a snow storm and unable to get back to the library, they would seem more appealing. It's been known to happen.
I finished Fear by Grant, the fifth book in the Gone series. I did like it and he managed to reel me in once again to the world of the FAYZE. There is a sixth book and I've been promised by my daughter Lisa that it will be the last one. It's her responsibility that I'm hooked on this series as she buys the books and passes them on to me.
I also completed Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann. It's a futuristic novel of Greater Thans, Less Thans, and Fractionals referring to the individual's integration of his brain functions and therefore superior abilities. I found it a little silly and too much instant gratification for the characters on the sex part but I read it anyway. It was definitely an entertainment read, no serious value.
I am still reading two others: Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell and Wicked by Gregory Maquire. I am sure I'll finish Beautiful Sacrifice as it has enough plot hidden in the endless descriptions of Mayan culture and artifacts that I do want to know how it ends. I was fortunate enough to see the musical Wicked at the Palace Theater in Columbus, and so thought I might like to read the novel it was based on. There is quite a difference in tone or perhaps I am just missing the music but I may not struggle though the whole novel. I think I will be picking and choosing and reading parts just to see the development of the characters that interest me. Reading a book doesn't always mean reading every single word.
The other books, Margaret Coel's The Perfect Suspect and Monica Ferris's Threadbare were non starters. I thought I'd like them when I picked them off the shelves but was never able to get beyond the predictable plot and boring, at least to me, characters so I read about two chapters each and was done. Perhaps if we were trapped in a snow storm and unable to get back to the library, they would seem more appealing. It's been known to happen.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Four Books
The four books that I have read this week are Mary Balogh's The Proposal, Patricia Briggs' Cry Wolf, E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, and Lisa Scottoline's Come Home. One thing they have in common is that I intend to read other titles by these four authors because I liked all four books.
They're very different of course. The Proposal is a Regency novel of class differences and love overcoming them, extremely well written and romantic. Cry Wolf is a fantasy of werewolves and pack politics with, interesting to me, a dominant - submissive role as part of the pack's relationships. Fifty Shades of Grey is being touted as porn but isn't in any way, a mature novel, for sure, of a young woman who wants to love a man who can only love her if she is the submissive to his dominant, which involves chainings and beatings. Come Home is an intense mystery that really did make me want to skip parts so I could get to the end; I actually looked at the last two pages halfway through to make sure a particular character was part of the ending.
What makes them the same is that first, each is well written and, second, each centers upon a normal woman in unique situations. Even Anna, the Omega werewolf, is basically a woman trying to figure out how to adapt to a situation beyond her control. The women are well developed characters and the plots drive them into areas outside of their usual environment.
I usually read several books a week and I'll keep you posted on what I'm reading. During lunch at the shop I'm currently reading Fear by Michael Grant. It's the fifth book in a series which started with Gone, when all the children under 15 are trapped in a bubble away from all adults. I'll be reading other books at home and that's going to require a trip to the library.
They're very different of course. The Proposal is a Regency novel of class differences and love overcoming them, extremely well written and romantic. Cry Wolf is a fantasy of werewolves and pack politics with, interesting to me, a dominant - submissive role as part of the pack's relationships. Fifty Shades of Grey is being touted as porn but isn't in any way, a mature novel, for sure, of a young woman who wants to love a man who can only love her if she is the submissive to his dominant, which involves chainings and beatings. Come Home is an intense mystery that really did make me want to skip parts so I could get to the end; I actually looked at the last two pages halfway through to make sure a particular character was part of the ending.
What makes them the same is that first, each is well written and, second, each centers upon a normal woman in unique situations. Even Anna, the Omega werewolf, is basically a woman trying to figure out how to adapt to a situation beyond her control. The women are well developed characters and the plots drive them into areas outside of their usual environment.
I usually read several books a week and I'll keep you posted on what I'm reading. During lunch at the shop I'm currently reading Fear by Michael Grant. It's the fifth book in a series which started with Gone, when all the children under 15 are trapped in a bubble away from all adults. I'll be reading other books at home and that's going to require a trip to the library.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)