Pride and Prejudice and Zombies *Review*

Many know Pride & Prejudice is my all-time favorite book. Between the book (which I have read and reread) and the movie (which I have rewatched many times) I can recite most of the lines uttered by the characters by heart.

I have never read a redo of Pride & Prejudice because I didn't want a book that means so much to me to be tainted or destroyed by another author who doesn't have the same amount of love and respect for this novel as I do.

It was with great trepidation I picked up this audio book at the library. In the introduction the author explains how he uses Jane Austen's original manuscript and just changes words, paragraphs, or basic themes in the book but still leaves large portions of the pages untouched. That statement excited me. I could still have my novel much like it has always been! So I popped it into my car stereo.

The book starts familiarily. In fact, I recite lines from it while driving down the highway,and soon it changes. At first I frown. That's not how it goes I protest. Then I begin to laugh because the new word- zombie- seems so out of place in the halls of Longbourn, the Bennet family home.

At times gruesome with talk of decaying corpses, decapitated heads, and pus filled sores and other times hysterically funny- "What? No ninja?" Lady Catherine DeBourgh exclaims when finding the Bennet sisters were brought up without one, I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book from start to finish.

The voice of Katherine Kellgren is perfect for the voices of the Bennet sisters as I have always imagined them to be: Jane's shy and gentle, Elizabeth's strong and determined, Lydia's silly and immature, and Kitty's more serious.

Read this book knowing it will not be the same book you have come to love through the years but accepting that sometimes I little bit of change is okay.

Bloggiesta Challenge Completed!

What an exciting weekend it has been! I have just taken part in my first Bloggiesta and have accomplished so much! I debated not attempting to do the Bloggiesta since my blog was only 7 days old, but I figured if I learned one thing from this event it would be worth it. And learn I did.

I concentrated not on fixing up my blog to make it look prettier but on doing the mini challenges. In doing these challenges I made my blog more productive. Here is a list of what I accomplished:

1. Creating lists and opinion pots: I wrote one opinion post and made a few lists for future posts

2. Learned about vanity alerts and tried this out

3. Elevator Pitch- wrote one up!

4. Blog Directories- registered in 2 of them

5. Blogging buddy- Found one!

6. Favicons and Gravatars- attempted to do a favicon, downloaded it and it has yet
to show up. I need to try this again.

7. Anchor text- Done!

8. Comment Challenge- This has been fun. I have enjoyed the new blogs I have been
to and will continue to do this.

9. Cheat sheet- Started one. I'm sure it will be a big help in the future.

10. Copyrights- Consider this done!

11. Backing up your blog- Not much here yet but I backed it up and now know how to
keep up with this

12. Blogger Mentoring- I signed up on the forum to become a mentee

13. Brainstorming blogging topics- This was fun and I came up with quite a few
ideas.


Whew! No wonder I am exhausted! I didn't get in as much time as I wanted to but all in all I spent 14 hours this weekend working on this. Head on over to Maw Books Blog and take a look at where you can go to complete these mini challenges as well as see all the ones I didn't get to.
Thanks to all who hosted these mini challenges and taught me so much. I can't wait for the next Bloggiesta. Ole!

An Exciting Win for my Son

Yesterday in the mail I received Draw 50 Mythical Creatures by Lee J. Ames which was a win from Karen at Bookin' with Bingo.

I had told my son (and Karen) when this came in the mail it would be his and he was so excited. My son loves to draw and this would be something different for him to learn how to do since he usually draws cartoon people and cars.

When I opened it he was standing right next to me with anticipation. Within minutes he had come back with his first drawing. Here is a sample of what he learned to do from the book. Thanks Bingo for this giveaway!

Favorite Genres

Everyone has a favorite genre of book. You know...the type of book that you gravitate to again and again. The type of book when reading through reviews on other's book blogs you will read word for word rather then just skimming for the final rating. The type of book that you reach for over and over on the library shelves.

My favorite genre is memoirs. It didn't always use to be my favorite and in 6 months it might be something different but for now it's memoirs. I love reading what other people have done with their life and why they have chosen to take the path they are on. I love reading about how someone who was raised in poverty and depravity went on to turn their life around and do something good for themselves and others.

