June 23, 2007

  • What's on your bookshelf?

    I used to think what people read tells a story about the reader, then I looked at my own book shelf. 
    Some Stephen King Novels, a few Jodi Picoult, a Couple Sylvia Browne ( you know that probably fake psychic on the Montel show?  Don't ask me why).  Several memoirs, from Dave Pelzer, to David Sedaris and every person in between.  I have books about people no one has ever heard of and books about famous people.

    I have books like Wicked and The Known World, and Middlesex.  I have true crime books, scary books and mushy books.   I have Little Children by Tom Perrotta and books by Anita Shreve. 

    My books have no pattern, no rhyme or reason.  I have Jewtopia and Harry Potter.  Ellen Degeneres and Virginia Woolf sitting side by side.

    I have books that I love, books assigned in middle school, like Holes and The Giver. 

    I have Oprah Book Club choices and my old Flowers in the Attic.  I have the Da Vinci Code and Sharp Objects.

    I am almost done reading A Piece Of Cake by CupCake Brown , it's a memoir.  Then I will have to start a new book, because I always have to be reading. 

    I don't understand people who don't like to read.  Having no book, is like having no arm.

    Will the new book be trash, funny, well written and serious?  Will it be fiction, or non?  Will I go to Barnes and Noble and read half of it there with a Iced Chai Tea latte?  Or will I run over to Target and grab something along with other essentials like toilet paper?

    One never knows with me.  But I will know it when I see it, I am rarely wrong with my choices.  They always fit the mood I'm in. 

    I don't know what my book mood will be until I get there. 

    But suggestions are always welcome.  What is the best book you have read recently?

Comments (41)

  • I have pretty ecclectic tastes in books too. I am reading Middlesex right now. I enjoyed The Road even though it depressed me. A memoir I really enjoyed was The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. I think you would like it. I can't get rid of books, I never know if the mood will strike to read it again, so they are in the bookcase and in boxes in the storage room. The next one I'm going to read is All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I figured I like The Road, so I'll try another of his books.

  • All my books were packed away... but since I packed them (since I thought I was moving) I've since filled up 3 shelves or thereabouts.  I currently have about 12 books ready to read.  The book I've probably read the most times is Atlas Shrugged. 

  • I'm like you -- my bookshelves are mixture of trash and classics. Right now I'm reading sci/fi fantasy Anne McCaffery -- It's pure pleasure reading for me! I always have at least 1 book going, but usually two or three. I recently picked up antoher book to start at the library. No recommendations here, although one series I recently read was excellent, another YA novel called Twilight. Oh yeah, two others: Lovely Bones and Speak. Both EXCELLENT although Speak is once again a YA selection.

  • I love reading all different books. Right now, I have been requesting all different sorts of books from the library, rather than adding to my overpacked shelves. haha. I loved Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I also love Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. Right now, I am enjoying, The Myth of You and Me: A Novel, by Leah Stewart. Another good read is The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck.

  • My bookshelves are very eclectic ... I couldn't even tell you what's on them anymore!!!

    RYC:  YES .. I'm packed and ready to go to Isla Margarita!!  My bags are packed, I'm ready to go .. I'm standing here outside your door .. LEAVING ON A JETPLANE .. I don't know when I'll be back again!!!  Or better yet, I got two tickets to paradise!!!  LET'S GO!!!! :tigger34: :snoopy23:

    Have a wonderful weekend, Laura!!! Alicia

    :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38: :greensmileys38:

  • Does the National Enquirer count as a book?  Or TV guide?...LOL...:question29:

  • I have read a lot of books lately. One I particularly liked was "Owl Island" by Randy Sue Coburn. Right now I am reading a Nora Roberts book "Angels Fall" it is a quick read but I love where she has the story placed. I am lost in it. LIke you I read what strikes my mood at the time. Perhaps we should set up a Xanga book swap somehow.... I have tons... all they do after I read them is take up space.

  • I have a variety of tastes in books too. My favorites lately is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (on my 2nd go round of these) and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

  • I have a whole slew of women authors I want to get to. I pick up trade sized paperbacks at the thriftstore that I'm too cheap to pay full price for. The latest one that looks interesting is Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster (subtitled "or Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office".

  • Well... I guess you wouldn't understand me cuz I'm not much of a reader!  I like reading the inside cover of Parade on Sunday and the funnies!!! :sillygrin28:  Guess I'm more of a magazine girl! I'd really rather do something with my hands like crochet (yea... I know it's an ole lady thing! :hmmm22:) or just drinkin' a beer and watching a movie!

  • We apparently have the same reading taste, in fact, I could have written this blog.

    Best books I have read recently, The Time Travelers wife...loved it...ending wasn't what I was hoping for though.
    Future Homemakers of America- great book, funny, touching, a really wonderful read.
    And although I haven't read them recently, Diana Galbaldon's "Voyager " series. Loved every one of them!

  • RYC: Thanks for the support. I really need it right now.

