WWW Wednesday 2-24-10

A Week in Books

 
WWW Wednesdays is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

~ The first in a new trilogy featuring the Roncalli and Angelini families. Very good so far...having a hard time putting it down!

What did you recently finish reading?

The Sparkling One by Susan Mallery

~ This is a reissue of an old series, the Marcelli Sisters Series, by Susan Mallery. It was a fast read and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Light romantic story with a few twists thrown in.

What do you think you’ll read next?

~ Most likely I will be reading Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani. This is the second in the trilogy and I reserved it from the library along with Very Valentine. I need to get to this before both books are due back at the library!

What about you? What are you reading?

Teaser Tuesday 2-23-10

MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesday. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here’s a tease of what I am currently reading:

I realize that I'm willing to overlook a lot because whoever is with me has to do the same. But I also remember how Roman made it his business to find out who I was in the very beginning.

From Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani, page 221

Musing Mondays (2-22-10)

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about keeping books.

Do you keep all the books you ever buy? Just the ones you love? Just collectibles? What do you do with the ones you don’t want to keep?

**MUSING MONDAYS is hosted by Rebecca at Just One More Page...

 

I think this is a pivotal question for a lot of book lovers. What am I going to do with my books? Where am I going to put them all?

I tend to buy books that I know I will be able to pass on to someone, either my sisters, my parents, my mother-in-law or my aunts. I also buy books that are part of certain series I am reading and tend to keep these or request them back after loaning them out. I recently bought a bunch of classics which I have been wanting to read/reread. These I will definitely keep for myself. My husband is also a huge reader and always buys the books he reads. Right now, we have four book shelves that are completely full and I foresee us needing more.

I do not believe in throwing out books. If I have books that I've already read and nobody wants, then I drop them off at the library for their book sales. I have gotten many books this way myself, and feel it's a good swap.

In trying to keep my collection from becoming overwhelming, I am making more of an effort to use the library this year. So far, I've been doing pretty good, but it is only February. :-)

What about you?

Teaser Tuesday 2-16-10

MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesday. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here’s a tease of what I am currently reading:

I was also a little bit worried that things might be even worse than I thought. What if I walked and walked, and suddenly I was too out of shape to make it back home?

From The Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook, page 17

What’s your tease?

Reading Challenges (2-8-10)

I've decided to join some of the reading challenges out there. So far, I have signed up for two:

• 100+ Reading Challenge hosted at 
• Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge

Both of these challenges are hosted at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/. Head over the her site if you want to join. I've made two separate pages to track my reading progress in each challenge. Hope I can make both goals!

Book Clubs (2-4-10)

Recently I joined a book club. I have always wanted to be part of a book club and was grateful for the invitation. The group is small right now - only five of us - but we have varied backgrounds and that leads to some great discussions. For our first meeting, we read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. This was a book that I might not necessarily read had it not been for the book club. I enjoyed the book - I felt the writing was incredible and the story itself was intense. It was definitely a book that I needed to put down after reading a section and just think about what was going on. It is set in China in the 19th Century when footbinding was still in practice as were arranged marriages. The book definitely leaves you with a lot to think about...

As we ended our first meeting, we came to the point where we had to choose our next book. For those of you in book clubs, how do you decide what to read next? Do you rotate who chooses? Do you all decide together? Are there resources you use? Please share.

New Reader Blog (2.2.10)

What the heck, I figured I read so much, I might as well blog about it. I don't know if anyone will follow this, but here I hope to post the books I'm reading, the books I want to read, and my thoughts about reading.

Here is a little about me and my reading habits. I love reading...it is possibly my absolute favorite thing to do. I can always be found with a book in my bag (hence the name of the blog) and always have a stack of books waiting to be read. I keep a notebook of all the books I read, separated by year (I started this in 2003 and love looking back everyone once in a while to see what's there). I read romance, women's lit, psychological thrillers, mysteries and have recently gotten into historical fiction (thank you Philippa Gregory!). Some of my favorite authors are: Philippa Gregory, James Patterson, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Carly Phillips, Jane Austen, Iris Johansen, Catherine Coulter, Kate Jacobs, Debbie Macomber, Nicholas Sparks, and Susan Wiggs - quite a mix of authors!

I tend to be quite anal about reading series...I must read them in order. I find myself constantly defending this quirk of mine and my answer is always that the author has written the books in a certain order and by reading them in this way, you can follow the developments of the characters. I also feel that reading the book first is a must before seeing the movie. As we all know, the book tends to be far better than the movie most times.

Happy Reading! :-)