Spring Has Sprung

I am all about spring right now. I can practically smell all the flowers. I can't wait for bright nail polish - is anyone else just sick of all the grown-up goth dark colors? Pinks and yellows and whites are just happier. So in a nod to spring - here are a few of my favorite things.


Oh Loft, I love you... This is gorgeous. Hot pink and ruffles. Swoon.



And how cute are these? Slightly Boca/Ladies that lunch with a cool twist. Get them here.

And I'm still loving rompers. This is a grown-up version of the little kid fav. Get it here.

I think this is the cutest dress I've seen all spring. It's been in loads of magazines if that pushes you over the edge. Get it here.

A new book. I loved Sweet Valley High growing up and I'm not afraid to admit that I'm dying to read this book. I'm only debating if I should buy it or try to find it at the library... I'm thinking buy it.

I'd also add to the list hot pink nail polish, nude lip gloss, bronzer and a new pair of sandals. And a vacay if we're dreaming.

What I'm Reading...

Since I haven't done any book reviews or recommendations recently. I thought it might be nice to tell you what I'm reading/read this past week. I'd love to hear what you're reading as well since I am always on the hunt for a good book.

1. My Name is Memory, Ann Brashares - This was really good. Surprising me actually because I read her last adult fiction book and thought it was barely ok. Apparently this is the first in a line of three books and I cannot wait to find out what happens next.

2. Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern - Laugh out loud funny. Probably the funniest thing I've read since Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea. Super quick read - you can finish this in a night and still have time for The Real Housewives...

3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith - Somehow I missed this in high school and book club has ignited a passion in me to read a bunch of classic books "you should read". I wasn't a huge fan at the beginning - it just sort of dragged along - but I'm over halfway through and hooked. I read Angela's Ashes a long time ago and this reminds me of that (although I guess it's the other way round since this came first). Same premise - poor family growing up in NY trying to make ends meet.

4. The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe, Andrew O'Hagan - Ok I had heard a ton of good things about this but I got close to halfway through and just wasn't loving it. I couldn't get into it at all. The dog has somewhat interesting stories but spends half his time spouting off philosophy... I ended up returning it unfinished.

So that's my list so far. I'll try to keep you updated.

Get Reading II

I realized that I haven't published one of these posts in forever. Read the first one here. So it's time for my second list of books that I loved.

1. Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas - pure fluff romance at it's best. I think I cried through half this book.

2. Watership Down - maybe because I love rabbits but I love this book about a colony of rabbits - not as boring as you may think.

3. Anna Karenina - I remember having to read this in advanced high school English and loving it. I've actually been thinking I should add it my pile when I need something to re-read.

4. Freakonomics - so insanely interesting. A collection of topics that range from baby names to crime in NYC.

So only 4 this time. I can't give them all up right away. Oh and the book club book is the Forgotten Garden. Of course I'm waiting to the last minute but I'll start it tonight and let you know what I think.

Book Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

A couple of co-workers were talking about how this book was really good. They sold it as a mystery which immediately made me think - great I won't like this one (I'm not a huge mystery fan). But I looked on Amazon and the reviews were all favorable. I'm going to have to say I didn't really like it. Maybe 2 out of 5 stars.

The book dragged for me. There were endless descriptions of things that didn't really matter. He took practically two pages to describe the interior of a cabin. The whole story seemed convoluted. Was it a murder mystery? A corporate thriller? Was Larsson trying to make a point about how often women are abused? I don't know... the book tried to do too many things. The funny thing is if he had stuck with the murder mystery it would have been good. I liked the parts where Mikael and Lisbeth are trying to unravel what happened to Harriet. It's the rest of the book that bogs it down.

