Saturday, August 20, 2011

Distraction

*Sigh* It's beautiful. And seriously distracting. I've spent several hours looking through this book since I got it on Thursday.

To say that the pictures are beautiful simply isn't adequate. The colors, the scenery, the characters... it's leaving me speechless.

I can't wait for this book to get my full undivided attention, but right now, I need to put it down. Probably in a locked drawer. And give the key to someone I can trust.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Game Plan

Nobody Panic. I have a plan. Maybe.

My TBR shelf is creeping up towards 70 books again.

I'm not sure I should challenge myself again, but I'm going to try it. This one is going to be a little different in that I'm going to challenge myself to read for 30 minutes every day. Doesn't sound too hard, does it?

Up next:
Thr3e by Ted Dekker. I'm faking enthusiasm about this one.
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. Kind of looking forward to this one.
Lenz by Georg Buechner. This one is going to be a project book over the course of a few months.

Oh The Glory Of It All

Oh the Glory of It AllOh the Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hmmm... well. I enjoyed some parts of this book. It seemed to take forever to get through the boring stuff at the beginning of the book and get to the part where I couldn't put the book down. The beginning was filled with a lot information that I thought was neither pertinent nor really very interesting. So really, condense the first 150 pages down to ten, make the book 350 pages and it's a five star for me. So what I liked: this guy writes amazingly well. He was funny, and honest and sometimes his story was so heartbreaking, I had tears swimming in my eyes. The guy can really write. Sometimes I had no clue what he was talking about but I could still SEE it. I highly recommend this book with the advice to just "suck it up" and get through those first 150 pages. It's worth it.

Synopsis: Sean's blond-bombshell mother regularly entertains Black Panthers and movie stars in the family's marble and glass penthouse. His enigmatic father uses a jet helicopter to drop Sean off at the video arcade. The three live happily together “eight-hundred feet in the air above San Francisco; in an apartment at the top of a building at the top of a hill: full of light, full of voices, full of windows, full of water and bridges and hills.” But when his father divorces his mother and marries her best friend, Sean's life blows apart. His memoir shows us how he survived, spinning out a “deliriously searing and convincing” portrait of a wicked stepmother (The New York Times Book Review), a meeting with the pope, sexual awakening, and a tour of “the planet's most interesting reform schools".

Recommended Reading:
Them: A Memoir of Parents by Francine du Plessix Gray
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Running With Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Friday, August 12, 2011

Tired of Complaining?

Anyone tired of hearing me complain about not being able to read? Anyone?

And has anyone looked at this list recently?

It's ridiculous how much this situation stresses me out.

Here's what is on the reading plate:
Oh The Glory of it All: This is a good read, I recommend it for anyone who likes memoirs, but it was slow reading in the beginning. I'm finally to the halfway point and I can finally read for more than ten minutes.

Thr3e: This one is up for Book Club. I totally cheated and read the last two chapters of the book. I have a feeling that I'll be doing quite a bit of skimming on this one.

[insert random fluff novel here]: Looking forward to one or two Flipsides after reading the above mentioned books.

Committed: The Captain sent me her copy (that she got from The Queen) with the comment that I would enjoy this more than I enjoyed EPL. As EPL was also a read in Book Club, I may suggest this one for the next read (and thereby killing two birds with one stone, go.me.).

Book Review: Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee

 Finished August 4, 2020 Book 11 of 20 Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee My rating: 1 of 5 stars I'm leaving this one unfinished, about h...