At the beginning of the year I set up a goal on Goodreads to read 75 books this year and I achieved that goal by reading 76. YAY!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Here are the books that I read...
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Here are the books that I read...
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Happy New Year 2012 Giveaway Hop
My giveaway for this hop is Beauty: An Extraordinary Tale
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Mid-Winters Eve Blog Hop
Monday, December 19, 2011
Desktop Monday 12/19/11
Is anyone excited to see which books have arrived on my desk this week? There are some that look pretty exciting!! :)
Voices of the Dead by Peter Leonard
This one won't be published until January but the author went ahead and sent me an epub copy and will send me a paper copy later. :)
An Anthem for the Battle Lands by Michelle Scott
This was a complimentary copy from the author and here is the description from Goodreads:
Five Skills Between Confusion and AHA! by Guinevere Durham
This is a complimentary copy from the author and I'm actually really excited about it. My major is elementary education and I always complain b/c people teach kids information instead of how to learn the information. So... I think this will be interesting! :)
Arrows of Desire by Sandra Adickes
This was a complimentary copy sent to me from the author.
The following description comes from Goodreads,
"Arrows of Desire chronicles the triumphs and heartaches of three generations of the working-class Benton family as they struggle for Parliamentary reform and social progress in nineteenth-century England."
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This one won't be published until January but the author went ahead and sent me an epub copy and will send me a paper copy later. :)
Here is what amazon says about it, "Detroit, 1971. Harry Levin, scrap metal dealer and holocaust survivor, learns that his daughter has been killed in a car accident. Travelling to Washington DC, he's told by Detective Taggart that the German diplomat, who was drunk, has been released and afforded immunity; he will never face charges. So Harry is left with only one option - to discover the identity of this man, follow him back to Munich and hunt him down. The first of a two-hander, Peter Leonard's new novel is a classic cat-and-mouse thriller. Told with swagger, brutal humour and not a little violence, it follows a good man who is forced to return to the horrors of his past."
This was a complimentary copy from the author and here is the description from Goodreads:
"Desperate to maintain their superiority, Magicians are fighting to keep machinery and inventions out of the hands of their serving class, the commons. To this end, the Magicians have waged a war -- a terribly destructive, magical war -- against any and all who dare to allow the unmagical commons to improve their lives through mechanical means.In the midst of this terrible battle, a small group of commons struggles to survive. They make their living by serving the dead, charging five cents to dig a grave, sew a shroud, and ring a peal. And in a land decimated by war, plague, and famine, they have plenty of work.pWhen the group meets a charismatic man by the name of William Rufflit and learns that he is working to build a militia of commons armed with his terrifying new invention -- the fyrestick -- they feel something they haven't experienced in a long time; hope. But what they don't realize is that Rufflit may not be their savior after all. He may, in fact, be an enemy even more fearsome than the one they are already facing."
This is a complimentary copy from the author and I'm actually really excited about it. My major is elementary education and I always complain b/c people teach kids information instead of how to learn the information. So... I think this will be interesting! :)
Here is the Goodreads' description, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” (Chinese Proverb) By the same premise, teach children the facts and you prepare them for the test. Teach them HOW TO LEARN the facts and you prepare them for a lifetime. In this age of technology, the teacher’s role is no longer that of presenter, lecturer, or the authority on the material. Today’s teacher is the mentor, guide, facilitator, and supporter. The educator who teaches the facts is now obsolete; now in place is the educator who teaches the student HOW TO LEARN the facts. Teaching methods include the five skills needed in order to LEARN HOW TO LEARN, culminating in being able to access, assess, analyze, and add up all the facts to form a conclusion. This is accomplished through the many avenues of technology.
Five Skills Between Confusion and AHA! identifies explains, and illustrates the competencies needed for this process:
Logic, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Investigating, and Experimenting. The skills may be used either independently of or in collaboration with each other. The learning style of the child, left-brained/right-brained and visual/auditory/kinesthetic modality, is also explained. Five Skills Between Confusion and AHA! is written for both educator and non-educator and provides material to use at home, in a classroom, or in the world.
Educator = everyone in the child’s circle who has a stake in teaching the child HOW TO LEARN for a lifetime."
This was a complimentary copy sent to me from the author.
The following description comes from Goodreads,
"Arrows of Desire chronicles the triumphs and heartaches of three generations of the working-class Benton family as they struggle for Parliamentary reform and social progress in nineteenth-century England."