  • I am surprised that you have trouble falling asleep. Whenever I need to fall asleep I get a book and start reading. But I guess reading at night with the light on will probably prevent you from falling asleep.

    I also read using a pda (it helps having myopia), downloading a book saves a trip going to the store. Also an electronic book takes little space and if it is a heavy tome, it is easy on your arms holding it up to read.

    Furthermore there is a way to download websites to the Palm pda so that you can read at your leisure. Then again carrying the Best of Mom of Jen and Matt might not be a bad idea....

  • My book collection is extremely ecclectic as well. I have recently discovered Jodi Picoult and have been flying through her stuff like crack. Elizabeth Berg's books are on the same addictiveness level. I can't get enough! Have you ever read any of Erma Bombeck's books? HILARIOUS!! Also, Whoopi Goldberg's book titled "Book" is side-splitting funny. Early childhood books are another one of my specialties. If you ever want young children's book suggestions, let me know. Books are one of my passions.

  • i love books, too -- when people say "i don't read books", i want to smack them upside the head... i'm currently re-reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams ...:sun3:

  • Saw your comment to the DaBombMoM's first pulse and I have to tell ya Barbie scared the Snot out of me. I had to grab several tissues and clean up. IS she possessed now? Is that the newest thing with Barbie? Now on sale at K-mart....Possessed Barbie....Demon friends sold separately?
    The Last Book I read and Loved so much that I wish it had never come to an end was, "By the light of the Moon", by Deen Koontz! Sometimes it hurts to read because eventually i have to come back to the real world and then I am disappointed! :tipsy31: This must be Demon Possessed Barbie when she has had too much to drink. When she is inebriated she can't get that wicked gleam on so much...Ha! :tigger34:

  • It's good to have vareity.  I like to read all kinds of things--lately, I've been on an essay anthology kick.  And yes, I agree--I can't understand people who don't like to read, like my own mother.  They take me anywhere I want to be.  I am currently reading four books.  I've always been that way; I feel insecure when I only have one new book to read.  I'm a book whore, I guess.  I take them seriously.  I deem libraries sacred.

  • I have a hard time readin/finishing books because of my own little wacky chemically-imbalanced brain, but if you took your blog and changed "book" to "music", it sounds just like me.  I do recall a book I read many years ago, it was assigned reading in the 7th grade.  It was well written, and absorbed me into it in a way I've never felt since experimenting with recreational drugs.  It's called Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.  I'd read it again if I had it here now.

    btw, I LOVE your profile pic!  Chocolate won't leave you for someone younger and sutt- I mean prettier than you either! LOL

  • Wikipedia wasn't bad.

  • ryc

    Hey thieves!  How many fingers am I holding up?

  • What's on my bookshelf?  Charlotte's Web and An Innocent Man.  The Little House series and The Secret Life of Bees.  My husband's Grisham and King next to some bibles and our scrapbooks.

    My favorite book lately?  A Walk in The Woods by Bill Bryson.

  • I read a big variety too,  but my favorite are the foresenic thrillers like Patricia Cornwell,  etc...............it was kinda funny cause I put a bunch of "marriage helper" books in my garage sale today,  and one of the books is called......."How to get your husband to talk to you"........and my daughter says,  "I want one that says,  "How to get your husband to talk to you while playing Playstation"  LOL  :P ...........and funny......the book disappeared..............:)

  • I often fall asleep while reading. But I am always surprised over how a book transports my mind. After I read the books series by the guy who wrote "The Boy Called It" (can't remember his name?) I was sooo sick & depressed that I am over cautious about book reading now. I mostly read to my daughter, books of her choice, so my mood stays even. Books about ponies & pricesses rarely get me down.

    I do remember back in my twenties....me & my sister got into the V.C. Andrews books. And the Jean M. Auel series, I liked those but her attention to minute details can be daunting. I guess I mostly read my bible. I like the old testament for the history of it.

    Self help books just remind me of what a loser I really am. I stay away from those.

    Have a great weekend!

  • I recently went to the county library's annual book sale.  I didn't get any books for myself, though, or at least none for pleasure reading.  I need to do that!  :hmmm22:

    Kathi

  • My books like my music are very ecclectic. I have hundreds, I might have topped a thousand books. I re-read them from time to time as well. The range goes from Fiction, to Work, to Bio's, School Texts, quick references guides (I have 300 cookbooks alone.)  Guides on everything you can imagine, from work to life. I love books about women who roughed it.  For example; while skiing in Telluride I got a book called Mining Camp Wife (about early mining camps and a womans true story.)  Hence, this prompted me to get a similar book in Skagway Alaska while on our cruise about the women of Skagway (mostly brothel house types.)  It's intriguing.

    The best book I got was from Dauchu, about women holicaust survivers.  It just so raw what those women survivers went through.  I toured the camp, and I have such an appreciation for what happen during that time now....

  • you have so many of the same books!

    Barbara Kingsolvers The bean trees of course and  Billie Letts where the heart is of course!a great movie it is too!

