Fall Into Reading Booklist

I thought I'd narrowed my "Fall Into Reading" booklist down to a final fifteen but even now as I'm typing I've decided to make some changes. This is pretty much the way I want it now:

Non-Fiction:

A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire and The Mystery of Little Miss 1565 by Don Massey & Rick Davey

Room For Two by Abel Keough

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Classic Literature:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Fiction:

Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

A Dangerous Woman by Mary McGarry Morris

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Picturing the Wreck by Dani Shapiro

Fall On Your Knees by Ann Marie McDonald

Alternates

The Case for a Creatorby Lee Strobel (non-fiction)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Bloom

The Cloud of Unknowing by Thomas H. Cook

And before I get to those, I need to finish the two I'm reading now:

Dance of Death by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
The Insulin Resistance Diet by Cheryle R. Hart M.D. and Sharon Kay Grossman R.D.

Sunshine & Roses

Booking Through Thursday

The reverse of last week’s question:

Imagine that everything is going just swimmingly. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. You’re practically bouncing from health and have money in your pocket. The kids are playing and laughing, the puppy is chewing in the cutest possible manner on an officially-sanctioned chew toy, and in between moments of laughter for pure joy, you pick up a book to read . . .

What is it?

Whatever is next on my TBR (to be read) next list! If I am really feeling up and everything is going well then I am in the mood for any type of book!

Fall Into Reading

Fall into Reading at Callapidder Days!

I'm falling!

For more information, click on the picture above--you, too, can fall into reading!

Reading Room

T.G.I.F. had a book themed topic this week so I decided to answer it here!

1. On average, how many books do you read in a year? I guess my average is 26

2. What are your favoite books? I have many! Among them:

To Kill A Mockingbird
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
The Stand
Outlander
Gone With The Wind
Mystic River
Odd Thomas

3. Any favorite author? I have a lot of those, too: Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon, Dean Koontz, Pearl S. Buck and Amy Tan just to name a few

4. What are your favorite magazines? Entertainment Weekly, Prevention and Readers' Digest

5. When you pick up a mag, what sections do you automatically zoom into? I look for stories or updates on my favorite TV series, Lost first

Comfort Food

Booking Through Thursday

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

I don't think any book would make me feel better under those circumstances but the first one I'd probably pick up (no, not the Bible!) would be Rabbi Kushner's book about why bad things happen to good people. Even if it's not warm, it's got comforting information in it! Then I would move on to a book that would pull me into the story and help me forget my troubles. Some books I've read in the past that would work:

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
The Stand by Stephen King
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Christy by Catherine Marshall

Disappointed

I was so looking forward to reading Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child but I was so totally disappointed when I finished.

I have to admit that I read the books out of order, probably a bad idea. The first one I ever read was Still Life With Crows and, while I enjoyed it and liked the Pendergast character, there were a couple of sections that confused me. There were references to people I didn't know and there were a mysterious pair of eyes, one hazel, one blue. At least, I think the eyes were in that book. I didn't plan on reading any more in the series but then I came across Cabinet of Curiosities and I was totally hooked. At that point, I realized I ought to go back and read the first two and I enjoyed them as well.

By then, Brimstone and Dance of Death were out in hardcover and/or paperback. I was eager to get to them, looking forward to this confrontation between Aloysius Pendergast and his mad brother Diogenes. I thought I'd be introduced to the brother in this book but there were just a couple of references to him and that was my first disappointment.

The next one was that a mysterious character appeared, Constance Green, and she didn't make any sense to me. I get it that she was in the Harlem mansion from the Cabinet book and that she was in hiding throughout the story. I get it that experiments were done on her and that she is actually very much older than she looks (she appears 19 or 20). If I remember correctly, Pendergast's great grandfather (or some relative) was the one performing life prolonging experiments on her and then he died. Now Pendergast is taking care of her, slowly easing her into the 21st century by reading to her from newspapers. You'd think she was a very fragile being but no, Pendergast also has her research the most hideous topics like soul snatching by the Devil and what have you. I kept getting this feeling of huh? and I don't like that feeling.

The book began well with the mysterious murders of two men in New York--with the stink of brimstone in the air and the burned out shells of bodies left behind, it sure seemed the work of Satan. Enter Pendergast--who has a special interest in serial killings--and Vinnie D'Agosta, now a trivial sergeant from eastern Long Island. This was another huh? section. Apparently D'Agosta returned from the NYC police force, dragged his unwilling wife and son to Canada, went bankrupt writing books and came crawling back sans family. Okay, I can't see a city cop leaving New York, sorry.

Another WTF moment: where was obnoxious reporter Bill Smithback of the New York Post? Apparently he and his old rival Bryce Harriman swapped jobs? Now Smithback is on his honeymoon and Harriman is struggling in Smithback's old job. Why? As far as I can tell, the entire Harriman/Buck-the-preacher segment was totally irrelevant to the story. It could have been left out and I think the story would have moved a lot faster for me.

Once Pendergast and D'Agosta went to Italy I began to get bored and impatient. I didn't like Count Fosco--he was an admittedly purloined character taken to honor the author who came up with detective stories. Really? Okay...yawn. I couldn't stand Count Fosco, didn't find him really believeable as a psychopathic villain. And the authors also purloined the story from Edgar Allan Poe: The Cask of Amontillado. Give me a break. I thought that story worked better for Dark Shadows than it did for this book.

But lots of people loved this book and I didn't. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because I wanted to see the battle between Pendergast and his brother begin. Where is Diogenes and what exactly is this perfect heinous crime he's planning? So I have to wait for Dance of Death to meet the guy? Although...

whose hazel and blue eyes peeked into that bricked up room? Well...I could have skipped this book and went right to the next one as far as I'm concerned.