January 21, 2010 ~ No Words

I received this picture from a book loving relative. Made me laugh & laugh!!!

Confucius say: "If you are in a book store and can't find a book you must be in the

Hope this makes you laugh too!

Just Checkin' In

It looks like it has been a very, very long time since I last posted something. In all honesty, it has been far longer than I planned (or wanted). But, life has a way of getting in the way of things I plan on doing.

In between dealing with work and family issues I have been reading a few books. I seem to have fallen into a slump of sorts where I do not want to read. Or rather, the books I HAVE to read (for the book clubs I belong to) do not seem to inspire or excite me as much.

I am currently reading (or trying to read) three books [ATTENTION: Possible spoiler alerts via Wikipedia links posted here]: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (for my Moms Neighborhood Book Club), A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (for the Library Book Club) and Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer (for me). All of them are rather long books. The Mists of Avalon is over 800 pages; Owen Meaney is over 400 and Breaking Dawn is also almost 800 pages. No way I am ever going to read all 2000+ pages by January. So, I need to decide where I am going to focus my reading energies, so to speak.

From a scheduling point of view my Library book club will meet first, during the first week of January so logic dictates that I should focus all my reading energies and time into this book. The Moms Neighborhood book club meets the 3rd/4th week of January so (in theory) I have more time to read this book. The Stephanie Meyer book is just for me so I have all the time in the world to read it.

So, I think that sets the agenda for me, so to speak. Focus on Owen Meany and try to set some pace on The Mists of Avalon. OK, now that I have that all set.. time to log off and READ!!!!

Where has the time gone?

My goodness! It looks like it has been quite some time since I have posted a few things here, especially a Sunday Salon and a Teaser Tuesday post.

My life has become rather busy, a bit too busy to be able to take the necessary time to sit at my computer and post. I truly do have the best of intentions but then someone needs to be driven somewhere or I have to shop for groceries or I have laundry to do and, well, you probably get the idea. And then there is work thrown in amidst all those activities.

So, as a result, I have not been able to post with any degree of regularity. And for a while I felt very bad about that. I think I was getting disheartened by the fact that so many other bloggers out there that I follow seem to post 3-5 times a week, sometimes even 2-3 a day!!! I can't even muster up 2 a week on occasions so doing 2-3 a day is not something that I can even contemplate.

A short while ago it suddenly dawned on my what my "problem" was. It was me! I was trying to compete with other blogger as though it was a race. Somehow I had to try and keep up with the frequency of their postings. As though some sort of prize was going to be handed out.

Now I realize for some bloggers it's just easier to post frequently. Maybe it's their "job," maybe they have a greater passion for it than I do. I just don't know. But I have decided to give myself permission to not compete with anyone else about the number of posts I write for this blog. Or the frequency. If I can post a Teaser Tuesday every Tuesday, GREAT! If not, so be it. Same for the Sunday Salon.

I am finding that trying to compete with other bloggers is making me view reading and this blog as a chore. And while I will never stop reading (I can't, really) I don't want to view reading as a chore. It takes the enjoyment out of reading. And I don't ever want to lose that. In fact, it seems that others are also starting to feel that way. See J. Kaye's blog (but realize that she has been blogging about books for so much longer than I have).

So, I still plan to be around. Sometimes I will be on a roll and post several in a very short period of time. Sometimes there will be a break in between postings. But I will not be gone. I'm giving myself back the gift of reading for the pleasure of reading. It's something that's been missing for a while and I want desperately to get it back.

The Gargoyle ~ Andrew Davidson

This is a book that I most definitely would not have picked up on my own. And after reading it and thinking about it for a few days I'm not sure I liked it. No, I take that back a bit. I did like the four love stories in the book, but I'm not sure I liked the fifth love story (that between the nameless narrator and his leading lady).

Here's a short description of the book from Amazon:

The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.

A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished.

Throughout this book we never learn the name of the narrator. It probably isn't really important. However, we do learn a great deal about him. Such as his childhood, upbringing and the fact that he was, prior to his accident, a well known and successful actor in porno films.

A fellow reader from the library book club to which I belong recommended it. Though he did so with some caveats. He said it involved sex, but not in the way you might initially think. "OK," I thought. I'm not a prude about sex but neither am I am so one who enjoys reading sexual literature, so I figured that I would be ale to handle the sex scenes I imagined would be forth coming.

Well, while there really were no sex scenes as such, I must admit I had a great distaste for him as a character. And if I am being truthful, it was in large part because his character was a porno star.

I kept wondering why Davidson made him a porno actor. Couldn't the story have been just as interesting if he was a well-known politician or a prominent baseball player or a world class male model? The same event could have happened to him and I think the story would have turned out the same. I don't think the main character's occupation (for lack of a better word) enhanced the story for me.

