february 2012

January's out and February's in.  As of this day in 2012 I have read 9 books and am half way through another.  I will count that in February.  What have I read you ask?  Well, let's see: 
Whither Thou Goest (highly recommend that one);
 Magdalene;
 Christmas Singing;
 Full of Sugar Plums (normally LOVE Stephanie Plum, didn't like this book);
The Garden of Ruth;
 Kate;
Abigail;
and Breach of Trust.
 This month was a little heavy on the biblical. 
On to February!  This month is American Women Heart Health month, the 3rd is Wear Red for Women Day, the 7-14th is is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, and the 14th is World Congenital Heart Defect Day and National Women's Heart month. Soooo, wear your pins, your red shirts, buy your Diet Coke (they are a big supporter of Go Red) and change your facebook profile pic to a heart or heart survivor.  Don't forget these very important days!

 http://www.thomasnelsonbibles.com/

where the boys are

I received "Boys in War" by SGT CF Higgins for free from Dorrance Publishing.  Ky, short for Kentucky, is waaaay underage for the army, yet still he finds himself in Korea fighting the North Koreans and Chinese.  Early on he had been stationed in Germany, then Korea, then Fort Cambell.  Originally he is from Kentucky of course, and he chooses the army to working in the mines.  He is scared of nothing, except the mines.  Most of the book takes place at Cambell where he meets a girl and deals with his nightmares from war.
The author of this novel is a Korean Vet and this is a fictional account of his story.  I wish more of the book took place in Korea.  It feels like I am missing something most of the book.  It also is hard to visualize and follow.  I would think that a vet, perferably a Korean one, would be able to follow and enjoy the book very much, however, having not been there it was hard to follow.  It seemed as if the author wanted to tell the story as fast as he could.  The story itself is good. 

searching, searching, found

I received "The Search Committee" by Tim Owens for free from Tyndale Media Center.  This novel is about a church in North Carolina that is searching for a pastor.  Theirs has gone on to the "big time" and they now have a temp.  The group is 7 people who are supposed to represent the congregation in age, sex, and relationship status.  They travel every week to different churches that the minister is interested in the job to see him (or in one case, her) in action.  During this period, the author leads us to get to know the members of the search committee and the temporary minister on a personal level.
This is a really good book and a think piece.  I kept thinking through out the book, "how well do I really know my fellow congregation?"  I don't really.  I don't know what they have nightmares about, I don't know who has a crush on who, I don't know who was abused by their father's as children, I don't know who is abusing their children now.    The characters are portrayed as real church members.  Goody-goody, holier-than-thou while at church (admit it, we all do that), but at home they are broken, nervous, funny, sad, dependable, not dependable, stupid, smart, regular people. This novel also shares some of the sermons that the search committee hears while on the road. I like this one.  It is Tim Owens' first novel and I hope he writes more.

did a little research

Did a little research and the "Average American" reads about 3-5 books a year with 25 % of Americans reading no books at all.  What kinda person reads no books at all?  I guess my 128 books in 2011 is ridiculous, huh.  Three to five books a year.  Everybody reading this sucker better be putting in more than 3-5 books!  Apparently, Americans put in more TV time than just about anything else short of working.  They claim they don't ever watch it, but then why does everybody have at least 2 sets in their house.  And that's not counting youtube time.  So my challenge to you and myself is to read twice as much as you watch TV.  If you watch two hours of TV than you have to read 4 hours.  That's my New Year's resolution.  Let's see if we can put a dent in that 3-5 books a year mumbo jumbo.

daily gifts of grace review

I received "Daily Gifts of Grace" by Women of Faith, an e-book, from http://www.booksneeze.com/ for free.  This book is a 365 day devotional.  Each day has a verse, message, and prayer from a different woman involved with Women of Faith.  I don't have a lot of experience with Women of Faith, so there were plenty of names I didn't recognize, but also several that I did.  I would imagine that some of the names would be familiar even if one never read christian work for instance Lisa Welchel, otherwise known as Blair.  Yes, that Blair.  The one with the "briiiiliant ideas." 
I really like this devotional.  I do devotions on a daily basis to keep my faith in order, so to speak.  I have before when reviewing a devotional, read the whole thing and then reviewed it; but I found that that missed the point.  With this one I read the daily for 2 weeks so that I got a feel for how it would go.  I really liked it, especially getting a different author everyday.  (well almost, there are some repeats, it is 365 days, ya know).  But I find in some devotionals, I get tired of one person's opinion all the time. This was refreshing.

