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Meme: Musing Mondays (August 19)
The weekly Musing Mondays meme (via the Should Be Reading blog):
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
I just bought Dust (Silo Saga) by Hugh Howey.
Which is crazy, since I just started reading Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga. I’m currently reading the first volume – WOOL – but I just needed to get my hands on the latest book too!
The post-apocalyptic world in Hugh Howey’s Silo is so unique and fascinating. It’s this whole population of people who have adapted to living underground in this 10,000 feet bunker for several generations, protected from the toxic air outside. It’s really cool 🙂
Here’s the product description!
WOOL introduced the silo and its inhabitants.
SHIFT told the story of their making.
DUST will chronicle their undoing.
Welcome to the underground.
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Meme: Musing Mondays (July 22)
The weekly Musing Mondays meme (via the Should Be Reading blog):
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
I just bought Annexed by Sharon Dogar.
I read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank when I was a tween, and it was one of the most moving things I’d ever read.
I was intrigued when I read that Annexed was a fictionalized account of Anne’s stay in the Annex and the events after her capture, but told in the POV of Peter (Van Pels) – the young boy who was also in hiding in the Annex with Anne and her family. I wondered if the author was able to pull it off – and best way to tell is to read it for myself!
Here’s the product description!
Everyone knows about Anne Frank and her life hidden in the secret annex – but what about the boy who was also trapped there with her?
In this powerful and gripping novel, Sharon Dogar explores what this might have been like from Peter’s point of view. What was it like to be forced into hiding with Anne Frank, first to hate her and then to find yourself falling in love with her? Especially with your parents and her parents all watching almost everything you do together. To know you’re being written about in Anne’s diary, day after day? What’s it like to start questioning your religion, wondering why simply being Jewish inspires such hatred and persecution? Or to just sit and wait and watch while others die, and wish you were fighting.
As Peter and Anne become closer and closer in their confined quarters, how can they make sense of what they see happening around them?
Anne’s diary ends on August 4, 1944, but Peter’s story takes us on, beyond their betrayal and into the Nazi death camps. He details with accuracy, clarity and compassion the reality of day to day survival in Auschwitz – and ultimately the horrific fates of the Annex’s occupants.
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Meme: Musing Mondays (November 5)
The weekly Musing Mondays question of the week (via the Should Be Reading blog) is:
What is the most recent book you purchased, or brought home from the local library? What made you pick it? Have you started reading it, right away, or will you wait for a bit?
Justin Cronin’s The Passage: A Novel ended on a cliff-hanger that just about left me dying, so I’ve been waiting for his sequel ever since! 😉 I was afraid it was going to take the author forever to write the second book, but no, The Twelve (Book Two of The Passage Trilogy): A Novel came out right on schedule just this October! The Kindle edition costs $12.99, but I’m willing to shell out more money for a fave author.
I actually started reading it immediately (and it’s really good!), but I stopped around the 75% mark. Just a stupid reason, one of my fave characters landed herself in a dodgy situation, and I couldn’t bear to read on (just in case she bites it or something). Mr Cronin has killed a fair bit of his characters, so… I’m expecting the worst! I started reading it again yesterday (thankfully, the action shifted to a different character, so I’m still happily in the dark about said character).
Here’s the product description!
The end of the world was only the beginning.
In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic story surges forward with . . .
THE TWELVE
In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.
One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price.
A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival.
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Meme: Musing Mondays (January 2)
The weekly Musing Mondays question of the week (via the Should Be Reading blog) is:
What is/are the first book(s) you’re reading for the new year?
I never heard of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords before she fell victim to that assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona. But I was deeply affected by the aftermath, and have been astounded by her truly miraculous recovery. So, you can guess how happy I was to get a hardcover copy of the memoir Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope by Gabrielle Giffords & Mark Kelly for Christmas! Something inspiring to start the New Year with!
Here’s the product description!
AS INDIVIDUALS, CONGRESSWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, showed Americans how optimism, an adventurous spirit, and a call to service can help change the world. As a couple, they became a national example of the healing power to be found in deeply shared love and courage.
Now, as Gabby’s health continues to improve, the couple is sharing their remarkable untold story. Intimate, inspiring, and unforgettably moving, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope provides an unflinching look at the overwhelming challenges of brain injury, the painstaking process of learning to communicate again, and the responsibilities that fall to a loving spouse who wants the best possible treatment for his wife. Told in Mark’s voice and from Gabby’s heart, the book also chronicles the lives that brought these two extraordinary people together—their humor, their ambitions, their sense of duty, their long-distance marriage, and their desire for family.
Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope is a reminder of the power of true grit, the patience needed to overcome unimaginable obstacles, and the transcendence of love. In the story of Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly, we all can see the best in ourselves. As Mark and Gabby’s friends have said: “The two of them are America as we dream it can be.”
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Weekly Meme: Musing Mondays (October 3)
Okay, haven’t done this since August, so I’m back with this meme! The weekly Musing Mondays question of the week (via the Should Be Reading blog) is:
This week’s musing is…
What are you most excited about reading, right now? (can be a book you’re currently enjoying, or a book that’s yet to be published, etc.)
*
Okay, the book I’m most excited about reading is Snuff (the latest book from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series). I’m a huge fan of Terry Pratchett – love his sense of humor, love the world he created, love his characters. I was devastated when he revealed that he had Alzheimer’s, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped him at all in his writing 🙂 I’m particularly excited about this since one of my uber fave characters in the series is Commander Sam Vimes (and his City watch) and after a long while, there’s a new book focusing on him! And Publishers Weekly just gave it a starred review “…[SNUFF is a] lively outing, complete with sly shout-outs to Jane Austen and gritty police procedurals.” Can’t wait for it to be released (October 18)!
Here’s the product description!
For nearly three decades, Terry Pratchett has enthralled millions of fans worldwide with his irreverent, wonderfully funny satires set in the fabulously imaginative Discworld, a universe remarkably similar to our own. From sports to religion, politics to education, science to capitalism, and everything in between, Pratchett has skewered sacred cows with both laughter and wisdom, and exposed our warts, foibles, and eccentricities in a unique, entertaining, and ultimately serious way.
At long last, Lady Sybil has lured her husband, Sam Vimes, on a well-deserved holiday away from the crime and grime of Ankh-Morpork. But for the commander of the City Watch, a vacation in the country is anything but relaxing. The balls, the teas, the muck—not to mention all that fresh air and birdsong—are more than a bit taxing on a cynical city-born and -bred copper.
Yet a policeman will find a crime anywhere if he decides to look hard enough, and it’s not long before a body is discovered, and Sam—out of his jurisdiction, out of his element, and out of bacon sandwiches (thanks to his well-meaning wife)—must rely on his instincts, guile, and street smarts to see justice done. As he sets off on the chase, though, he must remember to watch where he steps. . . . This is the countryside, after all, and the streets most definitely are not paved with gold.
Hailed as the “purely funniest English writer since Wodehouse” (Washington Post Book World), with a “satirist’s instinct for the absurd and a cartoonist’s eye for the telling detail” (Daily Telegraph, London), Terry Pratchett offers a novel of crime, class, prejudice, and punishment that shows this master at his dazzling best.
What about you, what are you most excited about reading?
(p.s. If you like participating in memes/blog hops, be sure to check out the Meme Directory for the Book Bloggers!)
(p.s.s. If it’s your first time to visit my blog, please have a look around especially if you read digital books. I post a lot of (legal) freebies that I find here)
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Weekly Meme: Musing Mondays (August 29)
The weekly Musing Mondays question of the week (via the Should Be Reading blog) is:
This week’s musing is… a book meme!
What was the last book you…
• borrowed from the library?
• bought?
• cried over?
• disliked and couldn’t finish?
• read & loved?
• got for review? (or: got in the mail?)
• gave to someone else?
• stayed up too late reading?
*
MY ANSWERS!
What was the last book you…
- Borrowed from the library? Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (A Miss Marple Mystery) – just for a change of pace versus all the Swedish crime books I had been reading
- Bought? Maria V. Snyder’s The Study Series Bundle (Poison Study, Magic Study and Fire Study) – this fantasy series about a condemned prisoner’s adventures was highly recommended to me so I hope it lives up to the hype!
- Cried over? Ummm, can’t recall, haven’t read any tear-jerkers lately…
- Disliked and couldn’t finish? More than I can list here, but the first to come to mind is Eliot Schrefer’s School for Dangerous Girls – the main character was so unlikable that I just couldn’t make myself care about her story
- Read & loved? Terry Pratchett’s I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld – Tiffany Aching Series) – I treasure all of Pratchett’s books (especially after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis)
- Got for review? (or: got in the mail?) I don’t really get any books from publishers for review, I just review whatever I like
- Gave to someone else? Well, I can’t really give away a Kindle book, so what I did was this complicated register-deregister maneuver so my friend could get The Strain (Strain Trilogy) by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro on his Kindle. I actually thought the novel was so bad, it was almost good – lol, as in it was unintentionally hilarious- I warned my friend about how ridiculous the storyline was (the CDC versus vampires! ), but he’s a die hard Guillermo Del Toro fan (of the Academy Award-winning Pan’s Labyrinth fame) so he still wanted it (but not enough to pay for it)
- Stayed up too late reading? What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty – loved this twist on the amnesia plot and couldn’t help but stay up all night to read it!
