Review: Shoeless Joe

Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Having loved the movie "Field of Dreams" for years, I was sure I'd enjoy the book.

This went so far beyond enjoyment. This was a journey. What I enjoyed was seeing the sections I remembered from the movie, but there was so much more to love in the book. More characters, more details, more everything.

I absolutely loved this book, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the movie.



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Review: The Summer I Turned Pretty

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I read this because it was recommended to me, and the book flap made it sound interesting. Sad to say, I was disappointed with this book. Belly seems to be a stereotype of a teenaged girl whose parents have money (though it is mentioned that Susannah's family has more money - Belly's family obviously has plenty of their own money). She is shallow and never satisfied (her father buys her a piano, but she doesn't like it because it's out of tune; anything her mother asks of her is cause for high drama). She can't be happy with Cam because she can't believe that he thought she was pretty when she felt that she was ugly - she thinks he's lying to her so she never fully trusts him. When she doesn't get her way she pouts. Flashbacks show this to be a pattern that has been present throughout her lifetime. Is it any wonder the boys never wanted her around? She was a whiny tattletale as a child, and now she is a whiny self-centered teen.

The ending was confusing - it seemed to just drop off in the middle of a thought. It wasn't until I came online to record having read this book that I discovered that this was the first of a trilogy. I'm not currently planning to read the other two books.



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I read this book as part of the Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge.

2012 Support Your Local Library Challenge

Yet another challenge I found through my wonderful friend Heather at Proud Book Nerd.  This one is hosted by The Eclectic Bookshelf and involves reading books from your local library - which for me is a snap because that is where I get 95% of the books I read.

The rules are simple: the book must come from the library (ebooks are allowed, as long as they are from the library) and it must be a book you have not read prior to this challenge.  The challenge goes from January 1 to December 31, 2012.  I am aiming for the highest level in this challenge: Level 4 - 37+ library books.

Review: Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I loved this book. I enjoyed the fact that we don't find out exactly who Sam is in relation to Jennifer until the second chapter. The prologue and the first chapter, while both quite short, leave you wondering who Sam is - is Sam a boyfriend? brother? long-time male friend who wants more? Obviously, Sam is a very important person in Jennifer's life, because Jennifer leans on Sam a lot.


This is a wonderful story that I truly enjoyed.



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Review: Peter Pan

Peter Pan by James M. Barrie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I realized recently that I had never read this book, so I decided to get it from the library. I have seen many movies depicting the story, so I thought I knew the basics of it. And I was right. I knew the basics.

What I didn't know was astonishing. I did not know (or did not remember) the language used in the story. Granted, it was written in another time and place, but the terminology ("Redskins" being a prime example) is considered offensive by many these days, and to those who do consider it offensive do not consider the time it was written to be a valid excuse for using such language/terms.

This alone means that Peter Pan is no longer a children's story. It is one that needs to wait until children are old enough to understand that words like that are no longer appropriate.

I gave this four stars because the story is, ultimately, still a very enjoyable tale. :)



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I read this book as part of the Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge.

2012 Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge

I originally found this challenge through my friend Heather at Proud Book Nerd.  Thanks, Heather! 

This is a challenge to read books recommended by other book bloggers and is hosted by Reading With Tequila.  There is a list (and complete rules HERE) of recommended books.  Rereads do not count, which will challenge me to pick something different than what I usually read (this list is over 400 books long, I think I'm going to find plenty of books I haven't read on it).

I attempted this last year but, due to several factors (one of them being hand surgery), stopped recording what I was reading shortly after starting.  So I am going to give it another shot since I now have the entire year to work with.

Reviews are not required, but I am trying to get into the habit of reviewing what I read so I am going to attempt to review the books I read for this challenge.

I'm keeping track of the books I read for this challenge with this list.  I intend to get to Level IV of the challenge, which is to read 20 of the recommended books.

Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge

I found this challenge through my friend Heather at Proud Book Nerd.  Thanks, Heather!  This will be my first reading challenge in the blogosphere, and I'm really looking forward to it!

This is a challenge to read books recommended by other book bloggers and is hosted by Reading With Tequila.  There is a list (and complete rules HERE) of recommended books.  Rereads do not count, which will challenge me to pick something different than what I usually read (this list is over 400 books long, I think I'm going to find plenty of books I haven't read on it).  The challenge started on January 1st, so I'm starting out about 6 months behind.  No matter, I will still do the best I can.  That being said, I'm going to aim for Level III - 15 books.  Reviews are not required, but I am trying to get into the habit of reviewing what I read so I am going to attempt to review the books I read for this challenge.