In this book Marianne Engel, the mysterious woman who comes into his life, claims that they have actually been lovers before ~ in 13th Century Germany. Of course, the narrator assumes she is delusional but eventually gets attracted to her. Primarily because of her insistence that they have had a life together before. And because of the stories she tells him. And she does tell some wonderfully interesting stories. In fact, I liked the stories she tells more than I liked the primary story.

She becomes a modern day Shahrazad , weaving stories that span from that of a Viking in 9th Century Iceland, to a mourning widow in Victorian England, to a young female glass blower in feudal Japan to the story of their life together in medieval Germany. Marianne is able to effortlessly intertwine these 4 love stories into that of the modern day one that is being played out against the back drop of the hospital ward in which much of the book is set.

As I said earlier, I actually like each of these 4 short love stories more than I liked the big love story presented in the book. The imagination and creativity that was needed by Davidson to develop these stories is amazing & fantastic.

But, I still cannot get past the fact that I didn't like the main love story very much. I don't know if it was the fact that the narrator was a porno star, or that his love interest was a unique character in her own right. I just can't put my finger on why precisely I didn't like this book better. I know part of it was due to the descriptions early in the book about the treatment the narrator has to undergo due to the extensive burns he endured. When he talked about the whole debridement process he had to under go at around page 30, I swear I almost put the book down and refused to read it any more. It made me pretty sick.

But, as I hate to not read any book that I have started I convinced myself to trudge on. And overall, I'm glad I did. Davidson must have done a ton of research in writing this book and he is obviously a very creative and well talented individual. I can't wait to see what his next book will be about (and I'm assuming there will be a next book).

If you do get the opportunity to read this book I think you should try to, if only for the writing of the 4 separate love stories which Marianne Engel intertwines into their shared modern day story. If you have read it, please post a comment as to whether you liked the book, didn't like it and why.

Until later.... Happy Reading!!

Called to Worship ~ Vernon M. Whaley

This is not a book that you read quickly. It is a book that requires that you slow down the pace of your life for awhile and drink in the words and the images conjured up by Vernon Whaley. And that's how it should be given that we are reading about worship and the Bible. One should not rush through when reading the Bible, though I suspect many of us do (assuming that we even take the time to read the Bible).

I probably don't do that enough, certainly not as much as I would like. And this book is not a substitute for reading the Bible. I'm sure that Mr. Whaley would be the first to acknowledge that.

The jacket notes state that this book is a resourceful tool for ministry professionals,as well as seminary students, who are interested in digging deeper into the roots of worship. I would say that this book is a wonderful resource for anyone (clergy, layperson, Sunday School teacher, Youth ministry, etc.) who wants to have a deeper understanding of worship.

Mr. Whaley uses books from the Bible to illustrate that the way to worship God is already laid out for us in Scripture. All we have to do is read and understand. Sounds simple, right?

Well, with Vernon Whaley's guidance and patient undertaking, it is. It is a wonderful addition to the book shelf of an Christian.

Teaser Tuesday ~ October 20, 2009

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading.

The rules are as follows:

(1) Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page.

(2) Share two sentences somewhere between lines 7 and 12 and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from.


Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.

My Teaser:

At first she did not panic. She "wandered" toward Egypt as she had during her last period of exile, but this time no angles came to her.

~ p. 231, The Woman Who Named God by Charlotte Gordon

Sunday Salon ~ October 18, 2009

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book.

Just a brief post today:

A while back I entered a book give away being hosted by Suzanne at "Chick With Books" blog. The book being given away was "The Woman Who Named God" by Charlotte Gordon. This past Thursday I received the book from Hachette Book Group (Thank You!) and started reading it immediately.

The story of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah stands at the threshold of the three great Western religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam—although each appropriates the story differently. Although God's command of Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, is an oft-told story, his expulsion of his concubine, Hagar, and the son he had by her, Ishmael, is often ignored. In this sometimes provocative, though often pedestrian, rereading of the Hagar story, Gordon gives new power to a woman often left in the shadows. Focusing on Hagar's vision of God in the desert (Genesis 16:13), Gordon argues that Hagar is a prophet and a mystic who names God El-Roi, or the God of my seeing. Because of her experience of God, Gordon argues, Hagar's relationship with God is one that Abraham might envy, for God offered Hagar clear and direct guidance, while God offered Abraham no clarity or guidance about his future but simply expected Abraham to obey. Although her prose is often plodding, Gordon provides some glimpses of the power of Hagar's story for modern religions.

So far I am enjoying it! It's not quite the book I expected it to be but that's not entirely a bad thing. The book has endnotes which sometimes are a distraction to me, but at this point in my reading their inclusion is not distraction to me. It's a very interesting read and I appreciate the historical background she provides. I think that historical background, political background, social background provides a wealth of information in books like these dealing with biblical stories. You have to understand what it was like to live at these times in order to fully understand why people acted the way they did. Historical context helps provide me with a greater understanding and appreciation of things.

