It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Moyes, Kingsolver, Lavene, Edwards, Wiggs

A place to share what you are currently reading and to see what others are reading this week. Check in with Sheila at Book Journey and link up and see what others are reading.

I finally got brave and took this one down off the bookshelf. I bought it for myself for my birthday in 2013, so it has been almost 2 year. Sheila encouraged me to try it!  So far I am loving it. 

Me Before You
by Jojo Moyes (Goodreads Author)

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

This one is the November selected read of the Goodreads group Love of Reading. I have been wanting to read it for sometime so was glad to do it now. 

from Goodreads:

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

It was an unusual week in that I also brought 3 new books to my stacks. Two were titles that were passed on to me by friends:

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Goodbye Quilt by Susan Wiggs

And the 3rd one was ordered from Amazon when I ordered a couple of other non-bookish things. I have read the other 4 in this series so ,of course, I had to have it.

A Corpse for Yew ( A Peggy Lee Garden Mystery) by Joyce and Jim Lavene 

This one came from a marketplace seller on Amazon and she enclosed a gorgeous bookmark in the book . A really neat surprise.

Thanks, Kim. I love bookmarks!!!!

I found Mailbox Monday again. I had lost track of it and hadn't linked up there is a long time. I will today. 

Until next time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 10-20-14

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. Come join the fun of visiting other blogs to see what everyone is reading. As Sheila says, "Fair warning...this meme tends to add to your reading list!" :)




This week I will finish up

and then I will link up a reveiw with 2014 E Book Challenge. 

I hope to have a review of The Bluest Eye and Half Broke Horses too. 

I hope to start The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book 

It is the November selection of my local F2F bookclub.

And if I am unable to get my hands on this one, I will start Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou.

We have had unusually warm weather for October. Today it was 78 degrees. Sunny and not even windy. Very unusual. I am not complaining, any day that puts snow and cold wind farther away is fine with me!




Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Book of Ruth, The Edge of Never, 50 Shades

Sheila at Book Journey host this place to share the books you are reading this week. This week Sheila is also sponsoring a Banned Book Week special. Check out her blog all week to see what is going on. 

I had a pretty good week. We celebrated my DH's 70th birthday. Our granddaughter, her husband and her son were here for dinner and cake. We skyped with our daughter and her husband, and our youngest granddaughter, so that was fun. I stitched with friends on Thursday. I sewed on a quilt top that has been in my UFO bin for awhile, and I finished two books.
My reviews for 11-22-63 and Someday, Someday, Maybe.

This week I am reading:

 Winner of the 1989 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award  for best first novel, this exquisite book  confronts real-life issues of alienation and violence  from which the author creates a stunning testament  to the human capacity for mercy, compassion and  love. 

I am on page 55,  so just barely started, but once I got used to the writing style, I am enjoying it. 

I also started this ebook on my Kindle.  I have a lot of books on my Kindle and need to read them. This one will help with my Ebook Challenge and to read a book that starts with E. 

Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett had always been one to think out-of-the-box, who knew she wanted something more in life than following the same repetitive patterns and growing old with the same repetitive life story. And she thought that her life was going in the right direction until everything fell apart.

Determined not to dwell on the negative and push forward, Camryn is set to move in with her best friend and plans to start a new job. But after an unexpected night at the hottest club in downtown North Carolina, she makes the ultimate decision to leave the only life she’s ever known, far behind.

With a purse, a cell phone and a small bag with a few necessities, Camryn, with absolutely no direction or purpose boards a Greyhound bus alone and sets out to find herself. What she finds is a guy named Andrew Parrish, someone not so very different from her and who harbors his own dark secrets. But Camryn swore never to let down her walls again. And she vowed never to fall in love.

But with Andrew, Camryn finds herself doing a lot of things she never thought she’d do. He shows her what it’s really like to live out-of-the-box and to give in to her deepest, darkest desires. On their sporadic road-trip he becomes the center of her exciting and daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But will Andrew’s dark secret push them inseparably together, or tear them completely apart?

I am also reading 50 Shades Darker. I do not know if it qualifies for Banned Books Week, but the first book in the series was on the banned books list. I am reading it, not just for that reason , but to complete the series. I have read some  banned books this year it seems. I did not even know it at the time. 

Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are Your Reading? 9/14 SSDD

Join Sheila at Book Journey and find out what everyone else is reading. Then create a post and link back up at Book Journey to tell us about it.

This week it is an SSDD kind of post ( Same Stuff Different Day), It seems my life resembles that more and more. I wake, blog, eat, clean or sew, eat, read, eat, blog,sleep. Maybe if I cut down on the eating???  LOL  This week I did bake banana bread though. I haven't baked in forever!. And I froze what was left of 1/2 case of Colorado peaches we bought from the fruit truck that comes to our area every fall. 

I am still reading the same two books.

  I am about 65% finished with Stephen King's novel. I am really really liking it. It is intriguing.