Inching up in second place is historical fiction. This is kind of funny coming from someone who constantly fell asleep in history class becuase it was so boring. Or maybe it was because history was right after lunch- I can't remember!

Historical fiction is fun to read because you are still getting your "fiction fix"- your escape, but you are also learning something in the process. I have learned so much about my country, the times, the culture and the lifestyle of my ancestors by reading historical fiction.

Third favorite genre would have to be books about different cultures. Again, it's all about learning more about my brothers and sisters around the world. What makes us different and what makes us the same.

I'm interested in your opinion. What is your favorite genre and why?

The Year of Living Biblically Review

Last week I went to the library to pick up a few audiobooks to start my Audio Book Challenge 2010 with. While there I also picked up the book The Year of Living Biblically One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs.

Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.

The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverant and irreverant, personal and universal, and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes. The Year of Living Biblically will charm readers both secular and religious. It is part CliffNotes to the Bible, part memoir and part looks into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

I will admit when I picked this book up I was skeptical of it being a funny book. First off, my sense of humor is a little different and I don't find things to usually be laugh out loud funny. Secondly, being a deeply religious person I find religious to be a serious topic and not one to be taken lightly.

However I will have to admit this book had me hooting and holding my sides. A. J Jacobs writes with a refreshingly honest look at his own agnostic background and the skepticism of his life changing during his year of reading the Bible. He first spends some time reading the Bible, writing down laws and commands from the Bible - over 700 of them- and gets to work trying to find the meaning of the law and following it as literally as possible.

His wife is a little more tolerant of his project then I would be but even she has her limits. One scene from the book that still cracks me up comes to mind. One of the laws the author is trying to follow is the original menstruation law that cites you should not touch a woman for 1 week following her cycle because she is considered unclean.

Leviticus 15:20 goes even farther in saying "everything upon which she lies during her impurity shall be unclean; everything also upon which she sits shall be unclean."
One afternoon A. J Jacobs comes home to sit in his favorite chair and his why informs him he might not want to sit there since she has sat on it. Okay, he moves to sit on another chair. "Sat in that one too," says Julie. "And the ones in the kitchen. And the couch in the office." High five to this enterprising woman!

Filled with entertaining and educational moments this book doesn't quite produce the spiritual awakening that I had hoped the author would find at the end of his year-long quest but this self proclaimed agnostic still gets the right idea. It's not always about which religious sect you belong to, or which way laws you follow to the letter or not. Sometimes it's about the joy in knowing their is a higher power and a higher purpose to your life.

Bloggiesta!

Natasha at Maw Books Blog is hosting this year's Bloggiesta. The Bloggiesta which runs from January 8th-10th is a challenge to clean up your book blog, do all those things you've been putting off for months and learn some new things as well.

Being a new book blogger I thought signing up for the Bloggiesta would be an awesome time to jump in with both feet and see what I could do. I have already spent a total of about 6 hours on this challenge and have to date completed 8 mini challenges. Some successfully, and some not so successfully (my flavicon still has not shown up so I'll have to try this one again.) I feel like the more I know, the more I know I don't know. If that makes any sense!

Hopefully today will be another productive day!

A Little Complication...

Recently you might remember me saying that I had been very lucky and had won 4 audiobooks on other book blogs. Then I signed up for my very first challenge, which was the audiobook challenge. I signed up for the Addicted level-12 audiobooks. Stopping at the library I picked up 2 books on CD to get a jumpstart on the challenge before my wins came in the mail.

I received one of my wins in the mail the other day, and I'm currently halfway through one that I had picked up from the library. I'm really enjoying it too I might add. When disc 4 ended I pulled out disc 5 to insert and...nothing. The CD went part of the way in and stuck! It wouldn't go in any further and it would not come out.

Now here I sit, very excited for all the wonderful reads waiting for me on CD and my CD player doesn't work. Now what do I do?

See You in a Hundred Years Review

Last week I was wandering around a few book blogs and ran across a review for this book by Logan Ward. I apologize for not making note of whose blog I read the review on. If it was yours please let me know and I will give you full credit for turning me on to this book.

