Books!

Over on Facebook, a friend asked for book recommendations. I put off answering b/c I knew it would take some time as I created my list. I get so excited when I talk about books.

My BFF, Jill Culmo, whose list and Blog I shared with you on January 1st, is much better put together.  Here is a list of books I have enjoyed or read lately.

The Never List by Koethi Zan

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Any book by Gillian Flynn

Any book by Liane Moriarty

The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

The Last Mile by David Baldacci

You can also check me out on Goodreads!  I keep track of what I have read and what I plan to read on there.

My problem with creating a list is that as soon as I think I am finished, I think of something else to add.

Thanksgiving Reading

Since we were going to be gone and had a 5 hour drive to and fro, I grabbed 3 books to dive into during our trip.  Well, I managed to only read one of the books while we were gone, which was read only while we were driving.  I just read/finished Counting by 7's by Holly Goldberg Sloan.  I really enjoyed the book. It had a good pace, and I didn't get bored. On page 360, I ran across a line that touched me.

"I'm not brave; it's just that all other choices have been thrown out the window."

I thought, "If 'brave' were changed to 'strong,' that would be me."  I don't mean for that to sound conceited or anything, but I find that with everything that I have thought about, felt, and gone through the last few years, that I haven't been brave.  I have had to be strong.  Stronger than I ever thought I needed to be.  Strong enough to get through.  Maybe I have put things off, not mourned when or how I should have, over or under reacted, but I have survived.  Strong and the way I have handled things is the only way I knew how b/c "all other choices" were "thrown out the window."

Lunch Book Club

The office staff, administrators, and support staff (all of us who are not classroom teachers but support the teachers in various ways) eat lunch the lunch period after all the students and teachers eat.  We talk about a variety of things--family, work, movies, and more.  We also talk a lot about books.  We are always sharing titles that we enjoy, but we don't tend to remember them after we eat.  We decided this year that we would read a book together and discuss it during lunch.  We began on October 15th with the plan that we would read one chapter a night and discuss that chapter the following day during lunch.  Well, once we were supposed to have read 5 chapters, many were behind.  We decided to change our "rules."  We would read the whole book by November 20th and then bring a dish on November 21st to share that symbolized the book to us.  November 21st was the day we were getting out before Thanksgiving Break, so very few wound up being on campus and several ended up in meetings. We decided we would just have to put it off.  Maybe after the break.

Oh!  What book did we read, you ask?  We read The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress by Ariel Lawhon.  I enjoyed it, but I have no idea what dish I would make.

Now, we have to decide what our next book will be.

I took a lot of books I really enjoyed (and have blogged about earlier this year) and created a little library in my office for them to borrow.

Reading Nightly

I have been trying to practice what I preach and have added reading to my nightly (or almost nightly) routine.  In the last 3 weeks, I have read:

Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Beautiful Oblivion (#3 in the Maddox Brothers series) by Jamie McGuire
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Right Woman by Linda Warren
Where She Went (sequel to If I Stay) by Gayle Forman

All are so different and impacted me in different ways and on different levels.

Honestly, I didn't like Landline very much.  I had LOVED Eleanor and Park, so I was excited to read something else by Rainbow Rowell, but I did not like this book.

I enjoyed Beautiful Oblivion.  It had been such a long time since I had read Beautiful Disaster that it took me halfway through the book to see how the two overlapped.  I was kicking myself, but I got it, and despite that, I really enjoyed it.

It took me several chapters to get into The Light Between Oceans.  I read a couple of chapters one night, then a few more the next, and even a few more the next.  I was probably about halfway through when I got into it and could not put it down.  It is a good "What would you do?" book.

I had The Right Woman tucked away on a shelf from when my aunt gave me several books years ago.  Since I was in between books, I grabbed it.  It wasn't as hard core as some Harlequin books out there, thank goodness.  A good mystery that kept me in the story.  Of course, I love a love story too.

I read If I Stay over the summer, and I didn't realize there was a sequel, Where She Went, until I finished it and saw a chapter for it included at the end.  I enjoyed If I Stay.  Good book.  I really liked Where She Went.  Many stories I have read deal with loss, meaning death.  This one did that to help Mia cope and to show us how she coped.  But . . . it also dealt with loss, meaning someone leaving and you having no choice in the matter.  That is what I have been dealing with, and it was great seeing someone else (even though he is a fictitious character) deal with this loss and to know everyone does it differently, and it is OK.  It is OK to handle it the way you do and that you do grieve.  Loss of any kind really calls for and should allow grieving even if those around you do not understand the pain and loss. I enjoyed this book.

I have several professional books I need to read or reread, but I just can't get into them like all these fiction books.  Well, I guess I better!

Happy reading!