The First Gift of Christmas by Richard Paul Evans

This is a little book I picked up off a discount table once upon ten years ago... and I read it every year! I love it! (It's RPE, what's not to love??)

This little book can be read in 30 minutes or less, as it's more like a poem.  Each section is so beautifully worded, will touch your soul and leave you thinking.  It talks of the different parts of Christmas, such as the Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmas morning and Christmas night. 

I don't want to tell too much because, really, words cannot describe the wonderful feeling one gets from reading it, so I'm hoping you'll add a little more "spirit" to your Christmas and find a copy for yourself.  In fact, I just looked at Amazon.com and you can purchase this glorious book for !!a penny!! used, with only $3.99 shipping! I'd do it, folks, it's totally worth it. 

If you only wish to check it out through your local library, I highly recommend it.  :)

Christmas Jars, by Jason F. Wright

If you haven't read this book, you should.  It's a quick read and oh-so-good.  I cried a little - well, maybe more than a little, and even thought of starting my own Christmas jar.

***WARNING:  SPOILER***

This book starts out with a single woman having her annual dinner at a local fast food joint when she notices a baby in the bench behind her, alone.  There's a note that says something to the effect of whoever holds my baby next, she's now in your care.  This woman takes the child into her life, names her Hope, adopts her legally, and raises her.  When Hope is five, her mother reveals why the bench is so special and that her real mother loved her so much and wanted a better life for her.  She supports her in her ambition to become a news reporter and they are so happy together. One year, the mother reveals to her daughter that she has cancer.  She doesn't live long after that, and dies on Christmas Eve.  One year later, the daughter's out at the chicken place where her mother found her, the same place they eat every year at that time and comes home to her apartment to find out it's been robbed.  During the investigation, she finds a jar left inside her door, but doesn't know who it's from.  It's full of money.  As an aspiring reporter for small columns in the local newspaper, she decides to investigate further, as she's found she's not been the only recipient of such a miraculous jar and she thinks this would make a great story, the one that will get her on the front page.  She finds several families who refuse to give much information, wishing to leave the giver as an anonymous angel of sorts, until she finds the family that started it all.  She tells a little lie to get into their lives and have her questions answered, and ends up falling in love with the family, and them with her.  She finds out that they originally started the Christmas jar as a way for them to save money for Christmas presents every year.  One year, though, while at the bank to cash in their coins, their daughter notices a woman crying on the curb outside and offers to give her their Christmas jar.  The parents tearfully allow it, which is what the woman needed, as her abusive husband took all her money and left her pregnant with nothing.  After that, they just kept giving Christmas jars every year and more and more people started to partake in the tradition.  Hope thinks she's on to something big when a spotlight is run on her in the paper.  She fears her secret of who she really is is out and the family will be angry as they think she's a college student writing a paper about their small family business, so she goes months without talking to them.  One day, she finds herself in someone else's office looking for a package of jelly when the phone rings.  It's a man who wants to run an obituary.  She finds out it's the patriarch of this beloved family that has died and is heart-broken.  Not knowing how to get back in touch with them to offer her condolences, she runs a front page article on this great man and a small piece of the legacy he and his family left behind with their very own Christmas jars.  She then goes to the funeral, and then back to the family's house to see if she has been forgiven.  They embrace her without any hesitation and confess that they hid the article from the father so he never even knew who she really was.  Relieved a little, she leaves to have her annual dinner at the chicken place.  After her departure, the family receives many visitors who saw the article and were touched by a Christmas jar of their very own, bringing a jar to the family who started it all.  After all the visitors are gone, their front porch is covered in jars filled with money.  Then, one final visitor knocks on the door.  It's a woman with a very special story.  After all is told, the family realizes she was the first woman they ever gave a Christmas jar to, the woman at the bank.  She tells a story of leaving her precious baby on a bench in a chicken restaurant.  Realizing who she is, they drive her to the chicken place to create a joyous and happy reunion with Hope, her daughter. 

