Top Ten Tuesday

This is a neat weekly feature over at a blog I really enjoy, The Broke and the Bookish.  They read books similar to some that I've been reviewing, and they're fun and they write well.  Totally worth checking out!

Top Ten Books People Have Been Telling Me That I MUST Read

I'm actually pretty good about picking up books that friends and family recommend to me, so some of the books in my TTT post I've read recently.  Some are on my shelf waiting for me.  (If I've already read them, you'll be able to link to the review by clicking on the book title.)

1. I feel like the entire book blogging community has been telling me to read Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins.  I haven't even read the first two!  When so many bloggers write so much about a book, I get a little apathetic.  I feel like I already really "know" the story then, and I'd have to read Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door first.  It's on my TBR list, but it's not urgent.

2. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.  Recommended by my sister-in-love, and I loved the book! 

 

3. If I Stay by Gayle Forman.  I thought I was ok not reading this.  It's short and I've read a ton of reviews and synopses.  But I'm so glad a coworker recommended it!  Yes, it's short, but the author does a lot with those pages.  Amazingly well-written; a pleasure to read, even knowing the ending.

4. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.  I've had a review copy forrrreeeevvvver but haven't read it it.  And everyone and their uncle is book-blogging about how great it is.  I need to get on this one asap!

5. Taliesen and its sequels by Robert Lawhead.  The hubby has moved from recommending it to demanding that I read it NOW over the last few years.  I'm currently reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and will be starting Taliesen next.

6. Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos.  Another sister-in-love recommendation.  I truly enjoy her recommendations, because they're always books that I'd never have picked for myself that turn out to be brilliant.

7. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer.  Recommended by my aunt.  I'm about halfway through.

8. More Libba Bray.  I have a coworker who loves love loves Libba Bray.  She finds it confusing that I have read only The Diviners.  So I've added the Gemma Doyle series, Going Bovine, and Beauty Queens to my TBR list.

9. Manga--specifically Naruto or Dragon Ball-Z.  My teens tell me I need to read these.... I've been a "bad" library employee and have yet to pick one up.  Reading manga is so foreign to me!

10. Climate Changed by Philippe Squarzoni.  Recommended by my aunt.  I'm still on the holds list for this at my library.

Book Girl's Guide To: Cocktails for Book Lovers by Tessa Smith McGovern | Cookbook Review

Cocktail-to-book pairings?  YES PLEASE!  I got this from my library and I read it cover-to-cover nearly immediately, taking care to Post-It flag all the cocktails I wanted to try!  I narrowed it down to just a couple.  Last year I requested Tequila Mockingbird from my library and did the exact same thing.  I think it's so fun how author-mixologists are pairing beverages to books.

Cocktails for Book Lovers has a very, very short one-page introduction before the author jumps right in to the author-cocktail pairings.  I thought there was a lot of great diversity in this cookbook, in both authors and in cocktail types.  The author devotes a two-page spread to each of 50 different authors.  We get a little mini-bio of the author, a little background on one of their best-known books, a quote from said book, a cocktail, and a second book recommendation for the author.  The cocktails sometimes matched up to a drink that a character from the author's work drank, and sometimes the cocktail is something the author themselves enjoyed.  Hemingway, for example, has a mojito recipe.  This hearkens back to his love of the Florida Keys, where the drink is popular.

At first I was only flagging cocktails if I a) had read anything by the author and b) thought the cocktail sounded yummy and c) had a majority of the cocktail's ingredients already on hand.  Then I came across the pairing for Flannery O'Connor: Salted Caramel & Bourbon Milkshake.  I love all those things!  So I've added Flannery O'Connor to by TBR list and made myself a milkshake.  It was really rich but delicious!

The next drink I tried was a Gin Rickey, which is the pairing for F. Scott Fitzgerald.  The reasoning behind this pairing is that the Gin Rickey is a favorite drink of the fictional Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby.  Just reading the ingredients list I figured it'd be pretty similar to a gin & tonic with lime, but I was wrong!  It's quite a bit more sour than that, as it contains the juice of an entire half of a lime, plus quartered lime wheels for garnish.  I loved it, though.  The Salted Caramel & Bourbon Milkshake was very rich and sweet; this one was a lot less sweet and very refreshing for summer.

Next I tried the Jane Austen pairing: "Miss Austen's Delight."  From the book: "It's little-known that Jane Austen was a sophisticated reveler and wine drinker.  One very popular drink in nineteenth century England was Madeira, a fortified wine."  The "Miss Austen's Delight" consists of gin, Madeira, oj, and maraschino cherries.  It was a tiny adventure getting my hands on Madeira.  Turns out my local grocery store doesn't carry that specific fortified wine, but it does carry other fortified wines, so I subbed.  The drink itself was pretty good, but it's not pretty to look at.  Oh well.  Now I have maraschino cherries in my fridge.  I could make a Shirley Temple later on!