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Collin's Corner: The Big Tan Van
This is the day that I talk about children's book with a bit of input from my six year old son, Collin. :)
Collin is in kindergarten and learning to read. However, he hates it. I thought it was me and I was doing something wrong. I mean, I read all the time and my husband and I read to the kids all the time and they LOVE it! Collin just doesn't like reading himself. I started thinking about it and remembered how much I despised reading as a child. Finally, when I grew up, I started reading what I wanted to read and not what my mom or teachers wanted me to read and I found that I LOVED reading.
Continue Reading...
Collin is in kindergarten and learning to read. However, he hates it. I thought it was me and I was doing something wrong. I mean, I read all the time and my husband and I read to the kids all the time and they LOVE it! Collin just doesn't like reading himself. I started thinking about it and remembered how much I despised reading as a child. Finally, when I grew up, I started reading what I wanted to read and not what my mom or teachers wanted me to read and I found that I LOVED reading.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Flashback Friday: Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Guest Author Blog Post - Eric John Swanson
Eric graduated from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago with a MDIV degree. After Eric graduated he went on several short term mission trips and even applied for some long term missionary assignments. Eric also felt lead to seek out a job in a church setting, but the door for both domestic and international long term service was closed.
Eric went through a time of wondering what his next step should be. He was encouraged on one short term missionary trip that his writing skills could be used to glory God and thus went to pursue a career in writing. His novel CLOSET is his first book and is currently looking for a way to get his second novel published with the potential title of OUTCAST.
You can visit Eric at www.ericjohnswanson.com
Now, here's Eric John Swanson---
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Author Interview: Rachel Greer
Rachel Greer was born in Milwaukeee, Wisconsin on October 25th, 1992. In her teen years, she loved to recite Maya Angelou poems in the after school activity of Forensics. Her favorite poem to recite was, Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou. She loved the confidence Ms. Angelou had. Rachel strives everyday to be the phenomenal young woman that she is.
Rachel attended a suburban school in the state of Wisconsin. She managed to graduate 1 year early from high school and pushed on to college. She currently attends a technical school in her area with desires to earn a Associate’s Degree is Business Management. While being an freshman in college, she has the title of an Wisconsin Scholar.
Rachel is naturally ambitious, she looks for more ways to back up her mission and that’s building an empire before she dies. Rachel feels she has a purpose for being put on Earth and everyone she will touch in some way or form. Rachel enjoys working, shopping, school, and real guys. As she would say, “I’m a robot, but still a bit normal.” Rachel is a woman of her word, yet very dedicated to everything she’s involved in. In Rachel’s eyes, if you have faith and stay loyal; nothing’s impossible and that way you may reach for the stars. This young woman really believes that the world is hers, and you only lose if you choose. One thing that makes her stand out is the fact that she won’t let anyone tell her no when it comes to her ambitions and dreams. At this moment of time she says, she feel so alive. Rachel is indeed grasping every bit of her destiny.
Words of Inspiration from Your Own Kind is yet her proudest accomplishment.
Closet by Eric John Swanson
Review: John picked up an ordinary book while out with his wife, hoping that it would give him some of the answers he searched for. He was jobless and had no income to support his wife and infant son, Derek. It seemed like an innocent book until John was reading it in the privacy of his closet and hands came from the wall and choked him.
Twenty years later, Derek (John's son) has graduated from seminary and in search of a job. He feels discouraged and turns to the occult out of desperation. A portal opens and a witch uses it to kidnap Derek's son and wife. Derek must go through the portal to a demonic dimension and save the ones he loves before they are destroyed.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Desktop Monday on a Tuesday ;)
Desktop Monday (or, this week a Tuesday) is when I tell you all the new books that have arrived on my desktop this week. Exciting!! :)
The Returned by Dr. Laurence B. Brown (complimentary copy from the author).
The Fractured Life of 3742 by Rob Cabitto (complimentary copy from the author).
Words of Inspiration by Rachel Greer (complimentary copy from the author.)
See review here.
Continue Reading...
Goodreads says, "For brothers Nathan and Mark Jones, the best summer vacation they can imagine is one of wild adventure. That is why they join their college geochemistry professor on a prospecting trip to South America. But what begins as a simple expedition rapidly devolves into a life-altering trip into the darkest corners of the human soul. The brothers’ lives soon morph into a kaleidoscope of the best and worst that lawless human nature and untamed wilderness can dish out. They quickly realize that their survival depends not only upon one another, but upon the native Indians they have been taught to fear—the only ones who can lead them back to civilization.
Forty years later, Nathan returns to uncover the truths behind the deadly expedition. In the process, he uncovers a secret that traps him in a terrifying collision of belief, superstition, and survival.