Logan Ward and his wife, Heather were prototypical New Yorkers circa 2000: their lives steeped in ambition, work, and stress. Feeling their souls grow numb, wanting their toddler son to see the stars at night, the Wards made a plan. They would return to their native South, find a farm, and for one year live exactly as people did in 1900 Virginia: without a car or electricity- and with only the food they could grow themselves. It was a project that would push their relationship to the brink- and illuminate stunning hardships and equally remarkable surprises.

From Logan's emotionally charged battles with Belle, the family workhorse, to Heather's daily trials with a wood-fired cooking stove and a constant siege of garden pests and cantankerous animals, the Wards were soon overwhelmed by their new life. At the same time as Logan and Heather struggled with their increasingly fragile relationship, as their son relished simple joys, the couple discovered something else: within their self-imposed time warp, they hadf found a community, a sense of belonging, and an appreciation both for what we've lost- and what we've gained- across a century of change.

There have been many times I wish I could chuck it all and go back in time. Once when I was reading the Little House on the Prairie series to my young sons we decided to do just that. For one day, we lived like the Ingalls did. No electricity, no TV. We ate food that was suggested in the book and found simpler pasttimes to keep us busy like flying a kite and playing dominoes and cards. We had a great time- for one day.

The Wards had the courage to give up modern conveniences for a whole year. They did a lot of research before embarking on their adventure, bringing supplies with them that were only available in 1900. They experienced many hardships including a drought that threatened to dry up their drinking water supply as well as their food source for the year, and a 2 year old with a fever that made them question thier choice to not have a telephone or a vehicle in case of an emergency.

But along the way they experienced life at it's best too; canning more then their estimated 300 jars of food to get them through the winter, the hospitality and friendship of a neighborhood determined to help them through their year, sitiing on the porch in the dark watching the stars while sipping bourbon, indulging in a Tootsie Roll (invented in 1896), preparing a Thanksgiving feast for family all grown from the garden and cooked in a wood burning oven, and falling into bed exhausted but satisfied from the back breaking day of work.

This book was not only moving but filled with hilarity as well. For instance when Belle, the horse, steps backward and the wagon starts to jackknife, Logans "foot pumps instinctively, searching the floorboards for a brake pedal" before Belle's former owner Marshall simply hollars "Whoa".

Logan Ward is brutally honest about his and Heather's relationship throughout the book and their doubts as to whether all they have done is really worth it. I really enjoyed reading about their foray into the past and would recommend this book to others in a heartbeat.

2010 100+ Reading Challenge

This will be the last challenge I will sign up for this year and it will probably be one of my hardest. I normally average about 60 books a year so for me to almost double what I do will be a real stretch.

This means less time on the computer and more time with my hands gripped on the covers of a book. I love to read but it is a challenge to find the time to do it. There are some days I leave my house at 6:30 in the morning and I don't make my way home until 9pm.

Reading comes in little spurts; at stoplights, lunch breaks, waiting to pick my son up after school, doctor's offices and dentist's chairs. But reading=learning so I'm going to make this more of a priority this year. Part of my New Year's Resolution to be a better person. We'll see what happens!

Thank you J. Kaye for hosting another fantastic challenge!

2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge

When my kids were younger and had a voracious appetite for the printed word I was a weekly visitor to my local library. Now...not so much.

Don't get me wrong, our library has a wealth of resources to choose from: books, books in a bag for book clubs (which our book club has used), audiobooks, and even a new format that comes on a preprogrammed MP3 player type of device. My problem is not with what my library offers but with getting there.

I am a slightly busy employee, mom, Boy Scout volunteer, Bible study leader, blogger, etc. My lunch hours are spent running errands and after work I head straight home to be there when my son gets off the bus. Saturdays I'm so relieved at not HAVING to go somewhere that I usually don't.

Books I read are off my overflowing bookshelf at home that I filled from book and garage sales. This year I decided I'm going to read more of those great books I have been reading about on other book blogs out there. To save money in doing this I will be visiting my local library more. Signing up for this challenge will be my push to make sure I do.

