Shelf Discovery Challenge

by Carol4 Comments
To quote Julie, who is hosting this challenge at Booking Mama, "Shelf Discovery is a 'reading memoir' which features over 70 MG and YA classics with Ms. Skurnick's unique impressions." The goal of this challenge is to read 6 of these classics and write "book reports" on them between November 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010. I'm trying to stay on the younger side of the age range, because I'm hoping to read a few of these with Amber (9). That's actually the main reason I'm joining this challenge. I love the idea of sharing these classics with her. Here's my list (subject to change of course), a couple I read when I was younger, a couple I didn't. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade by Barthe DeClements A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh A Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken If...
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Permission Slips by Sherri Shepherd

by Carol12 Comments
Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break by Sherri Shepherd with Laurie Kilmartin I've never watched The View and I'm not a big fan of stand-up comedy, but after reading Permission Slips, I officially love Sherri Shepherd. She tackles issues from child-rearing to bad boyfriends, from faith to family with humor and aplomb. She tells the truth about herself and about life, but is hilarious at the same time. Write yourself a permission slip to love the wrong guy. Just don't marry him. (pg. 63) She had me laughing out loud, both at the situations she found herself in and how often I could relate to what she was saying. And one look at my apartment proves I kept that promise to myself. It is a pigsty, or so I'm told. I don't notice, because I don't care. My housekeeping motto is "Carpe Diem." As in, seize the day, and don't waste a second of it scrubbing a dang toilet. (pg....
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

by Carol10 Comments
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis I don't know how many times I've read this book. My copy is from a box set that was bought sometime in the 80s, but this is the first time Amber (9) and I have read it together. The story is always magical. Four siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, are sent to a Professor's house in order to avoid the London bombings. While there, they discover a wardrobe that leads to the land of Narnia, which is under the spell of the White Witch. She make sure it always winter in Narnia, but never Christmas. The four children help the mysterious, powerful Aslan defeat the Witch and bring spring to Narnia. They then become kings and queens, fulfilling an ancient prophecy. There is a lot of Christian symbolism throughout the story, which I enjoy and appreciate more, I imagine, as an adult than I did when I was younger. Amber recognizes...
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Read-a-Thon Books

by Carol13 Comments
I've been trying to pull together a stack of  "possibles" for the Read-a-Thon. These are ones I pulled off the shelf yesterday. Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs So Into You by Sandra Hill Julie & Julia by Julie Powell Flesh and Fire by Laura Ann Gilman The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Peacekeeper by Laura E. Reeve Still Life by Louise Penny Hidden Currents by Christine Feehan The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress by Lynne Graham Branded by the Sheriff by Delores Fossen An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny (in The Great Book of Amber) I know I won't get them all read, obviously. Also, I may end of grabbing entirely different ones. I figure I can always go to Amber's bookshelves if I just need a short easy something for a break. Also, I'll read a little with Amber, but I'm not sure what we'll be reading by then. I told her she can stay up late if she's reading with me...
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K is for Kissing

by Carol4 Comments
Vicki of Reading At The Beach hosts A-Z Wednesday. Today's letter is K. I'm going back to one I read in April 2008. The description is from Goodreads.com, because I don't remember the book well enough to summarize is on my own. Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler David Schickler's debut seems at first to be a lot of fun: a gaggle of young Manhattanites with fancy jobs and fine educations chase each other around town, falling in love or not. In a series of linked stories, Schickler gives us a perverted heiress; a bumbling schoolteacher whose teenage student proposes marriage to him; a bad comic who finds his métier in off-off-Broadway theater. The writing is cool and a bit willfully naive: "Rally McWilliams was profoundly lonely," begins the title story. "She wanted to believe that she had a soul mate, a future spouse gestating somewhere in Nepal or the Australian Outback. But in Manhattan, where Rally lived, all she found were guys." The...
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