A book tree? Yes, me please! Life could not get any better than that!
I Need To Find Out How To Make This Happen!
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Smooth Moves and Switching Over
I Hope This Goes Better Than I Am Expecting! Probably not what you expected either, from the title!
I am moving my blogs to a self-hosted website, so I can have more control over how my pages look, as well as what add-ins are displayed. I am hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. So, I will be absolutely devastated if my followers don’t get redirected to my new website as it states it will do.
I know several of you are following two of my blogs, and one of you is following all 3 ( J ). I do not know how long this transition may take, but I will definitely keep them open where they are at until I know I can export everything over.
So, if I disappear for a while, I apologize, I will just be sitting in front of my laptop, crying because I messed something up!
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Irish Tweed – Andrew Greeley
I absolutely love the “Irish” series of books by Andrew Greeley. He was the subject of one of my Author Information posts, and is absolutely one of my favorite authors. He was a Catholic Priest (he has passed away) and wrote many books that were full of mystery and suspense. You would never know he was a priest from reading his books, so if you have never read his work before, you should really try one of his books. It is not all religion and scriptures. At all!
His Irish series are centered on Nuala Anne McGrail, her husband Dermot Michael Coyne, and their children. The number of children increases as you continue through the series! There is always mystery, danger of lives lost, and also a good amount of history about Ireland. Not the boring history though, just the good stuff!
In Irish Tweed, Dermot is pouring over the memoir of a woman from Galway, who came to America after her family died in the famine. While Dermot is doing this, Nuala and her teenage daughter are knee deep in taekwondo classes, thanks to the bullies at the school across the street from their home.
The backstory of the Galway woman weaves in with the current plot of the story, which seems to put the family right in the middle of tensions from days gone by.
I have to say, I read so many of these books right in a row, that I began talking with the Irish dialect that is prevalent throughout the Irish series of books. It took a while to stop doing it, and people looked at me weird when I said something that sounded off-the-wall to them. Such as, instead of saying “yes”, I would say “’tis true.” People who irritate are called eejits. It was rather embarrassing, but there are 12 books in this series and I read them within less than a couple months.
I highly recommend giving one of the books in this series a try. Once you do, I promise you will need to read them all!
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Tuesday’s Thought For The Day!
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To Heaven and Back – Mary C. Neal, MD
Mary C. Neal, a highly skilled Orthopedic surgeon, drowned in a kayak accident. A trip down a waterfall found her pinned underwater, unable to be rescued by her companions before she drowned. This trip led to another profound trip that would change her life forever.
Mary wasn’t raised in what some may consider an overly-religious environment. She knew who God and Jesus were, but her family’s religious activities did not move beyond attending church on Sunday. The divorce of her parents at a time when divorce was still uncommon, 1971, filled Mary with embarrassment and an overpowering desire to drive away any man who was interested in her mother.
Allowing her life to spin out of control, drugs and alcohol became a part of her teenage life until an automobile accident would change her life. A missionary trip to Mexico would put her on the path to her future medical career.
As an adult, Mary had the ideal family life; the white picket fence with all the extras. After the kayaking accident, her brief trip to heaven had her feeling joy and love that she still finds difficult to describe. She was saddened when she was told it was not her time, and she had to return to Earth, and her body.
This was the beginning of a very difficult, very intense healing process for Mary, both physically and emotionally. Like others who have had this experience, Mary did not want to be on Earth, she wanted to be in her heavenly home. It was not that she did not love her family, it was due to the profound feelings she experienced while in heaven.
A premonition from her son that he would not reach his 18th birthday indeed came true, and brings another aspect to this story of how her experience helped her accept and handle such a devastating situation.
This book is one of several detailing life-after-death experiences. It does have a fairly strong religious overtone to it, but it is certainly not bashing you over the head telling you to “repent and be saved!” I do have a strong faith, but have also had others who are not religious read this book and tell me they thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister – Gregory Maguire
This is not your mother’s fairy tale! Gregory Maguire has created quite the niche for himself, reconstructing fairy tales we have heard our whole lives, giving us the backstory, and twisting it up a bit.
What really happened with Cinderella, her step-sisters, and her step-mother? It is all right here.
This story is told from the viewpoint of Iris, who is burdened with taking care of the disabled Ruth as well as keeping peace in the family. (There is even a twist there, but no spoilers from me!)
Clara is beautiful. Her step-sisters Ruth and Iris do not fail to notice this. Her own mother had kept Clara locked away from the world before she died. Things would not change very much for her with her new family.
Iris wants nothing more than to paint, and be with her tutor’s apprentice.
There are many subplots, and lots of twists and turns. Everyone has an agenda, telling themselves they only want the best for themselves and their families.
This is not a complicated read, with too much going on that you cannot follow the many plots going on. If you think you know what really happened to Cinderella, I would like to suggest you open this book up and read about it from a different perspective. It is certainly worth the time and effort. You will not be disappointed.