It's a sweet story that is very inspiring and touching to the very end.  I'm glad I cheated a little and took the time to read it this Christmas season.  :)

Cheating

So.... I've decided to take a break from the book I've been reading... and start another book... hee hee! I hate doing that because my OCD (self-diagnosed) flares a little in that something I started wasn't finished.  It's almost as if I'm betraying the book... lol

Anyway, the book I've been philandering with is Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright.  Not only is it a short book, but the one I ended up with from the library has large print, so I should be done in no time.  (My other book will hardly notice my absense!)

So far, it's very good... slightly tear-jerking, very simple, yet, very entertaining.  :) I'll keep you posted.  ;)

I'm also doing a reading group with some church ladies about a book called The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom - another survivor story of the Holocaust - so, I may have to have a double affair.... ;)  Oooh! Feel free to read it with us! Our deadline is January ummmm.... something.... I think the second or third Tuesday in January.  Probably the third... I guess I should find out for sure.

Gotta love the Holiday Season

Between my son's baptism, making his gift, my parents visiting, making gifts for the girls I babysit for, babysitting, coupon searching, not to mention mothering a teething baby, laundry, dishes................... there just isn't time for reading.  I've been reading here and there, when I can, and I even finally made it past the half-way point in my book... *sigh* 

I am still reading it, and I will finish it... I have to! I have a stack of books that just keeps getting bigger and bigger that will be due back to the library eventually...


Have you been reading anything good lately?? :)

Not a lot of reading time

I try to read a little everyday, but there are so many things on my to-do lists that it seems it's on the back burner more often than not.  The book I'm reading right now is really fascinating, though.  I highly recommend it so far.  It's called The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan.  It's about survivors of the Dust Bowl, something I didn't know much about due to my lack of interest in history classes growing up.  Maybe next week after, say, Tuesday or something, I'll be able to read more.  We'll see.  :)  Hope you're all having a great holiday season so far! :)

Somebody's Baby by Charlotte Vale Allen

My review of this book is pretty straightforward:  It's about a 31 year old woman who's mother just suffered a heart attack, and on her death bed tells her daughter that she kidnapped her in a supermarket when she was a baby.  Then she dies, telling of a letter that confesses everything and starts this woman on a search for her real mother/family.  She finds her, it'a joyous reunion and all is well.  She tries to find out who her "mother" really was, finding dead end after dead end and numerous identity changes, all leading nowhere.  It turns out she had stolen something like 20+ identities since she was a teenager and planned the whole kidnapping for whatever reason and the book just leaves you hanging as to who this woman really was.  The author could've at least said she was abused as a child and stole all the money that made her so wealthy and wanted a new life but was physically unable to have children due to the horrid abuse she endured as a child and was also unable to get close to any man, also due to her childhood abuse... anything but nothing would've been good.  Fiction should end well, not happily, necessarily, but at least have closure, you know? That's my opinion, anyway.  It was a decent book, and kept me turning pages till the very end... which is probably why I kept reading it even though there were more than two bad words, but only increased my disappointment more at the end when I couldn't even solve the mystery.  Oh, well.  Chalk one up to... well, whatever.  ;)

Storm Front, by Jim Butcher

It took me EIGHT DAYS to read this book, Storm Front by Jim Butcher, and that, for me, is a very LONG time. 

So, if there were just a handful of words I would use to describe this book, they would be cocky, unrealistic, dark, lame, and sex.  There were two F-words, too.  They were towards the very, very end (like within a few pages of the ending) or I would've stopped.  Still, there was a lot of swearing, and like I said before, some obsession with sex.  Yuck.  Plus, the whole magic/wizard thing is just plain bizarre to me.  On the whole, I didn't like it and won't be reading this author in the future.  I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone as a worth-while read and hope those who were reading right along with me won't hold it against me.  ;)

I suppose I can try to say a few good things about this book:  yyyyeaaaah, nope.  Not really.  The plot was so simple-minded and just not twisty and turny enough for me (I'm used to Mary Higgins Clark... now that broad can write one heckuva mystery AND keep it clean, all at the same time). His attempt at being funny was so obviously that:  an attempt.  I have to give him this, though, it sounds as though he's done his research on the "Nevernever" and magic and all that cra- um...stuff.  I don't know anything about it, but I would have to guess he's not making this stuff up.  Or maybe he is, who knows.  (Who cares...) Sorry, that was low. 

