Reading-Addiction.com

Pocketful of Names by Joe Coomer

2011-03-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

This is just a lovely book. A friend's sister who lives in Maine loaned it to my friend. After she talked about it, I had to buy a copy and I'm so glad I did. Quick plot summary: An woman artist lives alone on a Maine island she inherited from her great uncle. She has no other family, except a half sister she hasn't seen in years. She likes her solitude and the space to create her art. But

February Books

2011-02-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

Want to read:The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls Read this month: Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave

Do you finish all the books you start?

2011-01-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

“If you’re not giving up on at least five books every year, you’re not beginning enough of them." So writes Steve Leveen in this blog post about how electronic books can make you a better reader. I used to have feel like I had to finish a book. These days I find myself less willing to waste my time on something that really doesn't have my attention or isn't giving me any pleasure. This is

Books I Want to Read - January 2011

2011-01-09T16:57:00.000-08:00

Books I Want to Read: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand: A Novel Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture Cutting for Stone Books I have Read this Month: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow. Excellent. Young girl with a white Danish mother and a black American father is sent to live with her paternal grandmother. What does it mean to be black or white? Why

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

2010-12-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

This was a lovely and heart-wrenching story about a single mom raising two boys. The eldest was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 3 or so, which is when the dad left. Both are teenagers now and the eldest boy, 18, is fascinated by crime scene technology and solving crimes, sometimes showing up at local crime scenes and offering unsolicited observations and conclusions (often correct!). The

The Joy of Less by Francine Jay

2010-12-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

I stumbled upon Jay's Miss Minimalist blog a while back and loved her writing. After reading back through some of the archives I decided to break my book buying fast and purchase a copy of her The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life. It was well worth it! While I don't (currently) aspire to be an absolute minimalist, that's not what she

Hangman: A Decker/Lazarus Novel by Faye Kellerman

2010-11-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

I've enjoyed Kellerman's novels since I first discovered. I devour the first three, I think, then have had to wait patiently while she writes more. I really enjoy the characters and while I have read about them since the first in the series, I think she does a good job of making the books likable and understandable even if you jump in with the latest. In this one, Lt. Decker is called to help a

Oh No! 6 Books are Waiting for Me at the Library

2010-11-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

My library has this very cool feature where you can request books on line. It's had that for quite a while. Now (or I just noticed this) you can browse rather than just search. So I browsed through the new books and added my name to the request list. Then I browsed through the books they have on order which are not even in the library yet and added my name to those lists. Yesterday they emailed

The Art of Eating In by Cathy Erway

2010-11-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

Somehow I'd not found Cathy's blog but I did stumble upon her delightful book at my local library. The blog started her frustration at so often eating mediocre food out and spending a lot of money on it besides. She wasn't a total newbie to the kitchen but the idea of cooking at home for every single meal for a year or two (she makes it two years) is a challenge and stretches her in many ways.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

2010-11-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

This is a delightful first novel. I had a hard time in the beginning reading about CeeCee's live with her psychotic mother and absent neglectful father, but once her great Aunt shows up from Savannah and offers to take CeeCee home to live her there, the story becomes fun and entertaining. It's got some great quirky female characters, touches a bit on racism, but is primarily about a young girl

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

2010-11-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

I picked this up at the library the other day and then could not stop reading it. I stayed up late last Saturday night to finish it, then turned around and read it over again because I wasn't ready to leave the characters and I wanted to see how she crafted the story so well. Mary Beth runs a landscaping business while raising her three teenagers and being mostly happily married to her

Rose in a Storm by Jon Katz

2010-10-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

I think Katz has other earlier fiction books under his belt, but I started reading him with A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me, then backtracked to Running to the Mountain: A Midlife Adventure and went on from there. This is the first fiction of his I've read and Rose in a Storm: A Novel was no disappointment, albeit different than his nonfiction. Rose is a border collie, of course.

Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes by Shoba Narayan

2010-10-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes by Shoba Narayan will whet your appetite in more ways than one. It's a delightful collection of stories of her childhood in southern India, her college years in the US, her return to India and decision to get married in the traditional manner, through an arranged marriage, and she and her husband's subsequent return to the US, where she learns how to cook the

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

2010-10-05T21:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, totally fun read combining romance, historical fiction and time travel! Diana Gabaldon's Outlander was recommended by a friend of mine after I mentioned going to the annual Scottish Games here in Pleasanton. The quick plot: 1945 woman accidentally goes through the 'stones' in Scotland and ends up in 1742 or so. She quickly realizes she's NOT seeing a historical re-enactment nor has she

Summer Reading

2010-06-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

I'm about halfway through The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. It was the alternate selection for our book club and I'm really enjoying it. The book we are reading this next month is Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. If you enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love this is the same

Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore

2010-05-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

We're reading this for my book group this month. It's quite a change of pace from our usual, which has been fun. (Last few books included The Help, Rooftops of Tehran: A Novel and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.)Quick review: The style reminds me of Tom Robbins, but without the intellectual bit. I mean, Robbins had a talking tin can and a spoon, Moore has a talking fruit bat (and coconut for a brief

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

2010-03-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

Not a first book, but a first novel, a dark psychological drama. It's 1907. A wealthy business owner from Wisconsin places an ad in a Chicago newspaper for a "reliable wife." The woman who answers it is not what she has pretended to be and sees an opportunity to marry the man and kill him in the near future so she inherits. Ralph Truitt has quite a story in his own past and plans of his own.

Rooftops of Tehran by Majbod Seraji

2010-03-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

This is a fascinating first novel, giving us a glimpse into the pre-revolutionary days of Tehran. It opens with a mystery (why is the main character in a hospital?) and with flashback catches up to the present, while then moving forward. There is young love, political intrigue, and family drama, all full of beauty and brutality side by side. We're reading this for our book club and I will be

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

2010-03-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

The happy couple in 1960's middle class England has planned on 6 children from the day they got married. The first four come in a whirlwind and without financial and physical help from their parents, they would have gone under. However, their home becomes the gathering place of multiple families, bringing together a diverse group and creating a haven.From the beginning of the pregnancy with their

Oxygen by Carol Cassella

2010-03-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

An anesthesiologist deals with the death of a child under her care. She questions her future and doubts her past, wondering what she missed and if she could be responsible somehow. At the same time, her personal life requires some attention and navigation through difficult waters as her aging father, from whom she's been estranged, is losing his sight.This is a fine first novel, full of

The Art of Driving in the Rain by Garth Stein

2009-11-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

At Thanksgiving and other family gatherings, those of us who read fiction often bring the books we've recently read and enjoyed and swap with others, so hopefully we all go home with new reading material. My find this long weekend was The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel by Garth Stein.If you have a dog or at least spend time around one, you have probably faced experienced a time when you're

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

2009-10-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

I first read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (P.S.) by David Wroblewski when it first came out, back in 2008. A friend of mine had seen an interview with the author and forwarded it to me, thinking it sounded like something I would like.I loved the book! The basic skeleton of the story is a mute boy growing up with his parents, who raise and train dogs. The dad dies while the boy is

Cartwheels in a Sari by Jayanti Tamm

2009-08-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult is an interesting book about growing up in a cult in Connecticut and New York. Her parents were an arranged marriage by Sri Chinmoy. They were not supposed to consummate the marriage. When her mother found out she was pregnant and told the guru, Sri Chinmoy, he declared the baby to be a Chosen One.As she matures and is disillusioned by the life

Nation by Terry Pratchett

2009-07-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

Although Nation is listed as a "young adult" novel, I thoroughly enjoyed it. A giant tidal wave destroy much, including all but one boy on the brink of adulthood on an island. A young girl from around the world is the sole survivor of a shipwreck caused by the same tidal wave. As they work out a means to cooperate and get what they need, other survivors slowly arrive.Nation is a parallel

10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea by Suzy Welch

2009-07-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

Most of us vacillate between making decisions that resonate for the short term versus the long term. In 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea, Welch gives you a framework for making decisions in a more balanced way. Rather than reacting only to one or the other view, she suggests you list out the pros and cons of a decision in terms of its impact in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.As I read the