Review: The Final Summit: A Quest to Find the One Principle That Will Save Humanity

The Final Summit: A Quest to Find the One Principle That Will Save Humanity by Andy Andrews

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In The Final Summit, we become re-acquainted with David Ponder, who is still an inspiration to many but yet struggles to inspire himself. This time, instead of a purely personal journey, David (along with other Travelers) is charged with finding a solution to the downward spiral humanity is on. What two word answer will save humanity from itself?


This is a sequel, and having read the first book (The Traveler's Gift) helps tremendously. I started this book without having read The Traveler's Gift and was confused enough by chapter two that I stopped, got the first book from the library, read it, and then started over with The Final Summit. It was most definitely worth it.


Reading the struggles that David and his fellow Travelers go through to come up with the answer to humanity's downfall caused me to think more about what is going on globally in the here and now. This book, like its predecessor, gave me a lot of reasons to stop and think. In my opinion, a lot more people in this world need to do just that - stop and think about where they personally are going, as well as how they are contributing towards the future.



Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Seeking Sara Summers

Seeking Sara Summers by Susan Gabriel

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable book. There were several distracting instances where apostrophes were misused, and a couple of times where homonyms were mixed up, but they did not do much to detract from the story as a whole and I was able to get past them fairly quickly.


Part of what drew me to this story was the title. I am always happy to find characters with my name, spelled the way I spell it. Characters named Sarah are very common, those named Sara are hard to find. To have nothing else in common with the character is irrelevant to me - I'll read almost any book with a main character named Sara.


I do think that the jacket description gives away a little too much of the plot, which made the story itself rather predictable. Sara needs to discover who she is before she can decide what she wants, and this is Sara's journey of self-discovery. However, Sara's ultimate decision about her life, as well as her husband's revelation in the second-to-last chapter, are left as mysteries until the very end - something I really enjoyed. Keeping those two secrets until the last few pages of the book is a great way to end things.


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The Lunatic Cafe

The Lunatic Cafe (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #4) by Laurell K. Hamilton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the fourth book in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. It is less intense than the third book, but that is not to say that it is less of a story. Anita is back and doing what she always does - except that the Christmas season is slow for zombie raisings and there haven't been any vampires to execute lately. She manages to get tangled up in local Were politics, which is not fun for anyone, least of all her on-again, off-again boyfriend Richard (who is a Werewolf). The immediate mystery is solved during the course of the book, but naturally there is always the underlying overall mystery of what Anita will do with her life when she has two supernatural creatures vying for her attention. As usual, there is a lot of blood & gore, but also a lot of great one-liners. Nothing in this series is gratuitous, and each book gives us a deeper glimpse into Anita's past and why she is the way she is.


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Classic Books

This was on my friend Kelly's blog. The ones that are bold and in purple are ones that I know I have read. I don't remember all of them very well, so I am thinking of re-reading some of them soon. According to Kelly (who read it elsewhere), the average American has read 6 of the 100 books on this list. I have read 41 of them. What can I say? I've always been a bookworm.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 nineteen eighty four- george orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Pweauaion- Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe- CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoris of a Geisha- Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm- George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies- William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi- Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Before Green Gables

Before Green Gables

I found this book in the library by chance and thought it looked interesting. Boy was I right. If you liked Anne of Green Gables, you'll love this book.

I just finished this book:

From Booklist
Infertility and infidelity pack a potent--and potentially fatal--one-two punch to Elinor and Ted Mackey's once-idyllic marriage in Winston's perceptive and poignant exploration of marital commitment and liberation. Intelligent and successful, the Mackeys appear to have everything going for them except the ability to become parents and the agility to withstand the devastating emotional impact such a loss imposes on their relationship. Her hormones in a state of turbulent imbalance, Elinor becomes alternately volatile and withdrawn, driving Ted to seek refuge at the local gym, where his nubile personal trainer, Gina, is more than willing to provide the sympathy and support he craves. Madly in love with Ted, single-mother Gina has a secret weapon to eventually win him over: her ten-year-old son, Toby, whose open adoration of Ted may prove too hard for anyone to resist. Once again, Winston demonstrates a laserlike ability to focus on the inescapable reality of contemporary relationships, tempering her characters' abject pain with appealing good humor.

Carol Haggas Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.