I'm struck by how violent the book is towards women. Lisbeth is raped by her guardian. Harriet is raped by her father and her brother. And SPOILER: The Vanger family has a history of murdering and ill-treating women. If I'm reading this book correctly, then half of the women in Sweden have been abused at some point. Doesn't exactly read as a tourist advertisement for a Swedish vacation. The thing is - I felt like some of the mistreatment was gratuitous... there for the reaction or the shock value. Larsson goes into detail of Lisbeth's rape and the aftermath yet in the end the rape has little to do with the plot of the story other then to illustrate the fact that Lisbeth feels cut off from "normal" society. Maybe I'm not into mystery's because of the violence but within moderation and when it enhances the basic plot I wouldn't be gasping and making a point of it in my review. The violence in the book was over the top and I felt like often only used for shock value and not to help the plot.

Speaking of more unnecessary parts of the book - Mikael basically sleeps with any and every main character in the book if it happens to be female. There's absolutely no point. I don't feel like he's in love with any of them. I don't even really like Mikael or his one sex partner - Erika because Erika is married and her husband finds it acceptable that every now and then she and Mikael still have sex - what??? Really? And honestly, none of his sexual escapades again have anything to do with the plot other than to tie up another 50 pages of nonsense.

The corporate thriller part of the book dragged for me. The bad guy (I can't remember his name because all the names are Swedish) is obviously dirty. You learn pretty early on there is a spy working for Mikael. And really you can assume from the beginning that if given the chance Mikael will take bad guy down (sorry - I'm too lazy to look up his twenty character Swedish name).

Apparently there are two more books in the series. I already have the second one - had placed it on hold before I read this one. I'm not sure I'm going to read it. I'm not sure who to recommend this book too - maybe if you like mystery's but the mystery in my opinion is just okay. There's really no satisfying reason as to why the guilty party or parties were committing the murders (SPOILER) other than the fact that they were sociopaths who got off on that sort of thing. I feel like it was a bad six part episode of CSI where at the end you find out the killer was the lady next door and she did it because she was bored. Lame.

Note of warning - aside from the graphic rape scenes. The book is written in Swedish and translated to English. Meaning - it reads like a book that wasn't written in English, and you have to try to struggle through a lot of place names and character names that are Swedish. The author gives you a family tree in the beginning of the book but a map of Sweden would be helpful. I never knew whether Mikael was going down the block or four hours away.

So no, I'm not going to rave about how great this book is despite the many reviews saying they think it is great. I feel like it's one of those books that people read and after struggling through you sit back and think that's interesting and then immediately toss it out in the yard sale bin but brag to all your friends you read it because it happened to make some best-seller book club pick somewhere. Have you read it? What did you think?

Book Review: Sweet Little Lies Lauren Conrad

Why did I read this book? Hmmm I kind of have to ask myself the same question because I wasn't a huge fan of the first one. The writing was mediocre, the plot just ok and honestly I spent more time trying to figure out who was who and hoping for some great Hills dish than getting into the story. But still, when Sweet Little Lies popped up at my library I figured what the heck at least this time I wouldn't have to buy it (LA Candy never made it to the library).

Thoughts... if I'm being generous three out of five stars. Probably leaning more towards 2 1/2. It's not horrible but it's not by any means great. It got four out of five stars on Amazon and frankly I think the only reason it did was a bunch of teenagers or Conrad's friends went in and ranked it a five so the honest reviewers didn't stand a chance.

The plot is ok. The book picks up where LA Candy leaves off. Lauren... I mean Jane (yawn what a boring name ... all you authors out there this is the time you can really go for it on names don't go with Jane...augh)... anyway... Jane is in Cabo with Madison (who clearly is supposed to be some form of Heidi) after photos of Jane cheating on her boyfriend were leaked to the press. Jane has gone from the good girl to this tabloid sensation. Apparently, she gets all this press about her hooking up with Braden (I hope I spelled that right). First... I don't know - I know Lauren was big in her prime on the Hills but seriously a ton of covers? Maybe the not so classy mags but I doubt People or Entertainment Weekly is rushing to publish a story about a reality TV star cheating. And two, even if they did publish it, it's going to be in the back or the very front like a two second blurb - not a cover and maybe only one week not week after week like this nonsense dragged on. (Don't get me wrong I liked the Hills and think Lauren is great but I just doubt her character's ability to land so many covers...). Scarlett is trying to convince Jane that Madison leaked the photos and is a huge bitch. Gaby (another girl in the story) is just there to fill space, as is a girl at Lauren's work who is memorable enough that I forgot her name.

