It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a chance for all to share what they accomplished reading wise last week and what your reading plans are for the upcoming week. Join in with Sheila at Book Journey so we can see what you are up to!

I just got a nook a couple of weeks ago as an anniversary gift from my husband and I am so excited to start using it. BUT, I still have three books checked out from the library that are bordering on overdue so that is where my attention will be focused this week.

First up, Faith by Jennifer Haigh:

It is the spring of 2002 and a perfect storm has hit Boston. Across the city's archdiocese, trusted priests have been accused of the worst possible betrayal of the souls in their care. In Faith, Jennifer Haigh explores the fallout for one devout family, the McGanns.

Estranged for years from her difficult and demanding relatives, Sheila McGann has remained close to her older brother Art, the popular, dynamic pastor of a large suburban parish. When Art finds himself at the center of a maelstrom, Sheila returns to Boston, ready to fight for him and his reputation. What she discovers is more complicated than she imagined.

Her strict, lace-curtain-Irish mother is living in a state of angry denial. Sheila's younger brother Mike, to her horror, has already convicted his brother in his heart. But most disturbing of all is Art himself, who persistently dodges Sheila's questions and refuses to defend himself.

As the scandal forces long-buried secrets to surface, Faith explores the corrosive consequences of one family's history of silence-and the resilience its members ultimately find in forgiveness.

Then, if I can stay out of the lake long enough during this super hot and humid week I will also start The Headhunter's Daughter by Tamara Myers:

In 1945, an infant left inadvertently to die in the jungles of the Belgian Congo is discovered by a young Bashilele tribesman on a mission to claim the head of an enemy. Recognized as human-despite her pale white skin and strange blue eyes-the baby is brought into the tribe and raised as its own. Thirteen years later, the girl-now called "Ugly Eyes"-will find herself at the center of a controversy that will rock two separate societies.

Young missionary Amanda Brown hears the incredible stories of a white girl living among the Bashilele headhunters. In the company of the local police chief, Captain Pierre Jardin, and with the witch hunter's wife, the quick-witted Cripple, along as translator, Amanda heads into the wild hoping to bring the lost girl back to "civilization." But Ugly Eyes no longer belongs in their world-and the secrets surrounding her birth and disappearance are playing them all in far graver peril than anyone imagined.

So, that's my week in a nutshell. Now I'm off to see yours!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? May 2nd, 2011

I had a terrible book reading week last week. I pledged to read 2 books and instead I only got about 50 pages into the first! This week all that will change because I'm on vacation!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a chance for all to share what they accomplished readingwise last week and what your reading plans are for the week. Join in with Sheila at Book Journey so we can see what you are up to!

This week I WILL finish In the Woods by Tana French. I have put Love Has a Face on hold since that one was from my own bookshelf and a couple in my TBR pile need to get back to the library. So instead I will be reading:

The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippman

In the third trimester of her pregnancy, Baltimore private investigator Tess Monoghan is under doctor's orders to remain immobile. Bored and restless, reduced to watching the world go by outside her window, she takes small comfort in the mundane events she observes...like the young woman in a green raincoat who walks her dog at the same time every day. Then one day the dog is running free and its owner is nowhere to be seen. Certain that something is terribly wrong, and incapable of leaving well enough alone, Tess is determined to get to the bottom of the dog walker's abrupt disappearance, even if she must do it from her own bedroom. But her inquisitiveness is about to fling open a dangerous Pandora's box of past crimes and troubling deaths...and she's not only putting her own life in jeopardy but also her unborn child's.







And Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo

When Colton Burpo made it through an emergency appendectomy, his family was overjoyed at his miraculous survival. What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed-a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back.




Colton, not yet 4 years old, told his parents he left his body during surgery-and authenticated that claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing in another part of the hospital while he was being operated on. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in his life, sharing events that happened before he was born. He also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, though he had not yet learned to read.




With disarming innocence and the plainspoken boldness of a child, Colton tells of meeting long-departed family members. He describes Jesus, the angels, how "really, really big" God is, and how much God loves us. retold by his father, but using Colton's uniquely simple words, Heaven is for Real offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as Colton says, "Nobody is old and nobody wears glasses."

So that's my reading week! What does yours look like?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 4/25/11

Monday! What Are You Reading is a chance for all to share what they accomplished readingwise last week and what their reading plans are for the week. Join in with Sheila at Book Journey so we can see what you are up to!
















Last week I finished:

1. Tiger, Tiger

2. Thirteen Reasons Why (review coming)

3. The Long Walk (review Coming)


This week I go back to work after a week's vacation so I will have a lot of catching up to do. Hopefully I will still have time to do some reading. The books I will be reading this week come from my own bookshelf! I try to get to at least one down from those dusty ol' shelves once a month and this month I went for broke and grabbed two. After all, our book club's charity book sale will be coming up in a few months and I have to have something to contribute!




