It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between! D This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!
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 telling me how many you visited. **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.
Lori from Dollycas’s Thoughts
WOO HOO!!!! Please choose an item out of the Reading Cafe Grab Shelves and email me your choice with your mailing address as well! journeythroughbooks@gmail.com
**New books added today to the Reading Cafe giveaway!
This past week this is what has happened here:
Beastly by Alex Flinn ( book and movie review)
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (audio review)
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone by J K Rowling (10th anniversary book review)
Harry Potter And Te Deathly Hallows Movie – Part 2
South Of Superior by Ellen Airgood (review and tour)
Bookies Book Club picks a New Queen
Once Upon A Time There Was You by Elizabeth Berg
It was a pretty good week and I am looking forward to some good ones this week as well:
Elliott Hansen and his wife, Helen, are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary with a party at a luxury hotel in New Hampshire, where they lived ten years earlier before moving to Ohio. Elliott has planned well, inviting their New England friends and neighbors and keeping the truth from Helen that her inoperable brain cancer is fatal. Their 18-year-old daughter, Abby, is also in the dark, which is why she is feeling resentful and solitary among these old friends and anxious to discover her worth, even if it’s with a preppie hotel waiter. The guests dance around the inevitable, perhaps because facing reality has been something they have avoided for as long as they have known one another. This richly textured, multilayered treatise on learning to give up hope while still grasping at straws is searing in its approach to losing those we hold dear.
This is a TLC Tour for later this week.
Lacey Anne Byer is a perennial good girl and lifelong member of the House of Enlightenment, the Evangelical church in her small town. With her driver’s license in hand and the chance to try out for a lead role in Hell House, her church’s annual haunted house of sin, Lacey’s junior year is looking promising. But when a cute new stranger comes to town, something begins to stir inside her. Ty Davis doesn’t know the sweet, shy Lacey Anne Byer everyone else does. With Ty, Lacey could reinvent herself. As her feelings for Ty make Lacey test her boundaries, events surrounding Hell House make her question her religion.
This is our current Faith N Fiction read and I am pretty excited about it!
Set against the backdrop of the late ’60s and early ’70s, Nancy Mehagian’s delicious memoir tells the tale of a young woman who heeded the siren’s call to a life of freedom and romance. A first-generation Armenian American whose family narrowly escaped genocide, the rebellious daughter left behind the safety and security of suburban life for an unforgettable adventure that would find her establishing the first vegetarian restaurant on the Spanish island of Ibiza, having an affair with a Bedouin gypsy during a stint as a cabaret dancer in Syria, and through a series of mishaps, incarcerated for 16 months in a London prison (along with her newborn baby) where she managed, even there, to pioneer a healthy way of eating. A breathtaking, sensual and page-turning chronicle that whisks you along the author’s lifelong path to spiritual enrichment, Siren’s Feast, An Edible Odyssey, is a story that captures a colorful era and features over 40 recipes as delectable as the journey itself.
I am so attracted to food related books… I love the stories and the recipes!
A devoted fireman and a driven businessman: strangers with the same face. Only one will leave the Twin Towers alive, but will he ever find his way home?
On the morning of September 11, 2001, two men meet in a smoky stairwell of the World Trade Center. One is Eric Michaels, a driven financial manager from Los Angeles who has been busy climbing the corporate ladder, often at the expense of his wife and young son. The other is Jake Bryan, a New York City fireman devoted to his wife and daughter. In the midst of the crisis, Eric falls on the stairs and Jake stops to help him up. The two men freeze momentarily, stunned by the uncanny resemblance between them.
Later, after the building has crumbled to the ground, Eric awakes beneath a fire truck. He is burned and bloody and most of his clothes have been blown off. A fire captain rushes to his side, thinking he recognizes his friend Jake. By the time Jake’s wife arrives at the hospital, Eric’s face is bandaged and his memory gone.
In the months that follow, Eric struggles to relate to a wife and daughter he doesn’t remember, while on the opposite coast Eric’s real wife grieves and finds comfort from Eric’s brother, a single man who has always adored her. The emotional suspense builds as Eric begins to have disturbing dreams and flashbacks, and questions grow in Jake’s wife’s mind.
The only way for Eric to find his way is by following the love of a special woman, and the footsteps of a man who no longer exists.
I have wanted to read this for a long time and never got to it. Now finally I am getting to it on audio!
