Annual reading challenge 2018- Join in on the Fun

[usnuzuloose]

Whoo Hoo, I made it through the second book. I found it very good easy book to read. For any of you who read book like like this I would love more recommendations...

Christmas Cocoa

Christmas is a busy time of year for Delaney Young, owner of Delaney's Delights, a bakery in small town Charles Town, West Virginia, famous for award winning hot cocoa. When the son of a tree farmer from out of town stops by to sample her number one seller, Delaney realizes Christmas is the perfect time of year to fall in love.
Josh Taylor spends every Christmas helping out his parents at the family tree farm, leaving behind his busy life as a computer technician in Washington, DC, for a few weeks every year. When he meets Delaney, he wonders if it's time to leave big city life for good and take over the family business so that he can be closer to the beautiful baker.
Can two people fall in love over the world's best hot cocoa?

 

[scrhsa]

#3 of 10. I'm actually going a bit faster than I thought I would

The African Queen

First published in 1935, C.S. Forester's classic romantic adventure is a tale of opposites attracted. Allnut and Rose, a disreputable Cockney and an English spinster missionary, wend their way down a river in Central Africa in a rickety, asthmatic steam launch, and are gradually joined together in a mission of retaliation against the Germans. Fighting time, heat, malaria and bullets, the two have a dramatic rapprochement before the explosive ending of the book. This tale of unlikely love is thrilling and funny and ultimately satisfying.(taken from amazon)

It was good!!! Loved the movie and the book is much better. Of course, the movies always add/take away from the book.

 

[NJlauren]

Book 5/40 If There’s No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout. 3.5/5 stars I really liked this book the first 1/3 was a bit slow but once I got into it I enjoyed it. It was a quick read I finished it in less then 2 days.

 

[Tiggerish]

The Summer Before the War: A Novel by Helen Simonson - fiction about the First World War. Set in a small English village the novel starts in 1914 before war has been declared and continues through the end of the war. It follows the changes that the Great War brings to the village. The main character is a spinster who has been hired to teach latin in the local school which is a departure from tradition and a societal challenge in and of itself.

8/52

 

[tiggrbaby]

The Summer Before the War: A Novel by Helen Simonson - fiction about the First World War. Set in a small English village the novel starts in 1914 before war has been declared and continues through the end of the war. It follows the changes that the Great War brings to the village. The main character is a spinster who has been hired to teach latin in the local school which is a departure from tradition and a societal challenge in and of itself.

8/52

Just put in a request!

 

[NJlauren]

The Summer Before the War: A Novel by Helen Simonson - fiction about the First World War. Set in a small English village the novel starts in 1914 before war has been declared and continues through the end of the war. It follows the changes that the Great War brings to the village. The main character is a spinster who has been hired to teach latin in the local school which is a departure from tradition and a societal challenge in and of itself.

8/52

I was thinking of reading this did you like it?

 

[Tiggerish]

Just put in a request!

I was thinking of reading this did you like it?

I did like this book. The author has an excellent grasp on how to use language to its best advantage. It was also interesting to see how the women, given the place they were held in by society worked things around to get certain outcomes. It was a slow start as it took me a bit to get used to the pace of 1914 England.

 

[kimblebee]

Finished the Whoopi Goldberg book but I almost put it down unfinished. It started out funny but then it just dragged.

#8- Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. I’ve had this book in my tablet for a while and I’ve always avoided it for some reason. It’s actually pretty good and I am interested to see how it turns out.

 

[pigletto]

1. Shantaram —936 pages . It kept me interested the entire way through. It’s a very good book and apparently is a true account of the authors life.. which I find hard to believe.. but highly entertaining anyway.

2. The Robber Bride- Loved it in my 20’s, liked it in my 40’s. I plan to reread all of Margaret Atwood’s books

3. Just finished The Alice Network. I loved the WW1 spy stuff. I was far less interested in the post WW2 portions and didn’t like the young American character. It was readable, but definitely not a favourite.

I am about to start either Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, or The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch. Probably the Janet Fitch book because it’s new to me, and I’ve read Alias Grace. Like The Robber Bride.. it’s been 20 years so I don’t remember much if anything about it.

 

[mmouse37]

Finished #2, #3 and #4 out of 25.

#2 was The Code of the Hills by Nancy Allen - an Ozarks Mystery series

#3 was Final Approach by John Nance (I love aviation disaster books...want to read all of his)

#4 was the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - I always heard that this book is a must but it was just OK....it was a short read at least.

Last year I read another book called the Alchemist but by Donna Boyd and I loved that one...an epic all about Egypt and magic, reincarnation and friendship. Really good.

MJ

 

[Christine]

#6/20: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones - This month's Oprah book club pick. I'd give this book an "average" rating. It was a fairly quick read and the author's writing style was easy to read.