Basically, all you learn about The Hills - is gasp the producer tell them what to talk about. Wow. Come on Lauren, I'm guessing a good percentage of the people reading this book are doing it to get some gossip and that's all you're going to give us?

Problems I see with the story:

1. Jane gets back together with Jesse even though there is no reason she should. Jesse acts like a jerk and she stays with him for 2/3 of the book. I felt like there was no reason why she would stay with him, even if for some reason she decides to get back together with him.

2. She tries desperately to make Madison likable but I think fails miserably. And honestly why is Madison targeting Jane - so she can be a star? I don't know. Madison is a little too one dimensional for me. She's not likable because I don't care about her. I have no reason to feel like she is remotely justified in what she does to Jane.

3. All the characters aren't very likable. Jane is ok - she's the main character you're supposed to like her but like you sometimes feel watching Lauren on The Hills - she's the nice girl that's just there. The action happens around her and sometimes too her but what's she really like. I will say though Lauren has a certain charisma (I stopped watching after she left) that doesn't come across with Jane. You root for Lauren because you want her to succeed - she's the every girl in her early twenties (just with better clothes and more money), clubbing, trying to find a job, trying to find love, friend drama, etc.

I think the book is filler to get to book 3 (sort of how I felt with Twilight - only I felt like books 2, 3, and 4 were filler and could have been summed up in 1 but that's a different topic). This one leaves off with a cliffhanger - will Jane continue on LA Candy, will Madison be the star, will she chose her high school boyfriend or Braden or someone new... cue dramatic music.

So... in conclusion, it's a good beach read. It took me maybe a day to breeze through. But it wouldn't be my first choice read.

Book Review: House Rules: A Novel

I started reading Jodi Picoult with My Sister's Keeper. It took some very difficult topics (what obligation do you have to your family, is it ethical to have another child to save your first child, etc) and made them compelling and easy to read. It was an emotional roller-coaster. I quickly read pretty much every other book she ever wrote. I came to the realization that My Sister's Keeper - while still a great book - follows a strict Picoult formula and House Rules is no exception.

Rule 1: Emotionally charged topic with lots of grey area (things can't be black and white - that would make it too easy).

Rule 2: The story told from multiple viewpoints.

Rule 3: Surprise endings.

Rule 4: Make you think but not too hard.

Rule 5: Stressed but very attractive women who will usually sleep with someone that is at least mildly inappropriate.

Those would be the basics. Rule 5 may or may not happen but I've noticed it in a few of her books and if the woman doesn't sleep with said person she will be described by multiple people as being strikingly pretty. And really this has not much to do with the plot except for the fact there are few books (or movies, or TV shows) about incredibly not-good looking people.

How do I feel about House Rules? Let's start with 3 out of 5 stars. If you've never read Picoult before then you'd probably go with 4. I think it was average. I don't hate it but it followed a formula and pretty quickly you could guess where it was going. I'm glad I didn't buy it - I wouldn't read it again (Shout-out Library!).

The story follows Jacob, a teen diagnosed with Asperger's, his family and others that are dragged into the murder case of Jacob's social skills tutor. Jacob is a strange character - on one hand you feel bad for him because he is so socially awkward but on the other (and I'll admit I don't know much about Asperger's) he's cold, awkward and surprisingly functioning for someone who has panic attacks when paper gets crumpled. His brother Theo - another character - doesn't have Asperger's but he's living with the affects it has on his family because of Jacob. Theo is breaking into houses, stealing minor things, he doesn't fit in, etc. The thing is I felt bad for Theo but I didn't feel like he was developed quite enough for me to care too much about him. Emma - is the mom, she's gorgeous, stressed, poor. Then the other two narrators are Oliver (Jacob's lawyer) and Rich (a police officer who arrests Jacob). For me, the characters in this book weren't as well developed as some of the others. I wasn't drawn to them in the same way as I have been with her other books and like Jacob with his Asperger's - socially the characters all seem awkward (the point perhaps?).

