What are you reading??

Yvonne G

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When my kids were very young we bought lots of books. I subscribed each of them to book clubs (book of the month) and we always went to the book store on payday. When I was my grand daughter's day care giver one of our favorite things to do together (besides driving around and looking at the high end, expensive "mansions") was go to the book store.

I now live in a small three bedroom house and one of the bedrooms is totally given over to book shelves, the only furniture being a sofa. I must have over 1000 books in there. I'm not real happy moving towards Ebooks, because I love having my library, but I guess that's progress.
 

Prairie Mom

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When my kids were very young we bought lots of books. I subscribed each of them to book clubs (book of the month) and we always went to the book store on payday. When I was my grand daughter's day care giver one of our favorite things to do together (besides driving around and looking at the high end, expensive "mansions") was go to the book store.

I now live in a small three bedroom house and one of the bedrooms is totally given over to book shelves, the only furniture being a sofa. I must have over 1000 books in there. I'm not real happy moving towards Ebooks, because I love having my library, but I guess that's progress.
That is so very cool. Love hearing about you sharing your love of books and reading with your kids and grandkids. We are trying really hard to have a "library" room like yours. We're struggling for space though.
 

Prairie Mom

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I host a book club every month. I don't pick all the books, it rotates among members. Our book club is really fun and we'll often do themed snacks from the book. On the Halloween meeting, some of us will dress up like characters from the book, and sometimes I'll even decorate my house to do with the book.

Here's an example...We read "A Walk In the Woods" by Bill Bryson which is a clever non-fiction about hiking the Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine. The night of the Book club I pitched a large tent in my living room and fed the ladies stuff like snickers bars and Little Debbie Snack cakes. (This was the reason I tried out the "snicker salad" and posted in the recipe thread) It was a riot. There were about 15 of us ladies in ages from Grandmas to College kids all holding flashlights on my living room floor.
book club flashlight tent small.jpg


tent book club fire small.jpg

My book club is really fun. People have even moved away and still SKYPE our book club meetings. Here is the last meeting at my house. It was a tiny group in January and I made the theme a formal tea time to go along with our book "The Parasites" by Daphne Dumaurier.

This is my friend Diana skyping into our book club meeting. You can see me in a pony-tail on the bottom right corner taking the photo:D
diana book club.jpg

Here's a photo she took of her screen showing my upstairs living/dining room. I'm not in this photo. I had just gotten up to get more food. My chair is the empty one with the paper and pen:)
book club diana took.jpg

Anyway. We have such a riot at book club that my kids became really jealous. Come on...adults even pitch indoor tents for these things! :D I finally started my own FAMILY BOOK CLUB a few months ago. We had our latest meeting last week. I need to film a meeting some time. You guys would just die! My kids take it so seriously and we sit and have major discussions about books like "Fancy Nancy" and "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late" and it is a very serious and FORMAL pint sized book club meeting!! It's hilarious. The adults talk about the books we're reading and the kids ask us serious and thoughtful book club questions. IT IS SOOOO CUTE! Last week, a little girl I babysit often and her Mom joined us for book club. The Mom was so impressed and is dying to come to more. It is so STINKIN' CUTE!!! I love having kids that are interested in reading!:D
 

Prairie Mom

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It's obvious I love discussing books (among many other things) and love chatting with the people on this forum. I like to hear views from people that have different backgrounds and perspectives. Maybe every once in a while, we could even read a book together and post about it. Send me a note or post here if you're interested in doing this and we could come up with a plan. Otherwise, I'd still LOVE to hear what people think of different books (good and bad) and get different ideas from you guys:)
 

Dessy

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Just finished reading No Impact Man
the adventures of a guilty liberal who attempts to save the planet and the discoveries he makes about himself and our way of life in the process
By colin beavan
I loved it i would recommend it to everyone :)
 

Prairie Mom

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Just finished reading No Impact Man
the adventures of a guilty liberal who attempts to save the planet and the discoveries he makes about himself and our way of life in the process
By colin beavan
I loved it i would recommend it to everyone :)
In a hurry, I scanned a brief review. So, it sounds like he tries to live "off-grid." Sounds like it could be amusing. The review likened him to Bill Bryson which is fun. So, I'm assuming it's non-fiction, yes? I may have to check this out when my book group is in need of a non-fiction. Thanks!!!
 