Next up is Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan. I just started it last night but was struggling to get into it. I was a little tired so maybe that was it. I'm hoping for better as a go along.

 

[NJlauren]

#6/20: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones - This month's Oprah book club pick. I'd give this book an "average" rating. It was a fairly quick read and the author's writing style was easy to read.

Next up is Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan. I just started it last night but was struggling to get into it. I was a little tired so maybe that was it. I'm hoping for better as a go along.

I’m reading An American Marriage now, I agree so far a fast read but I don’t think it’s the best book ever yet....

 

[scrhsa]

#4 of 10
Breakfast At Tiffanys by Truman Capote

Not sure to classify it as a book. Very short. Very good.

 

[tiggrbaby]

#11/90: Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions (Kopp Sister #3) by Amy Stewart (4/5) (historical fiction)
Based on the lives of the Kopp sisters from NJ. Author's notes and website provide interesting information on the real women.

#12/90: Splitters (An Amelia Island Mystery) by E. Louise Jaques (3/5) (mystery/New Age)
A neighbor loaned me this book as I am a "splitter" and it takes place on the island where I winter. I felt that there was more about psychic intervention than sleuthing.

 

[Tiggerish]

Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck - fiction. This is a story set at the edges of WWII. The novel starts with Marianne being in charge of a party being held in an ancient, abandoned, crumbling castle on the same night as the Kristallnacht (the night of shattered glass which was Hitler's first overt, organized violence against Jews). It then moves to the days immediately after the war, when Marianne and her children are living in the castle after the execution of her husband and several others for having attempted to assassinate Hitler. She tracks down two other women and their children whose husbands were also executed in connection with that attempt and brings them to the castle to live. The novel switches between the viewpoints of the three women and spans the early post-war years to 1991. It was not what I was expecting. I cannot say I liked it but every time I put it aside, I was pulled back to read just a little bit more. Much of what the women and the community did during the war and in its aftermath, was unpleasant to put it mildly. But it is like the car crash on the side of the road that you just have to look at. It dealt quite a bit about how each woman knew about the Holocaust and yet did not acknowledge what they knew. In discussing this in the afterword, the author said, "If knowing exists on a gray scale, then one of its measures is the stories we tell ourselves."

Travels with Charley In Search of America by John Steinbeck - nonfiction. In 1961, John Steinbeck, by then a famous author (Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Winter of Our Discontentment), took a camper pickup truck and made a journey across the United States from Maine to California then down to Texas across to New Orleans then up through the south and back to home. His only companion was his standard sized french poodle, Charley. The book is basically his musing about what he saw on this trip. The purpose of the trip was to reconnect with America and Americans. He finds political apathy, environmental degradation and strident racism, yet remained hopeful for the future. I was surprised by his conclusion (remember this is 1961) that the fight for equal rights would end up needing to resort to violence and his understanding that long after technical equality was achieved that actual, day to day equality would be elusive and a source of ongoing problems.

10/52

 

[E&Cmom]

I keep forgetting to post here.

Made it through my first 2 books of the year.

#1.....Winter Solstice by Eln Hilderbrand- 4th and last book of series. 4/5

#2.....Without Merit by Colleen Hoover...YA liked it but not my favourite of her’s. 3.5/5


Just started “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah

 

[kimblebee]

Finished the Whoopi Goldberg book but I almost put it down unfinished. It started out funny but then it just dragged.

#8- Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. I’ve had this book in my tablet for a while and I’ve always avoided it for some reason. It’s actually pretty good and I am interested to see how it turns out.

Holy cow..this book turned out to be twisted! If you have any experience with abuse at all avoid this book. Way darker than I was expecting.

Up next

#9 The Litigators- John Grisham

 

[willowsnn3]

#8- Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. I’ve had this book in my tablet for a while and I’ve always avoided it for some reason. It’s actually pretty good and I am interested to see how it turns out.

Karin Slaughter is one of my favorite authors. All her books are twisted, lol. I think this one was a stand alone book. Love her Grant County series & Will Trent series..but start with the Grant County ones first if you decide to read them.

 

[willowsnn3]

#8/50
A Darker Justice by Sallie Bissell

Another good one.

 

[Simba's Mom]

I think the last I listed was #4/60, now I'm up to 9

5/60="I remember Nothing", Nora Ephron, 3 stars
6/60-"Blue Hollow Falls, Donna Kaufman, 2 stars
7/60-"The Alice Network", Kate Qinn, 4 stars
8/60-"The Book Stops Here", KateCarlisle, 4 stars
9/60-"A Train in Winter", Caroline Moorhead, 3 stars;this was a very strange book, no dialogue, read like a history book, just facts and numbers.