I always read the reviews on Amazon when I decide to get a book. Yeah, sometimes the people are dead wrong but a lot of times they are pretty accurate. A lot of the people were complaining the story just ended without any resolution to the case. Well, one I think it's pretty easy to figure out early on what happened to the social skills tutor. And the case, I felt like it was all just background for the family to all come together. And honestly, I cared about Jacob but at the same time he didn't think through his actions, didn't explain what happened to anyone, and so you can't feel that bad (ok maybe because of his Asperger's because no one asked him to explain, he didn't... I don't know if I buy that). And the non-ending is pretty typical Picoult. It's basically what do you think happened? Was Theo arrested? Did Jacob get convicted? Etc...

Have you read it? What do you think? My next book is Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad - I'll let you know if I like it, the first one didn't blow me away so I'm not having high hopes.

Book Club Update

So book club was amazing - we had two new people show up - yay! I always get excited to think how far we've come in a year... just that we're still meeting is a huge accomplishment. So next month is my month - we're a little off because of adding some new members so I get to pick again pretty quickly. So I picked The History of Love... As always read along if you like and let me know what you think.

Thoughts on Mansfield Park Thus Far

So I’m reading Mansfield Park for book club. I was reading like a mad man this weekend thinking book club was this Wednesday but I am saved and can once again procrastinate as book club is next week. It has gotten me thinking though and I don’t know if I’ll bring up at book club or not – am actually afraid to bring up here as I know a lot of people are die-hard Jane Austen fans. But here I go (don’t be too mean in the comments).

Is Austen as good of writer as everyone claims or is she really the seventeen hundred’s version of say a Nicholas Sparks? I read a lot and I’ve read a lot of Jane Austen books (if not all at this point at least 90%). And reading this one I’ve struck with the thought all her books are pretty much the same romance bundled up and packaged under different characters and different names. Girl meets boy, is somehow unworthy of boy or not interested in boy, girl realizes she is deeply madly in love with said boy, randomness happens (usually something to do with what’s proper and not or social classes), boy and girl get together. I tried to google Jane Austen critics but got a bunch of literary reviews that I didn’t feel like reading and none that screamed in the Google site description – same story over and over. Are they well written? Sure – better than half the dribble current authors put out at lightning speed. But that doesn’t change the fact that pretty early on you can guess where the story is going.

Maybe this is just the way it is with romance – I recently heard a romance writer talk and she said publishers want the heroine and hero to meet in the first chapter and if you can do it on the first page even better. Have romances not changed in 200 years?

It makes me mad though when I fall for a writer and slowly come to realize after devouring a few of their books that it’s the same stories repacked in a shiny new cover with a few new names. I can name a list right now: Janet Evanovich, Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steel, practically any romance novel, Jodi Picoult, Sophia Kinsella (although I’m still addicted to the shopaholic series)…. They all have a stick – Nicholas Sparks is guaranteeing some tragic event, Danielle Steel is most often some down in her luck heroine with expensive things meeting an unlikely price charming, Evanovich with her Plum series is all about an unlikely bounty hunter and the scrapes she continually finds herself in… And Picoult, who used to be a favorite of mine is all drama wrapped up in a social commentary of sorts - school shootings, the death penalty, suicide, it’s all fair game and it’s all likely to be an open ending.

Is it the curse of a prolific author to be drawn to the same story over and over? Maybe. I truly believe you write things you want to read. But I also think some of it is pure laziness - it's easy to repackage something that already works. Hell, half my job is to think of a new way to sell the same products. There's only so many ways you can write a love story.

So get to discussing... I'm interested on your take.

Book Club April Book

So I don't think I told anyone but the book is Mansfield Park by Jane Austin. I just started and it's ok... in all honesty I haven't been motivated to read so that could be it. I'll let you know what Book Club thinks but if you read it too - I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Book Review: The English American

I picked The English American because the author will be at the book festival I've been thinking about going to this weekend. It sounded like it could be interesting - a story about an English girl who was adopted from America.

