It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.
I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment. You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.
Two weeks ago winner:
Teddyree from Eclectic Reader
Congratulations! Please choose an item out of the PRIZE BOX and email me your choice with your mailing address as well! journeythroughbooks@gmail.com
I came home from Honduras early (real early) Saturday morning. I have been having a great time catching up on blog reading and prepping a few posts for this upcoming week. I did post a couple meanderings from Honduras while I was away:
A Couple pictures from my bedroom window
Same little boy – different year (seeing Samir)
Chicken Tortilla Lasagna (recipe from Honduras)
I did finish a couple of books while I was away but have yet to write reviews for them.
This week here is what is on the agenda:
Despite his single mother’s financial hardships, 12-year-old Eddie is certain this Christmas he will receive his much-desired Huffy bike. To his dismay, what he finds under the tree is “a stupid, handmade, ugly sweater” that his mother carefully modeled after those she can’t afford at Sears (one of four places she keeps part-time jobs). Eddie tosses the sweater and insults his mother before the two go visit his grandparents at their farmhouse. On the drive home, though, Eddie’s exhausted mother falls asleep at the wheel and crashes, dying instantly. Sent to live with his grandparents, an increasingly bitter and angry Eddie lashes out at his accommodating guardians, engages in typical teenage angst and grapples with belief in God.
This is our current book club read and our meeting and Christmas party potluck is this Tuesday.
Top student Erin has her sights on one of the five slots for her AP art history class’s summer trip to Italy. Her best friend, Lindsay, just wants Megan, the class bully, to leave her alone. Stylish, outgoing Samantha is fiercely loyal to both Erin and Lindsay. Their friendship takes a turn for the paranormal when Erin receives a pink crystal ball and a set of cryptic instructions after her aunt’s death. Erin’s questions to the ball about school and boys start to come true, but not quite in the ways she hoped. Too late, she figures out that the ball’s magic is limited, but by then she’s made a mess of school and her personal relationships… Academic success remains at the forefront of Erin’s mind, but as the pink crystal ball works its magic, she grows as a student and a friend, becoming more self-reliant.
Sounds like an adventure to me!
Proust’s infamous madeleine cannot hold a candle to the lush, winsome memories of meals past that you’ll find in Muriel Barbery’s Gourmet Rhapsody. M. Pierre Arthens is France’s premier restaurant critic—so premier in fact that he’s simply called the Maître—and we meet him as he lies in bed, waiting to die. Fervently he mines years of gastronomic delights and discoveries in search of one single flavor, one that he says is “the only true thing ever accomplished.” What unfolds—in vignettes narrated by him and by a chorus of his familiars (most human, some quite comically not)—is a portrait of a man in thrall to the very ingredient that makes French cuisine so inescapably, ecstatically, seductive: It’s not cream, nor cognac, but the cook who defines those glorious tastes. “The only true work of art, in the end,” he says, “is another person’s feast.”
I picked this book up in Honduras and started it on the plane home.
Ok that’s the plan. I am really excited to see what everyone is reading this week! I feel like I missed my “book jonesing” last week! 😀
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Loved the ‘roof tops’ photo. I haven’t been reading much so I took a few weeks off from It’ Monday, and I have missed it so much. Thanks again for hosting this group. The Europa titles all have interesting covers. I’ve been intrigued by most of them.
Glad to have you back 😀
I just saw the pictures of the baby cows, they are just precious!
Samita they were pretty awesome!
Welcome home Sheila. Thanks for sharing your trip! I am glad you arrived home safely… to cold weather? The Christmas Sweater sounds particularly interesting. Enjoy all your reading this week.
Thanks MarthaE! Cold weather yes but I keep reminding myself that I have come home to blizzards before so this is not too bad 🙂
Glad your trip was good!
Is that Glenn Beck as in THE Glenn Beck? I obviously am too lazy to look it up at the moment 😉
I think so Crystal,,, its based on a true story.
Gourmet Rhapsody looks very good. Have a wonderful week reading!
Thanks Jennifer, it is a different style of writing, elegant but different….
Oh, those chicken enchiladas look divine! I may just have to give those a go. 🙂 And so glad to see you made it back safe and had a good time! Yay!
Have a fabulous reading week! My book club read the Glenn Beck book last year and really enjoyed it. Hope you do too!
Thanks Danielle! I think the book will make for a good discussion.
Books you were/are reading has 1 similarity…they all have good color 🙂
I love that Novroz 😀
I was sick over the weekend but I got some reading done.
