Book Meme

I haven't participated in any of the Booking Through Thursday things but I kind of like this one! And I love these surveys!

What was the last book you bought?
I quite buying books for a long time but I did recently buy Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I had to buy the book because I was over #200 on the waiting list at the library!

Name a book you have read MORE than once

Most Dr. Seuss books! I don't typically read my books more than once.

Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? If yes, what was it?
I can't say any one book has changed the way I see life but there are several books that have given me pause and caused me to think about that one "issue" the book is based on.

How do you choose a book? eg. by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews
I can be influenced to read a book in many different ways. Sometimes it is walking through the library shelves and a cover catches my attention. Though you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, they are typically a good idea of the kind of book it is! I also work with a lady that reads and recommends some of the most fascinating books that I wouldn't typically choose on my own. And I can be swayed by particular reviews such as those given by my awesome friends up in WA that do this blog.

Do you prefer Fiction or Non-Fiction?
Totally prefer fiction! I live in real life....I need something not so real to escape to!

What’s more important in a novel - beautiful writing or a gripping plot?
For me, I need it to have a gripping plot. Otherwise, there is no point in me reading it!

Most loved/memorable character (character/book)
I think this one changes with age. I will answer with the first character that comes to mind. That would be Edward Cullen from Twilight Saga and that's because it is what I am currently reading. I can't get the image of the way he would stare at Ella in the beginning out of my head.

Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment?
Twilight is it. I am not one to read more than one book at a time. That is one area of my life that I cannot multi-task! And as far as unread books.....the list is way too long to list here!

What was the last book you’ve read, and when was it?

Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin and I finished it about a month ago.

Have you ever given up on a book half way in?
I have given up on books in all phases, in the beginning, middle and close to the end. I have so little time to read to begin with that if it just isn't gripping me, then I don't want to waste my time! Unless I have been previously warned to stick it out through a certain part of the book and that it will get better.

The Big Read

Nope, this isn't about my kids or even JR and I but I love books and found this fascinating. I also know most of my friends love books too and would like to see a list like this!

My friend Crystal aka Revhipchick posted about something called 'The Big Read', from the NEA, designed to encourage community reading initiatives. They came up with a list of their top 100 books and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these books. I will highlight the ones I've read. Cut and paste into your blog and let us know which you've read.

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 - I read the first book of the series but wasn't really interested in the rest
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible - not in full but many parts of it
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 Dickens3
3 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs 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 Meaney - 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 - Enid Blyton
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

So there you have it! I have only read 15 of these! I own several of them that I would like to eventually read. Guess I should get on that! I hope to see this list on some of my other blogger's pages!

Jodi Picoult!

For the last 3 years I have gone to see my favorite author Jodi Picoult in Denver at the Tattered Cover bookstore. She reads parts of her newest book, does a q&a session and then signs books. It changes a little every year as the bookstore gets better and better at organizing these events. I had a minor scare this year as a friend at work asked if I noticed on the bookstores website that it said when you buy the book there, you get 2 free tickets. The info was very vague on the website so I called them in a panic (this was all the afternoon of the signing) to make sure I didn't have to buy a ticket to the event. Which I didn't and I am pretty sure I remember Jodi either saying or writing on her website somewhere that she will NEVER charge for these events. Anyways, I took my friend Jessica along with me since she has never been to anything like this before. The original plan was to go up to Denver, have dinner and then go see Jodi. However, we had to drive through lots of snow and rain and then I missed my exit so we were too late to eat dinner before the event. The place was so packed that we ended up sitting on the floor for the entire evening until it was time for the signing. But it was still a fun night and worth all the trouble to get there!

She can read!

Well not really but close! Whenever we go to the library, Emma gets to check out books too. She loves to be read to and to just sit and look at a book on her own. Thursday morning she brought Look at the Baby over to me to read to her. She actually read it to me! I wasn't sure if she was just pointing to the pictures and naming stuff or doing this by memory until the end. She said yummy, yummy, yummy! A couple of pages towards the end it says that and then the very end says sweet, sweet, sweet. So after only having this book for 2 weeks she memorized it that well! She is my kid for sure! So far all 3 of my kids like books which makes me very happy! My task now, find that book to buy for her!

2007 Book List

I meant to do this earlier this month but given the circumstances there have been other things on my mind! :) Here is the list of books I read for 2007. It is quite sad because I started lots of books....even got close to finishing....and just couldn't do it. I used to read 1-2 books a week but over the last couple of years I have found it difficult to just read 1 book a MONTH! I have only been recording what I have read for a few years and that is only because one of the girls I work with gave all of us readers little notebooks to log what we had read or books that we wanted to read. Anyways, here goes the list! The date is the date I finished the book.

1/26/07 - Jodi Picoult - Harvesting the Heart
3/7/07 - Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Travelers Wife
4/26/07 - Jodi Picoult - Nineteen Minutes
6/3/07 - Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
6/24/07 - Pamela Ribon - Why Moms Are Weird
7/15/07 - Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl
7/31/07 - Lisa See - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
8/12/07 - Emily Giffin - Something Blue
8/27/07 - Emily Giffin - Baby Proof
9/2/07 - Alison Winn Scotch - The Department of Lost and Found
9/18/07 - Emily Giffin - Something Borrowed
11/17/07 - Nikki Sixx - The Heroin Diaries
12/8/07 - Janine Latus - If I am Missing or Dead

The gap between 9/18 and 11/17 was filled with "reading" the Post Secret books. I didn't feel right counting those because they are semi picture books. There are words but it seriously only takes an hour or two to read the books. So if I added those to the count then I think it makes 18 books read for 2007. My goal for 2008 is to double the amount from 2007. Wish me luck!