It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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.

Last weeks winner:

Angelica at My Sassy Angel

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

In case you wonder why I offer a book giveaway for those who visit others who do this meme, it is because I LOVE community.  Book Blogging is all about sharing our love for books with one another.  By visiting some of the other participants – you never know where you may find that next awesome read – or a blog that becomes one that you want to read more often. 

 

I had a lovely and busy week and weekend.  This past week between work and a couple of evening meetings my reading time was small, I managed to finish two of the audio books I was listening to, but not nearly the amount of reading time I had hoped.  here is what I did accomplish:

Something Blue by Emily Giffin (audio book review that involves thoughts about choking the main character)

Between by Jessica Warman – book review

BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week) is coming!!!!  I posted the categories and how to get registered)

 

One Tuesday Morning by Karen Kingsbury (audio review with a WOW factor)

The Library Book sale and my haul of books 😛

Curse Of The Blue Tattoo by L A Meyer (audio review – the Bloody Jack series)

 

I was on a 150 mile bike ride this weekend that is possibly my favorite ride every year and for a great cause

I got into POTTERMORE!!!!  (yes this a layer of geakiness that you may not even have realized I have 😛

 

 

I came home late afternoon on Sunday from a 150 mile bike ride.  After being slightly idol the past 6 weeks from the arm cast the bike ride was harder than I had imagined.  It rained hard most of the ride on Saturday and then as we were pulling into camp, it cleared and was nice out for the afternoon, overnight, and the 75 miles back on Sunday.  As far as what my plan is for this week…. I have two longer audios going now that I do not think I will finish this week, so only slight planning on that end:

 

 

Hilly is the town’s white Queen Bee with an antebellum attitude towards race. She hopes to lead her minions into the latter part of the century with the “enlightened” view of making sure every home in Jackson, Mississippi, has a separate toilet for the help. Her crusade is, she says, based on clear hygienic criteria, which will save both blacks and whites from heinous diseases.

Despite the fact that the maids prepare the food, care for the children, and clean every part of every home, privy to every secret, many of the white women look at their black maids as an alien race. There are more enlightened views, especially those of Skeeter, a white, single woman with a college degree, who aspires to more than earning her MRS. Skeeter begins collecting the maids’ stories. And the maids themselves find the issue of race humiliating, infuriating, life-controlling. Race sows bitter seeds in the dignity of women who feel they have no choices except to follow their mamas into the white women’s kitchens and laundries. Aibilene says, “I just want things to be better for the kids.” Their hopes lie in education and improvement, change someday for their children.

There is real danger for the maids sharing their stories as well as danger for Skeeter herself. The death of Medgar Evers touches the women deeply, making them question their work and a decision to forge ahead, hoping their book can be published anonymously and yet not recognized by the very white women they know to the last deviled egg and crack in a dining room table.

 

I read this book a couple years back and LOVED it! Now as the movie is about to release this week (August 10th) I thought I would try the audio that I have heard raving about and rightfully so – it is incredible.  (I will not even get started on the fact that it looks like my local theater as well as any theaters within an hour of me will have The Help movie showing.)

 

 

 

 

The incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book’s categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair’s construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham’s challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous “White City” around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair’s incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World’s Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims.

 

This is my book club read for August.  The fact that it is centered around Chicago fascinated me, and the World’s Fair was a plus as well.  We review this yet this week so I need to get a movie on it.  😀

 

 

 

 

When ten-year-old Enaiatollah Akbari’s small village in Afghanistan falls prey to Taliban rule in early 2000, his mother shepherds the boy across the border into Pakistan but has to leave him there all alone to fend for himself. Thus begins Enaiat’s remarkable and often punish­ing five-year ordeal, which takes him through Iran, Turkey, and Greece before he seeks political asylum in Italy at the age of fifteen.

Along the way, Enaiat endures the crippling physical and emotional agony of dangerous border crossings, trekking across bitterly cold mountain pathways for days on end or being stuffed into the false bottom of a truck. But not every­one is as resourceful, resilient, or lucky as Enaiat, and there are many heart-wrenching casualties along the way.

Based on Enaiat’s close collaboration with Italian novelist Fabio Geda and expertly rendered in English by an award- winning translator, this novel reconstructs the young boy’s memories, perfectly preserving the childlike perspective and rhythms of an intimate oral history.

 

This reminds me of another book I recently read and I can not put my finger on the title now… Soldier Boy maybe… 

 

 

Mark your calendars as next Monday August 15th will be the 100th Its Monday What Are You Reading that I have hosted.  There will be a couple bonus giveaways next week for participants so encourage your readers to join in the fun 😀

I am leaving it there for this week.  I am hopeful to get in more reading this week then I did last week.  I am now excited to see what you are reading – please add your What Are You reading to the linky below where it says click here.  😀

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