Prairie Mom

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So far, my book group has only done a handful of nonfiction...

"Two Sing Frogs" by John M Simmons--Follows the story of some children adopted from Russia who had some pretty serious PTSD and attachment issues. I skipped this one. I was dealing with the same issues with some of my own children and didn't feel like reading our life story :p It was kind of funny because my friend Ginger who was a foreign adopted child also chose to skip this meeting. We were more in the mood for an ESCAPE rather than an autobiography of our lives:D

"A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson -Follows clever writer Bill Bryson and his friend as they hike the Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine. He's a great writer and often very funny. The book had a few parts that I chose to skim through, but over all, a great and interesting read!

"Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach --The title tells it all. This book brought up really mixed feelings in our group. Many people LOVED it, some didn't, some were a bit let down. It took me a while to come to a full opinion on it. There were absolutely incredibly INTERESTING parts. I found it very interesting to see how they were used in studying forensic science. The idea that there are schools with owned forests full of rotting corpses to be studied at different levels blew my mind. It was just something I never thought about. I will complain that there were quite a few things about her writing style I wasn't into. -She ALWAYS described things like food and they were typically gross things. It was a bit over the top. I also wish the book stuck more to following the cadavers and left out all the horrible animal testing/mutilation. Some of the murder was interesting, but after a while it was also more about murder than the cadavers. Also, I readily admit that I wish I had skipped the chapters about studying crash test safety and ESPECIALLY the scientist who studies Plane Crashes and have to study the crash sites. --I have always been a calm and easy going flyer, but now...there will be sections of that book that will haunt me every time I get on a plan, particularly with my children. Awful Spoiler... typically only large males make it to the safety exits and leave a wake of damage behind them which is always found by accident workers. Over all, the book made me cringe at humanity more than feel interest about the human body. Some people loved, I could have skipped it.

"The $64 Tomato" by William Alexander - A crazy man's attempt at the perfect garden. He has a book about obsessing over a bread recipe too. He's a very funny writer. At times you want to strangle the man in frustration over the ridiculous choices he makes and other times your laughing at whatever silly situation he gets into. There were some sweet parts of the book too. I've thought about this book far more than I thought I would. It's definitely a plus if you love gardening, but members of our book group that don't garden at all also enjoyed it.
 

jaizei

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I read it and liked it. I need to read the next one at some point actually. What is it "Speaker for the Dead?" I need to look it up and see.

The real question is do you read in published order or chronological?

I started reading Ender's Game because I saw the movie. Downside being that watching the movie first gave away the twist at the end. After reading the book, the movie seems lacking in some ways.
 

Prairie Mom

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After reading the book, the movie seems lacking in some ways.
I'm thinking Chrono. Are you planning on reading the rest of the books any time soon?

Speaking of movies and books...

I watched the movie "Mazerunner" and then read the book. The book is very close to the movie and I enjoyed them both. I planned to read the rest of the Mazerunner series, but still ended up seeing the second movie before reading the second book.

Again, I liked the second movie "Scortch Trials" and I just BARELY finished reading the book. HOLY COW!!! The movie and the book are NOTHING alike. The only similarities are desert, a few character names, and zombie-type people. The book was WONDERFUL! So different and so much better than the movie. I highly recommend reading it!!! I thought the "zombies" were creepier in the book. It's not often that Zombie-people can speak and seem to enjoy what they're doing. The second movie was fun, but I'm shocked at the liberties they took. Good books so far!:D
 

Prairie Mom

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. Downside being that watching the movie first gave away the twist at the end. .
That is too bad. It is such a shocking revelation that it's not exactly "war games." But I think the movie is really good too. I liked them both.
 

Prairie Mom

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Tonight, I need to muscle through my groups' next book club book. A younger newer member picked a lovey one since it's February. It's a Nicholas Sparks novel: "A Walk to Remember." I've never had any interest in reading those kinds of books and am a bit afraid to muscle through it.