I'm totally book-bashing, and I can't say I'm proud to be doing that, because he's published and I'm not, right? So, who am I to talk? It's just my humble opinion and you can take it or leave it.  ;) On to the next...

Struggling

I've been reading the book, Storm Front, and I just have to say, it's no page-turner.  This guy keeps making sorry attempts at being sarcastically funny... he definitely overdoes it in that area, like he's trying too hard to make his character witty or some sort of smart-you-know-what.  This author is way too obsessed with sex.  He somehow manages to keep it mostly clean, but sure does talk about it a lot.  I'm really not into the whole magic and wizardry thing, so this book is just so rediculously fake to me.  I know it's not supposed to be real, and maybe I'm being too negatively judgemental, but this book just isn't doing it for me.  I'm going to make an attempt to finish reading it, because I'm the one who started this whole thing, but I'm not going to be reading the next one in line.  Thanks for the suggestion, R, but please don't take it personally when I do a little book-bashing with this one.  ;)

Join us!

Only one person had a recommendation for something to read together, so that's what we're doing.  It's called Storm Front by Jim Butcher, a novel from the Dresden Files. 

Sounds interesting! Check it out! If you want to join us, please do!

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The word that comes to my mind when I think of describing this book is "raw".

Joan Didion in no way romanticizes the loss of a loved one and the grieving process that one goes through following their death.  "You sit down to dinner..." is a phrase she often repeats throughout this book.  It's as if she's trying to digest what's happened, still in shock at the suddeness of it all.  She and her husband sat down to dinner one night after visiting their sick daughter in the hospital and her husband had a heart attack, dying instantly.  She recalls the details of what happened that night and the nights that followed throughout the book, and the feelings that accompanied these memories.  Her denial of the reality of it is so heart-breaking, yet so real.  I can relate to how she thinks, reminiscing over the past and things said to each other and how something as simple as a plant can invoke memories that inevitably bring tears.  As a writer, herself, she has ways of describing things and comparing to what others have said that make it seem like you're the one grieving, although, I have to admit I truly felt like I was grieving with her.  "The question of self-pity" is another phrase she often repeats, trying to find her way through this grieving process, trying to become herself without her husband there.  Her grieving is put on hold, so to speak, due to her daughter being in the hospital with pneumonia and septic shock, followed by another hospital stint caused by a hemorrhage in her brain.  But when she's finally able to focus on herself, she finds it hard to go through the motions of everyday life because, as a writer, she's worked at home with her husband, who was also a writer who worked at home.  I found it interesting and almost endearing that she kept things like his shoes, because somewhere in her mind, while she was in the denial stage of grieving, she thought he'd need them when he came home.  It wasn't until she saw the autopsy report several months later that she was finally able to accept that he wasn't coming home.  She goes through in her mind how she could've prevented this, how she could fix it.  She goes through a depression of sorts, when she's crying all the time about little things that remind her of something she said or did with her husband.  She did go through the anger stage, because I remember her being angry that her daughter's doctor wanted to take the trach out.  It was a silly thing, but that's where her anger ended up being directed.  By the end of the year, she was sort of coming into an acceptance phase, attempting to move on and keep living.  One can feel the pain and emotional scarring that was left by this tragic event in this woman's life and I have to say, I feel fortunate to have been one of the readers she has shared her story with.

For a peak inside, click here.  I do recommend reading it, especially if you've lost someone close to you.  I can guess that knowing someone else has gone through this exact same thing would, in some way, be comforting.

What do you want to read?

I'm doing this on my other blog, too, so we can hopefully get a few people doing this.

If you'd like to read the same book with a group of people and then discuss it, please leave in the comment section 2 or 3 books of your choice. I will then narrow it down to, oh, say 5 that sound good to me and we can vote on the best one and, you know, read it.

Sound good?

I think I found something...

Some of my particularly favorite reads are memoirs.  I was browsing my library's website when I decided to click on a link that said something about awards for non-fiction titles.  I stumbled across this book and read the description... sounds very interesting, I think.  The title itself is enough to intrigue me.  The Year of Magical Thinking is, from what I can tell, a book written by a woman who's suffered the loss of her husband and is going through the stages of grief through writing.  She's also an author of fiction, if I read it correctly, and I now have the book on hold so as soon as it's available, I shall read it! :)

What to read...

Does anyone have a recommendation of a good book? I'm debating a few, but they're ones I've read before... also, I'm thinking of checking out another Alice Hoffman book.

I'm open to suggestions.

We should all read a book together! I like memoirs for that, but I'm up for anything.

Let me know in the comment section if you're interested.  :)

The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

This was such an emotional book! I felt the characters big time in this one, such feelings as sorrow, regret, love of so many levels, pain, anger, fear, and so many more...

This book focused on a plethora of characters, all linked together and coming together differently at the end.  I love the way this woman writes and entertwines the story so well. 

It takes place in a small town in Massachusetts called Unity.  It's based on a family of women that wake up on their thirteenth birthday with a gift of some sort, the most recent is the gift (if you will) of seeing the way someone's going to die.  What this character, Stella, finds out, though, is sometimes she can prevent this death.  Trying to do this gets her father accused of murder and gets her and her mother living with her grandmother, whom her mother hasn't spoken to in years.  Stella has been pulling away from her mother since her parents' divorce, her father being a liar of sorts and very unfaithful to his wife.  She trusts him, nonetheless.  Somehow, everyone ends up back in this small town where the story began 300 years ago for the Sparrow family.  I can't begin to describe the main theme of this book without just telling you about the whole thing, for telling about one part and leaving out another would simply not do this book justice.  There's romance, mystery, intrigue, danger, history, lore, and such a real feeling of love.  I do not buy books unless I'm going to read them more than once, and this is definitely a book on my list of books to buy. 

If you want a book that touches you and stays with you so that you have to continue to ponder it once you read the last page in order to digest it all, this is definitely a must read! I highly recommend it! It's a book that you won't want to end, but will love the ending just the same.  It's also clean, I love that.  This is an author I'm adding to my list, for sure.

For a sneak peak inside, click here.

Am I Dead?

Nope. 

I just had quenched my thirst for reading when I finished my RPE book.  Didn't last tooo long, though... ;)

I started a day or two ago the book on the right column I said I'm currently reading:  The Probable Future, by Alice Hoffman. 

So far, very good, very emotional book.  It's about the Sparrow family women and their "gifts" they wake up with on their 13th birthday.  Stella is one of the main characters and can see how people die.  Not a very fun gift for her so far.  She's pushing away from her mother due to her parent's divorce and I can feel her mother's pain in simply craving the closeness she so wants and needs with her daughter.  Her father's a loser and I'm guessing the mother was meant to be with his brother, but haven't gotten that far, yet.

I'm halfway through and I can't wait till my next free kids-in-bed moment when I can read more! I'll hopefully have it finished by tomorrow night, so I can tell all.

Ok, on to more serious business:  Who's up for a reading group book? I know, you're so excited, right? :)

If you are interested, list a book or two or three you'd like to read together, then we'll put it to a vote or I'll just pick one - ha -and we'll get this ball rolling.  :)

Finished!

I finished it! It was awesome! His books are such quick reads, but they're so so good! I've decided to eventually start reading all of his books in order, all over again.  It's been several years since I've read most of them, anyway.

This was a spin (sort of) on the Scrooge story, a man trying to change when he's confronted with his "ghosts of Christmas' past".  The ending wasn't sugary sweet, but ended so well just the same.  I love how he has a dose of reality going on throughout the book.

I highly recommend reading it! It has a Christmas title but it's not all about Christmas at all, but real life and how we can change even though sometimes it feels too late. 

My favorite quote from the book:

"We all get lost sometimes.  The trick is to believe that we're worth finding."

Definitely a MUST read!

Break's Over

So, I started my RPE book last night around 9:30pm... and after reading a little today, I'm almost done! It is SO GOOD!!! I seriously even put off bathroom breaks until my bladder was on the verge of explosion! (TMI, I know, but I'm just painting a picture, here.)

So far, it's about a guy who found his obituary posted by accident, followed by a vaste amount of quite negative comments online by people who were literally celebrating his death.  Turns out, it was another man who died with the same name.  This article sets into motion his trying to make amends with several people he's seriously hurt in his life, including his dying wife and son.  Things aren't going smoothly at all and people don't respond well to his too-late apologies. 

