To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…


* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

 

 I'm still trying to work my way through "the short second life of bree tanner" by Stephanie Meyer. It's a short read but I've been occupied with summer classes and haven't really focused on this one. I'm going to try to finish this in the next couple of days. I just wanted to get a climpse into how she saw the "bad guys" in this one.

My Summer List (a work in progress)

1. Lover Mine by JR Ward
2. Cape Refuge by Terrie Blackstock
3. Southern Storm by Terrie Blackstock
4. River's Edge by Terrie Blackstock
5. Breaker's Reef By Terrie Blackstock
6. Under the Dome by S. King
7. Covet by JR Ward
8. Notes from a spinning planet: Ireland by Melody Carlson
9. ????? 
10. ?????

This is, like I said, a work in progress. I'm still digging through the stacks, trying to norrow down by top 10. It's like trying to pick your favorite piece of candy in a huge candy dish. ARG! I'll keep you posted.

It's Memorial Day weekend! The official start of summer. With the grand opening of summer, several sites are listing their summer reading lists, recommendations, and even a few challenges. I've never participated in a reading challenge of any kind. I didn't want to break into the wonderful world of reading challenges with no experience at all. So what is there for a novice to do? Start her own. Well, start my own for myself. I decided that I would create my own challenge to practice with.

First step: What kind of challenge do I want to give myself?
There's as many different kinds of challenges as there are genres and books. Do I simply want to set a certain number of books to read? That sounds kind of boring or plain or just down right too simple. Do I want to pick a genre? or multiple genres? That sounds good.

Second step: What's my personal time frame?
Summer Reading Challenge should consist of, well, summer. Since this is the weekend that officially starts summer I'll pick Monday, May 31st to start with. To finish it off with the same "theme" I'll finish it out with the closing of summer which is officially Labor Day Weekend. That's Monday, September 6th. Now I got a time frame: of almost a hundred days. WOW! 99 days...

Third step: What's my plan?
This is where I'm lost. I got my days set. I know I want to read different genres but how many books can I read and enjoy in that time frame AND still enjoy the family and they enjoy me?

Here's my choices...

Plan A: Read 10 books from 10 different authors
Plan B: Read 10 books from 10 different genres
Plan C: Read as many books as I can in by one author in a HUGE series
Plan D: Read 10 books, 10 genres, and 10 different authors
Plan E: Read 10 + books from the plethora of books in my TBR list.

That's the one...Plan E! As I've said before, I have a huge addiction to buying  books and now that Amazon has free Kindle downloads it's even worse than before. I'll just have to go through and pick out my top 10 I want to finish this summer and then go from there.( Usually 10 books in a summer is a piece of cake but I'm also taking 2 classes this summer so I need to be realistic.)

So what's your summer reading plans? Are you joining a challenge? Have you created a list to get through this summer? Or if you have any suggestions, please comment and let me know what your ideas are. I could really use some help.  

Happy Memorial Day! Stay safe, have fun, and happy reading!

I have a major book collecting addiction. I have books everywhere and they aren't just limited to the physical forms that encase the place I call my room. With the addition of the Kindle app on my iPhone, I now have a plethera of books at my disposal at all times. Especailly since Amazon.com offers free books weekly. So at this moment I have more books than I can possibly read this year with a list of books to be released this year that I really want to read. Add to that the fact that I am taking classes and have tons of required reading, I'll never get through it all. So how do I stop myself? I need a 12 step program for book buying/getting addiction. Unfortunately, I know of no such thing and with my luck they'd have books to go along with the program and I'd be right back at square one. I'll continue my semi-fight to literary freedom (well, truthfully no I'll continue to aquire more than I can handle)...Meanwhile, here's a list of the ones I've picked up of late:




























































There's a bunch more but I won't bore you with the long list. In any case, I'm either going to have to drop off the planet and read for the next year, quite all together, or find some kind of middle ground to live my life, read, and stay on top of my want to read list. Life is such a burden. ha! ha! Happy Reading!

The Following is a list of books I am planning to read. These are books I have in my possessing not just books I want to read. That list is far to long for this blog.