My Challenge

As near as I can tell, I read 128 books last year.  Not counting children's books that I read to my daughter.  I went through my library histories and looked at my Goodreads account and went through the blog and have come to this total as a near a guess as I can get.  Now that is about 10 and a half books a month.  Is that a lot?  Some of these books were actually listened to on CD or MP3.  While looking at other book bloggers I see that they are challenging themselves to clear up to 300 books in 2012!  That's 25 books a month! Yeesh, I would think their butts would be full of bedsores!  I am not sure I could read 300 books in a year.  I have three kids that are in sports, 4-H, band, choir, MYF, art, etc; I am involved in our church doing Sunday School and VBS and a little mission work on the side; I run a business for my husband; I am going back to excercising every day (or at least 4 days a week); I also help with the community library in the summer.  These are all things I think are important. But am I doing too much?  Sometimes I just don't want to go one more place!!!  I am not sure I would want to read 300 books a year.  So what does the average person read a year?  What does the average reader read a year?  What is average?  These are all things I wanna know.  hmmmmm, I thought I should increase my book reading this year, now I am wondering if I should decrease it.  Maybe I shouldn't wonder so much.

christmas singing review

I received "The Christmas Singing" by Cindy Woodsmall for free from Blogging For Books.  This is a novella about a girl Mattie and her bitter breakup.  Three years prior, Gideon, her boyfriend, broke up with her when she walked in on him hugging another girl, in his house, alone.  She moves 6 hours away to live near her brother, start her own cake making business, and to move on.  She  meets Sol and has been dating him the last 2 years.  Sol is not the passionate love that one dreams of.  He is safe, direct, not passionate, and gets along fine without Mattie.  Which means he won't break her heart since he never really has it.
Mattie's cake shop catches fire and she has to move back temporarily with her parents. Back to Gideon.  While there, Mattie and Gideon meet back up with passion.  Of course it is the passion of hate, but still its a blaze.
I like this book fairly well.  As you know, I'm not a big fan of Amish books, but this one is not bad.  The people are real.  There biggest fear isn't where and when they will find their next shoo-fly pie.  They are normal everyday people.  I like that in my Amish.

la desperada review

This is a renamed older book that is advertised as a western.  Which technically it is, I guess.  It does take place in West, but it really is a romance.  Sorta.  It is kind of in the tradition of the paperback novels that my grandma reads.  She would probably like this book. It focuses on this outlaw, Coulter, and his revenge from his younger days being taken out on a string of men that he kills.  They of course, have it coming.  And Elizabeth, the wife of a drunk and a brother-in-law who is mean and nasty.  Then she takes off with the outlaw because of her circumstances with the brothers she lives with.
 I am not a fan of romances.  At least not the can't stand each other yet  can't keep their pants on type.  The leading man is the traditional moody, got issues guy; the leading lady is the wimp that they try to pull off as tough type.  It seemed to drag on and take forever to read.  Not my type, didn't really like it.  I recieved this e-book for free from http://www.librarything.com/. 

whither thou goes review

I received "Whither Thou Goest, I will Go" by Naomi Dathan for free from http://www.librarything.com/.  I picked this book for one reason:  some of it takes place in Kansas.  Since I am from Kansas, I usually read books with Kansas as the location since most authors do not find Kansas interesting enough to write about.  This is an incredibly good book.  I loved this.  It starts in St. Paul shortly after the Civil War with Seth, an army officer, and Jem, a spoiled daddy's girl.  Daddy calls all the shots in this marriage, including how to raise Charley, Jem and Seth's son.  He bought their house, gives Jem an allowance, hires their help, everything.  When her father gets caught with his hands in the Army's cookie jar, Seth and Jem must sell the house and move.  Seth decides they are going to Kansas.  He actually winds up in Nebraska because the house is across the state line.  They move and start a new life.  One that Seth thinks he will control and start to call the shots.  God has other plans.

Jem is a wonderful fictional character.  She is soooo dramatic and funny.  She cracks me up even when she is being horrible.  Against her will, she toughens up and matures into a valuable woman.  Her character alone is reason enough to hope for this book to be a series. The end will stun you.   The only thing I did not like was the format.  I hadn't read carefully enough to see that the format was for an i-pad.  I have a kindle.  I do have an android so I could read it that way and also online through http://www.biblia.com/.  The author sets up an account for you all you need to do is supply a password and read.  Still, would rather a mobi format. Love this!  5 Stars.