New Year... New Year Goals!

Every year we set goals that are most often un-obtainable. This year I am striving to set a goal for myself of exploring new books and new genres. My goal for the new year is to read more for pleasure!

What books are you reading right now?

Do you have an old-time favorite you can recommend to others?

Comment away! :-)

Photo Credits by bluemarla uploaded on August 30, 2006 to flickr.com

One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell

December 2009

Let me begin by declaring Candace Bushnell’s "Sex in the City" as one of my all-time favorite television series. Hence, I had a lot of big hopes when deciding to read some of her books, as my sister recommended. I picked up One Fifth Avenue at Costco and began reading it for fun this past summer. Trips up north I would pick up the book and read, but then books for school got in the way and eventually the beginning of a new school year stopped me at about 200 pages in – or around halfway.

With Winter Break here I decided to re-read what I had already read not remembering in its entirety the 200 or so pages I had read. What a HILARIOUS book! I cannot believe how many different plots were running at the same time yet they were all interlaced and each reflected another. The characters were hilarious while being devious and often very much up in one another’s business. For a light-hearted enjoyable read, I’d recommend this book. Having just read Sarah's Key, I needed characters like the Mindy Gooch and Schiffer Diamond who all live at the One Fifth Avenue building. It’s important to pay careful attention to the characteristics of each person in the story as picture as you visualize some of the crazy scenarios and antics they were often tangled up within.

This book gets a 4 out of 5 stars for me. I think it’d be ranked higher if I had sat and read it all from the beginning one time. Having totally forgot what happened after a few months, I can’t give this book a higher ranking since I try to read books "I will remember"!

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

December 2009

Having just read Shadow of the Wind, I moved to this book next as it was loaned to me by my future mother-in-law Charlene. My close friend Laura had read it over the summer and said it was fantastic and meanwhile with my Jewish background, she asked me a ton of questions about the Holocaust in France. I was ashamed to admit that I knew very little of what had happened in France. So, here I was in December addicted to the two stories within de Rosnay's book of 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski and 45-year-old Julia Jarmond, as my work schedule had become hectic and I had to pre-plan assigned reading times at night to get my chance to be lost within yet another book.

I read this book in under a week. The story within the pages was gripping, sad and also very upsetting. Having learned about the Holocaust at a young age in Religious School, I had never heard of the specifics of France and the Velodrome d’Hiver round-up. As Julia Jarmond, a reporter for a Paris magazine researches the events at the Vel D'Hiv for the 60th anniversary, I feared for young Sarah (age 10) as her and her parents, Wladyslaw and Rywka, spent the long week in the Vel D’Hiv before being sent off to a concentration camp.

I was saddened by the innocence Sarah displayed about the French police round-up as she locked her brother Michael (age 4) in their special hiding place, a cupboard, before she was taken away by the French police. Sarah promised him she would return later that night. Throughout the story, Sarah grips the key to this cupboard in her pocket and it was her determination to return home that kept me reading chapter after chapter.

This quote from Amazon.com sets the stage for de Rosnay's 10th novel (but first translated into English):

"A powerful novel... Tatiana de Rosnay has capture the insane world of the Holocaust and the efforts of the few good people who stood up against it in this work of fiction more effectively than has been done in many scholarly studies. It is a book that makes us sensitive to how much evil occurred and also to how much willingness to do good also existed in that world." -Rabbi Jack Riemer, South Florida Jewish Journal

This book gets an automatic 5 out of 5 stars on my book rating scale!

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

November 2009

This book surprised me...A LOT! This was the first book picked for our newly formed Book Club! Having to read it for a book club I initially was not enticed by the back cover blurb nor did the description online seem like a book I might select. I struggled a lot with this book in the beginning. Forcing myself to sit on the couch and read while having a looming deadline and two hyper pups surrounding me, I tediously read this story.

After about the first 200 pages the speed picked up and it became a very interesting story as the pages unfolded mystery, suspense and murder. It’s hard to say that I would recommend this book to anyone as the story makes you confused, angry and at times, question the moral beliefs that people can have. One member of our book club mentioned wanting to "throw it across the room" at times while others from our club had not finished reading the book, having gotten lost in the first hundred or so pages.

If you have read this story, I'd love to get a discussion thread going here on the comments. Please let me know!

Due to the speed and at time, overly detailed descriptions, on my five star scale, I’d give this story a 4.0.

And away we go.....!

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment." ~The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (2008)

This quote is why I'm here. I'm fascinated with books. I lead a hectic lifestyle as a 2nd grade teacher preparing for a wedding to my fabulous fiance Dan in less than six months. Yet recently I joined a book club (a "non-school book" book club) and have been reading ever since.

I have a vision to use this blog to post about my reading adventures, to share great books with others, discuss books we have loved and been lost within as well as to hear about new great book picks!

Away we go!