If You Want to Write- Brenda Ueland; The Story of Edgar Sawtelle- David Wroblewski; For One More Day- Mitch Albom

Here's a drive by book review. I haven't been in my house for more than about 48 hours in the last two months. Unfortunately, that also hasn't translated into good blogging or reading time, but I have read a few books. Here are the super quick and dirty reviews.

If You Want to Write- Brenda Ueland

This was a decent book. I liked some of her advice, expecially about finding the microscopic truth in everything you write. It really had a quiet confidence to it. I don't know that I like it more than Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, but it was pretty good. Worth the read for any writer.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle- David Wroblewski

I'm almost always a day late and a dollar short in jumping on the Oprah bandwagon. So, I'm sure by this point many of you have already read this book, or read a million reviews about it, but here's what I think anyway. I liked it. It was a nice sweeping style family epic that we haven't seen in a while. I felt it moved a little slowly at times, and I can't say that I loved the ending. However, Wroblewski's writing is fantastic and his characters are really intriguing and have a depth that most authors don't achieve. Quite good overall, but not earth-shattering.

For One More Day- Mitch Albom

I might be a little biased on this one, having lost my own mother, but I loved this novel. It is so crisp and beautiful. The concept is intriguing and the pacing is spectacular. Albom creates a magical space and I bought it. The characters are very real and the plot is everyone's wish. Read it, definitely. It's a quick read and is quite amazing.

Very Quick

I'm off to a wedding this weekend, but I hope to provide a more detailed blog post next week. We'll see.
Here's the quick version:
finished all the books that I'm listed as reading on my Goodreads. Started The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Haven't been writing much. I have no plot, nothing actually happens in my novel. This is a problem that I am attempting to fix.
Started knitting a new baby blanket and new scarf. Pics to come.
Got a job for next year.
Went to NY for my cousin's graduation from West Point and hung out in the city for a few days.

Again... more to come, possibly with pictures and/or more details. :)

The Winner Stands Alone- Paulo Coelho

The Winner Stands Alone: A Novel by Paulo Coelho

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I list Paulo Coelho as one of my favorite authors, and I love a number of his books. While I liked this one, it definitely wasn't my favorite. That being said, I also think a lot of people just won't get it.

The Winner Stands Alone follows a number of characters through twenty-four hours at the Cannes Film Festival. Igor is a powerful Russian entrepreneur who goes to the festival to get back his wife Ewa, who left him. He is trying to catch her attention by destroying worlds. We follow a variety of characters: Igor, a notorious film distributer, an aspiring actress, model on the rise, and an unknown film director. Igor believes that his mission is one that must be carried out at any cost. I won't say a whole lot more about the plot, as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who would like to read this book.

I do think that Coelho paints an interesting picture of this world of excess. No one is happy in this novel, regardless of how famous they are or how much money they have. He illustrated the fleeting quality of life and I believe, tries to acknowledge what really should matter--not money and fame, but love and people. I think I'll read this book again in a few months and try to think about it more. While I did like it, I don't know if many people will. The vast majority of society clings to the idea that if we just had a little more money, or were famous, or more beautiful, then everything would be all right. Not so, says Coelho and while I believe this is an important message, I'm not sure that the world is ready to hear it, nor am I really sure that is what he intended, it's just my own interpretation.

At any rate, I would definitely recommend this book. It was a good read, and was structured in an interesting way. As a writer, I really appreciated the structure and his interesting points of view. It definitely read quickly, but like I said, I think I will read it again to delve into the deeper meaning.

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Still alive... barely

So, I've been sick. Not for the entire two and a half weeks since I last posted, but it's a good excuse right? This won't be a long post but a quick update. I've been working on my writing. I'm heading to the Pikes Peak Writer's Conference this week and I'm really excited about it. I hope that I get a lot of great feedback on my novel and get to meet some new people! Should be fun.

I've been reading Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write, loving it so far. I'm also reading Portrait of a Lady for my 100 Books Project. Didn't get very far in that one before Coelho's latest, The Winner Stands Alone, showed up for me to review. So... hopefully I'll have some reviews soon. :)

In knitting news... well, not much actually. I'm working on a project for a friend. I don't think she reads this blog, but just in case, I'm going to keep it stealth. It should be cute though.

And panicking, yep good dose of that. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing for work next year. I have a job teaching 6th grade Language Arts if I want it, but it's full time. So, I'm waiting around to see if any half time jobs come up that I might like better.

At any rate- I'll try to blog more about the conference when I get there. Also, I have a website going live soon. It will really only link you back here- but I'm increasing my web presence. Building that ever-important platform. :)

Hilarious! :)

This is just too awesome not to share... and it's sort of knitting related, so maybe it makes up for my lack of knitting pictures recently. :) 

Project Fill in the Gaps

So I'm stealing (well, not stealing as she asked people to do it with her) this directly from Moonrat, but she stole it from a friend of hers... so really it's not stealing any more right? :)

Anyway... this is Project Fill in the Gaps. If I can figure it out, I'll be putting a button on this blog for it; that's big if though. At any rate, Moonie put together a list of books that she feels she should have read at some point. I'm copying her rules exactly for this project, so here they are. Feel free to steal from me if you wish.
I'm giving myself 5 years starting now and rounding up (ie almost 6 years...) so my goal will be to finish 75 of these 100 books by New Year 2015. There is a 25% accident forgiveness. So if I finish 75 of these books, I'll consider myself victorious.

Here are my criteria for selecting the books that appear on this list:
1. They were on the bookshelf in my bedroom and I hadn't read them.
2. They were on the bookshelf in my office and I hadn't read them. (I didn't venture to the basement with the 8 other bookshelves because I didn't feel like dealing with stairs.)
3. They were on some of the "books I should read" lists that I've printed over the years.
4. My husband rambled books at me and I choose some of those as well.
It was a very scientific method of choosing.

