January Month In Review

I haven't done a Month End Review in the past. I'll be linking up with Kathryn at Book Date. 

JANUARY 2016

But I will try to list my books at least, and how I am coming on my challenges.

Goodreads says I am right on track for my goal of 60 books for the year.  5 per month.

January: 

1. Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde    First Book of the Year

1. New to me author
2. Literary Fiction
3. Paperback
4. Already Owned:  TBR Triple Dog Dare
5. Read the Books You Buy Challenge

2. If You Stay (Beautifully Broken #1) by Courtney Cole

1. New to me author
2. Women's Fiction Challenge
3. E-book
4. Owned:  TBR Triple Dog Dare
5. Read the Books you Buy  Challenge

3. Across the Miles by Jill Buck  

1. New to me author
2. Women's Fiction Challenge
3. Ebook
4. Owned: TBR Triple Dog Dare
5. Read the Books You Buy Challenge 

4. Wild: Lost and Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed

1. New to me author
2. Women's Fiction Challenge
3. Ebook
4. Owned: TBR Triple Dog Dare
5. Read the Books You Buy Challenge  

5. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

1. Women's Fiction Challenge
2. Paperback
3. Owned: TBR Triple Dog Dare
4. Read the Books You Buy Challenge
5. What's In A Name 2016 Challenge - a book with a piece of furniture in the title     

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Book Beginnings and The Friday 56 - Deep Down Dark

Today I am joining Book Beginning on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader and The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice. I haven't joined in here in quite a while. But I am engaged in this book this week and wanted to share. 

Prologue: Cities in the Desert

The San Jose Mine is located inside a round, rocky, and lifeless mountain in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Wind is slowly eroding the surface of the mountain into a fine, grayish orange powder that flows downhill and gathers in pools and dunes. 

This book is the February read for my local book club. I really wasn't interested in reading it. I thought it would be dark and depressing. But, the majority rules and so it was added to our list. I started it and was immediately involved in the lives of the Chilean miners. The author is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist  and novelist. He is of Guatemalan descent but was born in Los Angeles. Also, this week my husband was watching The History Channel and the story of the American company that drilled down to the miners was featured. It was very interesting and made it seem more real to me. I do remember the news reports when the accident happened. 

Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free

Hector Tobar

Farrar, Straus and Giroux on my Kindle

"There are twenty of us here ready to provide you with immediate help," the minister says. "How are you? How do you find yourselves?"
"Well. We are well. In good spirits, waiting for you to rescue us," Urzua answers, though his voice is hurried and uncertain. 



Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Wondrous Words Wednesday - Emma

I am joining Kathy at BermudaOnion's Weblog to share words I found while reading this week. If you want to join us, share some words then link up at Kathy's blog.

I found these words while slogging through Emma by Jane Austen.



illiberal

"Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior society, may very well be illiberal and cross."

not allowing people to think and act as they choose: not liberal


carpet-work

"If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take up carpet-work"

I could not find a definition of carpet-work when I searched the internet, but I think if may be like embroidery or needlepoint.  I understood it to mean a way to keep herself busy if she ended up being an old maid.



stomacher

"... and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month.

the center front section of a waist or underwaist,  or a usually heavily embroidered or jeweled separate piece for the center front of a bodice worn by men and women in the 15th and 16th centuries and later by women only

A close up of a probable hand embroidered stomacher

A 16th Century version of a stomacher in a dress

A modern version 

 Both the 16th-century version and the modern version show a lot of  decolletage.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday - Here Today, Gone Tamale by Rebecca Adler

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros. It's a place to share the first paragraph or two from a book you are currently reading or hope to start soon. Share a book you are reading, then link up at Diane's blog.

I received this cozy mystery in a giveaway at Beth Fish Reads in December. I am anxious to start it.

Here Today, Gone Tamale
Rebecca Adler
Berkley Prime Crime
      / Imprint of Penguin Random House



Chapter 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Josie!" Aunt Linda's high-pitched drawl soared like a heat-seeking missile up the wooden stairs from our restaurant below, through my quaint living room and into my sweet but tiny bedroom. 