Three children leave their small Dublin neighborhood to play in the surrounding woods. Hours later, their mother's calls go unanswered. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, Detective Rob Ryan-the found boy, who has kept his past a secret-and his partner Cassie Maddox investigate the murder of a twelve-year-old girl in the same woods. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him, and that of his own shadowy past

Born without her left hip and leg, Michele Perry is no stranger to seeming impossibilities. So when she arrived in war-torn southern Sudan, with little more than faith in God's promises, she did what everyone told her was crazy: She opened a home for the orphaned children in guerrilla warfare territory.



With a deft pen, she recounts unforgettable stories that capture the stark realities of caring for more than one hundred little lives in the middle of a war zone-and the love and mercy of God she's found there.






Well that's it for this week. I hope the rest of you have a super week planned!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? April 18th, 2011

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a chance for all to share what they accomplished readingwise last week and what their reading plans are for the week. Join in with Sheila at Book Journey so we can see what you are up to! Last week I finished Little Princes and started Tiger, Tiger. Not much accomplished at all. This week I will be busy doing some spring cleaning and running a lot of errands getting ready to have Easter dinner at my house. But, I am on vacation again so I'm thinking I might be able to squeeze in some reading time. Here's what I'm planning: Finish Tiger, Tiger which is a memoir about a girl and a pedophile and the curious bond that they have. Start The Long Walk. In 1941, the author and six fellow prisoners escaped a Soviet labor camp in Yakutsk-a camp where surviving hunger, cold, untended wounds and untreated illness, and avoiding daily executions were everyday feats. Their trek over thousands of miles by foot-out of Siberia and through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India- was a remarkable journey through some of the most inhospitable conditions on the face of the earth. This is a true story that inspired the film The Way Back starring Ed Harris and Colin Farrell.

I also hope to get a start on Thirteen Reasons Why. This one I checked out on audio once and never got around to it.

You can't stop the future . You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret is to press play.

Clay Jensen doesn't want anything to do with the tapes Hannah Baker made. Hannah is dead, he reasons. Her secrets should be buried with her. Then Hannah's voice tells Clay that his name is on the tapes- and that he is, in some way responsible for her death. All through the night, Clay keeps listening. He follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his small town...and what he discovers changes his life forever.

I'm curious if anyone has read The Long Walk or seen the movie made from the book. I know a lot of you have read Thirteen Reasons Why, tell me what you thought of it!

(Sorry about this mess of a post. Sometimes I can not get Blogger to do what I want it to do. I still have so much to learn! Does anyone else have problems getting pictures where you want some times? Or the spacing to go right? GRR!)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? April 11, 2011

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a chance for all to share what they accomplished readingwise last week and what their reading plans are for the week. Join in with Sheila at Book Journey so we can see what you are up to!

I didn't get quite as much read last week as I had hoped but as Meatloaf sings (much better than I) "two out of three ain't bad."

I finished Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and Sundays at Tiffany's. Still on my list for this week is Little Princes.

The only other book I am adding for this week is Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir

One summer day, Margaux Fragosa meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is fifty-one. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child's paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.

In time, he insidiously takes on the role of playmate, father and lover. Charming and manipulative, Peter burrows into every aspect of Margaux's life and transforms her from a child fizzing with imagination and affection into a brainwashed young woman on the verge of suicide. But when she is twenty-two, it is Peter-ill, and wracked with guilt- who kills himself, at the age of sixty-six.

Told with lyricism, depth, and mesmerizing clarity, Tiger, Tiger vividly illustrates the healing power of memory and disclosure. This extraordinary memoir is an unprecedented glimpse into the psyche of a young girl in free fall and conveys to readers-including parents and survivors of abuse-just how completely a pedophile enchants his victim and binds her to him.

Wow! I didn't realize until now that these two intense books where stacked right next to each other on my TBR pile! Maybe I should restack my pile to make sure a light comedic book is up for next week. Looks like I'll be needing it!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Hello! I'm a newbie here! I have fun following this meme weekly but I have never participated. My schedule is crazy and I'm lucky if I can post once or twice a week. BUT, I was on vacation this week and even though I was gone Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday when I finally got around to reading I finished 4 books in 4 days! AND had time to schedule some future posts! I am so psyched about that! Can you imagine what I could accomplish if I didn't have to work?

That's right, absolutely nothing!! lol

Anyhoo- as I understand it It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a chance for all to share what their reading plans are for the week. Join in with Sheila at Book Journey so we can see what you are up to!

I will be going back to work ...Boo! And even though I won't be getting through 4 books in 4 days I do plan on reading these:

I just started this this morning and I'm loving it. Very cute and quirky!

This one is a book club read and I heard it's a quick read so I just might be able to get to this next one-

I've heard great things about this and until a few days ago it was halfway down my reading pile. I will not finish this one, but I should get a good start.

So that's my week! Now I'm going to go visit yours!