Interrupted by Another Book

I apologize to anyone who's actually reading this - it's been a crazy almost week, and I haven't done much reading in that time anyway.

I am still reading The Grapes of Wrath, but because of a busy schedule and trying to finish tv episodes either taped from this week, or checked out from the library, I still haven't gotten to do much reading for a set time. I am continuing to enjoy it more - I got a bit of steady reading time before Mass on Sunday while Mom was practicing with the rest of the choir. I did not like the used car salesmen chapter - they were annoying, nasty people; however, I'm not sure I was intended to like them.

Yesterday while I was at work, a book I've been waiting for was returned for my opportunity to check it out and it's still popular enough that I only get it for two weeks, so I'm going to interrupt The Grapes of Wrath with Stephanie Meyer's book The Host. I'm not yet very far into it, but I think I'll enjoy it - even if it's not quite the vampire story I was expecting. So far it's rather hard to decide who's the good guy and who's not. The main character, Wanderer, seems pretty much good, as does the Healer, but it's somewhat hard to like either of them when you consider that they are essentially stealing someone's body as their own.

Sleepy

With working yesterday and catching up on tv shows from last week (and watching the first three episodes of that other show I'd had checked out from the library) I didn't get to do too much reading yesterday, but I did get a bit in. The story is starting to catch my interest more - I'm not quite sure what's going to happen next (admittedly, knowing the gist of the story I do have bit of an idea, but no real details). The beginning portion of the turtle story (as told almost more from the turtle's perspective), reminded me of a story my aunt and uncle told at the last Lemmings book club meeting about rescuing a turtle that was on it's back on the side of the highway.

I have yet to get to any reading today, sadly, but I've been way too sleepy and I took a long nap instead. I also watched a few episodes of Angel Season Four - I need to learn what happens next in that as well.

Sad day

It's been a very short reading day for me today; I barely opened The Grapes of Wrath today. I've been spending too much time trying to finish the tv show seasons I've got checked out from the library that are due back tomorrow and are unrenewable. I'll finish the one set, but am debating on whether it's worth starting the other one or not. I'd like to spend tomorrow morning reading, but if I start the other show instead, I can probably figure out if I'm interested enough in it to bother putting it on hold again. Well, I suppose I'll see how I feel about it in the morning.

It all leads to dust (for now)

In my last post, I said that I hoped to finish Lifelines that night - I did, even though I shouldn't have. I stayed up until a little after three am to finish the book, but it was quite interesting. The romance portions of the book were not as strong throughout the book as they seemed they would be from the beginning of it. The solution to the mystery part was not something I expected at all - I'd pegged somebody else as the trouble-maker, although I did have the motive correct. A day or so after finishing the book, I realized that one question in the plot was never quite answered. CJ Lyons hinted at the cause of Amanda's symptoms, but never quite brought it to the forefront of the book. I'm happy everything worked out in the end for the "good guys" of the book; but I did expect it had to work out that way. As happens with many books I read - I'd like to know what else happens to these characters - I want the day-to-day "normal" stuff as well. I do understand why the story ended where it did, but I came to like the characters and would like to learn more about them.



Yesterday after work was the first chance I got (without staying up even later after finishing Lifelines to start the next book on my list. I first saw Beth Fantaskey's book Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side in a stack of books that were going back to the bookmobile after being returned at the main library. From the little I could infer based upon the title, cover picture, and the beginning of the front inside cover description of the book, I was expecting something rather similar to the Twilight series. There were a lot of similarities - good looking high-school vampire, pretty high-school girl, secrets kept from most everyone else, and another teenage love interest for the girl - but much of the plot was different as well. The parents were in on the vampire secret for one thing, no glittering for another, and the occasional fangs as well. This book really seemed to be a blend of Princess Diaries (the movie) and the Twilight series with a little of the Harry Potter series (mostly just the first book) thrown in. All in all, I enjoyed the book and, yet again, stayed up too late (around 1:30am) to finish it, while wishing that I could know what happened after the ending.

Going back to a book I've already written a bit about, I remembered that one last comment I wanted to make on Julie & Julia. Near the end of the book, Julie is at the butcher shop getting the marrowbone for her final recipe. The butcher asks about the end of the project, and then also asks if she's getting the marrowbone for (I can't remember what the exact word was, but he was right about the purpose) because if she is, he can cut the bone in half for her - this comes after hours-long attempts involving lots of painstaking scraping the marrow out of the hollow portion of the bone (which at least the first time came after attemps with a hacksaw (I think it was)) for multiple recipes in the past. Her thought: "Now he tells me."

