My Book List

I have been reading like a mad woman for the last month or so. I made it through all of the books that Brian bought me for Christmas and had to buy another $100+ worth from Amazon. I only have four of those left so I’ll be ordering more soon. What I do is try to pick out 4-1/2 or 5 star books on Amazon or I read the reviews for Pulitzer Prize winners (or other kinds of prize winners). I’ve bought a few of Oprah’s books (but typically find them too depressing). And, a couple of years ago, I bought most of the Today Show book suggestions.

I looked up my order history on Overstock.com and Amazon.com, and these are the books I’ve read over the last couple of years:

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards: a good read with an interesting plot though it’s sad.

The Kite Runner by Kahlid Hussein: I put off reading this for two years because it takes place in Afghanistan, and I thought that would be too depressing. I finally picked it up, and (I hate to admit this, but…) it’s a really good book. It’s also very sad (WHY are they all sad?), violent, very disturbing, but worth checking out.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: this is another one I put off reading simply for the sheer volume of the stupid thing. It’s almost 1000 pages long! GREAT book! It’s a real page turner. I couldn’t wait to find out how that monster (Richard, I think–I forget his name) would meet his end! This has almost 1400 customer reviews on Amazon.com!

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Ugh. That’s all I can say about this AWFUL book. I managed to trudge through it, but I was NOT impressed. It’s a piece of garbage.

Foul Play by Janet Evonovich. Anything by this author is a fun, light read!

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz: 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner. This is another sad one. It is laden with Spanish phrases. I sat in front of the computer with a translator website for some of it, but for most of it I was left in the dark. That said, though, it is a really good book.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Wonderful book. It takes place in 19-century China and is an interesting peek into the culture of China–the excrutiating practice of foot binding (“golden lillies”) where a 3″ foot was desired; nu shu; laotong; arranged marriages… great read!

The Road by Cormack McCarthy: OMG! What a very, very sad and freaky book. Really makes you think. Odd for sure. 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner.

Empire Falls by Richard Russo: 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner. Enjoyable read! I’m surprised it won a Pulitzer, though, since it’s just a regular ol’ fiction book.

Cane River by Lalita Tademy. This is a really good book about four generations of black French-speaking slaves in 1800s Lousiana. It is a piece of fiction based on the author’s family. I liked that it has pictures of the real life characters. Slavery is very difficult for me to read about, but this is an excellent book.

The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living by Martin Clark. This is touted as being the “drinking man’s John Grisham” and got lots of rave reviews on Amazon.com and from book critics all over the place. After reading so many sad books, I wanted something funny! Well this is a piece of crap. There is NOTHING funny about it. The plot is stupid (what is up with the “white tears” part???) and the characters drink and drive. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Total waste of money.

The Book Theif by Markus Zusak. LOVED IT!!! Okay… this book takes place in Nazi-occupied Germany (which is also hard for me to read about), but is such a wonderful book I couldn’t put it down. The publisher is Knopf Books for Young Readers, and is recommended for grades 9 and up. Hmmm…??? I really don’t think of this is a book for high schoolers. It’s narrated by Death which is very interesting.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: this book takes place on the channel island of Guernsey after World War II. Guernsey was a strategic location for the Germans to overtake Europe, and the island was occupied for five years with no contact with the outside world. The islanders formed a book club during that time, and the main character of the book (Juliett Ashton) travels to Geurnsey to write a book about the occupation. This is a really good book.

The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring. Great book! Hmmm… I think of the 1950s as a bunch of prudes for some reason. Maybe because my mother always tells me that the 1950s were the “perfect” times which makes me think of innocence and, well…, PRUDES! Not the case in this book; Freeda’s got the mouth of a sailor and they don’t go to church on Sunday! Loved it!

Some Things that Stay by Sarah Willis: five star book with 51 reviewers on Amazon.com. Another great read, but (again) it has an air of sadness: the dad is an idiot, the mom has TB, the cow gets killed, and the family is moved to every year (because the dad is an idiot). It is a really, really good book, though.

What Comes After Crazy by Sandy Kahn Shelton: Okay… this one has a quote on the cover by People that says “Plenty of laughs here.” Again, after reading some many “heavy” books, I wanted a light read. I liked it, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. I thought the Madame Lucille character was flat out TRAGIC (why is everything SAD, SAD, SAD???) and Maz (the main character) is totally spineless. If somebody stole my kid, I would at least make SOME effort to get her back (call the police, you big idiot!!!).

Cold Rock River by J.L. Miles: This is just a great book. It’s a story-within-a-story; half about slavery, half about 1960s Georgia.

Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen: it’s about that bitch (!), Troo (funny I could think that about a 9-year-old, but I did!), and her sister, Sally (the narrator). Another good book. (P.S. I figured it out as soon as the bad guy was introduced!).

The Ballard of Frankie Silver by Sharon McCrumb: I got this book in the library on Johnston Island before I left. It’s a good book, but (once again) SAD! It’s about the first woman to be hanged in North Carolina.

The Old Fox Deceiv’d by Martha Grimes: Another one I got on JI, but didn’t get around to readying for 8 years! Okay, for once, NOT SAD! It’s a good little “who-done-it?” mystery.