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For Your Friday !
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Better Than I Hoped, and Not What I Expected
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter – Seth Grahame-Smith
Being a huge fan of all things Abraham Lincoln, I was a little worried when I first picked up this book that it was just going to be horrible, and ruin my penchant for Abe forever. Boy was I wrong!
Even persons vaguely familiar with Abraham Lincoln are likely aware of the love he had for his mother. Her passing was devastating to the young Abe, and although he loved his step-mother very deeply, no one could fill that void.
That is where this journey begins. It begins with Abe finding out a vampire is responsible for his mother’s death. He discovers a vampire colony that is responsible for numerous unsolved deaths. And then he meets Henry Sturges. Vampire extraordinaire, Henry has the same goal as Abe. Henry teaches Abraham the ins-and-outs of vampires, and Abe is a willing student.
What did the vampires have to do with the Civil War and the reshaping of our nation? More than you would ever believe. This story is told from the 3rd person perspective, with the journal entries of Abraham Lincoln dispersed throughout.
We all know who won the war, and what became of Abe, so I will not spoil the story any more. But if you like history, Abraham Lincoln, or vampires, you definitely need to read this book!
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A Book To Make You Laugh Out Loud!
I do not normally read books that tend to be funny, but A.J. Jacobs has comedy writing down to an art form. Likely what makes it so funny is that he is the subject of his books, and the things he will do to write a story…so here goes
The Guinea Pig Diaries – A. J. Jacobs
“My Life as an Experiment”
If you have never read A.J. Jacobs writings, you have no idea what you are missing. Imagine living your life as if it were one big experiment. Were there things you wondered about, but never did anything to find the answer? Was there something you would love to do, but are unsure if it is even possible? This story may give you the courage to do just that. Or at the very least, it will make you laugh at what the author goes through as he uses himself as the test subject in any number of experiments.
This experiment has been a 15 year long project, which began when he saw an advertisement for a Laz-Y-Boy chair that had more bells and whistles than you could even figure out what to do with. A.J. Offered to sit in the chair for 24 hours straight and let the world know if this was the best chair ever made.
He fell asleep. But it started him on this journey that you want to take with him.
How important is the truth? A. J. spent a month being completely honest. Completely. He also spent that same month saying whatever it was that popped into his head. Anything and everything. He claims that this was the worst month of his existence.
This book shows you how easy it was for A.J. to outsource every single aspect of his life. He outsourced someone to pay his bills, do his research, track his tasks, and even feed him. He outsourced everything needed for his wife’s birthday celebration.
The chapter on “The Truth About Nakedness” began innocently enough with the need to assist Mary-Louise Parker on writing an article for Esquire. Wanting something not boring, she agrees to pose nude. She also lets him know for him to get the full experience of this project, he needs to pose nude as well. And he does.
“What would George Washington Do” came from a desire to know more about George Washington, as well as finding an article about the list of rules that George lived by. Well, by George, if he could do it, so could A.J. George’s list of rules covers everything, including not “adjusting” yourself in public. He vows to live by the rules George set, and a lot of it no longer applies 🙂
He wraps it up with being a uni-tasker. Only doing one thing at a time. No multi-tasking allowed. This is so much harder than he ever could have imagined.
If you are looking for a light read, full of laughs and good feelings, you have got to get this book! You will not be sorry!
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Reading Things you Would Really Rather Not…
…I have been doing a lot of this lately. Being about halfway done with my MBA has me reading textbooks, data, statistics, charts and graphs, and the occasional book written on leadership. I am happy with how far I have gotten so far, and that I made the decision to take this journey for myself.
I just always seem to forget how much time I do not have for reading, until I am no longer able to do it. It just took me a month to finish a book I could have read in one day. A month! Anyone who knows me knows that me needing a month to finish the book means one of two things; either the book was absolutely horrible, or I was just too busy.
Luckily I have gained the courage to stop reading horrible books. You know what I mean, right? You start reading a book, and it is terrible, yet you feel terribly guilty for leaving a book unfinished. I have finished my fair share of not-so-great books because I was not brave enough to close it without ever knowing how it ended. Well not anymore. Not for me. I have finally started to realize the value of my time, and it is much too valuable to read some of the garbage I have come across lately. It almost makes me feel sad to think of the number of books I have not been able to finish lately. Did you see my blog post (okay, rant!) on self-publishing? You may want to check it out. It’s right here: https://booksandopinions.com/2014/08/05/do-you-self-publish/
I have a stack of books I want to read, sitting next to my stack of school books. I have a few days break between classes, and am wondering how many books I can get read in that amount of time. I am not a fan of wishing my time away, but I cannot wait until it gets closer to the holiday season, and I have some extended time available to do my favorite thing: sit in a reclining chair with a good book, my cat, and read myself into oblivion.
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