June and July 2012 Reads

June 2012

29. The Castaways – Elin Hilderbrand

30. Matched – Ally Condie

31. The Girl From Away – Claire Mowat

32. The French Isles – Claire Mowat

33. The Last Summer in Louisbourg – Claire Mowat

34. My Name is Memory – Ann Brashars

35. Last Summer in Arcadia – Deirdre Purcell

36. Summer People – Elin Hilderbrand

July 2012 (7)

37. The Summer of Us – Holly Chamberlin

38. One Fifth Avenue – Candace Bushnell

39. Round Robin – Jennifer Chiaverini

40. Cross-Country Quilters – Jennifer Chiaverini

41. Jamrach’s Menagerie – Carol Birch

42.  Divergent – Veronica Roth

43. Tea With Emma – Diane Moody

The titles in bold are the ones that I REALLY liked and would recommend to others. I'm not linking to any of the books because I'm not in the mood to do so, and if I didn't just get this down now I was afraid I'd be on the way to giving this blog up for good!

May 2012 Reads

21. The Blue Bistro - Elin Hilderbrand
22. The Library of Shadows - Mikkel Birkegaard
23. Fifty Shades of Grey - E.L. James
24. Fifty Shades Darker - E.L. James
25. Fifty Shades Freed - E.L. James
26. The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
27. The Quilter's Apprentice - Jennifer Chiaverini
28. Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

I liked all of the books I read in May-I can't remember the last time I could say that. The Fifty Shads books were surprisingly better than I excepted, and not just because of the naughty bits! I actually liked the story too :) Jennifer Chiaverini's The Quilter's Apprentice is the first in the "Elm Creek Quilts" series, and I am excited to read more. Very easy reads, a bit crafty, and the intricacies of female relationships-yes please! Barbara Pym is a new/old find. She reminds me of Maeve Binchy but a bit less scandalous-not that Binchy is scandalous! She started writing in the mid 1930s and has been compared to Jane Austen. So I guess a cross between Jane and Maeve-again, yes please! So those were all my favourites...my least favourite was The Sense of an Ending. I liked the writing, and I thought the "philosophy" of the book was quite interesting (basically that our memories are imperfect), but the ending was not satisfying.

April 2012 Reads

18. The Night Circus - Erin  Morgenstern
19. Madame Tussaud - Michelle Moran

20. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson

I thoroughly enjoyed all three of these books by The Night Circus was by far my favourite. It was one of those magical reads that I adore! I highly recommend it!!

 

March 2012 Reads

12. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick
13. Friendship Bread - Darien Gee
14. Beachcombers - Nancy Thayer
15. The Island - Elin Hilderbrand
16. One Day - David Nicholls
17. The Love Season - Elin Hilderbrand

I really enjoyed The Invention of Hugo Cabret, part drawings, text, and photographs, it is unlike any other book I've read. I didn't really like the movie but that's probably because I watched it the day after I finished the book. I'm also really into Erin Hilderbrand lately-nice easy reads set on Nantucket- I got into this author because I read her novel Barefoot as a free download for my kindle and will likely read the rest of her work. One Day was so bad I barely finished it and even though Ann Hathaway is in the movie I refuse to watch it!
So my favourite book of March 2012: The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick
My least favourite book of March 2012: One Day - David Nicholls

February 2012 Reads

Here's what I read in February (I am starting the numbering where I lef toff in January):

 7. Read Player One - Ernest Cline
 8. The Wretched of Muirwood - Jeff Wheeler
 9. The Blight of Muirwood - Jeff Wheeler
10. The Scourge of Muirwood - Jeff Wheeler
11. The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown

The Muirwood books were free downloads for my Kindle and I quite enjoyed them even with the overtly religious themes (that usually turns me off). My favourite book however was Ready Player One-really neat-and my least favourite was The Weird Sisters. I almost didn't finish that one because it was pretty boring with way too many Shakespeare quotes, but my sister gave it to me for my birthday so I really wanted to not only finish it, but I wanted to like it. It got a bit better once I decided to skip all the italicized quotes, even though they were part of almost every conversation! 

January 2012 Reads

For those of you who still happen to stop by this blog from time to time-thank you, and sorry! I've really let this blog kind of go by the way-side (is that the right way to put it?) in the past year or so. I don't want to completely stop, but I must admit my book reviews have gotten pretty lame, so I'm going to try something a bit different. So here we go...

Here is what I read in January:
1. Knit One Pearl One - Gil McNeil
2. The House By the Sea - Santa Montefiore
3. The Magician King - Lev Grossman
4. Bossypants - Tina Fey
5. Seriously...I'm Kidding - Ellen Degeneres (Audiobook)
6. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress - Rhoda Jenzen

The first four books were Christmas gifts and I devoured them!! I was so looking forward to the Magician King (Grossman's follow-up to the Magicians) but was a bit disappointed. It was good-but after reading a few "lighter" books I wasn't really in the mood for it, however I pushed through because I wanted to have it finished to bring back to Winnipeg last weekend so the rest of my family could read it.

The last three books on that list (I am counting Bossypants in both lists) for my new book club! I joined the new book club at the Red Deer Public Library and instead of us all reading the same book, we are reading by genre/theme. The genre for February is biographies and memoirs. I used to listen to audiobooks ALL the time in grad school because I was driving so much between Fargo/Moorhead and Winnipeg and I really enjoyed listening to Ellen's book-especially considering she's the one reading it!! I also started reading Unbroken, but I had to return it to the library and to be honest I wasn't totally enthralled.

You can click on the links above to go to the amazon.ca page for each book or to the author's or publisher's website because I will not be reviewing each of them (at least for now).

My favourite book of January 2012: Knit One Pearl One - Gil McNeil
My least favourite book of January 2012:  Mennonite in a Little Black Dress - Rhoda Jenzen

Friday Fill-Ins January 13, 2012

Friday Fill-Ins!! My answers are in RED!

And...here we go!

1. When I looked out the window this morning there was a slight dusting of new snow on the ground.
2. Lady Gaga doesn't make sense to me.
3. Remind me to water the plants, I always forget!
4. Reading is something I love to do!
5. TP is how my Dad sometimes ends his emails.
6. I cleaned the refrigerator recently and I found no fruit.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to picking up Marcia from the airport, tomorrow my plans include shopping with Marcia and playing ticket to ride-Europe, and Sunday, I want to hang out with Marcia before she leaves (yes that's right Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!!!)