One last section for this post. There's about a month left until the next Lemmings book club (mostly family members and their/our friends) meeting, so I'm thinking I really ought to make sure I'll finish that one in time - especially as the same week as the Lemmings book club meeting is the meeting for the book club at church and both books are rather large. I am about three pages into The Grapes of Wrath at the moment. After fifth grade (or maybe sixth) I tried starting this book, but found it too boring that time. I'm intrigued to see what I think of it now - I don't know if perhaps some of the themes will make more sense to me now or anything. Choosing that book now also partially came about because I'd finished all of the library books I'd had and it was on hand - I needed something to read and was going to need to read it, so here I go.

Talk about a terrible first day of work

I still haven't quite decided if Lifelines should be catagorized as a mystery or not, although as I read, I'm also starting to wonder if it shouldn't be in Romance section (I suppose though it's not really different from the Nora Roberts books I've read, and none of those were in the Romance section either, so maybe not).

I can't imagine starting your first day at work as the ER attending physician and having the Chief of Surgery's son die on your shift - and then have him blame you for it and try to end your job, if not your career. Granted, some of that comes from an inability to see myself being a doctor and especially being an ER (or ED - Emergency Department) doctor in the first place. But still, there's not much that could beat that as the "Worst First Day Ever."

I'm hoping to finish the book tonight (as normal, I'd like to know how it ends), but with over a hundred pages left, I won't guarentee that will happen - even if I could perhaps stay up later as I don't have to be up quite as early tomorrow.

I'm somewhat curious how much of the descriptions and/or situations are based on the author's experience (she is a doctor). I often wonder this with books I've read - but it also makes sense to pick that sort of a theme for a book you're writing (the whole write what you know idea). Not everyone chooses to do that (to an extent fantasy writers in particular don't - although enough of the situations/characters/events could be similar to Earth/real-world ones).

Back to the book!

More Reading

So, after watching a couple of shows on tv last night, (well, and taking the dog for an evening walk) I ended up staying up an hour later than I should have because I was reading more of Julie Powell's book. I was hoping to finish Julie & Julia, but at midnight decided that I just needed to go to bed and the last sixty or so pages would have to wait until morning. I'm still surprised that so much of the commentary about/by Julie's friends didn't make it into the movie. There are a bunch of great lines in the book - unfortunately I haven't yet remembered to have pen/pencil and paper handy when I'm reading, so I haven't been able to record them. Oh, well - maybe I'll just have to read it again. Or I could page through and find them, but that's more work and time than I'm willing to give at this point. Although I caught on rather quickly, a few of the acronyms Julie Powell uses still catch me a bit by surprise: MtAoFC (Mastering the Art of French Cooking) and JC (Julia Child). Also, I've been intrigued to see that in his letters Paul Child (Julia's husband) always calls her Julie; similarly I was intrigued to learn that Julie Powell's name is actually Julia, but as she doesn't feel the name fits her, she goes by Julie instead. This reminded me of a book I read in high school (for anyone who has one of my senior pictures it's the book I'm reading in it): When Christ and His Saints Slept by Margaret Pargeter (who also wrote under the name Ellis Peters). Two of the characters are Empress Maud and Queen Matilda - apparently Maud and Matilda are the Latin and English versions of the same name - but having King Steven eat dinner with Maud throughout the descriptions of his battle with Maud for the English throne was just going to be too confusing, so King Steven's wife got one version and his cousin got the other.

As soon as I finish this book, I'm going to move on to the one that would have been read before Julie & Julia, if that hadn't been on the shortened availability due to high demand. I will be starting Lifelinesby CJ Lyons. This is a book that I found misplaced on a shelf while I was shelving books a couple weeks ago - it looked intriguing enough that I wanted to read it instead of shelving it - after I checked to make sure someone hadn't reserved it after an unsuccessful attempt to find it. It looks to be a medical mystery - although the mystery part might not be too strong as it's not in the mystery section. That doesn't necessarily mean a lot, though, because having read the book, I would have put Terry Goodkind's The Law of Nines in fantasy, or maybe science fiction (but probably fantasy to keep it with the Sword of Truth series).

Inspiration (sort of) and more

Yesterday I finished The Law of Nines, which I thoroughly enjoyed. In the last thirty or so pages Jax's last name is finally disclosed - although I must admit, at first it didn't occur to me that she necessarily had one (it should have) - and I really should have guessed her last name. It makes so much sense and brings so much of the story full-circle that I should have known, but I didn't.

