Musing Monday, A book-mark and book club news

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about your tbr pile…

How many books (roughly) are in your tbr pile? Is this in increasing number or does it stay stable? Do you ever experience tbr anxiety in the face of this pile? (question courtesy of Wendy)

Oh...my.....gosh. My "To be read pile" is HUGE!! And I keep buying more books. And going to the library. I used to think I was a fast reader, and I'm faster than average, but not nearly as fast as you BOOK BLOGGERS!!!

I actually think I have a sickness, when it comes to buying books. Truly, my tbr pile is close to 60-70 books and I just keep buying more and more. But to be fair, I do frequent used book stores, so I have my list and I "stock up". But I do it OFTEN. It would not be unusual for me to leave a used book store with 15 books. And because we live in a rural town in Northern Nevada that doesn't have a bookstore, when we travel to Reno and I go to Barnes and Noble or Borders, I feel I must buy some books, even if I don't need them.
It's a horrible obsession. No one needs a pile of books, 60-70 deep, that they haven't read. IT'S EXPENSIVE for one thing. And it's clutter for another... but, oh what nice clutter, books just waiting to be read!!
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Last weeks, Booking Thru Thursday question... ( I know it's Monday, but I've been real busy....food blogging, (sorry, book blogging world) but I still want to put my answer down) :

Which is worse:
Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or
Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?

It's a toss up. I think that finding a book I love and then going and BUYING (see the Monday Musing above) other books by that author, and then being disappointed in them, is a huge let-down.
I love the book "Beach Music" so much, that I'm afraid to try anything else by Pat Conroy. That's a lie. I read and liked "The Prince of Tides" also. But no others.... I'm afraid to.
I guess I would be more forgiving of an author that I already loved, if he/she had a bad one. Loving one book and hating others is a disappointment. It's a hard question to answer.
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Bookmarks on Monday

Oregon Coast Bridges. I love Oregon. I love the Oregon Coast, but I have a love/hate relationship with bridges.
I grew up around bridges. I had to cross bridges all my life...to go to work, to go to school, to come home, to visit friends. We grew up in Southeast Washington State, where the Columbia River and the Snake River and the Yakima River all come together.
These are big rivers. Rivers big enough to have barges and also cruise ships come down. Think the Mississippi of the Northwest, when you think of the Mighty Columbia River.

When I cross a bridge tho, for some reason my heart is in my throat. I don't know why. I love the water. I love the rivers. I love the ocean. I guess I've seen that video clip of the suspension bridge coming down. YIKES. That and there is no where to go on a bridge if you needed to pull over. I don't like knowing that... it makes me feel claustrophobic.
I am weird. That's it.

This book-mark has two sides, because the Oregon Coast Highway has so many bridges to cross. It's very beautiful.

Last week, one of my book clubs met to discuss the book "Snow Falling on Cedars".

It was an older book, and I was kind of disappointed in the choice at first, but once I began to read, I fell in love with it.

That's the whole reason I belong to different book-clubs: to be exposed to different genre's of literature. It was a story of love, and small town life and prejudice and war. Set on an island off the coast of Seattle, Washington in the 1950's.

I am not a book reviewer...as I've said many times before, but I can talk about how wonderful our evening was. We had great discussion, which is always good, but one thing that also made the evening special was our host April. She made up a bunch of oriental appetizers. She had a book theme going on.....some of the characters in the book were Japanese and April had lived in Tokyo. She had just the right dishes and decor. Great ambiance.

While we eat, we discuss.

Check out her appetizer table!
Tomorrow I will post April's fried rice recipe on my food blog. (it was so good---just hit my sidebar button for my food blog)

And our next book is.....

Not enough time in the day

Here is my book mark for Monday.
A little late in the day.
I still want to answer last week's, "Booking Through Thursday", as well as today's "Musing Monday" as well as post about last week's book club, before this week's book club.
Whew!
I better stop doing food posts on my other blog.

My bookmark.