This one is a print book and I am enjoying it too. It's funny and heartwarming and a little bit neurotic. I can't help but think of a young woman I know that has her heart set on a career in theater and her parents are concerned that she will have her heart broken. They are supportive and she is talented! 

This week, Tuesday night in fact, my face to face book club meets for it's September meeting. We will be discussing We Are Water by Wally Lamb. I hope we have a good turnout and that there is a lively discussion.

I need to get back to 11-22-63.



Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? New Month New Goal

Join us at Sheila's blog, Book Journey, where we share the books were are currently reading or want to start soon. Some of us will share the books we recently finished also, with maybe a link to a review. It is great fun, but fair warning, you will add to your TBR read list for sure.

This week I am still listening to :

I am enjoying this book just as I enjoyed The Life of Bees by the same author. The narrating of this one is superb. 

And I am also reading on my Kindle:

As I said in the past I am not a Stephen King fan, do not read his books, but so far ( and I have just started) I am involved with this one. It is of course, very well written.

My goal this month is to get caught up on my challenge to read 72 books this year. Goodreads says I am now 2 books behind. So I must pick up the pace. As of today I have 4 months, or 122 days to finish 27 books. If my calculations are correct, that means I must read 1 book every 4.5 days. That is pushing it for me. I always thought I was a fast reader, but compared to some I am not. And the older I get, the harder it gets. But I will work at getting to this goal.


Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 3 new starts

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is hosted every Monday by Sheila at Book Journey. This is a very active meme and one sure to entice you to add to your list of books to be read. Join us at Sheila's blog and check out what other bloggers are reading this week 

I finished all the books I had been reading, so started 3 new ones this week. 

First on my Kindle:

This one has been on my Kindle for a while. In fact I think it was the second one that I downloaded. I am not a Stephen King fan. I have not read any of his other books, but I thought maybe I could get through this one.  I was a senior in high school on November 22, 1963 and I remember the day in great detail.  This book will fill two challenges that I am working on too. One is the 2014 Ebook Challenge hosted by 

Sarah at Workaday Reads  and the other is the Mega Mix Challenge II on Goodreads. I need a book with a title that starts with E to spell out the title of my favorite TV show. When I started the challenge I selected Downton Abbey. You wouldn't think it would be so hard to find a book title that starts with E, but I have had a difficult time. So creative license, Eleven/Twenty-two/Sixty-three!. 

I also started Copycat Killing, #3 of the Magical Cats Mystery by Sofie Kelly. This one has been on my TBR shelf for a long time. I decided I needed a book to carry in the car and I may need a diversion from the Stephen King novel. 

I really enjoyed the other Sofie Kelly book I read earlier in the month, Sleight of Paw. I own(or am owned by) a black and white cat, who looks very much like Hercules in this series. He cannot,  however, walk through doors. Thank goodness!. 

And just to round things out, because heaven forbid that I should have time to clean or sew, I decided I had better start on the first book in the fall lineup for my bookclub. We chose 

I read The Secret Life of Bees and bought the movie in preparation for this one. I have it as an audible on my kindle and given the trouble I had finding listening time when I was "reading" The Goldfinch, I wanted to give myself a time cushion. This one is only 13 hours as opposed to 30 hrs, so maybe I will be fine. 

Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Reading Reading Reading

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is hosted every Monday by Sheila at Book Journey. This is a very active meme and one sure to entice you to add to your list of books to be read. Join us at Sheila's blog and check out what other bloggers are reading this week 

This week I was able to do a lot of reading. My husband and I spent 5 days camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Our plan was just to spend time together, doing nothing or at least not much of anything. We stopped at Prairie Berry Winery in Hill City SD and purchased a bottle of my favorite wine, Red Ass Rhubarb. We drove to Sheridan Lake and looked around the camping sites. I looked for chokecherries but did not see any, although my sister and sister-in-law have picked some recently.  And I spent lots of time reading! 

Sleight of Paw by Sofie Kelly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I won this book in a giveaway on the Cozy Chicks blog a couple of years ago. My copy is signed by the author and I also received the next installment, Copycat Killing.  Although I found a couple of typos it did not distract from my enjoyment of the story. This is the 2nd in the Magical Cats Mystery series and there are some references in the story about the solving of the first murder, but this book can stand alone. I may, however have a bit of insight into the murder in the first book, Curiosity Thrilled the Cat.

Kathleen Paulson, is a librarian and owner of two previously feral cats Owen and Hercules. I should probably say, she is owned by the cats. Owen and Hercules are magical cats. Owen can make himself invisible and Hercules can walk through unopened doors. Kathleen talks regularly to her cats and they "talk" back. Their abilities will help Kathleen find some clues to the death of a former and much loved teacher in Mayville Heights, MN. Agatha Shepard's death has Kathleen and her friends, Maggie, Ruby and Roma searching for the cold-hearted killer. Of course, there is professional help too, from handsome Detective Marcus Gordon. Kathleen finds that keeping secrets is never a good idea when there has been a murder.

