All photos from Katie Daisy's website.
Showing posts with label book club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book club. Show all posts
How to be a Wildflower
All photos from Katie Daisy's website.
Reading Lately
I've had the pleasure of reading a number of wonderful novels in the last few months as we wait for the next baby to arrive...I'm sure I won't be finding as much time to pick up a book soon. Click the link for each book to read more about it.......
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Peony in Love by Lisa See
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
I would definitely recommend the last novel, The Language of Flowers, to anyone who loves flowers and gardening. The novel uses the Victorian meanings of flowers throughout to help drive the plot -- educational and interesting!
Reading Lately
Well, hello! Just checking in with a list of some of the books I've read over the last two months. This winter is proving to be an excellent excuse for catching up on reading and Netflix. Most of these books I found to be very difficult to put down...making for some late nights. Follow the links for more information on each title.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
In Her Own Voice: Childbirth Stories from Mennonite Women by Katherine Martens and Heidi Harms
Longbourn by Jo Baker
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Ari's Favourite Books
Typically I give a list of my reading at the end of the month, but this July I was too busy with de-cluttering the house during naptime instead of relaxing and reading....so I am still working on the same book that I began at the beginning of the month! In the absence of my reads, I thought I'd share a few of Ari's favourite books -- the ones that HE always reaches for time and time again. (By the way, I am beyond delighted that he is reaching for books himself! I even catch him 'reading' in his room sometimes!)
1. National Geographic Kids Look and Learn: Dogs -- By far his top favourite book. I think it's the photographs of real dogs vs. illustrations in most of his other books. We spend a lot of time flipping through this one, over and over again.
2. Usborne Touchy Feely Books: That's Not My Puppy -- Ari loves touching the special features on each page! Another book he likes that is similar is Tails by Matthew Van Fleet.
3. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow -- A classic story that's so sing-songy. He giggles every time I retell this one.
4. The Fire Station by Robert Munsch -- We have a couple of Munsch stories, which are all great, but he always reaches for this one.
5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak -- An early favourite story of Ari's. He particularly loves the line, "I'll eat you up, I love you so!" I even bought him a crown like Max's to wear for his upcoming birthday!
6. I am a Dump Truck from Scholastic Books -- A recent favourite. He loves that this book is shaped like a truck, and, of course, he loves trucks.
7. My Count and Seek Book from Pockets of Learning -- a great 'quiet/activity' book. He loves flipping through this one and playing with the pieces on each page. He also has a traditional handmade quiet book, which he loves equally as much.
8. Guess How Much I Love You soft book -- This book has soft, crinkly pages and a built in teether. He has loved this one since the start! Something about those crinkly pages just grabs babies.
Mama has her favourite children's stories too, but during reading time Ari is the boss, so we read his choices. I'm sure that these will be read many more times yet!
Reading in June
Hello summer! It's funny how my reading always picks up when the days get warmer...reading in my backyard is one of my favourite things to do. I am so thankful that Ari takes a daily afternoon nap so I can indulge! Here are five books that I read this month:
The Prairie Bridesmaid by Daria Salamon
French Kids Eat Everything (and yours can too) by Karen Le Billon
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
The Secret Garden, for Babies
Is it entirely wrong to buy a children's book that is more for yourself than it is for your child? I found this BabyLit version of The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) at the bookstore this past weekend and could not leave it there! Ari already has a growing collection of BabyLit books, with most of them focusing on numbers, colours and opposites. This one is special because it is a flowers primer - how unique for a children's book!
The Secret Garden is one of my favourite childhood books, so I am delighted to share this board book version with my children. This book by Jennifer Adams and illustrated by Alison Oliver features quotes from the novel with beautiful illustrations of flowers on each page. Here are just a few examples from inside the book:
Reading in March & April
I'm not really sure where the last two months have gone, but somehow here we are at the end of April. Here are a couple of books that have been taking residence on my night table over the last while:
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Click the links above for more information on each book. May 7-9 is our town's annual used book sale so I am looking forward to stocking up on some new reading material!
Winter Reading
After finishing such a heavy and long read I needed some lighter material to entertain me in Mexico. I absolutely love reading memoirs, so a couple by the ladies behind my favourite TV shows came into my hands. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling was endearing and so down to earth. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham was frank, honest and much like her character on Girls.
I am currently re-reading Bringing Up Bebe since my baby is already five months old! I read it while pregnant and loved the ideas, but sadly forgot a lot of the details with new mommy brain.
Click on the links provided for more info on each book.
Reading in September & October
With Ari's arrival on September 5th I haven't spent as much time reading books as I did during the summer months, but I have finished a few over the last eight weeks....mainly while nursing or for a few minutes before my eyes close before bed! These books are some of my last book sale finds that I had left to read and they were all very enjoyable in their own ways. These four books are all quite different from each other - I love variety in my reading! Follow the links for each book for more information:
Swing Low: A Life by Miriam Toews
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
How to be Good by Nick Hornby
Dust to Dust by Timothy Findley
Also, Happy Halloween!
We skipped out on carving pumpkins and costumes this year, but I do have a bowl of chocolate bars ready to be given out this evening...that is, if I don't eat them first!
Reading in August
Wow, can you believe that it is already September?? In August I ended up holding onto my knitting needles more often than a book, but I still finished reading four novels - two non-fiction and two fiction. All four books were ones that I had picked up at our town's big used book sale this spring. Click on the links below for more information about each book.