In the vein of Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man and John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest, Dr. Brown captures with primal ferocity the clash between the west’s fanciful myths of indigenous cultures, and the harsh reality we encounter when our worlds, ideals, and morals collide. Probing the deepest recesses of the human psyche, he lays bare the unadorned savagery not just of primitive cultures, but of all people who are forced into adrenaline-fueled battles of wits and wills to survive. The Returned is an insightful, scintillating, action-packed adventure that illuminates the survival-based instincts that lie dormant in us all—and how choices in desperate circumstances define our characters."
From Goodreads, "The Life of 3743 is a journey, beginning with tragedy, addiction and culminating in redemption born out of desperation.
Rob Cabitto's story of his fractured life being redeemed is a powerful and cautionary tale of how a life can go horribly wrong. When Rob was five, he was put up for adoption because of the severe addictions of his parents.
As is often the case, these early hardships helped to make the man who he is today. Rob tells what it was like to live untethered to any spiritual, tribal or social belief system--and the consequences associated with an amoral lifestyle. He describes exactly what it was like to be homeless, penniless and jobless, with nowhere to go but down. However, what he believed to be his bottom was only a temporary stopping point. He had yet to fall further, and for many years, lived in the abyss of a life without meaning or direction.
This story is about overcoming immense obstacles as a child, the bad choices he made as a young adult and into adulthood, and the resilience of the human spirit. The Fractured Life Redeemed is insightful, captivating and has a universal message for all those who have been hopeless or lost--and that message is hope..."
See review here.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Words of Inspiration by Rachel Greer
Review: Words of Inspiration from Your Own Kind you realize that it isn’t merely your own life that may contain complexities. Through all of life’s adversities, it’s individually up to you to determine if you will surmount obscurity and persist on toward your destiny. If tomorrow never came, would you let what happened yesterday carry on to today?
Words of Inspiration from Your Own Kind is not simply inspiration to those in the ghettos of America; it’s encouragement to every type of person. All of us, as human beings, face hardships with life. This inspirational book of poetry expresses a variety of topics including relationships, love, pain, success, motivation, friendships, and negativity. You’ll be engrossed in deep thought, smiles, and perhaps even shed a few tears. This book portrays countless feelings and stories of life at both its paramount and its shoddiest.
Words of Inspiration from Your Own Kind becomes the national anthem of all individuals dealing with life’s imperfections.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Sunday Says...
I have been thinking a lot about the media that finds it's way in my house. My children are young so it's still fairly easy to control what they see but I am concerned about when they get older. My brain wandered to The 13 Articles of Faith. For those of you who don't know, I am a Latter-day Saints (commonly called Mormon) and the Articles of Faith are a basic outline of what we believe. Anyways, the 13th one popped in my head which reads,
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"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."The part in bold at the end is what really caught my attention. We must seek after these things that are virtuous, lovely, good report, or praiseworthy. So, how do you keep these things in your home and keep the unclean things out of your home?
Friday, December 9, 2011
Flashback Friday: First Test (Protector of the Small #1) by Tamora Pierce
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Adventure
Review: In the realm of Tortall it was traditionally only males who became knights but after the Lioness had pretended to be a boy and became a knight, a decree was passed permitting females to become knights. Keladry of Mindelan becomes the first female knight in training. The boys give her a hard time and no one thinks she will make it through the training. Meanwhile, a war is brewing and Keladry must prove herself to help save Tortall.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Know Me Better 12/8
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
The Realmsic Conquest: The Candle of Crest by A. Demethius Jackson
Review: The Realm possesses magic and therefore must protect itself from others wanting to possess it as well. The Realm has never known peace. Warlord Damian tries to take over and King Maebus the Grand Wizard Kelm think it may happen until they discover an ancient legend that talks of a hero who will save them, Leoden.
The Realm finds itself in trouble again and King Maebus is wounded. The magic of the realm begins crumbling as Kelm and Leoden work to save the realm again and must locate the Candle of Crest before all is lost and the Realm is destroyed.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Invasion (C.H.A.O.S. #1) by Jon S. Lewis
Review: Colt is just a regular kid in a regular world. After a great day of surfing and an encounter with some unknown creature under the water, Colt returns to an empty home. A little while later a police man shows up to inform Colt that his parents were killed in a car crash. He moves to Arizona with his grandfather and suspicion arises that perhaps his parents were murdered. Suddenly, Colt's life isn't what it used to be. Things he thought were make believe are suddenly real. His stories in his comic books suddenly seem like history and Colt has to uncover the truth as the invasion begins.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Desktop Monday 12/5/11
Let's see what books arrived on my desktop this week. :)
The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel (synopsis from Goodreads)
Closet by Eric John Swanson (synopsis by Goodreads)
Mo Wren, Lost and Found by Tricia Springstubb (synopsis from Goodreads)
First Frost by Jennifer Estep (synopsis from Goodreads)
Continue Reading...