A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George: Funny thing is: I read this once before, but I must have only made it partially through because I totally didn’t remember the ending. It’s not bad.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde: LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT! How very, very original. The burbing, farting bookworms are just too clever. And best of all: NOT SAD!!!

The Dogs of Babel by Carlyn Parkhurst: Hmm… I read it… I’m not sure I liked it. The guy tries to teach his dog to talk–but “ruff” isn’t good enough; he wants human language. I know I’m supposed to use my imgination, but I just wasn’t that inspired. And, I thought the wife was a total nut-case. She made love to the husband while wearing a papier-mâché mask she made from a dead girl’s face. Too damn creepy!

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende: I really enjoyed this book. It takes place during the California Gold Rush of 1849 of which I know nothing. It’s a great story of an unlikely friendship. What I really want to know is how people could write letters back and forth across the country to each other, and the letters actually made it to intended recipient…??? NOT SAD!

That Quail, Robert by Margaret A. Stanger: Okay… out of all of the sad books I’ve read this year, this one absolutely takes the cake. Despite being a WONDERFUL book, this one made tears stream down my face.

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz: I guess if you like laughing at schizophrenics then you’d think this is funny, but otherwise, IT’S SAD! There were some really good philosphical-make-you-think parts, but as a whole, I had to trudge through this book because it didn’t really hold my attention.

My New Car (YAY!)

Okay… the LLBean Subaru Outback that we bought in 2001 with 189,000 miles on it finally bit the dust. I’ve been nervously holding my breath every time I drove it for the last month. I wouldn’t start in the Walmart parking lot three weeks ago. And two weeks ago–at a busy stoplight–it started to chug and buck and shake before totally sputtering to death. Not good.

BUT… Brian wanted to do all this research before we bought another one, and he spent three weekends buying different New Car Price Reports and assessing how much we could get for the trade-in and blah, blah, blah. Finally, he decided he had it all figured out, and we went to the car dealership armed with his folder of information and a calculator.

We test drove a really, really nice Outback that was the prettiest color: seacrest green. However it was a 6 cylinder (like I even know what that means). Consumer Reports says that the 4 cylinder, turbo engine has the same power as the 6 cylinder, is cheaper and gets better gas mileage. But they didn’t have any of those on the lot.

 

So, the dealership had to order it for us.  Unfortunately, the 6 cylinder that we looked at is a top-of-the-line car, and those come in exclusive colors, seacrest green being one of them.  We couldn’t get that color in the 4 cylinder.  I had to pick out another color, and I wasn’t real thrilled with any of my choices.  I half-heartedly picked out blue and silver.  However, when we picked it up, I decided it looks really nice.

 

Here’s the car.  It now has 32 miles on it!

 

RyverChyld’s Art Quilt (to me)!

RyverChyld made this cool quilt for me!  She did alot of neat quilting techniques:  the sky is crazy-pieced with silver embroidery;  the grass is pleated;  the trees are appliquéd;  the corners have folded fabric roses;  there are little plastic mice sewn on the tree trunks; and “live” “laugh” “love” is embroidered across the top!  There’s lots going on.  It’s bigger than the one I sent her; I think she said it’s 20 x 24.

I hope she’s not disappointed in the one I sent her!

RyverChyld’s Art Quilt (from me)!

I haven’t posted in awhile…  I finally finished RyverChyld’s art quilt and got it in the mail to her!  I’m pleased with how it turned out–pleased enough that I’m making one for myself, too! 

I didn’t measure it, but I think it’s about 14 x 18.  The minimum size had to be bigger than 12 x 12 and smaller than 24 x 24.

This is the first time I’ve tried quilting.  Usually, I send my big quilts out to be quilted professionally.  Well…  I discovered that quilting is NOT my strong point.  I just quilted straight lines on hers.  I’m going to be a little more adventurous on mine and try to echo quilt around the flowers and then adding the straight quilting afterwards.

I’m really pleased with the binding.  I added rick-rack to the edges, and then bound it with 2.5″ wide strips.  I glued the rick-rack down with glue stick first. 

This is also the first time I’ve sewn the binding down by machine.  On the big quilts I hand sew the back down which is time consuming and boring–my least favorite part of quilting.  Anyway, I flipped the binding over to the back and then used Elmer’s glue (!) to tack it in place so I could use my stitch-in-the-ditch foot on the front.  I was worried that the stitches wouldn’t “catch” on the back, but they did, and it looks great! 

I will DEFINITELY be trying this technique for large quilts from now on!  WHO CARES IF THE BINDING IS STITCHED BY MACHINE???!!!  It’s not like I’m entering any of my quilts in competitions.  And, machine stitching just seems more “substantial” than hand stitching.

The hardest part of this little art quilt was sewing on the hanging tabs.  I had no idea how to do this so I kind of winged it.  They look AWFUL!  And when I received the art quilt that RyverChyld sent me, I saw the “real” way to do it.  I hope she’s not too disappointed in how stupid mine look–they look like a kindergarten project compared to how she did hers!

Anyway, here’s what I made her.  I’ll post hers to me next.