Had you asked me Sunday morning what my favorite book is, I would have answered with absolutely no hesitation: “Gone With the Wind”. Like, it’s a part of my SOUL. Hello? It was the theme of my WEDDING. But today….today things changed. If I were going to be exiled on a deserted island for all of eternity & I could take only one book…well, I would still take Gone With The Wind because it’s longer but I would sneak this one under my shirt. It’s the most wonderful book in the whole wide world. It’s a FAIRY TALE. For ADULTS. Why did we ever stop reading fairy tales? They’re like a vacation from LIFE. They’re fun. They’re not pretentious. You don’t have to pretend to like them. You get lost & forget to eat or talk to your husband or answer your boss’s emails. I mean… I’ve heard you might do those things. I am ever diligent. And vigilant. And I will probably cry when I return this one to the library tomorrow, even though I have six of his books en route to me right now. Including this one. Here’s a convenient link for you to buy your own: 2nd greatest. Seriously. or if you want to buy me the ultra swanky signed, leatherbound edition, find it here: https://www…
IThe Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Book #4: A Young Adult Bestseller I’m not above reading YA. I believe that sometimes people disregard YA novels because they are too juvenile. You could not make a bigger mistake. Generally speaking, YA isn’t full of fancy language. It’s just easy reading & generally captivating. Since I had bought Hunger Games sometime back on the recommendation of pretty much everyone in the world, and I feel like I’m the last person left in the universe to read it, I figured I’d better hop to it. That, and because I’d broken the cardinal rule of all readers everywhere, & watched the movie a couple of years ago. That’s right, before I ever cracked the spine on the book. One of the guys at work, who never reads anything at all, even commented that it was the only book he’d ever read cover to cover for pleasure (not assigned school reading). So it HAD to be good. I found it spellbinding from the get go. I was thankful for the explanation early in the novel of how Panem, their country, came to be because I never understood that from the movie. Furthermore, Katniss’s homeland, District 12, is the Appalachians. So she’s even more near & dear to my heart. “To the everlasting credit of the people of District 12…they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we…
Guess what? No, I didn’t hit the lottery. Y’all goobers really think I’d post it like this? No. You’d see a picture of me with my toes in the sand & a drink my hand. Guess what? Guess who your newest blogger for Sevier County Public Library System is? ME!!!! *picture me holding my arms out, head tilted towards the sun that is shining directly on me, much like a spotlight, eyes squinched shut, spinning* Miss Rhonda pitched a reading challenge at me last week & it was 40 books. Combined with our one a month for book club, that makes 52, which is perfect because my goal is one a week. So she said since I basically write a review on Goodreads anyway, would I care if they shared it on the library’s media sites? Well, heck no!!! So, that’s the gist of it. The way I understood it, anyway. Follow me! Follow me! I’ll be harping along as usual. P.s. Coming home tonight, I stopped for supper to bring home. Most women my age have children, & when traveling, if they have to slam on the brakes, they instinctively reach an arm across their kid’s chest. You know, like a backup seatbelt. Me, I sling an arm across my bag of food to prevent it from hitting the floor. Priorities…
A Book You Love & One You Didn’t There are so many things wrong with this subject. First of all the words “One” & “A”. Like I could seriously pick just one of each. But I will try. It’s fairly easy to pick one I love because I just finished it. It kept my attention like few have in the past few years. It was my Book Club’s selection for this month: Fever by Mary Beth Keane. It’s the story of Typhoid Mary, set in the early years of the 20th century. New York City’s lower east side tenements were teeming with disease and filth & Mary was a cook for some of the richest families of Manhattan. She is an unmarried Irish immigrant with strong opinions & an even stronger work ethic. Yeah, I know it sounds boring, but I am telling you it is gripping & engrossing enthralling & all the words. She makes it so interesting & causes you to speculate on your own life. Are you where you’d thought you’d be as an adult? Do you think it will always be as it is now? What if you are old & lose your job & no one wants you? What if the thing you love & that you are best at is punishable by law if you practice it? What if the man you love is an alcoholic…