Tag: book clubs

A Little Bookish Post

I haven’t written about books for a while, mostly because I haven’t been a rock star in the book-reading department lately!  I spent a lot of my August reading time catching up on my magazine reading.  There is no way I will meet my already-modified reading goal for 2012, but I’m ok with that.  I’ve enjoyed the books that I’ve read this summer, choosing fluff, classics, and good old recommended fiction.

The Shoemaker's Wife

The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani

Isn’t that a beautiful cover?  I wouldn’t mind a poster of it in my “library” upstairs.  The orange would totally clash with my cherry-colored walls, but that would be cool, too.  I love books by Trigiani.  I am looking forward to a walking food tour of Greenwich Village with her tour group!  I’m going to TRY to re-read one of her books before I go!
Pillow Talk

Pillow Talk by Freya North

This was one of those little fluffy books that I read for some mindlessness.  It was “meh,” according to my Goodreads review. 🙂  Just a little too long.

 

Thanks For The Memories

Thanks For The Memories by Cecelia Ahern

Another mindless book which I picked up cheaply at B&N a while ago.  It had an “intriguing premise and surreal plot,” according to my Goodreads review.  Deja Vu 🙂

 

The Importance of Being ErnestView the full version of this book online

The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde

I listened to this on audio (soooooooo delightful!) and read it free on Kindle (sooooooooooooo witty!) and participated meagerly in Wallace’s 3 week readalong.  And then I watched the movie.  Such good stuff!  Why did I wait so long to read some Wilde?

The Art of Mindful Living

Mindfulness for Beginners

Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Two audio books read by their authors who are “gurus” in this area.  I am feeling a little scattered this summer, so it was good to listen to these and I hope that I can continue to think about them and put mindfulness into practice!

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - CityView a preview of this book online

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious – and Perplexing – City by David Lebovitz

How fun! This was a fast read, because it was filled with recipes that I’ll never make or already have a good enough recipe for thanks to other great books filled with recipes.  But he is a hoot.  I think that if I go to Paris, I will try to look him up and make him buy me lunch.  I would have to prove myself a worthy dinner companion, but I think he would do it!

Beautiful Ruins

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

And then I bought this for Ferragosto.  Set in a small village in Italy in the 60s and jumping forward to Hollywood today, it was a gem of a story – “Beautiful and unpredictable – just how I like ’em” is how I put it on Goodreads.

And now… The Chaperone

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

I am enjoying this a lot!  Only about 1/3 through (I think – dang iPad), but a nice and engaging story.

FC book club is setting up a date, and we are supposed to have read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which I’ve heard is not too engaging.  I’ll skim it and then we’ll move on.  Book club is mostly about connecting with those women, right?  🙂

I think I’ll try to participate in the Book Club that the Emergency Department has going.  I’ve read almost all of the books they’re reading, but that’s ok.  Again, it’s about connecting, right?

And speaking of connecting, very excited to start Year Three of the Cosmo Girls tomorrow night!  Ready to dive in and organize the year!  Yay!

Well, off to read!  Haven’t said that for a while, but I mean it!  🙂

If you’ve made it to the end and have any ideas for other BOOKISH things to do while I’m in NYC, please let me know!  I plan to do that book/walking/food tour in Greenwich Village and to find The Strand bookstore.  Anything else that will be easy and fun?

Yay!

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Books: Flood and Food

The first book I read in 2012 was one written by and about the Rushford Volunteer Fire Department and their response to the flood of 2007.  Their thoughts were collected by Bonnie Flaig Prinsen and the book was published with help from the Rushford Community Foundation.  It is a great document for posterity and it was good to read it.  I entered the information into Goodreads, which is something I haven’t done before, so I hope it gets other views!

The next book I had was terribly overdue to the library so I did some intense browsing/speed reading so I could return it today.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home CooksView a preview of this book online

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks

It was a great book about creating meals from real ingredients.  It is something that I like to do – bake bread, make cakes from scratch – and I thought it was very well-written.  I loved reading about the evolution of cake mixes and how in the 1950s the women could tell the difference and didn’t like that they just had to add water, so they created them so that we could add eggs, oil AND water.  The rest of the ingredients should read flour, sugar, salt, soda, but the ingredient list goes on and on.  Crazy.

It was a great book and would be a great gift for someone who is wanting to change their fast-food ways and to learn how simple it is to really prepare real food.

Next I plan to read my back issues of magazines and dig into the pile of books that are on my nightstand!  They are books I own, books I was given as gifts, and books I borrowed.  And I’ll read the next book for book club – The Center of Everything.  Again, I love the book club in a bag concept!

Cover of "The Sun Also Rises"
Cover of The Sun Also Rises

On a book and movie related note – I mentioned that I read and loved “The Paris Wife” and I’m excited about meeting the author on Sunday!  Tuesday night I watched the movie “Midnight in Paris” (love it! own it!) and watched carefully the scenes featuring Ernest Hemingway and I ordered the movie “The Sun Also Rises,” based on a Hemingway book of the same name.  Very interesting to put it all together – Hemingway living in Paris, with his first wife, drinking in bars and his melancholic diatribes, and the wounded expatriate living in Paris and going to Spain for the bull fights.  I hope to actually READ some Hemingway in 2012 – not just read about him!  I love it when one book leads you to another…

Off to read!

 

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