Harper is the youngest attorney in her firm to make partner and, at thirty-five, the oldest one to remain unmarried. It seems the more successful she gets, the faster men run for the door. What to do? Apply her very expensive law school education to the problem, of course! (won on a giveaway)
It seemed to be an innocent looking book that John picked up from the local bookstore, but late that night, as he read it in the secret of his closet, a creature emerged. Then with arms extended strangled the life out of him, leaving behind Megan and their baby Derek. But as Megan was leaving the house, two other forms attempted to kill her as well. The mysterious creatures were silent for the next two decades and Derek even managed to get married and start a family with a mentally disabled son. He went to seminary and was starting to look for a job. But, after receiving multiple rejections, Derek was at the bottom of despair. Then after a chance encounter with a witch, he picked up a book from the sidewalk that seemed to have all the answers he needed in life. Later that evening, as Derek was reading the book, there was a noise from the closet, and a door was opened to a demonic dimension that a local witch uses to take his mentally disabled son and wife into. Derek then enters the same dimension to save the ones he loves. Along the way he confronts the evil in his own life through the help of the Holy Spirit, who shows up in seven different human forms depending on the situation. After dealing with his own weaknesses Derek has to win back his wife, and confront the two creatures that plagued his parents. Closet captures the attention of young adults and fans of the supernatural. It helps the reader to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and how the Spirit helps us to not only confront our weaknesses, but to gain victory as well. Also, it helps us the reader gain a better understanding of the plan He has for our lives. (complimentary copy from author for a blog tour)
This is the story of what happened after Fox Street.
Mo Wren knew that eventually she, her dad, and her sister, Wild Child Dottie, would have to move from beloved Fox Street. She just never expected it to happen so soon.
At the Wrens’ new place, things are very different. The name of the street—East 213th—has absolutely zero magic. And there’s no Mrs. Petrone to cut her hair, no Pi Baggott to teach her how to skateboard, no Green Kingdom to explore. She’s having trouble fitting in at her new school and spending a lot of time using the corner bus shelter for her Thinking Spot. Worst of all, Mo discovers that the ramshackle restaurant Mr. Wren bought is cursed. Only Dottie, with her new friends and pet lizard, Handsome, is doing the dance of joy.
For the first time in her life, Mo feels lost and out of place. It’s going to take a boy who tells whoppers, a Laundromat with a mysterious owner, a freak blizzard, and some courage to help her find her way home for good.(complimentary copy from author for review)
I am Gwen Frost, and I have a Gypsy gift. It's called psychometry - that's a fancy way of saying that I see images in my head and get flashes of other people's memories off almost everything I touch, even guys.
My gift makes me kind of nosy. Okay, okay, maybe a lot nosy--to the point of obsession sometimes. I want to know everything about everyone around me. But even I don't want to know the secrets my friend Paige is hiding or the terrible loss that will send me to a new school - Mythos Academy, where the teachers aren't preparing us for the SATs, but to battle Reapers of Chaos. Now I have no friends and no idea how my gift fits in with all these warrior whiz kids. The only thing I do know is that my life is never, ever going to be the same. . . (complimentary copy from Barnes and Noble)
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday Says...
Sundays are my day to discuss whatever I want. Sometimes I use quotes from mainstream books, quotes about books or just any quote that I feel like quoting and talking about. Today, I want to talk about The Family: A Proclamation to the World, specifically the quote below.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Collin's Corner: Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
Review: A peddler calls out, "Caps For Sale! Fifty cents a cap!" as he walks up and down the street. One day, hungry and tired, he decides to lean against a tree and take a nap. When he wakes he discovers all of his hats are missing except for his very own checked cap.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Flashback Friday: The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Review: Tally is getting ready to turn sixteen and she cannot wait. She will no longer be ugly and have the facial features and imperfections she was born with that make her unique. Instead, she will be surgically altered to "perfection" and look like everyone else. In her world, this is normal. This is what everyone does. Her best friend is only a few months older than her and turned into a Pretty already and this left her in search of a new friend to hang out with and she finds Shay. But, Shay doesn't want to be a Pretty, she just wants to be herself. She runs away and leaves Tally in a difficult situation. She must either find Shay and tell the authorities where she is or never become a Pretty herself. In her search for Shay she learns the secrets behind her home and society. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
Booklover's Holiday Giveaway Hop
This giveaway will end at 11:59pm (Eastern) on December 6th.. I will send out an e-mail to the winner by the 8th. So, what am I giving away? One hardback copy of The Christmas Singing by Cindy Woodsmall.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Know Me Better 12/1
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