Tuesday, while I was at work I was able to pick up a couple of books I'd reserved at the library that had been returned and were now available for me. After finishing The Law of Nines, I started with one of those, instead of the book I'd had longer. Julie & Julia had enough holds on it that I'll only get it for two weeks - and therefore it's due back before that other book was. I'm not terribly worried about finishing it in time - I'm already almost 2/3 of the way through it. The story it pretty interesting, even if it doesn't always surprise me. I'd seen the book come through at work often enough, but didn't know fully what it was about and didn't worry about finding out at all. Then, I started seeing commercials for the movie based on it, and learning the generals of the story, I wanted to see the movie. Then, after seeing the movie, I had two ideas, both of which have now come through at least somewhat. First, I just had to read the book, so I put a hold on it at RPL. Secondly, I had the urge to start a blog for myself, and following Julie's example a bit, I was going to write about books I've read - one of my passions (if I'd been following her example more, I'd have picked the ALA's top 100 books list or something like that, and vowed to finish all books on it in one year (while having to debate about re-read some or just reading the one's I hadn't yet read) but that seemed a bit too unreasonable, and would prevent my reading whatever caught my eye).

I've been a bit surprised at times at the ways in which the movie differed from the book, but I can see why it did. As I was reading on my break today, I would have preferred to stay and finish reading it, or at least read more of it, but I'm not paid to sit and read books. I was able to get a bit more reading in today than the last few weeks - there wasn't any rain to speak of yet today, so I was able to read on my walks to and from work! Happy day!

Keeping it "Rahl"

So, as I stated in the previous post, The Law of Nines was a new book by an author whose big series (Sword of Truth) I'd already read. Near the end of the first hundred or so pages, readers of this book learn that the main character's name is Alex Rahl - so maybe the Sword of Truth series was only partially ended. Knowing some of the ancient history background to the story has been quite interesting - although not as useful in the immediate plot of this book as I'd prefer. However, I'm not quite surprised that it's not more helpful. I'm not quite sure how Alex and Jax are going to get out of their current trouble (although I haven't had direct evidence that Jax is there too (but the implication is strong). I look forward to finishing the book so that I can know what happens - although I won't be surprised if this is only the first book in a new series (the last one had at least nine books that were each at least about 500 pages and sort of one short one (more of a novella) - it's setting was the same world as the rest of the series, but rather earlier in time than the series - only one character was in this book and the series).

Fun connection

Early this afternoon, I finished Irish Mist, but was too stuck in that world to move on to the next book in my stack: Terry Goodkind's new book The Law of Nines.

In Irish Mist, I enjoyed the story well - I wanted to know what happened, and what would happen. I loved the reference to another favorite character of mine, from a different series; Brother Cadfael is great fun. I also enjoyed all the songs that Nuala sang throughout the book, but especially those she sang with the monks - I know them and/or have them on CD - even if the English translations of the Latin didn't always match the one I knew. I also enjoyed Fr. Greeley's comment about what inspired the CD Nuala had just released in the book - it was a CD I'd given Erin (my sister) for Christmas a few years ago (Faith of Our Fathers). Even though I have a lot of books I own that I should read, I am quite tempted to get the next book in the Nuala Anne McGrail series. We'll see how well I resist temptation at work tomorrow.

From the other books I've read by Terry Goodkind, as well as the first paragraph of The Law of Nines, I think I will enjoy the book, but it's possibly too early to tell for sure. I do like the picture of him on the back of the book - he's got this great half-smirking smile going. :)

Slow weekend

Because of work, and sleeping in, and catching up on taped tv shows, and the rain, yesterday was a slow day for reading. The story is moving along in Irish Mist; I don't quite understand why Dermot doesn't think the Deputy Commissioner's one story doesn't connect with the O'Higgins story - Nuala did see a house on fire on the airplane. But I suspect he'll figure it out eventually.

I did enjoy Dermot's fight with the kidnappers - he finished it quite matter-of-factly; I'm getting used to these fights a bit though. So far every story (I think) has had at least one.

Today will also be a short day for reading - we've got church and then a birthday party for my aunt.

Nuala Anne McGrail again

A couple of months ago, I was checking the RPL catalog for a book or a movie called Confessions of a Catholic Priest. I did not find that one, but Confessions of a Parish Priest: An Autobiography by Fr. Andrew M. Greeley was listed. Even though it hadn't been what I was looking for, I got it, and the one right next to it on the shelf (Furthermore: Memories of a Parish Priest). In both books, Fr. Greeley describes and/or quotes some of his other books - greatly increasing my list of "books I'd like to read someday."