Without further ado... here's the list. If I misspelled or mis-authored something please let me know. I'll be posting reviews of these as they are finished both here, on Goodreads, and on The BookBook.


1. Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
3. Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
4. The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. The Crucible- Arthur Miller
6. The Infinite Plan- Isabel Allende
7. The Pilgramage- Paulo Coelho
8. Obit- Jim Sheeler
9. Siddartha- Hermann Hesse
10. The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
11. Anthem- Ayn Rand
12. Into the Wild- Jon Krakauer
13. Robinson Crusoe- Daniel Defoe
14. Jasmine- Bharati Mukherjee
15. A Room with a View- E. M. Forster
16. The Garden of Eden- Ernest Hemingway
17. The Remains of the Day- Kazuo Ishiguro
18. The Reivers- William Faulkner
19. Breakfast at Tiffany’s- Truman Capote
20. The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison
21. Bee Season- Myla Goldberg
22. Cat’s Eye- Margaret Atwood
23. The Divine Comedy- Dante Alighieri
24. Les Miserables- Victor Hugo
25. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha- Roddy Doyle
26. Anna Karenin- Leo Tolstoy
27. The Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer
28. Eldest- Christopher Paolini
29. Citizen Hughes- Michael Dronin
30. Guns, Germs, and Steel- Jared Diamond
31. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
32. Vanity Fair- William Makepeace Thackeray
33. The Matamorphosis- Franz Kafka
34. Persuasion- Jane Austen
35. Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
36. Travels with Charley- John Steinbeck
37. Violin- Ann Rice
38. The Man in the Iron Mask- Alexandre Dumas
39. Caramelo- Sandra Cisneros
40. Another Roadside Attraction- Tom Robbins
41. Titus Andronicus- William Shakespeare
42. Uncle Tom’s Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe
43. Gulliver’s Travels- Jonathan Swift
44. The Time Machine- H.G. Wells
45. Treasure Island- Robert Louis Stevenson
46. The Invisible Man- H.G. Wells
47. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court- Mark Twain
48. The Importance of Being Earnest- Oscar Wilde
49. Catch-22- Joseph Heller
50. Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison
51. Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett
52. The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
53. Absalom Absalom- William Faulkner
54. The Bridges of Madison County- Robert James Waller
55. Wuthering Heights- Charlotte Bronte
56. Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austin
57. Across the River and into the Trees- Ernest Hemingway
58. Under the Banner of Heaven- Jon Krakauer
59. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood- Rebecca Wells
60. Sula- Toni Morrison
61. Beloved- Toni Morrison
62. The Fifth Mountain- Paulo Coelho
63. A Star Called Henry- Roddy Doyle
64. The Inferno- Dante Alighiere
65. Islands in the Stream- Ernest Hemingway
66. The Valkyries- Paulo Coelho
67. Mansfield Park- Jane Austen
68. The Long Valley- John Steinbeck
69. The Winter of Our Discontent- John Steinbeck
70. Tortilla Flat- John Steinbeck
71. Portrait in Sepia- Isabel Allende
72. Ines of my Soul- Isabel Allende
73. Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes
74. On Writing- Stephen King
75. Wonder Boys- Michael Chabon
76. An American Childhood- Annie Dillard
77. The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
78. Tuesday with Morie- Mitch Albom
79. Dune- Frank Herbert
80. The Pillars of the Earth- Ken Follett
81. The Clan of the Cave Bear- Jean M. Auel
82. Angela’s Ashes- Frank McCourt
83. Ender’s Game- Orson Scott Card
84. Interview with a Vampire- Anne Rice
85. Love in the Time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
86. The Little Prince- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
87. The Secret Life of Bees- Sue Monk Kidd
88. Native Son- Richard Wright
89. Animal Farm- George Orwell
90. Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh
91. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
92. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest- Ken Kesey
93. Snow Crash- Neal Stephenson
94. The Notebook- Nicholas Sparks
95. Beowulf
96. Wonder Boys- Michael Chabon
97. The Mysteries of Pittsburg- Michael Chabon
98. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay- Michael Chabon
99. If You Want to Write- Brenda Ueland
100. Mumbo Jumbo- Ishmael Reed

I doubt that I'll read them in this order. Starting with War and Peace and Crime and Punishment seems like a little much. I'll try to remember to cross them out here as I go. :) And re-link this post in my reviews, but we'll see. Let me know if you plan on doing Project Fill in the Gaps too; I'd be really interested to see other people's lists. :)

Afraid- Jack Kilborn

Afraid by Jack Kilborn

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'll preface this review by saying that I don't read horror. I also don't read thrillers, but I loved the Jack Daniels books, by JA Konrath. And since JA and Jack Kilborn are the same person, I was excited to read his latest novel. Afraid is all out horror, and is designed to play on any fear you might have.

In the town of Safe Haven, something terrible has landed. A team of Red Ops has "accidentally" landed in this small town with one mission, kill everyone. An aging sheriff, lone firefighter and single mother are fighting for their lives. I don't want to say too much more, as it is a twisting and exciting plot. You really just have to read it.

I really liked this book. I'd heard that some thought it was too gory, and over the top, but honestly, Kilborn leaves a lot to the imagination, which just makes it that much scarier. I finished this book in one day, and while freaked out, didn't immediately think it was that scary. I was able to remove myself from the scenes in the novel. Or so I thought. It wasn't until a couple of days ago that I realized the reason I'd been having a hard time sleeping was because of scenes from the book. It definitely lingers... and scares far beyond the pages. Read it with the lights on.


View all my reviews.