I hope to post me review of this book soon so please stop back.

Other books I am reading at the moment include:

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson (review soon)

Crossing California by Adam Langer (review soon)

American on Purpose by Colin Ferguson (review soon)

Until later... Happy Reading!

Teaser Tuesday ~ October 13, 2009

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading.

The rules are as follows:

(1) Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page.

(2) Share two sentences somewhere between lines 7 and 12 and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from.


Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.

My teaser:

Or his favorite color (blue, not sure what shade, probably royal). Is he a good dancer?

~~p. 86, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Sunday Salon ~ October 11, 2009

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book.

Well, not too much going on here on the reading front. I am currently reading a couple books: one for the library book club I belong to (The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson); one for the neighborhood book club I belong to (Crossing California by Adam Langer) and the third, just for me (American on Purpose by Colin Ferguson ~ the comedian). They are all very different genres and it's interesting to switch between them.

I am not that far along in "The Gargoyle" and I must admit that there was one point rather early in the book (around page 30 or so) where I thought I might have to put the book down and abandon it. The main character is a burn victim as the result of a car crash and he goes into a bit of detail (perhaps a bit too much) about a medical process that he has to undergo while in the burn unit of the hospital. Let's just say that it was a bit much for me. However, I have read some wonderful reviews about the book so for he time being I am plodding on.

"Crossing California" is set in a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, in an area I am a tiny bit familiar with, but not all that much. It's set in 1979-1980 and involves a group of friends in high school and some of the trials and travails they go through. I get the idea it's a bit like Armistead Maupin's book "Tales of the City" but I have never actually seen/heard anyone describe it a such.

"An American on Purpose" is penned as Ferguson's memoir about his life as an alcoholic in Scotland and his eventual recovery and move to America where he currently enjoys quite a bit of fame as the host of "The Late, Late Show." I like his monologues on the show, though I don't get to watch the show all that often. It's on much too late for me. I did try to Tivo it for a while but in all honesty, I just don't seem to have that much time to watch TV in general, so very soon it became apparent that Tivo wasn't going to work for me. I haven't been laughing a lot with this book yet, and perhaps I won't, but I am very interested in what it was that caused him to start on the road to recovery and how he maintains the strength necessary to fight that struggle every day. Don't know if he will get that deep about it but I am interested to see where the book takes me.

Well, that it's it for now. Hope you all enjoy your week. Keep reading!!

Where Do You Get Your Books?

I might have asked this question before but since I'm not sure I thought I would ask: Where do you get your books?

One of my favorite ways is to go to the library and borrow them. Cheap and I'm usually able to get the book I want. If my local library doesn't have a copy in stock I can usually get one via their Inter-library Loan system. My library request the book from another library (on my behalf) and once a book is found it is sent to my local library where I can pick it up. After I have finished the book I simply return it to my local library, which gets it back to the original library for me. It's free and there is minimal inconvenience for me.

The library is also my source for cheap library sale books. I've written before about the various treasures I have found for as little as 25 cents.

Another way is borrowing from friends. Again, cheap, minimal travel time involved and generally, I can keep it for as long as I need.

But, another way I have been acquiring books is via free online trading. Websites like Paperback swap and Frugal Reader are the two that I most frequently use. With each service you register as a user (no charge) and then post books that you want to swap. Hopefully, another user will request one of your books. You then have a set time to respond to the request (Frugal Reader gives 4 days; Paper Back Swap doesn't seem to have any time restriction). Both sites allow you to print out a label you can use for mailing with the requester's name and address. Then you mail the book out via U.S. Media Mail postage. This is generally cheaper than First Class postage, around $2.38 on average (but that might change depending on the weight of the book). Then it's a trip off to the post office to mail your book.

Paper Back Swap does have a system in place that allows you to purchase the postage directly from them, for a slight fee. I've never used it since the post office is so close to me I can walk or ride my bike there. But it probably is a convenience if you are a member but are not close to a post office or don't want to spend your time going to one. I don't think Frugal Reader has this type of system but since I've never been interested in using it I have never looked.

I have used both websites over the past few months and I must say that I have been very impressed with the condition of the books I have requested and received as well as the speed in which they are sent to me. Members are usually very responsive about mailing books out in a timely fashion. Or they are kind enough to e-mail to say they might be delayed a day or so, or to ask if I still want a book because there is writing on page 47 (or something like that). When I receive some of the books I am amazed because I could swear that they have never even been cracked open. They look that good!

Some of my acquisitions from these sites have been: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, to name a few.

If you haven't checked out these site please do. And if you know of any similar book swapping sites please pass them along.