Will I waste the next hours of my life on lame reading?
OR WORSE...
Will I actually LIKE the book and not be able to live with myself in the morning? :p
 

Yvonne G

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Tonight, I need to muscle through my groups' next book club book. A younger newer member picked a lovey one since it's February. It's a Nicholas Sparks novel: "A Walk to Remember." I've never had any interest in reading those kinds of books and am a bit afraid to muscle through it.

Will I waste the next hours of my life on lame reading?
OR WORSE...
Will I actually LIKE the book and not be able to live with myself in the morning? :p

I love Nicholas Sparks's stories.
 

Prairie Mom

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I love Nicholas Sparks's stories.
You do!? Alright! I've only just cracked it open. I'm about twenty pages in and I'm already reading everything in a Southern accent. I'm hoping to have it done by tomorrow night. It looks like a pretty short read, so I think I can power through it. I'll post what I think about it, so please come back to book-banter with me:)

I also want to explain my bias...
When I was in my early twenties, I enjoyed two jobs of working at both a bookstore (first a Barnes & Noble and then this awesome Independent Bookstore called "The King's English") and a video rental store. Both places encouraged you to check out stuff for free like a lending library. I was never lacking in entertainment! BUT- at times working at both places made you disgusted with humanity.

Remember how Blockbuster and Hollywood video would have entire shelves full of movies like "Booty Call?" Before I worked there, I would stare at these full shelves and question 'WHO in the WORLD RENTS THIS GARBAGE!?!?!' ---Then when I started working at a video rental store, I discovered EVERYONE DOES!!!! No one rented anything good!!! It was all just the garbage!!! Seriously!!! I scanned some version of "Booty....something" a million times a day. When I worked at particularly Barnes and Noble, I rang up the same Oprah book club books, Self-help books, and fiction like: Nicholas Sparks, Mitch Album's "Tuesdays with Morrey," and Richard Paul Evans' "The Christmas Box" ALL DAY LONG!!! I got sick of hearing about them and most of the people that worked there wouldn't read them.

Then, my book club forced me to eat my words and chose Mitch Album's "The Time Keeper." I explained my prejudice and was rightfully teased, especially when I LOVED "The Time Keeper." I thought that little book was done really well and loved the symbolism throughout.

Will I eat my words after Nicholas sparks? Will "A Walk to Remember" be um...re-memorable?:D I'll know by tomorrow!
 

Prairie Mom

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I like to read laws and political stuffs .Like this little book .
OH MY GOSH!!! I HAVE TO TELL YOU A STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you remember the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart_kidnapping

Okay...so I was living in Salt Lake working at the Barnes and Noble that I just mentioned in the post to Yvonne. Often homeless people would come and hang out in the store. We had a regular bum that everyone downtown nicknamed "The Jesus Bum." This guy went out of his way to sew Biblical looking robes and wore leather strap sandals, long hair, hood, beard, the works. He looked like he just left a film set and walked around pan-handling, and would visit our store fairly often.

My coworkers would often criticize me, because I was never nice to the guy. They would tell me I was too judgmental... yada yada, but I always told them he gave me the creeps and I had a bad feeling about him.

One day, he came up when I was at the cash register and he was buying "Walden" by Thoreau. The guy handed me a perfectly sewn large coin bag like you'd see in the movies and paid for his pricy hardcover copy of Walden in change. He also acted like he had taken a vow of silence and refused to speak. He attempted to ask me the time by dramatically pointing at his wrist. I was like: "WHAAAT...WHAAAT DOES THAT MEAN!?!?? I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOOOOOOU!!!" I was a total jerk. My coworker answered his question, gave him the time, and after he left she told me that I was acting like a jerk--which I WAS, but I whined my same ol' "he gives me the creeps."

Then he didn't come to our store after that. Never saw him again...UNTIL....DUN...DUN...DUNNNNNN!!!!.........................
HE WAS DISCOVERED TO BE THE GUY WHO KIDNAPPED ELIZABETH SMART AND WAS ALL OVER THE NATIONAL NEWS!

So, in my mind, the association WILL ALWAYS BE: Henry David Thoreau=Jesus Bum who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart and I was a jerk to him.


p.s.
Now, I imagine you with sewn elbow patches and a pipe.
 

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