The last drink I attempted was the Hemingway mojito.  DELICIOUS.  But then, I already knew that I liked mojitos.  I liked that this one didn't call for simple syrup; you just muddle the sugar with the mint leaves and top with the ice, rum, soda, and lime juice.  Mojitos are pretty and refreshing.  Can't go wrong.  And the "also recommended" book is one of my top ten fave books!  The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.  A fantastic book.  He mentions his mojitos and daiquries in many stories.

If I owned this book, I'd try many more of the cocktails, and add to my TBR list.  Alas, I must allow other library patrons an opportunity to peruse this fun book.

Oh, I almost forgot:  a fun fact!  I love finding new fun facts in books.  From the entry pairing Christina Thompson with Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story with Grand Rum Toddy:  "The rum ration was a daily amount of rum that used to be given to sailors on Royal Navy ships.  The last navy issuing the rum ration was New Zealand, which abolished the practice in 1990."  Can you believe it??  All the way up to 1990, New Zealand sailors got a daily rum ration!

*I received my copy of Book Girl's Guide To: Cocktails for Book Lovers from my library.

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Team Tynga's Reviews.  You can find their blog here:  www.tyngasreviews.com.  This weekly meme, which Tynga's team posts on Saturdays, is all about sharing the books that you received or purchased over the previous week.  Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your own Stack!  My Stacking the Shelves posts have been so short lately because I'm trying to get caught up on my TBR pile.  Here's what I couldn't resist picking up this week:

Library
(Free books!)

Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*CK by Amy Alkon--who could resist a title like that?

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare--on CD for the commute!

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King | Audiobook Review

(What a delightfully creepy cover!)

Doctor Sleep answers the question: "whatever happened to Danny after the incidents at the Overlook Hotel?"  In Doctor Sleep, Danny is now a middle-aged man who uses his talent, or shining, for good.  He works in a hospice and helps ease patients into their final sleep.  He's a recovering alcoholic, clean for over ten years.  He thinks he's past all the mess with the Overlook, until he meets a very special little girl.

At the same time, a group of folks in RVs roam the country.  They call themselves The True Knot.  To you and I, they look like a group of retired folks traveling the country and seeing the sights.  But to those with the shining, they represent quite a threat.  The True Knot subsist on Steam, which they draw from those with the shining via torture and, ultimately, death.  The steam allows them to live nearly forever.  That is, until one of them contracts the measles.

Rose, the leader of the True Knot catches wind of Abra, the strongest case of the shining to date.  She figures that taking Abra's steam will help buoy the group for months, and her measles vaccination will pass to the group via taking her steam.  Can Abra and Dan team up in time to save her life and stop The True Knot?

I LOVED THIS BOOK!  I can't recommend it highly enough.  I think you could even read it without having read The Shining.  You might miss a few references, but you could still enjoy it.  

Stephen King just has such a great way with words.  The reader is totally transported into the story.  It's often tense!  This was a long audiobook; 23 CDs; and I was never bored for a second.  I never zoned out.  There isn't a single wasted word.

And the narration!  The narrator was fantastic.  Great cadence and tone.  I didn't have to work at listening at all.  And a bonus: there's an introduction and a prologue, both read by Stephen King himself!  Yay.  :)

If you haven't already, go read these books!

The Shining by Stephen King | Book Review

(This book is so popular that roughly a bajillion editions/covers have been released.  This is the cover on the paperback copy I read.  The hubby and I own it.)

When I got married, I hadn't read any Stephen King books but I had seen The Green Mile on TV (so, I presume, cleaned up a bit).  Hubby is a HUGE King fan, and it wasn't long at all before I was addicted too!  He already owned a ton of Stephen King books, and we've been adding to the collection together, so I'm not sure if he already owned The Shining or if I bought it.  Either way, we own a well-loved (soft!) paperback copy with the cool cover seen above.  I originally read this in 2010 and I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads, but I didn't write a review.  This book has been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed nearly to death, so I won't agonize over my missing review.  I already knew that I loved The Shining; now that I've read and LOVED Doctor Sleep I'm trying to convince the hubby to read them.  Can you believe he hasn't read The Shining yet?  CRAZY!

Here's the summary, courtesy of Goodreads.  Just so that you're caught up before I review Doctor Sleep tomorrow!