So what do I think? This book is interesting to me - part of it made me want to keep reading and I devoured the first half quite quickly. The second half of the book dragged. I found myself wanting to shake Pippa. She seemed to naively bounce along and do exactly what everyone else wanted her to do just because she was English and apparently English people don't stand up for themselves and hide their emotions.

I think this book tried to be too many things:
- A take on the cultural differences between Americans and British people. The British according to Larkin are reserved, quite, don't share their feelings, etc. Americans by contrast are loud (most in the book are downright obnoxious), pushy, and overly emotional.
- A slight political rant on whether or not England and the US should be in the Iraq war.
- The feelings an adopted person goes through growing up and deciding to search for their birth parents.
- A romance.

There are probably more subplots but that's all I can think of at the moment. I think the book would have served a much better purpose to pick one or two things and go with that. The part about Pippa being liberal and against Bush and the war really served no purpose in the book other than to have a few spats with friends and her birth-father.

The romance in the book feels contrived and the "surprise" ending wasn't much of a surprise. It was pretty much romance book writing 101 - does she fall for the jerky guy she's been lusting after or the friend who is always there for her. I won't tell you who but I'm sure anyone who has read much Chick Lit can figured it out.

I felt like the ending in general was a major let down - it was this big build up to will Pippa finally wake up and realize who she is and fall in love, etc. and the book quickly wraps everything up in about twenty pages.

The cultural differences were interesting but very stereotypical. I just don't think every English person is reserved and quiet and all Americans are brash, arrogant over-sharers. As an American, I felt like we were painted in a very bad light. Larkin has apparently spent time in the US but was raised elsewhere. I would hope her experience with Americans has not been so crazy. It would be as if I wrote a book about typical stereotypes of English people or Canadians, or French people... it was a lot like a horoscope to me - all Americans are this and all British are this. I've read other books by British authors and never came away with quite the same take on the British (who in this book I felt came off in a bad light as well - as a bunch of push-overs who quietly go along accepting their lot in life). I liked the language differences a lot - the difference between a pocketbook and a wallet for example - and the fact that apparently Fig Newtons don't exist in England.

Although it says in the back of the book that the author Alison Larkin was adopted as well and shares a similar story to Pippa - I felt like Larkin had read a book on how adoptees feel and tossed every stereotype imaginable into the work. Pippa loves but feels unconnected to her family (the ones that adopted her), she has issues with abandonment, she doesn't let people close to her, her (adopted) family doesn't understand her, she feels guilty for talking to her birth family, her birth family when she meets them suddenly get her and love her instantly... It felt contrived.

Let's talk about Pippa's birth parents for a second. Pippa finds them and meets them - Billie and Walt. Walt is a self-centered politician (they never really say what he does but he works in DC in the government so lets just say politician). He's cheated on his wife with Billie, who ended up getting pregnant and they gave the baby up to not hurt his career. He claims to have loved Billie but later you learn that he had a son with his wife the same year Billie had Pippa. Pippa is immediately infatuated by him despite the fact that he seems stand-offish and is obviously a people user. Billie on the other hand, works with art somehow - her job seems very fluid. Pippa is also drawn to her. She moves in with her shortly after meeting her - which just seems weird. Billie is from Georgia and from the very beginning seems like she has some sort of mental disorder. She's spacey, she over-shares, she's downright trashy. If I was Pippa I would have been on the next plane back to England. But instead she tries again and again to make it work with them and suffers through both of their antics far too long.

I would say the book is 2 out of 5 stars. For me it would have faired much better as young adult literature or if Larkin could have tightened up the story a bit. The book starts strong but flounders miserably halfway through. I only finished it to see exactly what happened to Pippa and I won't say I wasn't tempted to just skip to the end.

