Summer Reads

Right, so I have not posted for some time now… I have been reading since last I was here.

I just got home from a two week stay in Michigan with my 87+ year old parents. No computer… And my cell phone would not let me make or take calls. Must have been all the trees!

I took only my 14 year old with me. The 17 year old and my husband stayed at home.

My girls have been reading a lot so far this summer. One read all the Harry Potter books again. The 17 year old is on the Deathly Hallows now. She also went through the Twilight books.

The 14 year old is just into the first Harry Potter book now (both on re-reads of HP). But this spring she also finished The Lord of the Ring books and finished The Inkspell books.  

My list of book since I last blogged…

The Host  by Stephenie Meyer  ( I don’t like the Twilight books at all, but this is the second time I read the Host and I like it very much! Good sci-fi story line)

Across the Universe by Beth Revis   ( Another sci-fi I found at the library after reading a blog review about.  It was ok…)

De’ja’  dead  and Death du jour, books one and two by Kathy Reichs ( Bones the tv show is based from the Kathy Reichs books. Not syfy but good reads.)

Virals, again by Kathy Reichs ( This is the first in a new series, not a Bones book, but rather a youth sci-fi.  I liked it. Thought my 17 year old would too. She did! So much so I bought it for her and she went right back and did a re-read with it!)

Then back to syfy with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, books one and two by Suzanne Collins. ( Good sci-fi but left me feeling down after reading them. I still need to read book number 3.)

The two Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough books about space cats… 1 Catalyst, a tale of the Barque Cats and 2 Catacomebs, a tale of the Barque Cats. (Ok more sci-fi books. Fun reads about space cats.)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (Yes we have been passing the Harry Potter books around in my home this summer. My re-read of the Deathly Hallows were to get me ready for the upcoming movie.)

And this last week I read Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch ( Not syfy, but what I like to think of as “hot summer reads”. You know the books you bring to the beach or lay in front of a fan drinking iced-tea with.  It was ok…)

So summer is here and its hot! My two weeks out of state left me with more weeds then I want to think about in my garden... And oh no! It looks like it will rain again!


Edit to add link. I hope I did it right...

"at home with books"
Alyce    

Review on the book. Should be down on the bottom of page 5 of her blog...
Her take on the name got me to read the book. That and I was in the mood for sci-fi...


"I was so excited when I picked up Across the Universe from the library, but then I had to set it aside for a few days before I could read it. During those days I couldn’t get the song of the same name out of my head, I quickly realized that I had “Across the Universe” on the brain.* I had to chuckle when I opened the book and saw a quote from the lyrics of the song right before the first chapter.  It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who made the connection between the song and the book." by Alyce.

"at home with books"  has a lot of great book reviews on her blog.



I added a bit of the song, it is stuck in my head...


http://athomewithbooks.net/page/5/

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me


Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Lennon/McCartney

Books I read as a youth

I have been wondering, trying to recall what I read when I was young.
Reading kicked in for me late, around 10 or 11. I had been a poor reader, I am dyslexic. But someone took some time and helped me then. And I could read! The first I was started on were the Little House Books. Oh how I loved them all, and dug right in to them. I was kept out of school that year a few weeks after the New Year. My parents and I went to my Fathers hunting cabin in the UP of MI. A 1 ½ hour snowmobile ride from a back road into DEEP woods... No electric or water. Just a outside water pump and an outhouse. I brought one or two Little House books with me. I was reading Little House in the Big Woods... What a found memory!
I was hooked on reading from then on. I took home books from the library at school and the Public Library. Some how I discovered Science Fiction. My mother did not look fondly on it. But my life would never be the same again after I found Science Fiction!
I also discovered my Fathers small library of old fiction one summer. Mom did not want to bring me into town I guess to take me to the library. Oh I knew if the old wood case at the top of the stares that had been there all my life. But I had been younger and had been told not to go into it. It was about 5 feet high of dark walnut, with glass sides and doors with an old pretty little key. It is still in my parents house. Most was cowboys and some history books. Most I did not care for at the time at all. The books were Dads childhood gifts from his family members. One though my mother thought I might like was Gone with the Wind.
I sat in the heat of the summer in the old farm house basement on a lawn chair or out on the big front porch on the summer beds reading. Drinking cold pop from old take- back glass bottles of pop dad would pick up by the wooden case.
Gone with the Wind was my first re-read book. Every summer I would read it...
In High School I had to read The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien for Lit class. I think the year was 1974. I was a freshman. Well after that, well life again was never the same for me. And of corse after the Hobbit I HAD to read the Lord of the Rings books... So the Tolkien books became my re-read books that took me into my 20s. Sorry to say I stopped reading them after the movies came out...
Of corse I have read many more books then that, but this are the books that stand out for me from my youth. And the fact that I have always done re-reads.
It just happens to be the Outlander books right now I am doing re-reads with.
Maybe I should look to some of my old friends to read, till Book 8 comes out.

Spring at last

Spring at last
Today is going well. Got into the fitness center from 6:00 to 7:15 am, yes! Good work out!
Got home to the computer. My reading for today. Went to Outlander blogs and other web spots to get a little Outlander fix...
Spring is greening things up now. If the weather is right, today will be our first day in the 70s!
Now its off to work.
　

So why start a blog?

So why start a blog?
I don't blog well at all. I have done a few before. I don't write well, I leave off posting...
But right now - today I need to do something different in my life!
　
Okay, the bottom line is, just this past weekend I finished up another re-read of the seven Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon. This last re-read of the books I started this past winter/late autumn.
Now with today saying "what now?".
I had made up my mind this spring that I would give Jamie and Claire brake and not start a new reread.
Why? I just only found the books and started reading them in 2008. Not long ago when the first book Outlander came out in 1991. And have read and reread them since Oct 2008.
But today is Monday and I still have the book An Echo in the Bone buzzing in my head with no other to read...
Oh, I have and read the Lord John books and Diana Gabalodn’s other works. But I don’t have book eight.
Thats what I really want!
I do have the garden to start, laundry to do, closets to go through and send stuff to the thrift store that we no longer need. Give the house a good spring cleaning and get ready to go see my parents in June.
I was planing on a re-read of the last Harry Potter book, Deathly Hollows. With the last movie installment coming in July ( I think). But last night I gave it a try and just could not get through the first page. Not with Claire, Jamie, Jem, Lord John, both young and old Ian....... and everyone else still bumping around in my head and heart. Book eight can not come to soon!
Maybe I will give Harry another try later.
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This blog I hope can be an outlet. Some were I can go now that I am giving my books a rest.