Results of the Book Club Challenge

in case you forgot. 

in march i decided that i was going to take part in the blog her book challenge.

i chose 10 books and planned to have them all read.

fortunately, that didn't happen.

why fortunately and not "unfortunately" you ask?

because i spent the better part of march reading the epic (yes, i just said epic) novel that is freedom.

just a little side note- i loathe the word epic. 

everyone uses that word to describe the most non-epic things ever

example: "that party was epic".

last time i checked getting super wasted at a really cool party is NOT epic. 

the trojan war was epic

having our 1st black president was epic

and freedom was and is epic.

anyway

back to my point.

for longer than i can remember, i haven't read a book that has moved me. 

yes, the help was a page turner and i loved it, but it didn't make me think.

it didn't make me want to stay home instead of go out so i could read.

it didn't make me sad when i finished it because i wanted to hold onto the characters for a little bit longer

it didn't make me want to read it again because i was sure that by doing so, i would come to know and love and understand these characters even more than i already did.

but freedom did. 

so i don't see the book challenge as a failure

pick up freedom 

favorites from freedom

i love love love to mark up books i read- underlining, highlighting, dog earing, etc.

whether it is the beautiful way the author described something or because the statement resonates with me in some way or for any other reason, i just love to make a note of my love for the author's words!

freedom is the first book i chose for my Book Challenge .

i am halfway done with it and have already made tons of notes in the book.

here are a few of my favorites sentences (and in some cases, paragraphs!) from the book:

(oh, and in case anyone is reading the book I have eliminated names so that i don't spoil anything for you!)

The one bad aspect of ______'s good fortune were the moments when it seemed to come at someone else's expense. Never having experienced envy himself, he was impatient with its manifestations in other people. In high school, more than once, he'd had to terminate friendships with kids who couldn't handle his having so many other friends. His feeling was: fucking grow up already. His friendship with ________, however, was non-terminable, at least for the remainder of the school year, and although _______ was annoyed by his sulking he did keenly understand the pain of being a son.

... you shouldn't try to save a drowning woman unless you were ready to drown yourself, and so he'd stood and watched from a pier while ________ floundered and cried for help.

That evening in Philadelphia, there was a brief dismal episode: she went down to the hotel bar with the intention of picking somebody up. She quickly discovered that the world is divided into people who know how to be comfortable by themselves on a bar chair and people who do not. Also, men just looked too stupid....

A game could be made of trying to get _________ to agree that somebody's behavior was "bad." When she was told that ______ and ______ were throwing a big Halloween party for their twins and had deliberately invited every child on the block except ________, _______ would only that this was very "weird." The _______, however, refused to be satisfied with "weird." They wanted sociopathic, they wanted passive-aggressive, they wanted bad. They needed ______ to select one of these epithets and join them in applying it to _________, but _______ was incapable of going past "weird,"....

She continued to plunge down the mental-health mine shaft....

my 1st time

nooooooooooo, not that! get your mind out of the gutter ;-)

so one of the groups i have joined over at BlogHer is the BlogHer Book Club.

i guess what we do is pick 10 books. yes you read that correctly TEN books to read in ONE month!!

it seems like a lot, but i figured what the the hell, i have nothing else to do for the next few months while i wait for bar results!

so here is my reading list for March:

1. freedom by jonathan franzen
2. the weird sisters by eleanor brown
3. what the night knows by dean koontz
4. dispatches from the nut farm roseannearchy by roseanna barr
5. with friends like these by sally koslow
6. the 48 laws of power by robert greene
7. i know why the caged bird sings by maya angelou
8. conversations with god *an uncommon dialogue* book 1 by neal donald walsch
9. manhunt the 12-day chase for lincoln's killer by james l. swanson
10. housekeeping by marilynne robinson

have any of you all read any of these?! if so, which was your favorite? if anyone wants to join in reading post down in the comments :-)

my plan is to blog about each book once i am done with it!

we will see how this goes!! :-)

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!

Ok dear readers, me and Jess (read her blog here) are starting a book club. Over the next few weeks, we will be reading Freedom: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen. As many of you have probably heard, this is in fact Oprah's latest book club selection. I have read Franzen's book The Corrections and if I am going to be honest was NOT a fan; thus, I was a bit hesitant when Oprah announced his latest book as her selection. However, after reading a few pages I was hooked! Franzen has a real knack for describing people in ways that we only wish we could.

Anyways, here is how the book club (which by the way we need a name for!) schedule is going to go:

October 1: 1- 118
October 8: 119- 187
October 15: 188-289
October 22: 290-381
October 29: 382-442
November 5: 443- END!

In case you noticed, we are 1 week behind Ms. Oprah. Obviously, you do not have to abide by the schedule and can go at your own pace, but BEWARE, when discussing the readings you might get spoilers! I think how this is going to work is that both me and Jess are going to blog on each date about the reading and post some questions. Most will likely be from Oprah's questions , but I am sure along the way we will all come up with our own questions, thoughts, etc.

Anyways, I hope you guys join in because I have always wanted to be part of a book club! :-)

Enjoy and see ya October 1!

serendipitous

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top.


At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

[insert witty title]

almost a week since my last blog. man, i was on a roll!

i've taken to writing in my journal as of late rather than this blog. this got me to thinking about which i like more. im a traditional girl @ heart so it is not surprising that i prefer a "real" journal over a blog. i swear its because of my appreciation for literature, especially good literature- hey, nothing wrong with some narcissism in doses ;-) But really, i like the idea that it is tangible and that my only audience is myself. so i can be brutally honest without worrying about anything such as hurting/offending anyone or being judged. sometimes i feel like public blogs can be written with an audience in mind and that can possibly affect what is written. i also like that it takes me away from the computer for a while to write- practice my penmanship if you will. :-P

there is a great book i have had for a while that is about journals (i cant remember if i have mentioned it before). it gives you ideas of topics to write on and the author shares her journals. it is called "Note to Self" by Samara O'Shea. i really dig it!

oh, i gotta promote something else. i just bought india.arie's new album. its amazing- as they always are. :-)

Coffee Table

Here's my newest coffee table book ;-)

junk from all over

im kinda disappointed with this book... im halfway through and have yet to have the same response with this as i did with "and the elephants boiled in their tanks." sad times.


next on the list:



i had the best dinner tonight. i love the parents. :-)