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As summer draws to a close, I find my self eager to get back to school. I think the idea that I will be done in two semesters makes me wish it was over. With the light visible at the end of what has been a very long, but very worthwhile tunnel, I just want to keep moving. Speaking of wishing, this picture just sums up my dream of traveling and hitting the open road. I love the idea of experiencing life in more than one place. I don't understand people who are content to just stay in one place all of the time. Of course, in addition to the camper, I want one of these to scoot around on. I have been doing a last minute rush of reading in order to get in some more fun before it becomes textbooks, textbooks, textbooks all of the time. I read my first Jodi Picoult and I really loved it. She is a much better writer than I thought she would be (breaking my whole "if so many people are reading it, it must be crap" rule see: James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, etc. I pu...

I picked this one up at work. I am so guilty of judging books by their covers and this one has a very pretty cover. The overall story was cute, but it never really rises above cute. I could have used a little more meat to this story. On one level it was about the main character discovering what she wanted out of life, but Laura either hides her head in the sand or spends most of the book ignoring the issue. Oh, to date the gorgeous Marquis or not the Marquis, that was the question. I think I only liked it because it was British. Evans had more enjoyable secondary character, Mary's story would have been a better novel instead of being a story within the story. But, as it is summer, and I have sworn off heavy reading for a bit, it fit the bill. The major bonus was, at 531 pages, it brings me that much closer to completing the Chunkster Challenge .

I was not going to read Snuff, honestly...I was not. Haunted so turned my stomach that I swore I would not read anymore of Chuck's work (stomach:intestines, bad pun, I'm sorry). But the man is a genius. I recommend Fight Club and Lullaby-my personal fave. In that lovely story, a real estate agent only sells haunted houses because she knows that whoever buys it will only be reselling it in a short time. So I'm sitting at work and the day-glo pink of the Snuff cover is just calling to me, and next thing I know, I'm a hundred pages in. I liked the story. I thought it was well done, but I hated the ending. The work I love the most by Mr. Palaniuk is his non-fiction. He can give quite the education. For example, he writes about life aboard a submarine and the existence of cauliflower ears. Good stuff. My TBR pile is sickening. I just brought home Ibid. A Novel in Footnotes (by Mark Dunn who did Ella Minnow Pea which I loved, loved, loved) and three others. I need a we...

Just finished Pillars of the Earth. The funny thing about this book is that complete strangers stopped me to tell me that they had read it ten, fifteen, and seventeen years ago. I had never heard about it. I saw a lady reading it on the train and decided it fit the bill for the chunkster challenge. So, how is it? Well, the book has its moments. Sometimes I could not read fast enough, and other times I was so tired of reading about mortar or a recap of what just happened that I actually put it down and read other things. I loved Alaina and Jack, but I really loved Philip. It had action, loads of action, it had drama, and it had politics. So, as far as huge books about building a cathedral go, it is my favorite. Weighing that against the fact that I have not read any other books about building a cathedral ...there you go. As for the sequel, I think I will wait until next summer to plow into that. I am playing catch up on my winter reading at this point-all that stuff I had to send back ...

Again, I have been slacking on the blog. Sorry. My only saving grace is that I keep a book journal, so my reads are getting logged that way. I started the book journal in 2001, and it is fun to look back and to see what I have read. It all started when I bought a book at Barnes and Noble only to come home and find that I had read it, in fact I owned it, but they had changed the cover on me. In the meantime, it has been all about school work here. I did squeeze in a trip to the Bahamas. Let me just say that Carnival cruises rock! As my budget is less than friendly, it was an affordable trip that was fantastic. The airfare to Miami actually cost us more than the cruise itself. My idea of heaven has always been a deck chair, some fresh air, and a book. Mission accomplished . Just a heads up for those of you in the Mid-Atlantic region, the Philadelphia Book Festival is upon us. The only one I'm really excited about is Margot Livesy. Eva Moves the Furniture is one of my favori...

Ah, I have been slacking on the blog but not on the reading. I have been reading a lot for school, and I don't know why, but whenever someone forces me to read something I immediatly lose all interest in reading it. No matter how cool the book is, I just don't want to read it. So I've been supplimenting my school reads with light and fluffy ones. So, for example, we have Native American history with a side of The End of the World. A little bit of East Asian history with a side of vampire. It works! Wastelands is an anthology of EOTW stories from some of my fave authors including Stephen King and Jonathon Lethem. Normally, I hate short stories as I hate to commit to a character and setting just to let them go in thirty pages, but anthologies like Wastelands are a great way to find new authors. Some of the stories were funny, most powerfully sad, and every single on of them was inventive. Each story was its own little universe, and they all take place at the end of the world ...

...the behinder I get. Really, I have like five books going at once now and I have to start just finishing them. This does not include the books I have to read for school. Also, is "behinder" a real word? I don't know. Today I am at work and it is just thrilling. I did manage to finish What I Was by Meg Rosoff last night, and I really enjoyed it. It was not half as good as How I Live Now, but that was a better story. I also just finished The Invention of Everything Else and I really enjoyed that. I loved the historical elements in it: Tesla's interaction with Mark Twain are brillient and Thomas Edison came off exactly as I had always imagined him. Overall, the book is filled with a sadness that is in stark contrast to an en-"light"-tend New York of the time and the effect is mesmorizing. I can't think of anything to compare it to, which is a good thing, but it is goofy and wonderful in the same way The Royal Tenebaums charmed viewers. I recommend it for...