Get Reading I

If you don't know by now that I love reading then you haven't been reading this blog too closely. I've been thinking back to that post on the BBC book list and how the point was that most people hadn't read those books or even a portion of those books. Anyway, I figured from now on I'm going to start posting a list of a few books a month I think are decent enough you should give them a read. Some may be more fluff than substance, some might be classics... it's whatever I'm feeling and whenever I get around to it (hey I'm not committing to a day on this - sorry!).

So here's my first list. Read them all or pick and choose. I will say I will have read every book that makes my Get Reading Lists just I might not have read them recently.

1. Gone With The Wind - I have to say this is one case where I like the movie better than the book but it's a classic - you have to have read it once.

2. My Sister's Keeper - I think after awhile Jodi Picoult books get to all sounding the same but that being said - this is the first book of hers I ever read and I think it is probably one of the best ones she wrote.

3. The Time Traveler's Wife - My book club gave this mixed reviews but I still love it.

4. Persuasion - I did not want to read this book one bit. But I loved it. It is by far one of my favorite Jane Austin books.

5. Wuthering Heights - Love it. Hands down one of my favorite books. Who wants to go see the movie?

Week 10 of the 52 Week Challenge

Only 42 more weeks to go! So this week I'm going to be slightly selfish and make the goal something that might force me to do something. This week you have to do something you wouldn't normally do.

This could be saying yes to drinks with an acquittance. Buying that camera you've been eyeing (that's me but not sure I'll pull the trigger). Signing up for a yoga class. Whatever... think outside of your box.

For me? Well the camera could make my list but I'm not sure I want to spend the money. And I did pull the trigger on a piece of art at the craft show yesterday (I can't pick it up until May) but still that was big for me - usually I'll say I'll think about it and then never do anything.

But what I'm really debating about (and I can't say I would never go) is there is a book festival and writing classes next Saturday about an hour from here. The classes I picked are free so it isn't the costs. Its forcing myself to do something alone (I don't really know anyone that's as hardcore into writing that they want to sit through classes most of the day). Their website and my writing group all make it sound very interesting and pretty unique that they have writers teaching classes for free. And my goal this year is to actually write something I can start editing to be published, so this could really help me. The thing is if the classes/festival were in town I wouldn't think twice about going. Since I have to drive to a new city and figure out the hotel, etc. I'm a bit more nervous. So I'm hoping this goal will force me to go - or I might just have to go buy a very expensive camera so I can say I completed it.

BBC Book List

Ok so I'm not sure how real this list is. I mean I guess I could google it and see if it actually appeared on the BBC but seriously it's 7:30 am and I don't really have the energy to google the validity of a list. I'm sure you might have seen it... I've gotten it in emails, on MySpace (when people actually used MySpace) and on Facebook... so I'm going to post it here.

Anyway, true or not the email/post goes something like this the BBC came up with this list of a 100 books they think everyone should read at some point but then goes on to say that most people have read 6. A few other blogs I found when I was looking for the list question the number 6 because really if you look at the books it wasn't a stretch for me to have read a number of them and when I showed it to my husband awhile back (who never reads) he had read over 12.

So whether or not this is a real list of books by the BBC it's fun to look at how many you've read because a lot of them are classics (new and old). It also gets me thinking because I have a book club and I should start selecting these books if I want to read all 100.

Instructions:

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Star the ones you loved.* (I'm not doing this part too much work)
3) Italicize those you plan on reading. (again really too much work)

So actually I'm just bolding the ones I've read.... haha


001 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

002 The Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkien

003 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

004 Harry Potter series- JK Rowling

005 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

006 The Bible (I'm going to with partially counts)

007 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

008 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

009 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

010 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

011 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

012 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

013 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

014 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Again I'm going with that I've read some of them so that counts as "complete")

015 Rebecca- Daphne Du Maurier (checked it out from the library once but I doubt that counts as "read")

016 The Hobbit- JRR Tolkien

017 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

018 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

019 The Time Traveller’s Wife- Audrey Niffenegger

020 Middlemarch – George Eliot

021 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

022 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

023 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

024 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

025 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

026 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

027 Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

028 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

029 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

030 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

031 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

032 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

033 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

034 Emma – Jane Austen

035 Persuasion - Jane Austen

036 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

037 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

038 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

039 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

040 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

041 Animal Farm – George Orwell

042 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

043 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

044 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

045 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

046 Anne of Green Gables- LM Montgomery

047 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

048 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

049 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

050 Atonement – Ian McEwan

051 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

052 Dune – Frank Herbert

053 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons I made it halfway through.