• Everything is Illuminated by Johnathan Safran Foer
• The Help: A Novel by Kathryn Stockett
• The Memory Book By Henry Loraine
• Cape Refuge By Terri Blackstock
• Southern Storm By Terri Blackstock
• River’s Edge By Terri Blackstock
• Breaker’s Reef By Terri Blackstock
• Land of a Hundred Wonders by Lesley Kagen
• First Drop of Crimson By Jeaniene Frost
• Notes from a spinning planet Ireland By Melody Carlson
• Roads By Larry McMurtry
• Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
• The Spark By Chris Downie
• The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher by Rob Stennett
• Bride Most Begrudging By Deeanne Gist
• Primitive by Mark Nykanen
• Booth’s Sister By Jane Singer
• You Can’t Stop Me by Matthew Clemens
• My Name is Russell Fink by Michael Snyder
• Daring Chloe (Getaway Girls Novel) By Laura Jensen Walker
• More Blood , More Sweat by Tom Reynolds
• Talk of the Town by Lisa Wingate
• Edgar Allan Poe’s Complete Poetical Works by Edgar Allen Poe 1809-1849
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Crossroads Café by Deborah Smith
• Dark Pursuits by Brandilyn Collins
• Exposure: A Novel by Brandilyn Collins
• Mossy Creek by various authors
• The Keeper by Sara Langan
• Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent
• The Angel Experiment by James Patterson
• My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent
• Serial by Jack Kilborn
• MetaGames by Sam Landstorm
• Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur
• Vanish by Tom Pawlik
• Wit’ch Fire by James Clemens
• Already Dead: A Novel by Charlie Huston
• Unbreakable by Sydney Somers

As with this time every year, I find myself not only reflecting on the year that is passing but also focusing on the up coming year. This year was my reading revival year. Loving to read is one thing but dedicating and finding time to read hasn't always been a priority. This year I made time to read, even if only for a few minutes (which usually turned into a few hours) at bedtime. With the coming year I want to continue to find the time or rather make the time to read for pleasure and personal growth. With one year left on my degree I'll be focusing quite a bit on required reading in the fun and fascinating fields of Science and Math (never put of your least favorite subjects til the end...it will come back and bite you). However, I plan to squeeze in some leisure reading (as well as writing). With that in mind here's a small list of what I've planned for the very first month of 2010.

"On Writing" by Stephen King

Technically I've already started this one. So far its great. Fascinating even. I love to learn how people get where they are. King lays it out there and doesn't bother to pretty it up. Which I respect and prefer in autobiographies/how to books.

Since the holidays are in full swing, I more than likely will not get this one finished before the New Year.


The Cape Refuge Series By Terri Blackstock

This is one of her earlier series but after reading the Restorations series, I can't wait to dive into this one. Terri Blackstock writes beautiful real life characters. Blackstock left the mainstream romance genre and dug her feet into the Christian fiction genre and thank God she did because her books leave you laughing, crying, and thinking. Her books aren't all about the sunshine and roses and I have yet to find an Amish settlement in her books. (Just a thing I have about Christian fiction, seems to have to involve an Amish settlement in someway). There's murder, theivery, deception, love, and a whole lot of the characters digging deep inside themselves in very realistic struggles. Terri Blackstock definately has a grasp on being a Christian in modern society.



Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot

Well actually I've already read the Queen of Babble but I indend on reading the second and third books: Queen of Babble in the City and Queen of Babble gets Hitched. These are some seriously light hearted reading. But I love them. I love Cabot's writing because its quick, light, and lets you get lost in a whole bunch of fun and zanniness that I think we as adults forget to have from time to time.

Cabot is best known for her Princess Diaries series.



There's a few others such as:

The Elements of Styl By Willaim Strunk Jr.
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost
Hey Yeah Righ Get A Life by Helen Simpson
Vanish by Tom Pawlik
Already Dead: A Novel by Charlie Huston
Unbreakable by Sydney Somers
The Keeper by Sara Langan
The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance by Tricia Telep

There's at least a good start to the New Year. If it weren't for the whole having to eat, sleep, work, and interact with the real world I could get a pretty good dent in those books. Something I've learned this year after staying up half the night multiple times just dying to get to the end of a good book, is that some books are like a good wine or a warm soup on a very cold day, its better to take your time and savor the good stuff. With that in mind, I am not setting a numeric goal for 2010 but rather a quality goal. I want to read good things and those that are bad I want to finish and figure out what made them bad. Best of luck in the coming year and happy reading!