"Danny was only five years old but in the words of old Mr. Halloran he was a 'shiner,' aglow with psychic voltage.  When his father became caretaker of the Overlook Hotel his visions grew frighteningly out of control.  As winter closed in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seemed to develop a life of its own.  It was meant to be empty, but who was the lady in Room 217, and who were the masked guests going up and down in the elevator?  And why did the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive?  Somewhere, somehow there was an evil force in the hotel-and that too had begun to shine..."

Light From Heaven by Jan Karon | Book Review

Talk about your book hangover!  Light From Heaven is the final-for-now Mitford book and it's a doozy.  It probably doesn't help that I spent all summer re-reading all nine Mitford books nearly back-to-back.  I just don't think I'm ready to leave Mitford yet.  Thank goodness the brand-new 10th book is coming out in less than one month!

Continuing in the same vein as my previous Mitford "reviews," this will actually be more of a review.  Spoilers galore.  But the aim is to get us all caught up in time for the release of Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good!

Light From Heaven covers the year that Father Tim and Cynthia spend farm-sitting at Meadowgate.  They're going to relax; take long rambles in the fields and woods, right?  NOPE.  Come on... we know these characters better than that!  Bishop Cullen installs Father Tim as the vicar of a tiny mountain church that's been closed for 40 years.  And Cynthia decides to do a calendar of Violet at the farm.  In between all this, they've still got Dooley on school holidays (he's in vet school at the University of Georgia), and he's ready to be formally adopted by Father Tim & Cynthia.  Dr. Dooley Kavanagh!  Has a great ring, doesn't it?  And Dooley is seeing Lace.  And miracles of miracles, Sammy leaves his dad and comes to stay at Meadowgate.  A full house!

The reader doesn't get much Mitford in this book.  Father Tim ducks in and out of town a few times on errands, but there's not much character development there.  Instead, the action focuses on the little homesteads clinging to the mountainside up past Meadowgate.  Oh, how I want to visit Holy Trinity!  Jan Karon based Mitford on Blowing Rock, NC; I wonder if there is a true-life "Holy Trinity."  I wonder if it's not modeled on Pretty Place, a little chapel in the mountains near where I grew up.  The book describes it as sitting on a ridge overlooking miles and miles and miles of scenery.  Father Tim makes it a regular habit to celebrate Communion outside the church, on the low stone wall overlooking God's creation.  There are only about two dozen folks who make up the main congregation there, and they are characters!  I love them.  And it turns out that a deaconess named Miss Agnes and her adult son Clarence have been taking care of the physical church for all these years, so there aren't any major repairs that need doing.  Things are quite a bit harder up on the mountain, but the people there are absolutely just as loveable as the characters we left behind in Mitford.

And the afterword in the book!  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  KENNY.  Ms. Karon, howwwwww can you leave me hanging like that????  

So now I'm going to be as impatient as can be waiting for Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good.

*I own my copy of Light From Heaven.

Top Ten Tuesday

This is a neat weekly feature over at a blog I really enjoy, The Broke and the Bookish.  They read books similar to some that I've been reviewing, and they're fun and they write well.  Totally worth checking out!

Top Ten Books I'm Not Sure I Want to Read for Various Reasons

I'm afraid I don't have a list today.  I have only once DNFed a book, and I still kind of regret it.  I'll probably go back and try again some day soon.  (The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna)  I will try anything and everything, and I'll give it a really good fair chance.  I listened to the first nine House of Night books by P.C. and Kristen Cast, for example.  And we know what kind of shining literature that is...  (not).  So rather than a list, this is my statement: I'm a lover of books and the characters contained within; I don't discriminate and I (almost always, except for The White Bicycle) give books a full chance.

Please don't misunderstand; I do not think that my method is better than those who are more discerning in taste!  I have probably wasted some time along the way, by doggedly not giving up on books that just weren't for me.  But I doubt myself; I ask myself "what if it gets really good in the second half and I miss that?  What if every other reviewer loves loves loves this book and I've given up on it?"  So I persevere and finish the book.

There have been some books that I've doubted from the start that turned out to be great (Born Confused by Tanuja Hidier; I thought it was too long and that we'd get bogged down in the middle but I was wrong!  The pacing was excellent and I flew through it... or Charming by James Elliott; I would've told you that I didn't like urban fantasy... but I tried it and I LOVED it and I now it regularly makes my Top Ten lists) and there are some I was really excited for and then ended up being disappointed in.  I just love letting books surprise me.

What about you?  What books are you unsure of?  Or are you like me, unable to refuse a book?