Oh good! Hope you are feeling better 🙂
I dont think The Christmas Sweater would be for me but the Muriel Barbery book – not available here in Melbourne and certainly wont be available in Sri Lanka so I have to wait to see what you think of this one!
Mystica I hope you find the Muriel book! 😀
I like the sound of The Christmas Sweater, maybe not cheery Christmas reading but it still sounds good. Glad you had a good trip and I’m excited I get to pick out of the prize box! Thanks Sheila 🙂
Teddyree, our bookclub reads a Christmas type story every year. It adds to our potluck and we have a lot of fun 😀
Sounds like your trip to Honduras was a success. Glad you got to reconnect with Samir. Hope you have a wonderful week, and enjoy The Society of the Pink Crystal Ball. My students have been passing it around and seem to really enjoy it.
It was, thanks Jan 😀
I am excited about the book… seems like just what I am craving in reading right now 🙂
The Pink Crystal Ball looks interesting.Great book selection.
Here’s mine:
Thanks Brooks 😀
Totally forgot to welcome you back home. I want to do a mission trip one day. Have a beautiful Christmas with your family.
Thank you again Brooks, it is good to be home 😀
I’ve definitely got to try that Chicken Tortilla Lasagna recipe – looks delicious! Have fun with your reading this week! (Good luck with the Glenn Beck – he sort of creeps me out.)
Oh good Joy – I hope you like it!
The Christmas Sweater sounds like one of those poignant and memorable stories…hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for posting my Christmas Memories. After I sent the second set of photos, I got that automatic e-mail response, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that you’d posted them. Which meant you actually received them and had Internet at some point. Thanks!
Sure Lurel – I was able to make the changes while in Honduras so it worked out 😀
Glad to hear your trip went well! It looks like you have a very eclectic line-up for this week! Gourmet Rhapsody sounds especially intriguing.
Enjoy your books this week!
Sue
Thanks Sue! I needed a little mix in my reading 😉
Secret Society looks really good. I’m glad you had a good trip.
Have a great reading week!
Thanks Stephanie 😀
Nice to see you back at home. Now you just need to run around like a crazy person getting Christmas shopping done….oh wait that’s me that still needs to do that. 🙂
I have to go shopping yet too Ryan…. maybe this weekend 😀
The Christmas Sweaters looks really good!
Thanks Ellie – it was 😀
Pink Crystal Ball sounds very interesting! Hope you enjoy your books and have a great week.
Natalie ƸӜƷ
Thanks Natalie – The Pink Crystal Ball seems like it will be the YA break I could use right now 🙂
I had no idea that Glenn Beck had written a novel. I’ll be curious to see what you think of it. I’m not really a fan of his…
I do not really know much about Glenn Beck. My book club voted for this book last month. It was an ok Christmas read…. review up yet this week 😀
Loved your posts last week and these books look really good, I too am surprised Glenn Beck wrote this kind of book.
Dollycas
Thanks Lori. 😀
Okay… saw the AP in Art part about the Pink Crystal Ball and now I must read that one. Hope you enjoy it!
Oh good Melissa! 😀
Sheila,
I have visited 20 blogs, some new ones to me that I am now following and have added 7 books to my wish list. It is quiet here all by myself and I am going to grab about 90 minutes of peaceful reading time.
Have a Great WEEK!!!!
Dollycas
I have found a few as well Lori 😀
Sheila thanks for hosting and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season! Enjoy your reads this week.
Joy at Books and Life
Thanks Joy – to you as well. 🙂
I have pulled out Christmas books, some old and some new. Finished COWBOY CHRISTMAS a christian fiction by Mary Connealy. I have a stack of Christmas anthologies and am reading a new one now. I have THE MISCHIEF OF THE MISTLETOE : A PINK CARNATION CHRISTMAS by Lauren Willig. It looks good. Will read it when I finish two anthologies.
You are in the Christmas spirit Pat! 😀
I’m also reading The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball. Happy reading!
Oh good Colleen I will have to read your thoughts on it as well 😀
Welcome back! I need to get caught up on your posts and see what you’ve been doing. I’ve been getting behinder and behinder as the holidays eat me alive!
I hear you there Jenners. I had high hopes of getting around to a lot of blogs today and I still havent done it.
I’m liking the sound of The Christmas Sweater, it sounds like a great story with a message behind it, perfect seasonal reading in my eyes.
Thank you for the book suggestions! The main character of Gourmet Rhapsody reminds me so much of someone close to me, I must read it.