My Monday Bookmark and My Monday Musing

My Monday Bookmark and my Monday Musing.....


Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about 2009 favourites…
Coming towards the end of April, we’re a third of the way through the way through the year. What’s the favourite book you’ve read so far in 2009? What about your least favourite? (question courtesy of MizB)


It was hard to think of what book was my favorite, but I think I have to go with "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" or no, no....maybe one of my old most favorite authors, Margaret Maron's "Hard Row".
It's so hard to pick when you really love a book.
I love Maron's "Deborah Knott" Series, I have never not loved one of her books...and I'm always sorry to see them end.
The Guernsey book was read for one of my bookclubs (see here) and it was loved by everyone there.

The book I liked the least this year, has been "I'm With Stupid". I just couldn't get into it (see it on my sidebar? Well, I stopped in the middle and sent it off to my daughter in law). It just wasn't the book for me.

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My bookmark for Monday is a "Lewis and Clark" bookmark.

My husband and I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where the Lewis and Clark trail is everywhere you turn. It's one of the biggest historical things in the area.
Sacagawea park was one of our favorites.
We grew up knowing all about Lewis and Clark.
Sadly, when I went back to Virginia, my sister and law, were flying from Richmond to Atlanta, and we struck up a conversation with a local man and we were discussing what wonderful history Virginia had.
It was a nice visit, but when we started talking about our history, and Lewis and Clark, he was kind of dumbstruck. He knew nothing.
I live in the west, but I LOVE every regional thing about all of the United States. I would love to travel and experience every state, every town, every people!
But it makes saddens me when my friends on the East Coast act like nothing ever happened in the west.
HOW CAN SOMEONE NOT KNOW WHO LEWIS AND CLARK WERE?

Here are two great websites for you to check out. (actually two aspects of the same website)

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

"Hat Rock" is a picnic place that I fondly remember from my youth.

My Monday bookmark

I finished "The Big Love" in one day.
It was a 24 hour piece of Chick-Lit fun. I'm not normally a huge Chick-lit fan, but this book was such a fast and fun read, I thought I'd try my hand at another Chick-Lit that has been city on my bookshelf for months. "I'm with Stupid"

I figured, that maybe I am just in the mood for something lighter right now.
If you don't follow my food blog, you don't know that my daughter in law is expecting twins and she has been put on total bed rest. We need her to hang in there for at least 7 more weeks. 13 more weeks would be full-term.
We are hopeful.

But...I am enjoying these books that I don't have to concentrate very much on.
I've discovered that this is a great "escapism" book (The Big Love). It made me laugh out loud and took my mind off worrying for awhile.
It's about Alison, whose boyfriend goes out to pick up some butter, and never comes back. This during a dinner party. The story is a funny telling (in first person) how she is looking for the real thing, LOVE. And she thinks she had it with Tom (the man who left her). It's about that "back and forth" of breaking up and learning to know what love really is.
But it's funny. It'll give you a good chuckle.

Here is my bookmark for Monday!
In my book-club "Totally Literature", one of our members (my friend Jolina) used to make us bookmarks to use. She cut, pasted,created personal bookmarks. She always left room for us to write down page numbers of things we wanted to remember or bring up from the books when we met to discuss it.

I miss our bookmarks. I wonder if she'll bring them back.

This one was from January 2008, when we read "Chasing Fireflys" by Charles Martin.

(a great book!! )

It's Monday and I have a bookmark.

It's Monday, and I have a bookmark! But it's also late and I'm tired....just got back from a wedding in Washington. (more on that later).

My favorite "used" and "independant" book store was closed for the holiday weekend (in my hometown in WA), so we ended up going to Barnes and Noble (we live in a small town with NO bookstores, so they are all special to me). Anyway, I picked up this bookmark while I was there. Spanish sayings. I need to learn them, so......

Bookmark Monday...(for me)

Sometime during the last week, my friend April confided in me that she knew EXACTLY what hell is. She said it would be being locked in the largest library in the world forever and when you open a book, there is nothing but blank pages.