If you like animals, cats in particular and quirky lady protagonists, then read this fun cozy mystery. I liked it a lot and it was a good read as my husband and I camped in the Black Hills of SD last week. I am on to read the next one, The Copycat Killing by Sofie Kelly and then I will search out the 1st in the Magical Cat series

I will be linking this post to several memes today. Since the short story and book by Paulita Kincer are on my Kindle, I will add them to the Ebook Challenge hosted by Sarah at Workaday Reads. And for the first time, I will link up on Paulita's blog, An Accidental Blog for her Dreaming of France meme. 

I read this short story by one of my favorite authors on my kindle. 

I can't review this short story on Goodreads, they don't show it as a possible read. So here is short synopsis of a short story. 

Joanna's husband Simon has the flu. He quit kissing her on the lips. He turned away from her in bed in a fit of coughing. He moved into the spare room, and after a month he packed a bag and moved out of the house. Their only son Ben was going off to college, what could she do. So her friend Sylvia talked her into go back Paris to drown her sorrows in wine, museums and men with accents. Will the sights in Paris fill the void or will she realize she can't go back to the Paris that she remembers from her younger days? It is a short story with a happy ending, and I feel a prelude to the story that became I See London I See France

I See London I See France by Paulita Kincer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Caroline Sommers finds herself suddenly alone with her kids when her husband of 15 years walks out in a huff. She begins to wonder what happened to the happy fulfilled women she was before she married and before she became a stay at home, homeschooling mom to three. She remembers feeling most alive when she was traveling, and impulsively sells her minivan ( after all it was bought with an inheritance from her grandmother) and packs up Jack, Maggie and Henry at travels to Europe. As she shepherds her kids to London, to Scotland then to Paris and Provence she finds herself wondering. Should she chose love or lust in the arms of a European man she meets in Scotland? Should she try to rekindle the unrequited love of an older Frenchman she met while in Provence 16 years ago as a college student? Or should she give the father of her children and the man she truly loved once a second chance?

Paulita Kincer gives voice to many of our concerns as wives and mothers. She does it with humor, and insight into Caroline and Scott's life. She touches on the importance of taking care of yourself, but knowing that the needs of your children are first.


This next week I hope to finish Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah and start on Copycat Killing by Sofie Kelly.
And I plan to ready the camper for our next outing, do some sewing and maybe, just maybe clean out a closet or two!  Maybe!

Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

IMWAYR? The Goldfinch, Sleight of Paw and Peony in Love ( again)

Join us at Book Journey, where we all share the books we are reading or listening to this week. Sheila hosts this delightful meme and her posts are fun. Link up at Book Journey and see what everyone is reading.

Not much has changed in the last week in the reading department.  I did finish The Secret Life of Bees and  I listened to a few more pages of The Goldfinch.  

 I liked this book at the beginning and even through the middle, now I am at 70% and I am not liking Theo Decker very much right now.  I am hoping for redemption for him by the end of the book. We will see. 

Sophie Kelley's book Sleight of Paw still resides in my car. It is an interesting story with a middle aged librarian who "owns" cats. Well not really owns them, but shares her home with them. There is a love interest that I am hoping evolves to a real relationship, but I am not sure if it will or not. There has also been a murder, hence the cozy mystery genre.    

I am about 1/3 of the way into Peony in Love.  Lisa See tells the history of life in China in the 17th century with great detail. You are transported there, you can practically smell the ginger and jasmine. Peony falls in love with a man she can never be with. Her marriage at age 16 is already arranged. How will she survive?

Hopefully I will make some strides this week. I have not been very productive at all. 

Until next time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 7-7-14

Every Monday, Sheila at Book Journey hosts this meme where we can share the books we are reading and find out what books others are reading this week. Join us for the fun. Just click the link to Book Journey above and then link your blog post to the Linky page at the bottom of her Monday post. See you there!

  I hope to be sort of back to normal this week. Our last couple of weeks have been a bit strange and hectic. We are still sorting through the stuff that must be done after my MIL's death. Dealing with the grief and then we are helping our granddaughter and her husband get their new house ready to move into. It has been fun to watch the work being done. I don't help much with the actual labor, but watch their 10 month old son, our great grandson. Whew!, babies wear you out!  "Big grin".

I am still working at trying to listen to

It is a great story, slow moving and I am finding it hard to find listening time. Guess I really need to learn how to get audio books to my iPod instead of my Kindle Fire. It would be easier to be portable I would think. 

I have Sleight of Paw in my vehicle. I read as I wait for Mr Busy to do errands to the hardware store, etc. Not much of that going on  lately, I have been staying home. But it is a fun read, and easy to pick up and read when given the opportunity. 

This one is our summer read for my face to face book club. I have never read Wally Lamb before, but I am enjoying it. It is on my Kindle and I have been grabbing stolen minutes to read it. It is an interesting story and I am anxious to read the conclusion. Have any of you read this one?

Until next time,

Stay Happy and Stay Busy