I'm not going to say anymore because it's so good you just have to read it yourself! I love how RPE writes so well and invokes self-examination and equally importantly, keeps it clean!

You're sorely missing out if you pass up the opportunity to read this oh-so-awesome book! I wish he'd come out with more than one a year! I think I put off reading his new ones (you know, for a day or two) so I can put off the inevitably LONG waiting period of a year before he comes out with his next marvelous creation.

I'll post again when I finish the book - probably by the end of today, if I get my chores done first.  (Stinkin' chores!)

Short Break

When I read, I often become a part of the book.  Or, rather, the book becomes a part of me.  I literally lose myself in the pages and become someone else for a moment.  Afterward, I feel the emotions the main character felt.  It's exhausting, really.  So, I haven't even started my RPE book, yet.  (For shame, I know.)  I will in the next day or two. 

In the meantime, does anyone else care do submit a review?

I'm finding this blog isn't as exciting as I'd hoped.... maybe we can start a book club book?

I didn't sleep well, so my motivators are a bit down today.  :)

I realize I didn't put my email address on the side column, yet, so click here if you feel the urge to email me.  :)

I got it! I got it!!

The Christmas List!! It arrived today!!!!!! Now I have a good, clean book to read by an author I love, love, love!!! Yay!!!!

Why??

So, I was reading the book "Birds in Fall" by Brad Kessler... but stopped.  Within the first chapter, there were FOUR F-words.  I know there are some out there that aren't bothered by this, and some who wonder why I am... but I am, that's all there is to it.  Why, though?? Why does one have to say "Where's the (f-ing) umbrella?" What is so wrong with just saying "Where's the umbrella?" Really?? Was the author trying to meet a word quota? Do they not know any other intelligent words?? I just think the F-word is so trashy and totally takes away from the story.  I was a good story, too! So far, it was about a plane crash and how all the family members of the victims were gathering at an inn on an island off of Nova Scotia to find closure.  What does the F-word have to do with any of that?? Ugh.  SO, now I'm reading another book by an author I've never heard of, but, hoping for the best. 

Does anyone have suggestions on authors that write clean??

Book Club and Joint Reviews!!

Ok, so I decided I love the ideas I've gotten so far.

I'm going to try them to test the waters and do some tweaking later if necessary.

First, I want all to feel welcome to do a book review! I can only read so many books in a week (ha, usually one!) and it would be more interesting to others to, well, hear from others!

So, when you read a book you want to review, just email me the title, author, and review and I'll copy and paste it to my blog for others to share.  I'll be posting my email address on the side column.

If you have book suggestions for either adults OR children, email me and I'll share them on my blog, both through a posting and adding them to a list on the side column.

Also, every month, we can all suggest some books to read together, you know like a book club.  I'll post them all and we can do a vote, choosing, say, two.  We read them and discuss. 

How does that sound?

I think this is going to be so much fun!

Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

This was an interesting book, a quick read, too.  It starts with a family who's built a house in Cape Cod, Massechusetts.  It tells their story of how the father and his two sons leave for the yearly fishing trip, the last one for this family.  A sudden storm arrives and the ship goes down.  The mother's in denial about it for over a year, but when her youngest son's pet blackbird comes home without them, she knows.  The blackbird is now white, but she knows it's the same bird.  From that point, it hints that her oldest son survived and returned home. 

After this story, it goes from story to story, family to family, each one taking place in this very same house over a span of 200 years.  It's quite interesting, really, to know what's happened and how their all related.  Throughout the book, there's mention of a white blackbird that lives on the property.  Some say it's a ghost, others say it doesn't exist at all.  It doesn't have much to do with each story's plot, but it's there just the same.  The stories aren't always happily ever afters, some leaving you guessing how they actually end, yet they're all somehow intertwined.  Alice Hoffman is the author of the book, now movie, "Practical Magic".  There's a subtle darkness to her writing.  Not evil, but not your typical fairy tale quality.  The stories are intriguing, enough to keep you reading till the very end.  Sadly, there were two F-words, but not till the end, as well as a few other swear-words, all taking place in the story occuring in the late 60's, early 70's.  I wonder why that is? And, of course, there's mention of a witch in her story.  I'm gathering from other books of hers I've checked out, she's into that sort of thing.  I have another of her books on my counter waiting for me to read it.  Maybe after this next one...