(p.s. If you like participating in memes/blog hops, be sure to check out the Meme Directory for the Book Bloggers!)
(p.s.s. If it’s your first time to visit my blog, please have a look around especially if you read digital books. I post a lot of (legal) freebies that I find here)
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Weekly Meme: Musing Mondays (August 8)
Okay, haven’t participated since last June, so jumping in this week! The weekly Musing Mondays question of the week (via the Should Be Reading blog) is:
If you were (are) going on vacation, what books would you take with you?
*
I’ve got an eInk eReader (the Amazon Kindle) so I would just throw that in my purse should I suddenly go on vacation (I wish!) Basically, I’ll have my entire library literally at the palm of my hand wherever I go, since I can have access to all my eBooks that are already on the eReader (and if I wished, any of the books I’ve ever bought in my archive, as long as I have access to WiFi). That convenience was one of my considerations when I made the investment to buy an eReader – I hated having to figure out which books to take with me or which books to leave behind in the hotel (in cases where I end up buying too many souveniers).
But in the interests of playing along, how about I’ll just mention here which books I’ve already got downloaded on my Kindle right now?
- Outpost by Adam Baker (I love post-apocalyptic books)
- The Strain (Strain Trilogy) by Chuck Hogan, Guillermo Del Toro (Did I mention that I love post-apocalyptic books? lol)
- A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five by George R.R. Martin (the sequel from the series I’ve been waiting for since 2006)
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by by Ransom Riggs (Aside from the striking cover, this book caught my attention when it was featured as one of Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2011)
- If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won’t) by Betty White (This will probably be the one I’ll read poolside or if I’ll be anywhere distracting – just a light read by my fave funny woman Betty White!)
What about you, do you also have an eReader? Or what books will you be taking with you?
(p.s. If you like participating in memes/blog hops, be sure to check out the Meme Directory for the Book Bloggers!)
(p.s.s. If it’s your first time to visit my blog, please have a look around especially if you read digital books. I post a lot of (legal) freebies that I find here)
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Weekly Meme: Musing Mondays (June 13)
The weekly Musing Mondays question of the week (via the Should Be Reading blog) is:
What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?
I’ve got a rule that I DON’T stay up late for books (because I get extremely cranky when I lack sleep), but man, I couldn’t put down What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty! A friend of mine had recommended it to me, said that it was kind of like Sophie Kinsella’s Remember Me?, but with the quality of writing exponentially better. Both books feature an older woman waking up as her more innocent & naive younger self, and finds that she doesn’t really like who she’s become or what her life has turned out to be. But that’s where the resemblance ends.
Sophie Kinsella is a fluffier kind of writer (and that’s not a bad thing – just depends on what you’re in the mood for), with characters that are a bit like caricatures, but Liane Moriarty is in a different league all together – the characters are complex and real, the plot surprises you with its twists & turns, and I was totally sucked into Alice’s life bigtime! I felt her pain when she found out that the husband she adored now hated her, that the big sis she loved was a virtual stranger to her, and her fears as she tried to connect with three children she couldn’t remember! I just read and read and read through the night (and into the early morning)… wanting to know what happens when Alice finally gets her memory back, but also dreading getting to the final page.
And let me tell you, I woke up with a bad headache a few hours later (like I had a hangover), but I felt it was totally worth it! What Alice Forgot is in the top echelon of the books I’ve read this year and I’m totally recommending this book to all my (girl)friends!
Here’s the product description!
What would happen if you were visited by your younger self, and got a chance for a do-over?
Alice Love is twenty-nine years old, madly in love with her husband, and pregnant with their first child. So imagine her surprise when, after a fall, she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! she HATES the gym!) and discovers that she’s actually thirty-nine, has three children, and is in the midst of an acrimonious divorce.
A knock on the head has misplaced ten years of her life, and Alice isn’t sure she likes who she’s become. It turns out, though, that forgetting might be the most memorable thing that has ever happened to Alice.
What about you, what’s the last book you stayed up late for?
(p.s. If you like participating in memes/blog hops, be sure to check out the Meme Directory for the Book Bloggers!)
(p.s.s. If it’s your first time to visit my blog, please have a look around especially if you read digital books. I post a lot of (legal) freebies that I find here)
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