It's Monday! What are you Reading? {August 30, 2010}

"It's Monday! What Are You Reading?"  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey.

What I have finished this week

Meet Paula Holliday, a transplanted media exec who trades her stilettos for garden clogs when she makes the move from the big city to the suburbs to start a gardening business. Paula can handle deer, slugs, and the occasional human pest---but she’s not prepared for the mummified body she finds while restoring the gardens at Halcyon, a local landmark.

Casual snooping turns serious when a body is impaled on a garden tool and one of Paula’s friends is arrested for the crime.
Aided by the still-hot aging rocker who owns the neighborhood greasy spoon, a wise-cracking former colleague, and a sexy Mexican laborer with a few secrets of his own, Paula digs for the truth and unearths more dirty business the town has kept buried for years.

What I am reading now

"Something stinks to Paula Holliday, and it isn't just the corpse flower, titan arum, named for its off-putting fragrance. When Paula's friend Lucy asks her to tag along on an all-expense-paid junket to the Titans Hotel, it seems like a good idea. Paula even manages to squeeze a few bucks and a byline out of the local paper for writing an article on the titan arum, a rare flower that's just about to bloom and on display at the hotel." But when her friend is unavoidably detained, a would-be suitor is found with a gaping hole in his head, and the corpse flower refuses to bloom, the entire venture starts to seem less like a good idea.

What's next?

Fugitive Mom. That’s the tabloid headline that rocks Springfield, Connecticut when one of the town’s favorite ladies is discovered to be an escaped convict. With a little help from the always game Lucy Cavanaugh, Paula is hired to find out which of her neighbors is a fugitive from the law and why the long-kept secret has finally come out.

So what are you reading? [Comment below!]

"It's Monday! What Are You Reading?"  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey.

Middle-Grade Book Challenge (failed)

Linda Ellen (aka Bambi) has moved her blog. http://betterwithbooks.blogspot.com/

While I technically have until the end of the month to complete this challenge, I already have the rest of the month planned out and there are no MG books on the immediate horizon. So I am conceding defeat.

I only managed to read 5 Middle-Grade books since the start of this challenge. Here is my list and links to reviews of the ones I posted reviews for (3 out of the 5).

1. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall {borrowed from the library - my review}
2. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery {borrowed from the library}
3. The Magic Warble by Victoria Simcox {received from the author - my review}
   
4. Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery {borrowed from the library - my review}
5. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall  {borrowed from the library}

It's Monday! What are you reading? {August 9, 2010}

"It's Monday! What Are You Reading?"  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey.

Top 5 Male (book) Crushes

{photo credit: istockphoto.com}

Earlier today I read this post by Bobbie @ 'Til We Read Again. So I started thinking about who would be in my top 5. I don't know if I could rank them, like Bobbie did, so mine are in no particular order.

• Garion {Wiki} from David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Malloreon series'.
• Norman Rhodes {Wiki} from Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swenson Mysteries series.
• Keirnan Fitzgerald from Loucinda McGary's The Treasures of Venice.
• Dale "Barbie" Barbara {Wiki} from Stephen King's Under the Dome.
• #1 This one I can rank! Ron Weasley {Wiki} from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Who makes your list?

Also I have changed the look of my blog. Come check it out and let me know what you think!

Library Loot #10 (w00t! double digits!)

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Marg @ Reading Adventures that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Review of: Blue Nude by Elizabeth Rosner

Once a prominent painter, Danzig now shares his wisdom and technique with students at San Francisco's Art Institute—yet his own canvases remain empty. When he meets Israeli-born Merav, the beautiful new model for his class, he senses she may reignite his artistic passion. Merav moved to California to escape the danger and violence of the Middle East, yet she cannot outrun her fears about the past. As the characters challenge one another, Rosner lyrically uncovers their disparate upbringings, their creative awakenings, and their similarly painful, often catastrophic, love lives to propel them toward reconciliation, redemption, and ultimately revival.

Review of: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach--an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life...and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Wrap-Up for July 2010

photo credit: i love typography

Since I find myself borrowing more and more books from the library for Reaghan (my 4yo daughter) my wrap-up posts are now going to be broken down into 2 sections. Books I read/listened to myself and those that I read to or listened to with Reaghan. If I have already written and posted the review I will link the title to that review. =)

I have also added my Monthly and YTD (Year To Date) stats at the bottom of the post.

It's Monday! What are you reading? {August 2, 2010}

What are you reading Monday  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey.