Mailbox Monday and What's in a Name 6-

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week(s) and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at Hooked by A Book (formerly The Printed Page) and is on tour for the month of March, and hosted by Caitlin at Chaotic Compendiums

 Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

This week my kindle downloaded a copy of :

I am looking forward to this one  by Tess Thompson. Looks like a Chick-Lit,and I am ready. 

For my IN THE KITCHEN entry for What's in a Name 6 Challenge at Beth Fish Reads, I finished:

IN THE KITCHEN = Potato, Potato Peel, or Pie

I really enjoyed this book. The format of the letters made it interesting and easy to read. Funny how you can get to know someone, through the letters they write or the letters they receive. What a time in history when letters were such an integral part of communication. Not even e-mail these days can convey such information. Is that because we are to anxious to get to it, to be done with our explaining. Juliet is my favorite character, though I like Isola Pribby too. Juliet's wit and good sense serves her well in this story. And who can resist the ending........?

The book was set all in 1946, that is my birth year. It was interesting to read the entry on my birthday, and then there was one for my husband's birth date, and he would have been 2 at the time. It gave me pause to think of my parents being alive at that time in the US and wonder if they knew of what happened on Guernsey Island. They are both deceased, so I cannot ask, but I wish I knew.

I am continuing to work on my St Patrick's Day Challenge:  GOLD
G = (The) Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
O= On Mystic Lake  by Kristin Hannah


Happy St Patrick's Day
Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Saturday Snapshot 3-16

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home With Books. To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky (at At Home With Books). Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

This picture was taken by my brother-in-law who live in northern Montana. It is lupine, I think. Mountain Lupine shows up in Montana and Wyoming in the early spring.  I am so ready for the wildflower to add color to the otherwise drab landscape at this time of year.  Today it is rain/snowing, so that feels like spring to me. I enlarged the photo so it's a little blurry, but that's what it looks like on the mountain side, a blur of bluish lavender.

Wondrous Words Wednesday 3-13-13

 Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.


These 2 words were in a recently finished read. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. I had seen the first word in Ms Meyers first book of the Lunar Chronicles, "Cinder". But I did not look it up, just formed my own definition based on the usage in the story. I was a tiny bit off. 

This is an ARC that is a traveling book at Ladies & Literature on Goodreads, so the cover does not look like the book that is in stores or on library shelves. But I highly recommend it. 

thaumaturge: noun

1. a person who supposedly works miracles.  

I thought is was a bad wizard-type person, under the spell of an evil queen.  



runes:  noun

any of the characters of any of several alphabets used by the Germanic peoples of the 3rd - 13th century. 

as an adjective: in decorative interlaced effect. 

In the book the word was used to describe the robes of the "thaumaturge".  So I envisioned gold braid in an entwined pattern, like a Celtic cross. 


This story was set in a future century, so it is interesting that the "runes" on the cloak sleeves or robe hems were based on Germanic alphabets in the 3rd to the 13th century. 


I finished the book for my F2F bookclub, Claiming Ground by Laura Bell. It was amazing. Now on to fulfilling a March challenge of four books to spell the word, GOLD.  Can you guess what my choices might be? I'll post them as I finish.

Another new word:   from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

unctuous:  adj.
1. fatty or oily
2. smooth and greasy in texture or appearance.
3. full of unction - especially : revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating. or false earnestnes or spirituality.

I knew what a loathsome person he was, one of those unctuous worms who work for The London Hue and Cry.

This is a quote from one of the characters, Susan Scott in a letter to the publisher of Juliet's books. I am sure she meant the 3rd description, but maybe all 3 would have applied!!!  LOL


Until Next Time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Mailbox Monday and Nonfiction Reading Challenge

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week(s) and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at Hooked by A Book (formerly The Printed Page) and is on tour for the month of March, and hosted by Caitlin at Chaotic Compendiums

  Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

I had empty mailboxes all week, but  last week it was jammed packed. So it is all right. I started and finished the March read for my F2F book club.  It will complete the first in my 
2013 Non Fiction Reading Challenge  hosted at The Introverted Reader.  I signed up for Dilettante: 1-5 non-fiction.  Non-fiction used to be my favorite genre, but the last year or so I haven't read much of it. So this will get me going again.  The book was 

The back of the book reads: In 1977, Laura Bell left her family home in Kentucky for a wild and unexpected adventure: herding sheep in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. the only woman in a man's world, she nevertheless found a home among the strange community of drunks and eccentrics, as well as a shared passion for a life of solitude and hard work. By turns, cattle rancher, forest ranger, outfitter, masseuse, wife and mother, Bell vividly recounts her struggle to find solid earth in a memoir that's as breathtaking as it is singular.

I cannot find words to review this book. I am touched by her almost lyrical writing. I feel as if I stumbled upon a private journal, and suddenly got a glimpse of a woman who was strong, courageous, tender and a true friend. I will hold this book close to my heart, as I venture on to the rest of my life. I may be lucky enough to meet her someday in my home ground of Big Beautiful and Wonderful Wyoming. I urge you to pick up a copy and learn for yourself about this amazing woman. 

