First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Edge of Never

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday. Check in with Diane and then share your post of your current read. 

The Edge of Never

J.A. Redmerski

Hachette Book Group

March 12, 2013

Natalie has been twirling that same lock of hair for the past ten minutes and it's starting to drive me nuts. I shake my head and pull my iced latte toward me, placing my lips on the straw. Natalie sits across from me with her elbows propped up on the little round table, chin in one hand. 

    "He's gorgeous", she says staring off toward the guy who just got in line. "Seriously, Cam, would you look at him?"

I have not started this one yet, but plan to this week. It has been on my Kindle for a long time. It is a new author for me also. What do you think?  Would you read on?

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

Saturday Snapshot 9-20-14

Melissa at West Metro Mommy Reads hosts this Saturday meme. Here are the rules from her blog. 

To participate in Saturday Snapshot: 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 below. 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.

Last week I posted pictures of our September snow, this week it has been quite warm. One day it was nearly 90. The saying goes, "in Wyoming if you don't like the weather just wait a moment".

I talked about a quilt I was working on, in one of my posts last week. So I hung a pale pink sheet on my design wall, so the picture would show up better.It is very pale, white and aqua, some lavender and blue. It isn't finished, there are paper-pieced blocks to border this center. Paper piecing is not my favorite technique, but I am working on them. There is still lots of embroidery to do and some beading. It is called Snow Flurries and I am anxious to continue to work on it.



Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Review - 11-22-63 by Stephen King

This is the first book that I downloaded on my Kindle after Christmas 2012. I wasn't sure what it was about other than the title and the cover depicting the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I had read that it was not a typical Stephen King horror story. I have not read other Stephen King novels. All that being said, I did not get around to reading it until this month.

Mr. King takes a watershed moment in America's history and proposes what if that terrible tragedy on 11-22-63 could have been prevented? In this story we meet Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in 2011, an adult student in Jake's GED English class, Harry Dunning, and Al Templeton, owner of Al's Diner.

Jake is changed when Harry writes an essay about his childhood. How his father in a drunken rage murders his family. Jake is later approached by Al Templeton to explore the possibility of time travel. Al has discovered a "rabbit hole" and is set on changing the events of 11-22-63, but he is dying and cannot complete the task himself. Jake is intrigued and wonders if he can change the events in Harry Dunning's life.

Do we dare try if we could?  Will it open a Pandora's Box of more evil and other tragedies?  Jake's journey is a difficult one, but one he is intent on completing.

I liked King's writing. I am not alone there I am sure. There are no monsters under the bed, at least not really. King seems to write in a relaxed story-telling style, I found very believable. I cheered Jake and Al on as they began their adventure and I continued to be in Jake's corner as he battles the obdurate past.

I recommend this novel to all Stephen King fans, those readers who are not King fans, anyone who remembers this time in history and even young readers who only learned about the 60's and the 70's in history class.


I give it 5 stars.


Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I am linking this review to 2014 Ebook Reading Challenge hosted by Sarah at Workaday Reads. I signed up at the DVD level which is 25 ebooks and I am no where near that number. I don't know exactly where I am , but will check it out. 

Wondrous Words Wednesday - from Blogland and 11-22-63

Kathy at BermudaOnion's Weblog host this Wednesday meme, where you can share a word you encountered in your reading or just highlight a word that you like. Join us "wordies" and share your new favorite word.

From a review of Bergdorf Blonds by Plum Sykes posted by Kristen BookNAround



celebutante : I don't exactly get the whole celebutante thing.


A young, fashionable, and usually wealthy person who is the subject of frequent media attention.



Origin of celebutante

Blend of celebrity and debutante.


I sort of had this one figured out, but I really like the way is sounds. A little more "now" than debutante. Thanks Kristen.




From 11-22-63 by Stephen King Mr. King uses lots of words that I did not know or were unfamiliar. Some I could not find in any online dictionary.


obdurate : I'd test-fired it in a gravel pit on the outskirts of town, and it seemed fine...but the past is obdurate. It doesn't want to be changed.


adjective
1. not easily moved to pity or sympathy; hardhearted
2. hardened and unrepenting; impenitent
2. not giving in readily; stubborn; obstinate; inflexible



amorphous : He was wearing an old black overcoat that puddled around him like an amorphous shadow


adjective
1. without definite form; shapeless
1. of no definite type; anomalous
2. unorganized; vague
BIOL. without definite or specialized structure, as some lower forms of life
CHEM., MINERALOGY not crystalline

What words did you find in your reading this week?

Until next time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Intros Tuesday - The Book of Ruth

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this meme. It is a place to share the first paragraph or two of a book you are currently reading or hope to start soon. Go to Diane's blog and link up your first paragraph. Then check out the first paragraph's that the rest of us have posted. 

The Book of Ruth

Jane Hamilton

Anchor Books/Doubleday

1988

     What it begins with, I know finally, is the kernel of meanness in people's hearts. I don't know exactly how or why it gets inside us, that's one of mysteries I haven't solved yet. I always tried to close my eyes and believe tat angels, invisible in their gossamer dresses, were keeping their loving vigil. I learned, slowly, that if you don't look at the world with perfect vision, you're bound to get yourself cooked. Even though I may still be looking through the dark glass, even though I haven't finished learning the lessons, I'm the only one who tells the story from beginning to end. It can't be Ruby, because he has been spirited away and born again. Neither love nor prayer can bring him back. May can talk herself blue in the face and no one will hear. By rights this belongs to Justy, because he inherits the earth for a short time, but he doesn't quite count yet. He'll remember the taste of pecan balls, exactly how the powdery mash got stuck on the roof of his mouth, the color black maybe, and the color and shape of Ruby's teeth. They were rotten with sweets. 

I haven't started this book, but it has been on my radar for a long time. During a recent visit to my sister's I noticed it on her bookshelf in her guest room. I asked if I could borrow it and of course she said I could.  I don't know a lot about it other than it is a first novel, it was a selection of Oprah's Book Club and to quote the Boston Sunday Globe, "A sly and wistful, if harrowing, human comedy. Hamilton is a new and original voice in fiction and one well worth listening to."




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