Teaser Tuesdays {12-30-08}

I missed Musing Mondays yesterday. When my fiance/husband (we've been engaged for 4 years and often refer to each other as husband and mrs) is on second shift or off (like yesterday) my routine gets thrown off.

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from ... that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!
• Please avoid SPOILERS.

She sailed to Europe in January, the solace of travel abroad meant to clear her mind of the tragic farce she'd been part of at home. But innovations in communications meant that distance no longer protected the rich: she had barely debarked when she heard that a colleague of her father's, the architect Stanford White had been killed in a lover's triangle.

These teasers come from Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. They are from the Uncorrected Proof and may vary from the final, published version.

For more teasing fun, visit MizB @ Should Be Reading.


Shop Indie Bookstores

Friday Finds {12-26-08}

Here are the books that have made their way on to my Wish List since last weeks installment.

• One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald - found @ she is too fond of books - it was on her FF last week - I heard about Kyle while he was on his adventure
• The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman - found @ GoodReads - Lisa at the Tattered Cover recommends it

Friday Finds {12-19-08}

Here are the books that have made their way on to my Wish List since last weeks installment.

• The House of Mondavi by Julia Flynn Siler - found @ Beth Fish Reads [her review]
• Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron - found @ GoodReads through a GR pal who works for Tattered Cover
• The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty - found @ BermudaOnion [her review]

For more Friday Finds, don't forget to visit MizB.

I've Been Tagged: Some Christmas Fun

Wendi @ Wendi's Book Corner tagged me for "Some Christmas Fun".

Some Christmas Fun

Answer these questions and then tag a person or two. Post these questions on your blog and link back to me.

This is a short quiz since we are all so busy this time of year.

1. What is your very first Christmas memory? My first vivid memory that I know for sure is from Christmas is when I was 7 and I got a snow globe from my paternal grandparents. I remember thinking I was SO cool. The globe part of it was glass and I thought I was so grown up to be given something so breakable. I still have it. I passed it my oldest (she'll be 15 in... 10 days!) when she was 10.

2. Do you have a favorite Christmas gift? Probably that same snow globe.

3. Have you ever celebrated Christmas outside of your country? no

4. What is your favorite Christmas decoration? We're not big with the decorations at our home. (read: we don't even have a tree.) But my mom keeps several ornaments and other decorations that, when we (Matt, Sarah-Ellen, Reaghan & myself) have a house, she'll give to me for our house. I think the stocking are my favorite.

5. What is your favorite Christmas tradition? Making cookies, setting them out for "Santa".

6. Have you ever had a white Christmas? We live in Connecticut, I'm sure we have, but all I can recall at the moment are dustings at most.

7. Have you ever gone Christmas caroling? not that I can remember. Mom?

8. What is your favorite Christmas movie or story? Movie: It's a Wonderful Life and those CBS movies - Story: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

9. Do you have a Christmas link you would like to share? nope, sorry

If you would like to participate, consider yourself tagged! Follow the instructions and leave me a comment here. I'll add your link and come read your answers.

Oh, yeah! That picture is of Matt and I. I was pregnant with Reaghan at the time. Christmas 2005. She came along about 6 1/2 weeks later. 5 weeks early, exactly 1 week before my baby shower! Just thought I'd share.

Review of: The Family Bones

Author: Kimberly Raiser
ISBN: 9780615246253
Pages: 192
Genre(s): Paranormal, Thriller, Fiction
Grade: B-
Challenge(s): none

You can purchase this book from: Amazon OR an Indie Book Store



From the back of the book:

Will they stay? Will they survive? The Weavers have inherited family property in Astral, Pennsylvania, a town so small that Mrs. Weaver can find no mention of it on the Internet, save for a tiny spot on Google Earth. Hoping for a simpler, small-town existence for their young family, Steven and Tara eagerly head to Astral to see what they hope will be their dream house. As they explore their potential new home, the Weavers begin to discover secret passageways, secret rooms, and long buried family truths; some difficult truths are revealed and no longer kept in the far reaches of the closet. There are reasons for everything, and sometimes the explanations are so simple. But sometimes, simple can also be horrifying.

I think the best way to describe this book is 'spooky'. I'm not a squeamish reader, but I had to read this book during the day. I started it early this month, during the afternoon. I'm the type of person who HAS to read in bed before going to sleep. I could not read The Family Bones before going to sleep.

