2/books per week, ALRIGHT!!

So that last couple of weeks I have decided I am bored of what's on the list, what I HAVE to read, so I've decided to read some on my forever-long list of recommended books that I hear about from all sorts of sources - friends (ok, really just one friend I trust with the reading recommendations so far - thanks Jess!), the CBC, good ol' Heather's Picks from Chapters, Oprah. Cliche, I know, but I find my interests line up with these popular folks.

I decided that I wanted to read a REALLY GOOD book. Andrew got me "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson about building schools on a very minamilistic budget and a large timeline. It opened up a fascinating world of rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of which I love. As it was written about the course of 15 years, it has my favorite element of international-humanitarin-histroia that keeps me hooked every time.

Worth a read for anyone looking at spending some hard-earned cash on doing some good.




I then had to immediately run out and buy the sequel, "Stones into Schools", although I got distracted and picked up some more of Heather's picks (Heather being the Chapters guru on what books are "good").



A book I requested way back, recommended by Sheileigh Rogers from CBC's The Next Chapter interviewed Catherine Gildiner, the main character and author of her memoir "Too Close to the Falls", a brilliantly funny account of her childhood growing up in Lewiston, NY adjacent to Niagra Falls. Her innocence, sense of adventure, and the relationships she has from work to the Catholic school had me laughing out loud many times. A good easy read, and a very Canadiana feel to it even though it was on the American side of the border. She is mischievious, making it all the more interesting.



Picking up another book that day (it was not enough for me just to let it be for a couple of hours and go back to knitting or cleaning or watching the Olympics...I latched onto the sad "Still Alice", a fictional novel on one woman's first-person perspective as she copes with early-onset Altzhimer's. As a psychologist at Harvard, where she specializes in thinking, thought, the brain and it's capabilities, it becomes the ultimate nemesis for the main character. It also gives insight into what family reactions would be to a mother, a wife, losing her capacity to think, and so forgetting who she is. A crier, but worth reading.



Picked up yet another Heather's pick last weekend, "Shanghai Girls" by Lisa See, who, after reading 90% of the book with complete faith that this woman was actually 100% Chinese, realized she is a halfie and actually LOOKS white. But I still felt it was very well written and researched. Emotional especially having a sister relationship very similar. It is told from the older sister's point of view so I could relate a lot with this book.



This I finished last night...but I don't know what else I will read. I have neglected my knitting in the last 3 weeks, so off to some Stich n'Bitch to get me motivated again.

Bored Enough....

So, I decided not to read "A Brave New World" at this point - just randomly picked up a small book called "The Slaughterhouse 5" yesterday afternoon - and finished it tonight.

A book about the post-war life of Billy Pilgrim after being a POW which included time in Dresden, where they were kept in an old slaughterhouse.

A very quick read, the author speaks of time travel, aliens, war, and the failure of the mind throughout tramatic events. The author seems obsessed with terror of old age and how he "got here", through comments by minor characters throughout the book.

Several lines that I liked in this book: "So it goes". After everything.

And, "I could carve a better man out of a banana".

A little on the crazy side, but opened up a rather distant view of war and escape and post-war America.

Brave Enough for "A Brave New World"?

Ok, so the pile has chosen my next read. As the UK Observer puts it: "Provoking, stimulating, shocking, and dazzling", I can't wait.

It is Aldous Huxley's "A Brave New World", number 5 on the Board's list of fiction, and number 18 on the people's list.

Yes, kill two birds with one stone. I'm always down with multitasking.

A foreward by Margaret Atwood as well...how intriguing :)

Finished "Friday Night Knitting Club"

Ok, I am done the "Friday Night Knitting Club" by Kate Jacobs, my entertaining distraction from my big list, this week.

Well, as one woman put it at the knitting club I actually went to on Friday night, it was "just like reading a Danielle Steele". I couldn't agree more. The plot was crap, but the character development kept me reading. As the ladies last night filled me in, I reached the "big shocker", and had to say I balled my eyes out. It left me inspired to keep knitting though.

The books from my list keep piling up on my dresser as the requested come in from the library a little faster than I wanted.

What to read next, what to read next...time to go over and do a little cover shopping...

Moving on from Australia

A Town Like Alice was a fascinating read, me being a hopeless romantic, I couldn't wait for this war-torn couple came together again, and Jean Paget put the town of Willstown together, building it into a "Town like Alice", aka Alice Springs which was "meant for a lady". I have to say, I wouldn't mind coming into an unknown inheritance, but she put foward ideas that seemed although far too simple, inspirational in a Scarlett O'Hara kind of way.

This book definitely rated high on my list of favorites so far..if not the favorite of the lists at this point.

Another to add to the list. Done.

My next book? The Friday Night Knitting Club", although not on the list, something that came in for me at the library that I can't help but starting in a cold January when all I'm doing otherwise is knitting. Why not read about it?

Over and out.

And then I put DOWN The Ginger Man...

Ok, I know I was supposed to start, and then finish, The Ginger Man. But, after 100 pages, I got annoyed. Written in an old school lilting poetic fashion, with an added Irish accent, I have given up for now in light of better pastures. Being the New Year and all, the futuristic 2010 (I hate to think what George Orwell thought of 2010 with what he wrote about for 1984) I have decided to allow myself more time to read, and therefore get a goal of 60 books done this year.

So I took a trip to my favorite library, and started an-orderin'. Up and down the escalator I went, shopping and just taking things off the aisles. I have figured out that majority of my books are in the popular fiction section, or a level up on the Lit. floor...and people seem not to go up one floor! Ohhh, the scandal of it all :) So more books for me. Which means I did my usual habit of getting book happy (god forbid I was without a book for a day, ESPECIALLY over New Year's). So I've got about 10 out, including 2 which are not on my list but the covers looked good :)

Wanting to start something short and sweet, I have picked up Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice, a <300 page novel that fits perfectly in my purse. The writing style from the 1950s is flowing and understandable, and it's an easy read. The novel is based on a British woman POW in "Malaya" in WW2, meeting another POW who risks his life for her, and gets killed. Or so you think. Years later, they meet - I think...I'm almost there.

Check out:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Town_Like_Alice

Nevil is JUICY!!!

The Year of 1984 is Complete!

So, I have completed 1984. One depressing book about the world destroying a man. Thank God our world is nowhere near that stage...ok, well, it is, but we do have our certain freedoms.

Speaking with a coworker yesterday, it was interesting to know that she had read 1984 before 1984 - she had felt some relief when 1984 came and went and was not anything like what like the author had predicted.

Besides the 50 pages I had to skip, this was a fascinatingly evil book that I would recommend to anyone.

Next up, The Ginger Man.