   There are three things Aunt Linda and Uncle Eddie have in common with tamales: they're unpretentious, comforting, and fattening when consumed in excess. 

So would you read this cozy mystery?  I already like the sounds of this one. Can't you just hear Aunt Lydia?

I'll have a review when I have finished. And thanks again to Beth Fish Reads and Penguin Random House. 

It's Monday! What Are Reading? Deep Down Dark

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you are and about to be reading over the week.  It's an opportunity to visit and comment, and er... add to that ever-growing TBR pile!  This meme started with J Kaye's Blog   and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. So share what you are reading this week and link up with Book Date.

On my Kindle:

Deep Down Dark
Hector Tobar
Farrar, Straus and Giroux/ Picador

From Goodreads and edited by me:

When the San Jose mine collapsed outside of Copiapo, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. Across the globe, we sat riveted to television and computer screens as journalists flocked to the Atacama desert. While we saw what transpired above ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, the story of the miners experiences below the earth's surface and the lives that led them there hasn't been heard until now. In this masterwork of a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, Hector Tobar gains exclusive access to the miners and their stories. The result is a miraculous and emotionally textured account of the thirty-three men who came to think of the San Jose mine as a kind of coffin, as a cave inflicting constant and thundering aural torment, and as a church where they sought redemption through prayer while the world watched from above. It offers an understanding of the families and personal histories that brought los 33 to the mine, and the mystical and spiritual elements that surrounded working in such a dangerous place.


This is the current read for my Face to Face book club. I hope the book editing is better than the Goodreads synopsis.  I do not speak Spanish, but in the blurb from Goodreads, Copiapo the city in Chile was misspelled, as was Hector's name. Also several just bad typing errors. In the last sentence, the word los precedes 33 and I am not sure just what may have been intended. Maybe "these"? Anyway, I could not leave it here with all those obvious errors.

I have put Emma on hold for awhile, until I can acquire the audio version from my library.


 Print Book:

I will probably start on a new Cozy Mystery I won in December from a giveaway at Beth Fist Reads blog. I am looking forward to it.

                                                                  See   Goodreads

 

Hope everyone has a good week.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am a fan of Sue Monk Kidd's writing. Her prose is elegantly beautiful. This story of 42-year-old Jessie Sullivan's journey to come to terms with the death of her father, her mother's erratic behavior and her own loss of self, feels very real. I think lots of women have felt this loss. Ms. Kidd tells this story with humor and truth, and with honest compassion. I enjoyed the story of the monks and the abbey, the fable of the mermaid chair, and the description of Egret Island and its inhabitants. I especially liked Kat and Benne. I even liked Jessies' mother, Nelle.

As a woman of a certain age, I could put myself in this story. Not all of it of course, but the parts of feeling that your life was lived in a small box. That your life was lived for others. I totally understand Jessie. I feel for her husband Hugh.  I understand the part about "staying in the marriage", "the small acts of forgiveness", the relationship that changed.

Wondrous Words Wednesday 1-20-16 7 Little Words

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a place to share words found while reading or listening, or maybe even playing games. Write a post and link up with Kathy at BermudaOnion's Weblog. 

I play 7 Little Words. After solving the scrambled tiles for
1) engage in a petty argument (6 letters)= bicker
2) political situation (9 letters)
3) uproar (8 letters)
4) exchange of punches= fisticuffs
5)angry dispute= quarrel
6)noisy brawl=fray
7)petty argument=spat.
I still had these sets of letters. ROW, IM,  BRO, DY, IO, DOW, GL

When I finally guessed just by trying all combinations I came up with these words and the puzzle was correct. I had never heard either  of these words. 

#2  political situation = imbroglio

1: a confused mass 

2a: an intricate or complicated situation (as in a drama or novel)

 b: an acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding   

 c: a violently confused or bitterly complicated altercation: embroilment

 d: scandal  

#3 uproar = rowdydow

1: noisy excitement: hubbub, to-do

2a: a noisy disturbance or spirited contest: brawl, fight

b: a boisterous party: spree

Do you play 7 Little Words?  Did you know rowdydow or imbroglio? What words did you find this week?