2014 Off My Bookshelf #9

Valley of Amazement

by Amy Tan

I wish I could recommend this book because I am an Amy Tan book lover. But I can't, not with a clear conscience. There is a big chunk of this book that was, basically, a manual on how to be a prostitute. I had to skip over that section. I liked the story, but there's too much graphic material to make it receive my blessing, which is too bad because Amy Tan can weave a masterful story.

2014 Off My Bookshelf #8

Grounded

by Heather Ordover

I bought this as a Kindle ebook through Amazon.But it is available in paperback also.

 I've been a faithful listener of Heather's podcast, CraftLit, for years. Heather is a literature teacher who selflessly studies the classics and then weekly podcasts. She picks a book and each week covers a chapter or two by initially, explains words, phrases, concepts that may be unfamiliar or unclear, then plays the audio of those chapters, and finally concludes by sharing at the end. It's like being back in lit class with a teacher who is passionate and well studied. She brings books to life and makes difficult classical literature understandable for everyone. Check her podcast out.

So now Heather has written a book, a young adult novel, full of magic, teen angst and an insiders perspective of New York City life. Try the book and the podcast. I think you might enjoy them.

2014 Off My Bookshelf #7

Allegiant

by Veronica Roth

The conclusion of the Divergent trilogy was heart-achingly perfect for me. I know many teens, especially teen girls dislike it. Could it be an age thing? I not longer need a happy ending. I want a "right" ending, an ending that may make me cry, but leaves me deeply satisfied. I won't spoil the ending for you. But I will say I shed tears while reading this book, good tears, tears that let me know I had gone deep into relationship with the characters and was grateful for their honesty and acts of bravery.


Here are my two favorite quotes:

There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known or everyone you have ever loved for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through the pain and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.

(How many of us are willing to walk toward that better life? Isn't it sometimes easier to lie down under the pain and work load of every day?)

Since I was young I have always known this, life damages us, everyone. We can't escape that damage. But now I'm also learning this, we can be mended. We mend each other.

(True words: now to allow community to pour salve onto our broken lives.

First Day at the Park this Spring

Okay, folks. I took these pictures several weeks ago.  I'm not sure why this isn't already out there. Scatterbrain...the only excuse I have.....

 

It's finally spring! There's nothing like a little journaling, knitting and reading at the park. 

"She said, 'Perhaps you have always known everything important but will need a lifetime to discover what you know.'"

-Gwyneth from "Innocence" by Dean Koontz, page 154

2014 Off My Bookshelf #6

Insurgent

By Veronica Roth

I read a lot of books because my daughters tell me I should. That means I read a good amount of Teen Fiction. Of all the dystopian series I've read, the Divergent trilogy is my favorite. There is a good amount of moral, virtuous advice and action taking place, if you can get past how easily it is for teens to kill.

My two favorite quotes from Insurgent:

Sometimes," he says, sliding his arm across my shoulders, "people just want to be happy, even if it's not real." Pg 68

(Isn't this a problem for our society?)

"'Let the guilt teach you how to behave next time,' my father would say." Pg 158

(I'm not sure any of us want to pay attention to that voice inside telling us we've done wrong, let alone listen long enough to learn from it.)

2014 Off My Bookshelf #5

The Goldfinch

By DonnaTart

"There was motion and stillness, stillness and modulation, and all the charge and magic of a great painting."

-page 721

"And isn't the whole point of things - beautiful things - that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another? Because I mean - mending old things, preserving them, looking after them - on some level there's no rational ground for it -"

-page 757

"Can't good come around sometimes through some strange back doors?"

-page 758

"And I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality."

-page 760

"And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of color across the sky - so the space where I exist, and to be quite frank I hope to die in, is exactly this middle ground: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime."

- page 770-771

"That maybe even if we're not always glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open."

-page 771

2014 Off My Bookshelf #4

Divergent

By Veronica Roth

"Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us." -page 440

(and thus the need to turn to God over and over and over again.)

2014 Off My Bookshelf #3

Age of Innocence

By Edith Warton

Rereading a beloved book is like snuggling down under a favorite blanket.

Ah, Countess Olenska...
"The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!"

Oh, Archer...
"The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future."

Poor May...
"Once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas."

"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"

A Week in Pictures 3

Sunday

I'm trying to catch up on my reading, but writer's keep writing new, interesting books faster than I can read.

 

Monday

VBS started today. Here's our VBS princess!
 

Tuesday

Kelsey and I took Jaena to IWU to register for classes. Like usual, Jaena wouldn't let me take a picture of her. So here's one of Kelsey instead. She sat in the McConn Coffee Shop area and read her book all day. Jaena's registered for voice lessons, piano class, and music theory among other classes. She's excited about spending her days studying music. You can tell by how big Kelsey is smiling, right?

 

Wednesday

We stopped by Ivanhoe's, in Upland, IN, on the way home for shakes and sundaes. Delicious!

 

Thursday

 Porch-time with Jen and Jody. I forgot to take a picture. So here's a picture of my lovely porch instead.

 

Friday

I finished "Flight Behavior" by Karen Kingsolver. It's well written, but I don't agree with her on everything. I think she's the only writer that could make me wade through so much science to know the end of the story though.

 

Saturday

 I finished my Something Red sweater. I love how it turned out, but it needs a special button. I haven't found the perfect one yet.

Summer Journaling and Reading

My daughters have made this English/Writing major momma proud.

One of the first purchases of the summer for each of them was a new journal. At one point I was even standing in the bookstore texting pictures of journals because Jess needed one "now" and didn't want to wait until she could get to the store herself.

It's interesting that each of them journals differently. Jess writes everyday and tapes pictures and mementoes into her journal. Already she needs a rubber band to keep it shut. Kelsey journals important events she wants to always remember. Jaena purchased a journal with staff lines for songs she writes.

Me: I have a little of everything in my journal. My devotions, my prayer requests, meeting notes, quotes I want to remember, books I've read this year, knitting projects completed this year, books I want to read, what I'm grateful for, sermon notes, doodling and even more. It goes with me EVERYWHERE.

The girls and I stopped by the Half Off Bookstore in Indy this week and spent way too much time and money there. Kelsey decided she spends more money on books than clothes. That's saying a lot for a teenage girl! One purchase was "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austin. And Jess asked for a particular book for her birthday this week, "100 Words Every High School Freshman Should Know" by Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries.

I just finished "The Supremes at Earl's All You Can Eat" by Edward Kelsey Moore. I'm starting a book of short stories, "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" by Karen Russell. This will be the 30th book I've read so far this year.

It's going to be a good summer of reading and writing at my house. I'll try to catch a few pictures of journaling and reading in action.