Shut Up And Read

Shut Up And Read Is It Too Difficult To Pick Up A Book Once In A While?

I like Amy Stewarts writing and I had high hopes for this article, but in the end was very disappointed in Amy. I love books, and I have always had a beef with people who don't like to read. I mean really! How can you possibly not like to read? There's so many wonderful and interesting worlds you can travel to and experience inside the pages of books.

I really thought Amy was going to talk about this in her article. Talk about what it is that keeps people from reading and what we can do to help literacy, especially among the lower income families. I was sorely disappointed. This is why:

First Amy says this: "Books require us to care about someone other than ourselves. And unlike most of the other media we encounter, books are not trying to sell us anything. Reading a book allows us to step away from the culture of consumption entirely." Which I agree with whole heartedly. But then, she ends up doing this: "The holidays will be upon us soon, and I’ll roll out my perennial plea to stop in at a local independent bookstore and buy books for everyone on your holiday gift list." Then proceeds to list several bookstores with events and asking us to buy the authors books at those events. Now, I'm all for helping out authors make a few bucks, BUT! This is an article on getting people to read, especially under privileged and she's SELLING us on books. She's doing exactly what she finds repulsive about all of the media we encounter daily. Not one single mention of the library. Not one! Unbelievable! If she wants people to read, especially people who can't afford to shop at Northtown Books, why is she not promoting the Humboldt County Library? Shame on her!

Another fun book I read this summer. Being Bourdain's first book, I wasn't as impressed with his writing as I was with his other books, but I could see it improving the further into the book I got. If you like Anthony Bourdain and his sick and twisted sense of humor you'll enjoy this book. If you enjoy food, you'll enjoy this book, as he goes into heavy detail on the recipes served up in this book. He also goes into pretty graphic detail about the murders that occur. It's a quick read and a lot of fun.

I just finished this book a few days ago. Very well written, but a depressing read. In spite of being so depressing, I did enjoy the book for it's historical aspect. It seems they never get around to teaching World War 1 history in school and I've always been curious about it. This book is written during the first Great War and is about the 1918 flu pandemic, which is another topic I know very little about. Tomas Mullen goes into great detail about how the Spanish Flu killed so many people. It's fascinating and extremely morbid. There's also some great action towards the end of the book. Mullen makes you feel like you're right there watching it. If you have a tendency towards hypochondria, I don't recommend this book. I had a bad chest cold while reading this, and it freaked me out!

Finally writing again

Well, after having given up writing for a while I'm back. I haven't given up reading though. I've read a couple of good books while taking a writing break. The first one was Amy Tan's book The Opposite of Fate. This is a non fiction book that is a collection of speeches, essays and other musings. As someone who longs to be a writer I found this book inspiring. It's one of the reasons I decided to get back into writing. If you're not a big fan of Amy Tan's, you may not enjoy this book, but I found it interesting to see and understand where here stories came from. I love her Mother Daughter themes and you can see and appreciate the source of them in this book. I find that I can relate to Amy Tan on that level, since it seems that her mother had a lot of the same personality traits as my mother.

Another book I've read is called Faith and Betrayal A Pioneer Woman's Passage In the American West By Sally Denton. This book was based on a pioneer woman's diary and written by one of her descendant's. I enjoy historical novels and non fiction history books, so I found this book enjoyable. If you are a practicing Mormon, you may want to skip this book, you may find it offensive. All in all, it was an easy ready, and I did learn a lot about the early beginnings of the Mormon church, albeit, not in a very favorable light. This book also made me realize I should appreciate how much easier life is today. I'm not so sure any of us could survive a pioneer life these days. Most of us don't even know where our food originates from, much less have the ability to kill our own. A good book to put life into perspective.

Northcoast Journal article

Interesting article about a local small publishing house, called Stark House, owner, Greg Shepard.

The Pulp Mill Crooked Cops Private Dicks And The Shady Ladies Of Stark House

The Christmas Garden Affair

Well, while I'm waiting for my library to get The Handmaiden and The Carpenter in, I'm going to read Ann Ripley's The Christmas Garden Affair. Looks like a fun and interesting book. It's mystery, (my fav!), and gardening, (my other fav!) and it's set during the holidaze! How much better can it be? Well, the librarian said Ann Ripley is one of her favorite authors. Well, there you have it. It's a must read!

This is what I know so far. Ann Ripley writes mysteries and short stories back home in Colorado, and she's an organic gardener. She has written 10 books! Mulch 1994, Death of a Garden Pest 1996, Death of a Political Plant 1998, The Garden Tour Affair 1999, The Perennial Killer, 2000, Harvest of Murder, 2001, The Christmas Garden Affair, 2002, Death At The Spring Plant Sale, 2003, Summer Garden Murder, 2005, and her newest book; Death In The Orchid Garden, 2006. Man! Who knew you could draw so much writing inspiration from gardening?!?

Being a gardener (somewhat organic) I think I'm going to really enjoy this book!

Join me if you dare....Susan, my fellow gardener, I think you should read this and post a comment on this blog.

Having It & Eating It - the review

I have to say, I really enjoyed this book. Being a mother of two, and having had a career "BC (Before Children)", I related to so much of this mother's hassles in life. For a while I felt like I was Maggie Owen, but, as the story progressed, I'm very glad I'm not. I read another review of the book and someone's comment was that Maggie's character was a bit whiney. I had read this review before finishing the book, so I took offense to the comment. I fully disagreed, but in the end, I have to say, she was right. Although, I didn't mind it. I was starting to relate a bit too much to this character, and than, I realized I was much better off than her. Thank God!

This book is full on "chicklit", so it's not going to appeal to everyone. Definitely not a "classic novel", but a fun read. Comedy, mystery, romance, just a fun read. And, you'd think with all that, that it would have a predictable ending. Nope! That's what really made me enjoy this book. I really didn't know how it was going to end until the last few pages.

This was Sabine Durrant's first published novel, and it was great. I'm definitely planning on seeking out more of her work. Ms. Durrant has been a journalist for the Gardian, the Observer, Independent, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times. She has written two other books; The Great Indoors and Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles.