Author of the Week

Sandra Brown

Unless you're into romance novels, you've probably skimmed right past Sandra Brown's books on the shelf . . . but a lot of her books have more of a murder mystery twist to them and some are actually pretty great. Here are a few interesting facts about her:

• She is the author of 58 New York Time's bestsellers. (That is pretty impressive!)
• She's even had one of her books made into an ABC-TV movie . . . French silk.
• She's published books under a few other names. (If it weren't for Wikipedia how would we ever know these things!)
• She was a weathergirl and anchorwoman for in Texas.

Looking into the lives of the authors we love to read is always interesting and often gives you insight into the books they write.

For more information on Sandra Brown, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Brown

http://www.sandrabrown.net/

And if you haven't read any of her books, I encourage you to pick one up and check it out . . . I highly recommend Envy for anyone who loves to read. It was extremely well-written and the twist is great!

A great escape

I often find, in those times that the world seems to have let me down, that a great book is the greatest of escapes. No matter what kind of escape you need, there is a great book out there to provide you that particular kind of fantasy that you most need in that moment. Whether you need a great romance to remind you that people do really fall in love . . . or a great tragedy that reminds you that you really don't have it that bad after all . . . or whether you just need to pick up a travel guide and pretend you're somewhere far, far away . . . a great book is one of the only things in the world, I have found, that can provide these fantasies and escapes with little to no consequences at all.

Quote of the Week . . .

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

-The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

Last Read . . .

Chill Factor by Sandra Brown

This one was a little bit too predictable for me. Not even halfway through I figured out most of the secrets that were flying around the who-done-it murder mystery. There was only one thing I didn't see coming at the end, but otherwise it was a little too predictable. Some of her books are really good and have great twists, but lately they've been overly predictable and the same old story with a different location and different characters. I'd like to see more books like the ones she wrote in the early to mid-90s like Envy. That that keep you guessing until the very end!

Recommendation: If you need something to read quickly and don't find the predictableness of the story, go for it. If not, move on to something else.

Book sale . . .

This morning we were fortunate to be able to attend the Half-Price Bookstore warehouse sale at the Indiana State fairgrounds. They had an entire building filled with books of all shapes, sizes, genres, and looks. It was a little glimpse of heaven for me. We got so many books we had been looking for to put on our shelves. I can't wait to dive in and read some of these books.

Does anyone have a great used book store by you? I definitely believe in what they do. I've always felt you should either keep books to re-read or sell / donate them so someone else can enjoy them!

If you've never been to a used bookstore, you would be surprised at how many really good best-seller books you can find that people have already read. I find most of the books they have either are, or were at one time, best sellers!

So next time you're looking for a really great book to read check out your nearest used bookstore or Goodwill!

Book Count

2010 Books Read Count: 30!!

I can't believe I have read 30 books this year. And I'm not done yet. Thanks to the Half-Price Bookstore, I still have 2 bookshelves full of books to read.

Last Read . . .

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

In light of the Eclipse movie just a short time from release, I decided to read the whole Twilight Saga for the second time. I wanted to make sure I would remember the "book version" of the story so I could compare. I don't want to spoil this book for those who have not read it yet so I will not go into too much detail about specific events in the story, but I was again disappointed with several events in the book and the lack of cohesiveness with the first the. The writing style is totally different than the first three; and although it did bring many parts of the story to a logical end, it only gave me more unanswered questions about the future of the Cullen family (immediate and extended). I did not feel either time reading the book that it really belonged in the Saga. In part because the writing style just does not make sense with the first books. Also, in part because Eclipse really brought the story to a peak and I felt that another book should have only added to climbing that peak, not starting back down the mountain, so to speak. As is often the case in these situations, I felt strongly that Meyer riding on her 15 minutes of fame wrote Breaking Dawn without the passion she had for books 1 - 3 because the money had already started rolling in and she knew it would sell regardless of the actual story presented. (I'm still hoping they'll end the movies with Eclipse, since much of Breaking Dawn was totally unsettling to read, and I can't imagine having to see it play out on the big screen.)

Recommendation: Although you cannot read the Twilight Saga without reading this book, or you will be missing some critical parts of the story, unless you're a Twilight buff I would leave this one on the shelf.

Quote of the Week

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

*This is one of my all-time favorite book quotes. I hope you enjoy it, and if you haven't read Atlas Shrugged I highly recommend it.*

O Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?

I thought I would use my first blog post to talk about an issue I observed that was totally appalling to me. Earlier this year I was substitute teaching at a local high school in a Social Studies class. One of the students saw that I was reading and approached me to ask if I could help him with his English homework because he did not understand what they were reading. I said I would help if I could. He then produced a copy of Romeo and Juliet . . . only it wasn't a nice Shakespearean looking play book with a cheesy illustration of the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene on the cover (like the one I had in high school). It was an ugly yellow book . . . yes, a Cliff's Note book! I asked the student where his real copy of the book was. He informed me that was in fact the copy the school issued!! I was in complete shock. After looking at the book, I did notice that it had the real Shakespeare version on one page and the opposite page was the Cliff's Notes version of what was going on. Now I don't know about anyone reading this, but hopefully if you are following my Blog (or just happened across it) it is because you love books. I realize that Shakespeare is not easy for anyone to read (especially high school students), but aren't we not only teaching our children to take the easy way out by giving them Cliff's Notes to a timeless story but also ruining the beauty of the timeless lines written by Shakespeare so many years ago? Romeo and Juliet is such a classic and well-known story that many of the students probably have some familiarity with the underlying story of the play before reading it in the first place. Also, English teachers are supposed to teaching our children to learn to love to read and when the reading becomes difficult helping them understand the difficult content. Let's be honest, as a high school student if you were giving the Cliff's Notes and the actual play which would you choose? (I actually would've chosen the real version, but that is just because I have always loved to read.) Unfortunately, many children in school today hate reading and would rather do anything else than sit and read. Therefore, it is not a difficult stretch to assume that most of these students did not actually read the play but the generic Cliff's Notes version of the play. Technology has changed the next generation so much that they cannot even appreciate beautiful Old English Shakespearean prose. This episode had me completely appalled with our schools today and I can only hope that what I witnessed was an isolated incident among schools in my town, my state, and even our nation, and not an indication of how educators are approaching classic English text on a regular basis.