Binyavanga Wainaina tumbled through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. This world came to him as a chaos of loud and colorful sounds: the hair dryers at his mother’s beauty parlor, black mamba bicycle bells, mechanics in Nairobi, the music of Michael Jackson—all punctuated by the infectious laughter of his brother and sister, Jimmy and Ciru. He could fall in with their patterns, but it would take him a while to carve out his own.
In this vivid and compelling debut memoir, Wainaina takes us through his school days, his mother’s religious period, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. The landscape in front of him always claims his main attention, but he also evokes the shifting political scene that unsettles his views on family, tribe, and nationhood.
Throughout, reading is his refuge and his solace. And when, in 2002, a writing prize comes through, the door is opened for him to pursue the career that perhaps had been beckoning all along. A series of fascinating international reporting assignments follow. Finally he circles back to a Kenya in the throes of post election violence and finds he is not the only one questioning the old certainties.
This is a BEA read that will be released this week. I am curious about this one!
I have a big week in reading planned but for the most part… a low key week so this should be doable. Now I want to know what you are reading – add your post to the linky space below where it says “Click Here”
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I enjoyed your review of Beastly, a book I liked, and South of Superior, a book I want to read. I also liked your post about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I just watched it at the theater this morning and it was fantastic! I need to write my review while it is fresh in my mind. I will probably go and see it again next weekend.
I can’t wait to hear what you think of Small Town Sinners. I’ve been wanting to read it.
Have a great week! I’m off to go finish my Monday post. Still can’t decide what I want to read this week 🙂
Thanks Christina – I just received Small Town Sinners in the mail and I am excited to start it!
Hello Goodbye and One Day I Will Write About This Place are both fabulous. Enjoy your week and your books.
Jennifer – you amaze me! You read so quickly! Glad to hear that two of my choices this week will be good 😀
This week definitely feels Harry Potterish, doesn’t it?! Hello Goodbye sounds so intense, I am not sure if I can read it even though I’ve heard good things.
It does Helen… I need to read that last book again to finish my salute to all things Potter 😀
You have an intriguing selection of books this week, as always. Wanted to let you know that Island of Lost Girls arrived by mail…thanks!
Enjoy your books.
Oh good – I just seen it on your blog 😀
Small Town Sinners – great cover. I am considering Hello Goodbye, it sounds really good.
Great Marce – I am hoping they are both good reads 😀
I just put One Day I Will Write About This Place on my wishlist. It sounds amazing.
I think so too Ryan… cant wait to peek inside!
You *do* have a big week lined up! Hello Goodbye sounds pretty good but sad too. Hope you enjoy it!
I like a mix in the books Crystal and like the good with the sad 😀
I have Shantharam on the go (at page 600) but its a book I have to read in stages – it is so intense. I am also having a Emile Zola book going on and just started a debut novel by Sheela Chari – Vanished.
Am linking up with your meme as well
I know books like that Mystica – too heavy to just sit and read… good for you keeping on it! 😀
Hello Goodbye is on my TBR. I hope you enjoy it and can’t wait to see your thoughts.
I need to get that one finished today yet 😀
So excited you liked South of Superior! I have a copy and am planning on taking it on vacation for a nice easy read. I can’t wait!
Have a fabulous reading week! You’ve got some great choices coming up! 🙂
Thanks Danielle – vacation huh? Have a blast!
Your Bookie’s Club looks like such fun.
Oh – you have some interesting books this week. I’ll be curious to see your review on Small Town Sinners.
I got One Tuesday Morning this week too at the Audible sale.
Enjoy your reading!
I love my book club Martha – they just really are something awesome 😀
I bought my version at the audible sale too – I hope you like it…. we should review it together. 😀
That’s a nice idea! I will listen to it next – should start it tomorrow.
I’ll buzz you when I’m midway. 🙂
I am reading Trespass by Rose Tremain – very good so far.
I am not familiar with that one Jo – enjoy 😀
I haven’t read your Karen Kingsbury for the week, but it’s on my list for later:-)
It has been on my list for years. I bought the books forever ago and have loaned it to others but had not read it myself. 😀
Just judging your books by their covers, there is some amazing art work there this week.
I celebrated my first year of blogging this weekend.
Take a look at my Birthday Honours for bloggers 🙂
Have a great week, Sheila
carol
Carol – one year!!!! Awesome!! Congrats! 😀
Such a great range of books there. I love the sound of Siren’s Feast. Sounds like it’s going to be an interesting one.
I thought so too Karen – its actually an older release but just recently came to my attention.
You have a great list of books! Enjoy them!
Thanks – I think it will be a good reading week 😀
You’re ambitious this week! I hope you have time to read all of those and more!