054 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

055 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

056 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

057 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

058 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

059 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

060 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

061 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

062 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

063 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

064 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

065 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

066 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

067 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

068 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

069 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

070 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

071 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

072 Dracula – Bram Stoker

073 The Secret Garden- Frances Hodgson Burnett

074 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

075 Ulysses – James Joyce

076 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

077 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

078 Germinal – Emile Zola

079 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray (I saw the movie...)

080 Possession- AS Byatt

081 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

082 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

083 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

084 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

085 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

086 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

087 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

088 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

089 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

090 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

091 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

092 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

093 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

094 Watership Down – Richard Adams (this is an awesome book - someone gave it me when I was younger now it got me thinking I should make it my book club pick)

095 A Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole

096 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

097 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas (I saw the movie haha...)

098 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

099 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (I should get credit that I actually saw this movie in French...)

Ok so I have 37 that's a lot more than 6 and I don't think I'm the expection here. Count them up... how many have you read? Which were your favorites?

Book Review Number 1: sTORI Telling

So let’s start by saying I love to read. I will read just about anything. So a big part of my blog will be to review my current read of the moment – the good, the bad and the ugly.

My theory for selecting books is to go to the library and roam. I walk up and down aisles until a title or cover catches my eye and I pull the said book down and scan what it’s about. All the nonsense about not judging a book by its cover goes out the window with me. You don’t have an eye catching cover – then why should I waste my time?

So for my first book to review I should probably pick something very “smart”, something like Jane Austin perhaps? Well I’ve read Jane Austin and love them (Persuasion is my favorite in case you are wondering) but that’s not my current book of the moment. In fact I’m not sure I want to admit what I just finished reading for fear that you might stop right here and never read another review again. But I’m going to take a leap and announce that the book I just finished is Tori Spelling’s sTORI Telling.

Coming from the fact that my mom would not let me watch 90210 growing up I knew very little about Tori Spelling aside from what was on various entertainment blogs or in the tabloids. I had seen her cable show a few times and it was funny. The only reason I picked up the book was I felt like I needed a break from the more serious reads I had just finished and hers seemed like a decent choice.

In case you live under a rock, Tori Spelling is Aaron Spelling’s daughter – she was on his show 90210, she’s done TV movies, a VH1 show and her latest venture is a reality TV show with her husband. Spelling is the person you want to not like, she grew up in the lap of luxury, got on a hit TV show, cheated on her first husband, fights publicly with her mother… I’ll admit I even went into the book thinking I wouldn’t make it past the first few chapters.

The good news for Spelling is she takes all of those things people know about her and still makes you care about her. You find yourself rooting for her and feeling sorry for her. She tells it like it is and doesn’t sugarcoat anything. She talks about insecurities, bad relationships, love, friendship, etc as if catching up with an old girlfriend. Working in her favor is the fact she very carefully crafts everything as how she was feeling or how she perceived it, leaving her ex-husband, mother, cast members, etc. to tell their own version of the story in their own book. This was a plus to me, she could have very easily talked trash about a vast number of people I’m sure but then she’d probably just come across as biter or vengeful.

In fact, my only problem with the book is that the end dragged a bit. I will also say it’s not the type of book I want to willingly announce to co-workers who ask what my latest read is – it doesn’t exactly scream brilliant employee.

Would I say this is the best book I’ve ever read? No. Would I read it over and over? No but I’m not a huge Tori Spelling fan and there are very few books I would read over and over. But this book is surprisingly a good read. An even bigger endorsement for Spelling – I went to the library and got her second book… but that is a different blog.