What's In a Name Entry for "Emotion"

Title:    Joy School  (Katie Nash #2)
Author:   Elizabeth Berg.
Published Date:   1998
Purchased :   Used from Amazon.com
Description: ( Goodreads)
In this exquisite new novel by bestselling author Elizabeth Berg, a young woman falls in love -- and learns how sorrow can lead to an understanding of joy.

Katie has relocated to Missouri with her distant, occasionally abusive father. Her much-loved mother is dead; her new school is unaccepting of her; and her only Mends fall far short of ideal companions. When she accidentally falls through the ice while skating, she meets Jimmy.

He is handsome, far older than she, and married, but she is entranced. As their relationship unfolds, so too does Katie's awareness of the pain and intensity' first love can bring.


       


                            3 out of 5  Happy Hands.


My Thoughts: Though this is a YA book, it spoke to me. I liked it just as much as Durable Goods, which is the first Katie Nash book. Even though Elizabeth Berg said she probably would not write a third book, I know now that she did. It is True to Form and I have a copy loaned to me by a friend.

This story sent me back to the time I was 13 going on 19. Katie is a soft-hearted young girl, living with her father after her mother's death and in a new town. Her dad is in the Army and a distant father at best. Her older sister has run away from home with a young man of course and so Katie is left to make new friends. She befriends a needy sheltered girl in her class, and then is befriended by a "popular" girl whose morals are questionable. Her strangest friendship of all and probably the most questionable is a friendship that develops between Katie and Jim who is 23. Each of these friendships teaches her something about life.

It is a fast read, but enjoyable.


This is my selection for the EMOTION entry for What's in a Name 6 challenge at Beth Fish Reads. Check out her sidebar for other entries and to join in the fun.

Mailbox Monday 3-4

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week(s) and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at Hooked by A Book (formerly The Printed Page) and is on tour for the month of March by Caitlin at Chaotic Compendiums

Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

This week not one new book arrived in my mailbox, but some did find their way to my bookshelf.

Tuesday:  At the monthly meeting of my F2F book club, 2 of the members brought books that they had finished and wanted to share.  I was able to snag:

Our Lady of the Lost and found by Diane Schoemplerlen  which comes highly recommeded  and

Winter of the World by Ken Follett. It is on my TBR list since I finished the 1st one in the trilogy,  

Saturday: We were in Colorado for my birthday. We visited a used book store and and Indie Bookstore. Since Ft Collins is home to Colorado State University, there are lots of bookstores and fun places to shop. I added:

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig  Larsson. I have read the series, but my husband started on it last Memorial Day when we were in Steamboat Springs. He picked up the first one from an "Take One Leave One" shelf at the campground. He is a slow reader, so borrowing from the library leaves him frustrated. When I saw the 2nd in the series, I had to pick it up, and we already own the 3rd. So now he is set for awhile.

Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shade Freed by E. L. James, because I own the 1st one and hadn't bought the next ones, yet. These were at the used book store and a good price. 

High Five and  Hot Six by Janet Evanovitch, because it too is a series I have started and the price was right.

Then at the Indie Bookstore, I chose, Me Before You  by JoJo Moyes, because I had not been able to find it locally, it was the February read for a group on Good Reads and it got great reviews and it was my birthday, so I treated myself!!. 

Whew, my TBR piles really is toppling. I also have a toppling pile of UFO's ( unfinished objects) in my sewing room that I must work on.  So glad I am retired, so I don't have a job to add to the mix.  Of course there is also laundry today, but that doesn't cause too much of an issue, because I work laundry in between projects or chapters.  LOL

Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Saturday Snapshot and 2 Finishes

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home With Books. To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky (at At Home With Books). Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

I think this is a flower from a thistle. The snapshot was taken by my brother in law who lives in Montana. It is pretty in an unusual way!  I am so ready for spring!!

Yesterday I finished reading The Twelfth Child by Bette Lee Crosby. It was on my kindle so that is another one down on my 2013 Ebook Challenge sponsored by Workaday Reads. 

The story is about Abigail Anne Lannigan who is the 12th child of her father William Lannigan. Even though she is a twin, she is a girl child and therefore not important in her father's eyes. She is an independent child, and her mother encourages her. A favorite teacher insists she and her brother continue to attend school after their mother's death, even though her father thinks that at eleven she should be home in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning. When he wants to marry her off at age 16 to the son of a wealthy farmer nearby, Abigail Anne runs away.   This is a story of love, love lost, and unconditional  friendship. Bette Lee Crosby creates characters that you wish you had known. Characters that you can understand and either love or hate as the case may be. 

My husband and I started listening to an audio book last Friday the 22nd, on our way to a weekend visit to our daughter, her husband and our granddaughters.  It was a 14 hour audio, so we did not finish it while in the car. We listened to the remaining discs on Wed night, Thursday night and last night we finished it.  True Blue by David Baldacci is entertaining and fast paced.

  D.C. police officer Mason "Mace" Perry is finally from her two years in prison after she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. Now she is determined to become a cop once again. Despite her sister being the chief of police Mace has to be careful, a U.S. attorney is searching for a reason to send her back to prison. 

There is lots of intrigue, mystery and even a little heat in this exciting story. Strong likable women who manage to 'get the job done'. 

Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy