The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

From the Amazon product description: Practical Melanie Middleton hates to admit she can see ghosts. But she’s going to have to accept it. An old man she recently met has died, leaving her his historic Tradd Street home, complete with housekeeper, dog—and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her their secrets.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel despite going in expecting not to like the paranormal element of ghosts. I knew I would like the setting. Charleston is right up the road from me and although we don’t visit often and certainly don’t do the touristy stuff like walking the old neighborhoods, I like knowing it is there for me to do if I so choose and I like reading about it. Karen White captures it so well with her imagery - the porches, the columns, the rockers, she conjures up the historic homes in great detail. The characters were okay. The primary character Melanie has that blind spot that authors so frequently give their female heroines, she can't admit that she's attracted to the male lead, she won't open up to her obvious soul mate even though he is right in front of her waiting with open arms, blah, blah, blech. That is just too Harlequin romance for me and makes me impatient. But I was able to just skim over those parts and also the repeated descriptions of how much junk food Melanie could eat without ever gaining weight - really, who cares? She's skinny, got it. So skimming over the two things that annoyed me took me to the action and I really enjoyed that part. Melanie has a gift in her ability to communicate with ghosts and they come at her from all sides at times with their pleas and their demands. The conflicts with ghosts are more captivating than I imagined they would be and I found myself tensing up and worrying about Melanie's safety at times. As soon as I finished this one I had the next book, The Girl on Legare Street, so that will have to get posted next!

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I am running a wee bit late but I finally got to the party! I enjoyed reading other (prompter) bloggers posts about the books they read for banned books week. I liked looking at all the banned books lists and seeing how many off of each one I had read - shamefully low numbers as always! But the best part of Banned Books Week was reading To Kill A Mockingbird because (gasp) I had never read it before!




From the Amazon product description: "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.

I really should have gotten to this one sooner, it is good and I've had fifty years to get around to it since this is the 50th anniversary year. I am intimidated by the classics but once started this was an easy read and hard to put down. I loved that the story is told through the eyes of these young children, their innocence is such a contrast to the evils around them. I won't go on about how great it is because you know that. I'll tell you the one really good thing that experienced...Tween liked it. He had to read it for school which was the impetus for me finally picking it up as well. And he liked it. He was ahead of me and eager to talk about it as I read. He wanted to tell me more of what happens but restrained himself because he wanted me to enjoy the story unfolding too. Tween has been a tough reading nut to crack and I certainly can't say that any flood gates have opened but it is a first, a book he enjoys, it proves that such a thing exists and now we just have to try to find another one.

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged. His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is — well, something quite different.

I went to read this one with mixed up expectations. I knew I had read other Anne Tyler books and thoroughly enjoyed them. At the same time, I couldn't recall many specific titles or details so they must not have been very memorable. I am usually more attracted to books where the main character is a woman and this is a man, an old man. And, finally, I read several reviews that described this book as slow; I'm not good with slow. So, how did it end up?

It ended up just fine. Liam Pennywell is an old man, things do move pretty slowly, it's not the most memorable story I've ever read but I loved it anyway! There was enough going on to keep me turning the pages but not so much going on that it took me more than a few hours to polish it off. When things got complacent, there was one unexpected twist that made me sit up and read with renewed enthusiasm. Liam was somewhat interesting and he was surrounded by people that added to that in their own unique ways. When all is said and done, Anne Tyler has a gift for just nailing human emotions and interactions. She does family life well and it reads smooth and easy.

This book is my "N" book for the 2010 A-Z Reading Challenge. Click on the button to see my progress.

And finally, an oops, please forgive me if I spammed you with the product description and a misspelled title the other day - hit post instead of save!

I Like You by Amy Sedaris

From the Amazon product description: Are you lacking direction in how to whip up a swanky soiree for lumberjacks? A dinner party for white-collar workers? A festive gathering for the grieving? Don't despair. Take a cue from entertaining expert Amy Sedaris and host an unforgettable fete that will have your guests raving. No matter the style or size of the gathering--from the straightforward to the bizarre--I LIKE YOU provides jackpot recipes and solid advice laced with Amy's blisteringly funny take on entertaining, plus four-color photos and enlightening sidebars on everything it takes to pull off a party with extraordinary flair.

I've raved often enough about how much I like David Sedaris so coming across this book by his sister, Amy, at the library delighted me but as is often the case when I go in with such high hopes - it wasn't all wonderful. There were some things about it that just fascinated me - the photography to start. Amy is a very pretty girl and she dresses her self up in costumes to grace many of the pages; seeing her transformations was fascinating. She also used plenty of pictures of food and decorations. The sneak peek page on her website says, "This book is so visual, a monkey could enjoy it." The vignettes she creates to go along with the party themes are very clever and looking at all the details is a treat. Some of the recipes sounded pretty good but if I am actually going to get a recipe from a book and try it - it's not going to be from a comedienne, it's going to be from a cook so although they sounded okay, I didn't make anything from the book. The humor was at times wonderful and at times made me cringe. When she talks about how to deal with the inebriated and says, "Better to cut them off rather than pretend it's not happening and then allow them to stay over and wet your bed" that makes me laugh. But then other times she goes too far over the edge and I am not offended but neither am I amused. She also includes crafts which I could absolutely live without. The final verdict is that I was glad I got this one from the library, it was a sometimes funny romp but not something I would ever refer back to again.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking over at Beth Fish Reads. Click on the logo to see the other posts this week.






This book is my "I" book for the 2010 A-Z Reading Challenge. Click on the button to see my progress.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday started by Marcia at The Printed Page is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). This month Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Kathy at bermudaonion. Stop by there to check out everyone else's mailboxes. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

It's been awhile since I put my mailbox up so these wins actually came over the last month rather than the last week! But there are still a lot - I had quite the lucky streak going for awhile.

Deliver us From Evil by David Baldacci was a win from Kristi at Books and Needlepoint. I have loved everything by David Baldacci (except the Christmas train one), I especially love this narrator Ron McLearty; he does an excellent job bringing the stories to life. He has an amazing ability to differentiate characters so well that you lose yourself in the story.




Innocent by Scott Turow was a win from Gwen at A Sea of Books. Thank you, Gwen! Everyone wanted this book and I was so lucky to win!






Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson was a win from Teddy at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time. The combination of Southern and Catholic reel me right in, I am listening to this one now and enjoying it immensely! Thank you, Teddy!





The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar came by accident and the generous folks at Hachette said I could just keep it. From the back cover, I know it is about how we make choices in life and "why do we sometimes chose against our best interests?". Sounds interesting enough and I do fairly well with nonfiction on audio so I'll give this a try.

I actually have a couple of others still on the way - can you believe that luck?!

The Hunger Games Trilogy

No need for a description on these, if you haven't heard about them yet, you must be in an isolation unit somewhere! Both Bookworm and Youngest had read the first two when it came time for Mockingjay to come out. I figured if both those kids (not to mention the bulk of the book blogging world) liked the series, I probably would too so I carved out some time this past week and enjoyed all three in a row.

I probably liked the first one best for the usual reason -it was all fresh and new and exciting. The next two had surprises but they couldn't match the wonder of discovering everything for the first time. I had the same response with Harry Potter and Twilight With The Hunger Games, I liked the way the author expanded the scale with each book leading up to such a climatic ending. And I liked that she gave each of the male romantic possibilities a true shot at winning Katniss' heart. (Unlike the Twilight series where the answer was soooo obvious. OK that's a joke just for all the Edward fans out there.)

I know there is a movie coming but can't find any details yet - I'll look forward to seeing who gets picked to be Katniss - although I shouldn't get excited, it will probably be some teenager I have never heard of!

I've been so idle that I've lost track of my challenges but if it is still going on this one would count for Woman Unbound (Katniss is definitely unbinding herself and everyone else!). And, The Hunger Games can be my "H" book and Mockingjay my "M" book for the A-Z Reading challenge.

September...already??!!

This is my new leaf...the one I am turning over to start September! I've been in "perfectionist" mode. It's those times where I immobilize myself with thinking that things must be prefect. It takes hold on the blog when I get behind on posting and then I want to try to post the backlogged books in the order I read them rather than just jumping in and writing about what's fresh on my mind. And with feeling like my posts have to be some great work, when really, my 10 followers (if they are still around, hello?) could not care less or they would never have started following my ramblings in the first place! It takes hold at home by my trying to do it all with chores and children so that it is DONE RIGHT! But all that does is wear me out and teaches the children they can get away with doing nothing because mom will do it. Unfortunately for the US Navy I haven't been in perfectionist mode at work but at least that means I am doing soemthing there rather than the nothing I have done here!

So what does this mean? It means I am almost finished with Mockingjay and when I get done, I'm going to tell you what I think despite the fact that I haven't posted Hunger Games or Catching Fire yet! Perfectionism is gone...let's get back to sloppy and fun. Maybee I won;t even spel check this...