  • Shocking for a teenager, I know, but I don't read much. When I do, even if it's for school, I move twords SciFi and twisty mysteries. My seventh/eight grade English teacher had us read pretty much the classic SciFi stuff (Farenhight 451, that one about the moon/Mars, basicly Bradbury). I just finished Hitchiker's Guide to the Galexy and caan't wait to get the next one from the library!

  • Flowers in the Attic...loved that series.  This year no favorites.  Been reading political stuff.

    Last favorites, London, The Forrest, one more forgot title.  Novels using early English history.

  • Virginia Woolf and Ellen Degeneres.  That is an eclectic collection.  The best book I've read lately is the one I'm reading now:  Friends and Heros by Olivia Manning.  It's about a British couple in Athens during WWII.

  • I like physics books for some reason. Maybe because it makes my life look like an oxymoron. Misspelt on purpose. I think. I hope I messpelt that.  It was "The Dancing Wu Li Masters".  The thing I like about this book is the fact that the more we know, the more we don't know and know we will never know.

    Another thing I like about it is that it proves that science is deeply religious and paranoid people will think so.  They might as well get in bed with a Hindu and kiss'm on the lips.

  • Oh, just like you..mine are such a mix...* non-fiction, classics..mysteries..biographies..on and on...cookbooks..just all of it..and inbetween too*ha...love them...and in the mood is the way I feel too..love going through the book stores and then one 'hits' you..and that's the one..* Then at yard sales..oh can you get lucky there...I have a library as does my mom..and just about everyone in my family..and it keeps getting bigger and bigger...* love this one..have a great day Laura...hugs* love, Lee :heart39:

  • I have a very wide variety, I am currently reading 'Gypsy Witchcraft and Magic' because I want to learn more about witchcraft. I am a curious sort. ryc: Money will come your way, when you least expect it. Love to you.

  • I really liked The Thirteenth Tale...

  • I just finished "The Complete Short Stories of Truman Capote." It was a good read, except once you got into a story it would just end on you.
    Now I am reading "Saving Sailor" about a little girl summering on an island with her dog. It's good but very fluff.

    I like fiction mostly. True crime stories... um no. Biographies.... um no. So yah... fiction.

    Have you read any Jennifer Weiner? Every book she has written, (I think 4 or 5) are soooo good. I loved each one as much as the last one.

    Happy Reading!

  • I abdolutely LOVE to read too...and my book shelves look kind of like yours...even some of the same titles.  I have a book with me where ever I go....usually at least two going at once. One in the car just in case I forget the one in my purse......I read when I eat....read on the john....I haven't figured out a way to read while I type transcription though.  I am currently reading all the Lonesome Dove books....so far 4 of them....I think there might be one other.  I love the west...cowboys and all that stuff.....so I'm in my "western" reading mode right now.....love 'um! :greensmileys38:

  • My bookshelf that happens to be sitting right there to my right..... a hodge podge also.... Harry Potters (all available), lots of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, Louis L'Amore...a few other random books that were bought on back cover hints, not the writer.... then I have John Edward (the "I talk to dead people" guy off of Sci-fi who I ADORE) two of his....  a cool book thats nothing but the poem "Casey at the Bat" made into book form, with cool pictures.... the we move onto Seuss... I have lots of Seuss I tell you now, lots of Seuss I don't know how.....

    and the best book I've read lately???? I haven't read anything new lately...I like to keep my "solids" around to read whenever the; mood strikes... like my fav Louis L'Amour-The Lonesome Gods.. it makes me feel calm and happy to read, so I keep it around and its well worn... "To Kill a Mockingbird" is another I can read a bizillion times, and now that I'm thinking of it, I haven't seen it since the last move... OMG.. I must buy a new one..... I did start re-reading the #5 Harry Potter because the movie is about to come out and I thought I'd better brush up onthe details that will be left out so I can fill Jr in when we see it....

  • Kirstie Alley's "How to Lose Your Ass and Regain Your Life" It's great, she's really funny!

  • We have similar bookshelves.  I recommend "19 Minutes" by Jodi Picoult. I just finished it and it was really good.  Right now I am reading "The Piano Tuner" by Daniel Mason.  I've only just started it, but highly recommend it!

  • "I don't understand people who don't like to read. Having no book, is like having no arm."

    I couldn't agree more! I'm currently (re)reading "Lolita" and "Charmed Thirds"

    My favorite book ever of all time: "To Kill A Mockingbird"

  • I dont understand non-readers either.. no imagination! My husband is one though.. lol. For some reason in the past couple of years I stumbled upon these vampire and werewolf books.. which I completely thought I wouldn't like but they turned out pretty good. They are like a combination of mystery/suspense/thriller with a little erotica in every book.. haha. They are by Laurell K Hamilton, called the Anita Blake series. I like em, but I don't like the last one I just read. If you wanted to read them I would recommend starting from the beginning when they were really good and going in order.. she has so many books the later ones spend most of their pages catching you up on what has happened.

  • the books i read have no rhyme or reason either.  i think i am glad that nobody can tell who i am by what i read. . .they will have to get to know me the real way :]]

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