I will be signing up for the Mini- read 25 books level. I think that will be a great start. Thank you J. Kaye for hosting this challenge!

Audio Book Reading Challenge (2010)

I am new to book blogging (see yesterday's very first post!) and therefore new to challenges. As I've been reading other's book blogs in this great blogosphere of ours I saw what fun others were having trying to complete these challenges and what a sense of accomplishment they had when they did.

So, with great excitement- and I'll admit, a little anxiety, I signed up for my very first challenge. I love making lists, and setting goals. My problem is completing them. I start out all gung-ho, ready to conquer the world and then life always seems to get in the way.

Take this challenge for instance. I normally only "read" 2-3 audiobooks a year, but I signed up for the Addicted- 12 book level. What? Am I nuts and setting myself up to fail?

Here is my reasoning behind the level I chose. In the last month I have been entering giveaway after giveaway hoping to win some newer material to read. Most of the books on my bookshelves came from book sales and rummage sales after much prior use. I have won 4 audiobooks in these giveaways (thank you generous souls!) so if I just get them read I will be a third of the way to my goal!

Wanting to get a jumpstart on the challenge before I receive these I decided to stop off at my local library and check a few out. I am currently halfway through Pride & Prejudice and Zombies and loving it.

I am determined to complete this first of my challenges. Please give me your support and cheer me on!

**Thanks to Royal Reviews for hosting this challenge.

The Heretic's Daughter review

Historical fiction has recently become a new love of mine, so recently when a member of the book club that I am in nominated The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent I was excited and immediately cast my vote for it. It received the nod and I put it on my Christmas list. I couldn't wait upon opening it Christmas morning to get started on it.

I read the back of the book again:

In 1752, Sarah Carrier Chapman, weak with infirmity, writes a letter to her granddaughter, revealing the secret she has closely guarded for six decades...
Her story begins more than a year before the Salem witch trials when nine-year-old Sarah and her family arrive in a New England Community already gripped by superstition and fear. As they witness neighbor pitted against neighbor, friend against friend, hysteria escalates- until more than 200 men, women, and children have been swept into prison. Among them is Sarah's mother Martha Carrier.
In an attempt to protect her children, Martha asks Sarah to commit an act of heresy- a lie that will most surely condemn Martha even as it will save her daughter.

This book would surely feed my fascination and I would learn something about this period of our nation's history that I really knew nothing about. Eagerly I dug into the book, and...found myself trying to dig my way back out.

I found the book to be very slow moving. I really wanted to know more about Martha Carrier who truly was condemned to hang in August of 1692. The story, though, is more Sarah's story than Martha's.

Sarah desribes her parents as dry, harsh, sullen & silent. They do not seem to be a loving or close family. So when they move to her grandmother's farm in Andover she experiences the gentleness and love from her grandmother that she has been longing for in her hard and unyielding parents.

When smallpox strikes her brother Andrew, Sarah must take refuge with her aunt, uncle, and cousin Margaret in a neighboring village in order to escape the death grip of the disease. She comes to love her sweet aunt, laugh at her uncle's stories and idolize Margaret so much she does not want to go back to the dourness of her family home, especially after learning her grandmother had fell victim to the dreaded smallpox and has died.

When lies and rumors start to spread about the Carrier family it isn't long before the whispers and taunts of "witch, witch, witch" start to follow Sarah and her mother. When Martha Carrier hears word she is soon to be arrested she makes her daughter promise that she will tell the townsfolk and the judges whatever they want to hear in order to save her own life- even if it means condemning her mother.

It is finally toward the end of the book that we learn Sarah's mother and father aren't as hard and unyielding as Sarah often thought them to be and the sacrifices they make for the sake of their children will tear at your heart. I just wish it hadn't taken three fourths of the book to bring out the emotion that I thought the book would be rife with from the very beginning.

The author, Kathleen Kent, is a tenth-generation descendent of Martha Carrier and grew up listening to stories about her. Her first novel is well written and researched and I would definitely consider reading another book by Ms. Kent.