Paris: A Love Story by Kati Marton
Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore
A Celibate Season by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard
Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France by Peter Mayle
Reading in July
July has been a wonderful month to accomplish some summer reading! I finished six books this month and enjoyed each one of them. My favourite of this group would have to be The Silver Star. I have read Jeannette Walls' two memoirs and LOVED them. This is her first fictional novel and it was incredibly hard to put down! Of course, if you're into a good laugh you must read the work of David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day had me in tears at one point! Click on the links below for more information on each book.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Naked by David Sedaris
Reading in May & June
It's hard to believe that it is really July! After a crazy last two weeks of work and a quick road trip to Minneapolis over the long weekend, I am finally back to posting regularly....at least until baby comes!
I managed to still squeeze in a couple of reads in the last two months, even though life was busy. I thoroughly enjoyed each one of these books. Follow the links to read more info about each selection.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
Knit Two by Kate Jacobs
Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler by Trudi Kanter
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Reading in March & April
I can't believe that May is nearly here! My reading was quite slow over the winter, but a vacation away in March helped me get back into reading some absolutely delightful books. When I was making this list I realized that five of the six books are non-fiction - I loved reading about the experiences and knowledge of some amazing women around the world this spring!
Top Row:
What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures - Malcolm Gladwell
Bringing up Bébé - Pamela Druckerman
Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt
Bottom Row:
Orange is the New Black - Piper Kerman
A House in the Sky - Amanda Lindhout
Mastering the Art of French Eating - Ann Mah
Reading in October
After a stumble in my personal reading during the month of September I feel like I recovered significantly in October. It helped a lot that I actually went into a bookstore at the end of September to browse and buy new reads to get excited about! Here are the books that I read this month:
Wildwood by Colin Meloy (YES...from the band The Decemberists! This is the first book of a trilogy. I already have the second book to read!)
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (apparently being made into a movie - would be very entertaining with the right actors!)
Reading in August
Wow...I managed to fit in a lot of reading this month! It was an incredibly enjoyable few weeks of indulging in my backyard and books before the reality of back to work hits next week! All of the books that I read were very good. If I would have to choose just one favourite of the bunch I would pick Where'd You Go, Bernadette because the story mirrored our society today with such accuracy and humour (the author used to write for a number of popular TV sitcoms), yet was a touching story of a modern-day family. See links to all books below:
Top:
1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam
3. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
4. Flipped by Wendelin van Draanen
Bottom:
5. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
6. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
7. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
8. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Reading in July
Well, I did not quite surpass my June reading blitz of six books this month, but I did manage to get through four reads. I found the David Sedaris and Jeannette Walls books to be very hard to put down, while the other two were a bit slower to get through. All four were entertaining, however, especially Sedaris - beware of outbursts of laughter when reading!
Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris
The Book of Ruth - Jane Hamilton
Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff
Half Broke Horses - Jeannette Walls
Reading in June
One of my spring bucket list goals was to hit up the annual used book sale in our town and to start reading more for pleasure. I believe that I have been successful with this goal, as I finished SIX books this past month! I hope for this trend to continue through the summer months!
Here are the books that kept me reading:
The Kitchen God's Wife - Amy Tan
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
The School of Essential Ingredients - Erica Bauermeister
The History of Love - Nicole Krauss
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs
Can you believe that it is almost July?? Time to begin working on a summer bucket list!
Happy summer.
Today is the first day of summer!
I'm off to book club tonight - we're discussing travel books this month.
I read Paddle to the Arctic by Don Starkell (author of Paddle to the Amazon)...
it was an interesting reading experience as I chose to read the book, which takes place in the frozen tundra arctic regions of Canada, while basking in the sun outdoors.
Any outdoor adventure/canoe/kayak enthusiast will love this read!
Photo by You Are My Fave.
Book club.
So this weekend we had our February book club meeting. Our pick for this round was The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. This was a book I probably never would have picked up to read on my own, but that's the beauty of being in a book club, where you are invited to read the selections of other group members and to challenge your comfort zone.
I won't go into too much detail about the plot, as it's a bit of a crime mystery thriller (and I don't want to ruin it if you haven't read it yet!), but it was 800 pages of investigation into a cold case murder...which eventually gets solved by the protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, and his research assistant, Lisbeth Salander, aka the girl with the dragon tattoo. It was a bit slow for me to get into, but once they found the first lead into the investigation I stayed up waaay past my bedtime to read on. It turned out to be a pretty good read, even though there were a couple of horrific scenes that were a bit too detailed and almost made me put it down.
The Walrus Magazine has an article in it this month, which one of my fellow book club members alerted us of, that gives a lot of interesting background information about the author and discusses this book from a more personal point of view.
Next month we're reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I read it in my undergrad at university, but it should be fun to flip through it again!
Book club.
I've joined a book club recently and thought I would share what we've been reading. We have one book pick every month and meet to discuss, eat, and drink lots of wine!
Our first book was in December. We read Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen. I really enjoyed reading this one...it was one of those books that you can't put down and I ended up staying up until 2 am every night until I finished it! Jacob Jankowski, the protagonist, is finishing veterinary studies when he learns that his parents have been killed in a car accident. He copes by running away and jumping onboard a train. He then finds out he has boarded a traveling circus train and manages to find employment with the troupe. Tensions and love triangles keep the story compelling...definitely a page-turner!
January's book was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I have to admit, I started reading the book twice, but couldn't find the hook to keep going. The storyline sounds exciting, but Kerouac's style of writing didn't hold my interest. I think it's one of those books that you need to be in the right mood to enjoy. The novel chronicles the adventures of a group of friends during the Beat era in the 1950s and is largely autobiographical. Narrated by Sal Paradise (Kerouac), the group, including the infamous character of Dean Moriarty, travels across America on the road many times over a period of three years while contemplating issues of humanity.
February's book selection is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. I've just started reading it, and so far it's hooked me in. But, it's a bestselling crime novel, how could it not?
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