I'd recommend it if you're in for some entertainment, but not if you're looking for something that touches your soul.  This one just didn't do that for me.  It was good, but not great.

 Here's a look inside, if you're interested.

Keep Moving Forward!

The ideas were given to me to add additional authors to this blog who could also do book reviews, also, to have sort of a book club, where we can all read the same book and have a discussion of sorts somehow (via comment section, maybe?).  I love these ideas!

What are your thoughts on this?

Do you have suggestions on how you would do it?

One thing I was thinking, is you could read a book and send me the review via email and I'll just copy and paste your exact wording onto a new post, that way anyone can contribute at any time. 

Also, I was thinking maybe I could add a list to the side column of books people have suggested as a good read.  Just a thought. 

I'm always open to suggestions for good books! I have a limited list of authors I know I'll like but the problem is I've read most if not all of there work, and whenever I try a new author, I end up being disappointed by finding they like the use of the F-word or graphically, disgustingly-detailed sex-scenes.  I'm a PG, sometimes PG-13 kind of gal, in movies AND in books.  Harlequin-type romance novels? Bleh! No, thank you.  Now, "You've Got Mail" kind of  romance? Absolutely.  Mystery? Bring it on! Suspense? I'll eat it right up! But add the F-word more than once? I won't read another page.  I LOVE memoirs.  Real life stories intrigue me.  Ghost stories are cool, too.  Self-help is good, if it's something I'm, you know, needing help with.  ;)

So, do tell what you think, and I will take all into thoughtful consideration, because I love reading and I love friends and talking about what I've read with friends, especially when we've read the same thing.  ;)

My Lobotomy: A Memoir

"We are all the victims of what is done to us.  We can either use that as an excuse for failure, knowing that if we fail it isn't really our fault, or we can say, 'I want something better than that, I deserve something better than that, and I'm going to try to make myself a life worth living.'"

This is how Howard Dully ends his story.  For over 40 years of his life, he had questions about why he was given a lobotomy when he was 12 years old.  He finally found the answers he was looking for, met with people who had suffered the same loss, and realized he had found peace by doing so.  He was a normal child, suffering from a sad home life.  He had a stepmother who hated him, and a father who wouldn't stand up for him.  His brothers and stepbrothers were never as harshly punished as he was.  His stepmother called him names and beat him, as did his father.  Why? This is something he would ask himself over and over again throughout his whole life.  His stepmother was so bent on being rid of him, she consulted with six psychiatrists in hopes of having him committed.  All said he was a normal boy.  Four said she was the problem.  Then she found Dr. Walter Freeman.  After several visits, he suggested changing Howard's personality via transorbital lobotomy, or "ice pick lobotomy".  His father agreed to it after only two days of consideration.  The procedure was done.  After that, Howard was calmer. (Who wouldn't be after having their brain scrambled?!) However, his stepmother still didn't want him in the home.  He was passed around from place to place, including family, a foster home, an asylum, a school for the mentally handicapped, half-way houses, juvenile hall, jail, and eventually ended up homeless with the education of a 14 year old.  He was into drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, women, etc.  He was married three times, fathered a child and had a heart attack before he decided he needed to do something with his life.  Also, at this point, he realized he needed answers.  So, he started searching.  He ended up doing a radio show for NPR, which led him to Washington D.C. where he was able to access the files on his procedure.  All the notes, all the pictures, all the lies his stepmother told, the interview with his father... all of this couldn't bring him peace.  Helping others, talking about what happened, bringing it all to the surface, that's what brought him peace.  It's a heartbreaking story of one man's journey through life after being treated so unfairly, feeling like he was "thrown away", aching to be loved by his parents, and finally finding a woman he could be faithful to who loved him and stood by him in his quest for the truth. 

I highly recommend reading it.  :)  Here's a sneak peak inside this book.

This is a picture from the book, the picture Dr. Freeman took of Howard's lobotomy:

Give-Away Results!!!

And the winner is:


#11!!

Cathy Jones! You had the 11th comment entry! Congratulations!!!

Email me! I have some questions for you:

Where do you want this sent?
What name do you want Richard to put on your name plate? (Ex:  For Cathy)

Thank you to all who entered! I wish you all could've won! (I hate having to choose only one, so I had http://www.random.org/ do it for me.)

I hope to do more giveaways in the future, so keep following! ;)

Book Give-Away!!!

I wanted to launch my new blog with style, so I'm doing an awesome GIVE-AWAY!!!!

Here's what you get if you win:

Yay, right? It's Richard Paul Evans' new book, The Christmas List! RPE is my absolute favorite author and when this book arrives at my home in 3-5 days, I'll have every single one of his books (that I'm aware of).

Not only will you get his new book, but you'll also receive a personalized, autographed name plate to put in the inside cover (or outside, where ever you choose).  Isn't that awesome?

So, here's what you have to do:

Entry #1 - Leave your name and most favorite book as a comment.  (Mine is "I Capture the Castle", by Dodie Smith.) (Bit-o-trivia for you:  She also wrote 101 Dalmations.)

Entry #2 - Become a follower, leave another comment telling me you did so and tell me the name of your least favorite book.  (Mine is "Lord of the Flies".  Dumb and dumb.)

Entry #3 - Add a link to this give-away to your blog and leave yet another comment telling me that you did so, with the link provided, please.

I'll do the drawing Monday morning via Random.org.  If you're not a RPE fan, you can always use this book as a gift for someone else.  Just an idea.  Also, if you don't win, and still want the book, Amazon and BN.com have great deals on it if you pre-order before October 6th.  (The links provided will take you right there.)

I'm so excited!! Good Luck!!!

Stay Tuned...

I'm going to be doing a GRAND OPENING type GIVE-AWAY on this brand new blog, and it's going to be something VERY cool.  (Well, I think it's cool.)

I'm probably going to do it tomorrow, so be watching...

The Thirteenth Tale

I just finished reading a book my mom gave me....... IT WAS SO GOOD!

And when I Googled it, the awesomest website came up! Click HERE if you want to read it ONLINE!!!

It starts with a letter from an author to a biographer, only she does biographies of deceased people, so this live one she's about to turn down. But the author mentions a story about twins and she's captivated - she has a twin, herself, only the twin died at birth. This famous author is known for giving several different accounts of her life story, but never the real one. Now that she is old and ill, she's chosen this biographer to tell her final story to. One of her previous books was, at first, entitled, "Thirteen Tales", only there were 12 tales and the whole world is kept wondering about this 13th tale... Could this be it?? As the story is told to her, the biographer isn't sure if what she's being told is the truth, until she finds bits and pieces of evidence showing her that what she's being told, really happened. Then, at the end, just when the pieces are not quite fitting into the perfect picture, there's a twist, a new detail that solves the puzzle of puzzles, and everything becomes clear. It's a story full of unforgettable characters, plots that make you want to go back and reread because they're so shocking, you can't possibly have read it right, and as you read, you find yourself unlocking the mystery - only to find at the end you were wrong all along. Then, when you're done, you want to go back and reread the whole thing because you've had the ah-ha moment the author intended you to have. (Kind of like The Sixth Sense, if you ever saw that!)

I love books that wait till the very end for the climax, but keep you wanting to keep climbing and climbing until you get there. I highly recommend this very good read!

I'm starting another book today, and if my schedule allows, I'll have it finished in a few days to a week. I'll do a review on it when I'm finished.

I love reading and try to fit it in whenever possible... sometimes late, late at night when I should be sleeping, but can't because the book's just too darn good! (That didn't happen last night, I swear.)


Keep watching for more reviews! ;)

This, I can do

I love to read.

Like, LOVE to read.

So, I wanted to start a book blog.

I only have to update it when I'm starting or finishing a book, so it won't take up too much of my time.

Bonus, right? More time for reading!

I thought it would be fun to do book reviews on here.

With my three kids (new baby, included), my babysitting charges, my homemaking duties, my calling at church, and well, sleeping (dang bodily needs!), I can usually finish a book in a week at the most. I'd like to think I'm a fast reader... not bragging, just saying. SO, every week, there'll be a new book that's been reviewed. Sooner, if life allows. (Sleeping really is a good thing.)

And there you have it.  My new non-time-consuming blog.  Nice.