Tag 40 Day Challenge

40 Things (25)!

Walkie Talkie Book Club 1 Comment
chick lit books $2

Do Chick Lit books have to be pink?

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, today’s topic is:

25) A favourite chicklit book

I do love me some chicklit!  To answer this question I first looked up a definition of chicklit.

  • Novels written for and by young women
  • Literature appealing to women, usually with a romantic or sentimental theme
  • A genre of fiction concentrating on young working women and their emotional lives
And then I looked at my Goodreads books, especially those rated five stars, and the following authors had more than one rated five stars for me:
I have followed Jennifer Weiner’s blog and twitter for ages and know that she is pretty sensitive about the title “chicklit,” because it diminishes the importance of the book and its content in some people’s eyes.  “Chicklit” isn’t given column space in prominent book review publications.  Interesting to think about…
I can’t pick one book, so I’ll leave it at that. 🙂

#25 on my list of things to do was to Go to the Trempeleau Hotel for an outdoor concert.  The Trempeleau Hotel is in the small town of Trempeleau along the Mississippi River.  There is a lawn where they hold outdoor concerts in the summer and Beth and I were able to take in a concert there.  I think it was the summer of 2008, but for the life of me I can’t remember who we saw!  It’ll come to me (or Beth will remember).  We brought our own lawn chairs and had yummy food and drink in the late summer evening.  It was a great time.

Off to read!

Related articles

40 Things (24)

Walkie Talkie Book Club Leave a comment
Cover of "The Firm"

Cover of The Firm

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, the next topic is –

24) An “unputdownable” book

I am a pretty slow reader, as a rule.  I think a big reason why it takes time for me to get through a book is that I am a) distracted by other things to read, and b) enjoying every word in a book.  I can’t skim or speed read.  I immerse myself in words.

I remember reading “The Firm” by Grisham in my early 20s.  I had just started my first job out of college and still loved to stay up late and dreaded early mornings.  I read that book in one weekend day, staying up until 4:30 am to finish it, because I knew that if I didn’t devour it it would leak into my week and cause sleeplessness.

I always look forward to reading but it isn’t every book that I read that causes that feeling of happy anticipation at the thought of crawling into bed and reading THAT BOOK.  If you look at my Goodreads list, I believe that every book I rated five stars gave me that feeling.  It stuck with me all day, making chores easier to bear, bringing a smile.  Recently, “Attachments” made me feel that way.  Last summer I devoured “The Girl Who…” books.

It’s such a great feeling…

#24 on my list of 40 things was: Have a memorable New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve is one of those “coupley” holidays that I sometimes dread.  There’s also that great expectation that it’s going to be a spectacular and memorable evening!  I’ve hosted some NYE parties that were a blast and some that were ok.  I’ve gone to movies alone, returning home just in time for the Rockin’ New Year’s Eve shows.  I’ve rented movies and stayed home.  I’ve gone to parties and had a good time.  I’ve gone to see “Dueling Pianos” and drank Jaegermeister from the bottle.

So I’ve had memorable New Year’s Eves before and I will again.  This challenge was to create the intention to make every NYE intentionally memorable.  On the last NYE before my 40th birthday, I realized I’d better do something, so I invited my friends Beth and Doug over (to my mom and dad’s, since that is where I was living at the time) and we ate good food and played Guitar Hero and singing games all night long.  We created a funny band name and had big laughs.  Again, the intention was there so the evening will be remembered.  It would be fun to have some kind of traditional NYE celebration in our family, but every year is different and usually planned at the last minute.  A good thing to look forward to. 🙂

Off to read!