You knew I took a ton of pictures, right? Here are a few of my favorites. Click for bigger picture…
Coming soon – I finally finished a book! Review of my first read for the Once Upon a Time Challenge II coming as soon as I have a free few moments! Hubby back Friday and I’m counting the days!!!!
Filed under Photos
You knew I’d be in, didn’t you? I am hoping this will give my reading the kick in the nether regions that it needs. I’m going with the first challenge and, knowing how I am, I’m just going to give you the list of books I’m going to pick from…cause I can never seem to say I’ll read something, then actually DO it. 
Stardust by Neil Gaiman (reread)
The Book Without Words by Avi
Angela Carter (I have several to pick from.
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue (reread)
Fangland by John Marks
Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
Grimm’s Last Fairytale, by Haydn Middleton
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
The Faerie Queene by Sir Edmund Spencer
Grimm’s Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm
A Red Heart Full of Memories by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Past the Size of Dreaming by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Fitcher’s Brides by Gregory Frost
White as Snow by Tanith Lee
Jack of Kinrowan: Jack the Giant Killer and Drink Down the Moon by Charles de Lint
Widdershins by Charles de Lint
Into the Green by Charles de Lint
Waifs and Strays by Charles de Lint
The Wild Wood by Charles de Lint
Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
The Thrall’s Tale by Judith Lindbergh
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien
The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien
The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm ed. by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (a reread, but excellent book of short stories)
Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers ed. by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Dark of the Woods ed by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll
Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Duma Key by Stephen King
Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon
The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
I’ve already started reading Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I wanted to read The Sweet Far Thing, but there was so much I couldn’t remember, so I went back to the beginning. I won’t count all three if I managed to get through them all, just one. With the hubby out of town all week for training, I don’t know how much I’ll read this week. It’ll just be me and the two babies! Yikes!
Pray for me.
Filed under Books, Reading Challenges
Yes indeedy folks, I am stuck in a rut.
Just can’t seem to read much of anything.
It took me three days to read a 138 page book. A short, dry, boring book (The Bone Lady: Life as a Forensic Anthropologist*) about a fascinating (to me) subject, which pretty much angered me, but that’s only the second book I’ve finished this month. My eleventh for the year. Eleventh.
Sigh.
Where is my excitement for the written word?!? Where is my joy in words?!?! WHY can’t I read????
*sob*
I’m going to blame it on lack of sleep. The baby is teething, poor dear, and has yet to sleep through the night. So I’m going on about 9 months of bad sleep. Plus all the worrying I’ve been doing (long story best served in another post) and stress…it’s no wonder I can’t concentrate. But I neeeeed my books to help me through these things!
Any suggestions for a great book I can just get whipped up into and lost in? Help! Any genre will do, except nonfiction. It seems like all I’ve been reading has been nonfiction!
*I think it was boring because I love the show Bones and it is SO (!!!!) much more exciting than this book. This book was dry. Drier than the bones of a person dead for 50 million years. It was DRY I tell you!!
Filed under Books, Miscellaneous
Blessed boy, he said Mama first. Dada came a few days later. It’s so strange to have two saying Mama all the time now.
I like it.
Filed under Miscellaneous
Stupid flickr…let’s see if this works. Thanks for telling me Nancy.
I just love this shot.
I don’t know what she was thinking about here…must have been serious though.
Maybe she’s trying to tell me here?
Filed under Photos
I gotta say, I am enjoying the heck out of this book “The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World.” I can’t say I have ever felt the desire to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica…I’ve never felt the desire to read ANY Encyclopedia all the way through. So I already thought the guy was nuts. But his nuttiness is very endearing.
I can sum-up his reasoning in one quote: “I’m curious about everything – even things that don’t interest me.” Jacobs, who writes for Esquire, is sent to interview Alex Trebek, and this was Trebek’s philosophy of knowledge. I feel that I am curious about a lot of things, even some that don’t interest me, so I can now see why I am finding myself making time to read this book. I’ve already read well over 100 pages. This is pretty good since I only started it Sunday. 100 plus pages in 3 days is saying something for me nowadays.
This quote cracked me up:
The more I progress in the alphabet, the more successful I am at stifling that eleven-year-old boy inside of me, the one that still thinks a good Beavis-and-Butt-head-style scatological pun is cause for great joy.
It’s not easy. Just the number of asses alone will tempt even the most evolved mind. I’ve learned about The Golden Ass (a book by a Platonic philosopher) and the Wild Ass’ Skin(a novel by Balzac). I’ve read about the half ass (a type of mule in Asia) and Buridan’s ass (an animal in a philosophical parable). But it goes way beyond asses. Asses are just the start. You can also take a trip to the river Suck (in Ireland), where you could fish for crappies (a freshwater bass) while you drink some Brest milk (the town of Belarus is known for its dairies). If you’re bored, you can have a stroke-off (while playing bandy, a version of ice-hockey) and fondle a bushtit (a small bird). If you’re feeling smart, you might want to argue the impact of Isaac Butt (an Irish leader), or debate the merits of the Four wants (Chinese landscape painters), who might have been collected by the Fuggers (an art-loving family). Or else, just take a flying Fokker (a German airplane).
I know this is wrong. This isn’t why I’m reading the Britannica. I’m reading it to get smarter, better, more enlightened, not to make dirty puns. Maybe it’s because I’ve read so many of them, or maybe it’s because the Britannicais actually making me more enlightened, but I’ve cut way down on these Beavis moments. The Four Wangs, though-that is kind of funny. P.103
Sorry, but that appealed to the eleven-year-old boy inside of me too.
I apologize for being so out of it lately. I know I haven’t posted much that wasn’t complete drivel. Some things have been going on in my life and I haven’t really been able to focus on anything else. It looks like things are lightening up now though and I should now be able to return to regular scheduled programming and hopefully will get back to reading my favorite blogs soon! I hope you could stand my pitiful attempts to keep you entertained with all the pictures of my kids and the other stuff. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum for awhile 
I haven’t been reading very much. With my mind being on other things, I haven’t really been able to concentrate on much. I just finished The Nasty Bits, a collection of articles, book reviews, restaurant reviews and other miscellanea by Anthony Bourdain. There is even a short story piece included, which was actually pretty good. It piqued my interest in reading some of his other fictional works, which I admit I’ve never really been interested in.
I also just completed the second graphic novel in the Jack of Fables Series. I found it to be much better than the first. Now that Jack is established in his own series, the story really gets going. Jack has many tales, or personae, and one of the stories in this collection recounts his time as Jack Frost. Another is set during modern times, with him trying to regain wealth and fame in Las Vegas. With help from the Pathetic Fallacy, he works the town over in typical Jack style. The art work, as usual, is stunning. The stories are fun. Despite my previous misgivings, Jack is proving to be a worthy Fable for his own series.
I am finally starting to read again. I am tee-totally LOVING, Joe Hill’s short story collection 20th Century Ghosts. This is my first encounter with Hill’s writing, but I had a feeling I would like him after Andi’s glowing review of Heart Shaped Box. I’ve only read the first three stories so far but have found each one to be stunning. And haunting, and I don’t mean in the way his daddy writes J I have found I can only read one story at a time, because I find myself wanting to savor each piece. But I will talk more about on this after I’ve finished the book.
I started another book yesterday. The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by AJ Jacobs very quickly sucked me in. I’m up to “D” now and am really enjoying Jacob’s witty and personable voice. I think this will be the quick read I’ve been waiting for. I’m obviously in a nonfiction mood, so I expect to read more like it after I’m through.
Filed under Books