There are some really great elements to The Family Bones: children in danger, disappearing/reappearing tunnels, a well. Not to mention all of the mystery and suspense. It didn't take me long to get swept up in this book. From page 1 Kimberly Raiser had me with:

The well on the back of the property always scared me as a child. It was so deep, and so completely absent of any light. The neighborhood kids used to tell me horrible stories about the old man who used to live there before my grandparents did. How he used to drown cats deep in the well and how their bones would rise during the full moon to look for the old man that drowned them.

And that's just the first 4 sentences of The Family Bones! It only gets better, scarier, spookier from there. If you would also like to read this. I'll send my copy (only read once, by yours truly) to the first person (with a legit e-mail address) to comment below.

(Full disclosure: Kimberly Raiser sent me this book as a free review copy. If you have any questions/concerns about how this may have affected how I feel about the book, please go here and read the PLEASE NOTE part.)

Teaser Tuesdays {12-16-08}

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from ... that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!
• Please avoid SPOILERS.

"I knew about Julia's reluctance to get psychological help, but the rest was news to me, and I felt dreadful. All Margaret had shared with me was her frustration with the police."

My teaser for this week comes from Debbie Macomber's Back on Blossom Street, which has been hanging out on my shelves for much too long. You can read more about the book on the authors' site, including an excerpt.

Don't forget to visit MizB for more teasing goodness.

Musing Mondays {12-15-08}

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading on the go…

I always like to have a book with me at all times – call it a nerdy grown-up security blanket – and rarely do I leave the house without slipping one into my bag (even if I KNOW I’m not going to have a chance to read it). Do you take a book with you? Do you take whatever book you’re currently reading, or do you have a special on-the-go book? And do you have a preference for a these types of book (paperback, hardback; short stories; poetry etc)?

I'm pretty much the same way. I almost always (95% of the time) bring a book with me. Even if I'm sure I won't get a chance to do any reading, I bring a book; just on the extreme off chance I get 2 minutes to crack it open. Unless my current book is a large hardcover, I bring my current read. I prefer to bring Mass Market Paperbacks, but I've been known to carry around a printed out e-book.

Review of: A Different Kind of Christmas

Author: Alex Haley
ISBN: 9780385260435
Pages: 101
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Grade: A+
Start date: 12-6-08
End date: 12-10-08
Challenge(s): Winter Holiday Reading Challenge

Alex Haley's Roots is one of the world's most beloved and important books. In A Different Kind of Christmas, the intense drama of a white Southerner and a black slave who work toward a mutual goal, Haley once again gives us a moving story of physical and moral courage, and an unforgettable tale of spiritual regeneration. Rendered with a matchless sense of time and place, a poetic humanness, and a rich, robust humor; A Different Kind of Christmas will delight and inspire reader of all ages and faith for generations to come.

So says the inside of the dust jacket. Here I am reading this for the first time, 20 years after it's first printing, a white, non-Christian. I cried when it was over. Not a lot, but it definitely affected me.

Fletcher Randall, son of the owner of "North Carolina's 4th largest plantation", is a sophomore at Princeton when we meet him. After meeting and spending some time with 3 Quaker brothers, Fletcher becomes disillusioned with what he was brought up considering 'normal'; that people can be your property. Fletcher eventually becomes involved with the Underground Railroad (UGRR). Fletcher spends part of one of his Christmas breaks helping the UGRR in a surprising way. I'm trying not to give away too much. It's a 101 pages, pick it up, read it and I think you'll find that it picks you up in return.

As you might expect, this book is receiving my Hyacinth Award.

Shared Reviews: If you've reviewed this book too, please send me an e-mail or leave a comment with the link to your review, and I will add a link to it at the bottom of my review. Please, for convenience, if you leave a comment, leave it in the review-post.

Friday Finds {12-12-08}

Here are the books that have made their way onto my Wish List this week.

• Chaplin: A Life in Film by Stephen Weissman - found @ Book Critiques
• A Song in Stone by Walter H Hunt - found @ MizB's Should be Reading's Teaser Tuesdays post
• Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosney - found @ gautami tripathy's Reading Room
• Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia by Jessica James - found @ Shana of Literarily
• The Yoga Teacher by Alexandra Gray - found @ S. Krishna's Books - review

Visit MizB's blog Should be Reading for more Friday Finds.