This actually gave me nightmares. LOL

Last Thursday was yet another book club meeting. We discussed "The Girls" by Lori Lansens. (has anyone read it?)

I am a lay-critic, or an amateur (how do you spell it??) reveiwer, but I will try...in a very short blog.

"The Girls" is about conjoined twins who are linked at the head. They are not able to operate to seperate the girls, so their lives will be tragically spent as oddities to the outside world. But over the course of the book, written in alternating chapters by each twin, we come to see them, not as "freaks" but as people, girls with hopes and dreams of their own.

So.... I told you it was going to be short.

I liked the book.... I think it helped me to see how differences in people are .... I don't know what the word is, but I guess it helped me to see what the world sees as "freaks" as people, with feelings. I use the word freaks, because that is what the outside world used to call them. And sometimes their only hope to live on their own was to join the circus or carnival's freak show. It' sad when you think about it.

I'm not to sure the rest of the book club liked the book. They were a little hesitant to say they liked it. But they didn't dislike it either.

It was a Scheindler's List kind of book.

And I will leave you with this.... my bookmark, chosen at random in the dark, out of my flowerpot on the book shelf in my bedroom where my bookmark collection lives, before stumbling down the stairs to make coffee at 5:00 a.m. this morning.

Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ.

Bookmark Monday

I told myself I was going to do this.... I'm going to do this. Even tho I am running on empty. :~)

I am feeling very unorganized.

I know that with most people, they would want to get a hold of that organization, but me? I need to finish my book first. LOL

Seriously....when I'm feeling anxious about anything and am in the middle of a book, I NEED to finish that book, and not pick up another one until I'm more in control of what needs to be done. And also writing a list will help me. When I can see my stuff on paper, that alone will stop the anxiety. It's being able to cross stuff off... total prozac moment for me. (sigh....ah, crossing stuff off the list )

Anyway...... I grabbed a bookmark from my flowerpot this morning (that's where I keep them) and it was this one!!!

The "Catch the Reading Bug" promotion for the Summer reading programs at public libraries.

We did it...we caught the reading bug, my grandson and I!

Yay!!!

Waffles and Bookmarks

Yes, seriously....

My favorite waffle recipe comes from a Newberry Honor book....

"Everything on a Waffle" by Polly Horvath

Would could have known? My two favorite things in one!!!

It's a cute, cute story about a young girl who looses both her parents.... well, gee, with a beginning like that, it might seem that this book is not neccisarily "cute", but it's done in that imaginative, playful way. Like all the emotion is out of it and it's just a young orphan girl who is passed from relative to relative. It's good natured and not dark. How's that for description?

But today is Sunday and we had the waffles!!!

Hooray for waffles... and hooray for author Polly Horvath for putting her recipe in the book!

Today is Sunday, but by the time anyone looks at this blog...it might be Monday.

BOOK MARK MONDAY!!!

From my personal bookmark collection...

book mark #2

Book Mark Monday

Okay....2 things.

It's not Monday, it's actually Tuesday, but it's my birthday and I want to show off my bookmarks. Bookmark "Monday" Sounds better. :~)

and 2nd...I don't know how to start a "carnival" or a "show-me-your-bookmark" contest, or whatever you call them....

(and I very seriously doubt that anyone but my friends and family check out my blogs)

but every week...hopefully on Mondays, I will showcase a bookmark of mine. LOL

I have many. Many, many.... this showcase will go on for years. And years. Probably won't even have "blogs" by the time I run out of bookmarks.

This is my newest bookmark --I'll start with that one.

Coffee book mark. Coffee and books...they seem to go together.

It is currently holding my place in "Pride and Prejudice" which I am reading for the "Classic Bookclub".

It's on page 1. (because Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plump is holding all my attention for the time being )

Coffee Bookmark.

Come on friends...what have you got? Bring 'em on.

(that sounds great, but sadly, Mitzi is the only one I know who also has a bookmark collection. :~)