That's What She Read

How in the world is June over already?  I tried to give myself enough me time but really, everyone else needed it more than I did. Swim lessons, baseball, tee ball and summer school are all over so we are in full summer mode. But that just means more time outside, at the pool and trying with all my might to exhaust the kids enough that bedtime is a breeze. I relied heavily on audio books this month to get my book fix. There were a couple huge hits and a couple complete misses. Here's what I read in June:  Modern Lovers  - I will start with my favorites first. This was a great story. It was "modern" enough that the references to everything trendy made me smile- Uber, green smoothies, etc., but it was far enough removed that I really felt like I was escaping off to the best of the best of Brooklyn and NYC.  A group of friends who were in a famous band in their youth are contacted by a film company who wants them to sign over rights in order to tell the stor...

Lately I've noticed a trend in book titles and I couldn't help finding out who this girl is that is popping up on every book cover out there. Obviously, there are tons of books out there with "girl" in the title but these aren't just any books. They're at th top of lists, they're prominent on the shelves and people are raving about them.  She's in the woods, she's on a train, she's in a garden. It's like where in the world is Carmen San Diego for us bookworms out there. So here's a mashup of all the books that are getting some attention out there for being great reads that all have "that girl" in common. Happy reading!  Girl in the Woods by Aspen Matis  Cheryl Strayed told me to read this. I mean, she told her millions of followers on social media but I like to think she was speaking right to me. Girl in the Woods is the personal account of Aspen's experience of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail just li...

Lately, I have been hitting the good book mother load.  As in, I've been so buried in them I don't have time to write about how good they are.  Which is just a shame because my favorite thing about good books is telling people about them and nearly ruining the plot for them.  Just kidding, I would never do that, I promise.  So, I bring you The Rosie Project "An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love." This book has the most lovable unlovable character I've ever met. Don Tillman is a genetics professor who is so socially challenged, it made me giggle out loud. He's oddly charming, too smart to relate to normal people and over the top obsessive compulsive. All things that have been stacked up against him and his goal to find a wife. Until he decides to start the Wife Project. He co...

I have a slew of books that I've recently read and I swear, I had visions of seperate book reviews all in my head but free time seems to be literally leaking out of my life lately. Consequently, I bring you 3 book reviews all in one, it's your lucky day! I am like the Payless Shoe Source of book reviews! First, I bring you A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout From Goodreads: As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road. Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons” from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape...

I'm sad to report that I haven't been reading lately. It's the first time in the longest time that I can remember where I've gone this long without reading anything.  But that doesn't mean I am not reading about reading books!  Here are some that have caught my eye on Goodreads.com lately!  When twenty-something Wall Street analyst Kate Wilson attracts the notice of the legendary Julian Laurence at a business meeting, no one’s more surprised than she is. Julian’s relentless energy and his extraordinary intellect electrify her, but she’s baffled by his sudden interest. Why would this handsome British billionaire—Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor—pursue a pretty but bookish young banker who hasn’t had a boyfriend since college? The answer is beyond imagining . . . at least at first. Kate and Julian’s story may have begun not in the moneyed world of twenty-first-century Manhattan but in France during World War I, when a mysterious America...

From GoodReads.Com:    A stunning memoir about an actress's unconventional, heartbreaking childhood with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother — a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest — and the unusual strength that allowed her to rise above it all. Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She had slept with too many men, and some women, and she didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match. In this evocative, darkly humorous memoir, Wendy deftly charts the highs and lows of growing up with her younger sister in the shadow of an unstable, fabulously neglectful mother. Georgann, a real-life Holly Golightly who constantly reinvents herself as she trades up from trailer-park to penthouse, suffers multiple nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts, while Wendy tries to hide the cracks in the...

Have you ever had that one book that seemed to haunt you, saying "read me, please!" Well this is that book. It's been following me around for a couple of years now, and it started when my boss recommended it and kept telling me about it. And then, thanks to the Literary Junkies Book Club, I heard even more people recommend it.  So this holiday, I've dove in.   From the back cover:  The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach--an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord...1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life...and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant...

There isn't anything in the entertainment category that I love more than reading.  Give me a blanket, a comfy couch, silence and book and I am good. Granted, if my house is totally silent, there must have been an apocalypse, but still. Getting off track here but I have a little funeral for nap time. I think it's time I finally come to the realization that my kids will no longer nap in the afternoons. Major Sad Face. Ok, so back to my happy place. Reading. But you know the next best thing? Movies. And even better, movie trailers. I love them. I love them so much that I have to give Christina from Easily Entertained a shout out for her awesome collection on winter movies. Go check it out!  Anyhooters, so imagine my utter glee a couple weeks ago when I discovered that  they make movie like trailers for BOOKS. It's like my too favorite things got together and made a love child and then cuddled afterwards. So here are some book trailer...