I am finally over the business of June Kathy – I think the next couple of weeks are going to be pretty low key and therefore more reading time 😀
Great week & great books! I loved the book Beastly & I re-read Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows & watched the movie, too 🙂 Great books lined up, too 😉 Have a great week!
Thanks Aleksandra! 😀
Those look like good reads. 🙂 Have you gone to the HP movie yet? I can’t wait!
I went at midnight on Thursday and it was AWESOME!!! I need to see it one more time in the theater. 😀
Going to add Siren’s Feast to my list 🙂 Sounds enjoyable!
I think so too… I was really drawn to it 😀
A great collection of books, as always. I’m particularly intrigued by the cover of One Day I Will Write About This Place.
Isnt that an amazing cover? I was drawn to it right away at BEA.
Hello Goodbye looks very interesting. Can’t wait to see what you think of it. I’ve not seen the new HP movie yet, but I do have the next book (I know I am late on the series) on my reading list for this week. 🙂 Have a great reading week, Shelia!
What a great way to read the series Julianne – after they are all out! It was painful (PAINFUL) waiting for each book to see what would happen next! 😛
Siren’s Feast sounds great! I’m going to add it to my wishlist right now 🙂
I am really excited that other people are taking interest in Sirens Feast! 😀
Looks like you have a good reading week lined up, with a good mix of titles! I’ll have to go check out your movie reviews from last week – we went to see Deahtly Hallows yesterday and my kids recently enjoyed Beastly.
Enjoy your books this week, Sheila!
Sue
Thanks Sue – Deathly Hallows was soooo good! I am still raving about it 😀
Hello Goodbye sounds depressing but intriguing. I can’t wait to read your review!
Thanks Dixie! 😀
I love winning Thank you Sheila. Great books this week!!
YAY – I love picking winners Lori! I have more books to add to the Readnig Cafe… planned on doing it this morning – but what a surprise, time got away from me 😀
No problem you always have great choices!!
Hello Goodbye sounds awesome. Where do you get your ideas for reading books?! You have such unique choices. Most of them I’ve never heard of before.
I find books everywhere – many are review requests, recommendations from friends, blogs I read, book sales, visits to book stores… I like to mix the old and new. All book deserve equal love and attention 😀
I stole one from you book list. I found One Tursday Morning at the library this morning.
Awesome – that is what the list is there for 😀 Enjoy Kerri!
Looks like you’ve got a week planned. Enjoy!
I think so too Carol – I am in the mood for sitting in the sun with a great book or two… or three…
Hello Goodbye sounds like a lovely read!
Looking forward to the TLC tour 🙂
Have a good week!
Thanks Lettie – you too 😀
I’m looking forward to Small Town Sinners, too! 🙂
Hannah, did the discussion get moved back in the later delivery of the books? Last I heard I thought it started on the 17th.
I read One Tuesday Morning with my book club a few years ago and we all enjoyed it. Looks like you have a busy week ahead!
JO-Jo I bet that made for an excellent discussion!
*Sigh* I can’t believe the HP books and movies are all over now. I’d love to take a look at the 10th anniversary book! Maybe I can find it in the library….
Audrey the book is awesome! I love mine 😀
I’m liking all of the books that you posted for this week. Enjoy 😀
Thanks Staci – it was an odd collection but works for me 😛
One Day I Will Write about This Place sounds amazing! Happy reading!
Happy reading to you too 🙂
Every time I see blogger’s reviews of the Harry Potter books I wonder if maybe I should give in and read one! Thanks for stopping by my blog, it was my first IMWAYR and I’ve enjoyed it 🙂
Thanks for trying out the meme Sophia! 😀
Its hard to say if you would like Potter or not… I of course say “try it!” 😀 Harry Potter has been a part of my life since he first landed on the door step of Privet Drive so we have had a long time to get acquainted… to me, he is part of my kids growing up, part of their love for books… so of course he gets an A+ on my book. 😛
I’ve visited 22 bloggers tonight for It’s Monday, What Are You Reading.
BTW I agree with you on the advice about Harry Potter! They surprised me too!
Awesome Shirley! 😀
i’ve enjoyed visiting 15 of the participants, leaving comments on 10 so far “) ~ doing a lot of reading myself so may have to link up “) thx for the great meme…
Oh good… I hope you found some great reads along the way – and great blogs 😀
i’ve joined the linky! thanks for the inspiration, Sheila and congrats on your library appearance! you’re a star “)
LOL – thanks 😀 I am so glad you joined!