On my break at work today I started my fifth fiction book by Fr. Greeley: Irish Mist. This is the fourth book in the series, and I'm greatly enjoying them so far. The characters (at least the main characters) are great - people I often wish I could meet, talk to, and/or be. I have come to care for them deeply and hope that all works well for them. I dread the day that Fr. Greeley stops writing about them (and the Ryan clan, that I partially met in his other fiction book I've read - Virgin and Martyr).

So far, Nuala and Dermot, have arrived in Dublin where she is giving a charity concert. Their (i.e. her) welcome has been both warm and rude - warm from her many fans, and rude from a small but noisy group full of jealousy for her success. I'm already slowly starting to regain the Irish tone/phrasing as expressed in these books - the more I've read, and the more recently, the stronger the connection is (this is similar to my non-question question phrasing that came from the elves in Mercedes Lackey's The Enduring Flame series and The Obsidian Trilogy).

A Quick One (or three)

A year and a half or so ago, I decided that the one kids series I kept seeing come through the bookdrop might be worth trying, so I've been checking them out as the next one in the list gets returned. Today, that book was Junie B. Jones is a Graduation Girl. This was, like the rest, a cute little story about being in kindergarten, or in this case, leaving it. Junie is such a funny little girl, even if I can understand the frustration of those adults who know her.

At work today, I found two other kids books that sounded cute - partially I'd already read a different one (Little Pea) by the same author. Little Hoot is a cute story about a young owl who likes everything about being an owl, except the staying up late part. It is terrible to have stay up and play for another hour! Little Oink is about a young pig who is very neat and would rather not have to mess up his room ("I'll let my kid clean up their room as often as they'd like").

Bees

The Secret Life of Bees was an interesting story. Although I didn't enjoy every part of it, others were quite good. I was amused and a bit confused by all of the uses for honey described - especially the spoonful of honey in the morning to wake them up and the spoonful of honey at night to put them to sleep :). For the last hundred pages or so of the book, I was almost always in tears - leading to the annoying stuffy-nosed, clogged ears, headachy feeling. Fortunately, I finished the book before I needed to leave for work, and with some time to recover from that as well.
This book reminded me of my impression from many years ago (I think mostly from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes) that I would enjoy having an apiary and processing honey (I was about to say making honey, but that's what the bees do). I suspect this would not be the best job for me, however; the last time I got stung, my hand swelled to double its normal size. Oh well, I still enjoy working in the library!

Finished and about to start another

So, I just finished Out of Sight, Out of Mind. This book was not quite what I was expecting - there wasn't as much paranormal activity as I imagined - even if it was a large part of the background/premise of the story. Although often Amanda, the protagonist, is not very likeable, the story does explain well her reasons for her actions. Marilyn Kaye offers an interesting perspective on the stereotypical snottiness of the "popular crowd." Tracey's gift was also quite interesting - I'm sure everyone has at some time or another wished they could be invisible (I know I have) but it is also sometimes frustrating, as Tracey shows. This was not by any means a difficult read, but all in all it was enjoyable and I will be looking into more of the series, if only to get a better understanding of some of the other gifted students.

Having finished this, I'm moving to the next in my stack. This book is one that I've had many people tell me is a really good book, but I've never read it. Last week, at work, it was on a cart of books that I was shelving. I chose to not shelve it, but instead check it out. So, now I'm about to start The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I know very little on what the book is about, but I shall soon find out - as long as the rain stays stopped for the moment.

New author for me

A week or two ago, I was making sure that books that had gone into the exceptions bins after being run through the AMH (an automatic sort system that discharges books automatically) were actually discharged (removed from patron accounts) and one book rather caught my eye. Unfortunately, when I got to it, Marilyn Kaye's book Out of Sight, Out of Mind was reserved for someone else. I placed my own hold on it, and luckily for me, there was only the one other hold on it. On Tuesday, I was able to pick this book up for myself and have now briefly started reading it. With the page and a half I've read so far, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.

This is the first book in the GIFTED series. The given description of the series (from the back of the book) as much as I can read/predict around the library's barcode is "Nine Teenagers. Nine Secrets. An Ordinary [. . .] with a few ext[. . .] [possibly extreme] exceptions.

Time now to go read.

Finished late

So, as I commented in the last post, I shouldn't start reading Glimpses of the Devil if I don't have much time to read. With sixty-ish pages left last night, I started reading, only intending to read for five minutes. An hour or so later, I'd finished the book.

I did enjoy this one, but I do have to say I found the first account in the book much more satisfying than the second one. There are just too many unanswered questions left from the second one. From his comments at the end of the book, I suspect the author feels the same way.

Having finished this around 1:00am, I was highly tempted to start reading the next book in my stack - despite already having stayed up later than I should have. I was smart that time and didn't start it.