Can You Guess What This Is?

Answer: Pasta

For more wordless photos,

go to Wordless Wednesday.

Book Characters Who Could Use a Session with a Shrink

10. Emma Bovary (Madame Bovary)

Doctor's wife with a banal, empty life

sets off on a series of banal, empty affairs.

9. India Bridge (Mrs. Bridge)

This poor woman never had a chance.

No life outside her tiny world.

8. Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With the Wind)

Was there ever a woman more in need of a good

women's lib consciousness-raising evening?

7. Bella Swan (Twilight)

I'm sorry, but a vampire boyfriend? Really?

6. Sam-I-Am (Green Eggs and Ham)

Stop with the green eggs and ham already.

5. The Pigeon (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus)

Give it up, Pigeon.

4. Gregor Samsa (Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis)

Man wakes to find he has changed into a giant insect.

He can't communicate with anyone and can't leave his room.
Not a happy fellow...that is, roach.

3. Bertha, Rochester, and Jane (Jane Eyre)

Obviously, Bertha has troubles,
but her husband and Jane could use some therapy, too.

2. The Cat in the Hat (The Cat in the Hat)

The Cat is trouble.
And don't make excuses for him.

1. Nancy Drew (Nancy Drew mysteries)

Never even has a bad hair day.

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Reading. Happily.

It's that wonderful time of year when anything can happen, a chance to begin again and try to be different. We boldly resolve that this year we will lose weight. This year we will find that right person. This year we will land that fabulous job. This year we will be happy.  I have been studying happiness for the last five years. Watching the videos. Listening to the experts. Reading the books. How could I pass up Sonia Lyubomirsky’s new book, The Myths of Happiness? Of course I couldn’t. And I am happy to report that reading The Myths of Happiness was four hours happily spent. Lyubomirsky focuses on the truth of two quotes:  Pasteur reminds us, “Chance favors the prepared mind,” and  Socrates notes, “He who is not contented with what he has,  Would not be contented with what he would like to have.” Chapter by chapter, Lyubomirsky examines all the myths of happiness we Americans hide in our hearts---all the I’ll Be Happy When’s and all the I Can’t Be Happy If’s---and explodes them, using a lovely combination of scientific research and case studies. Turns out, we are much more resilient than we think we are. It's important to know that we will keep walking through great good fortune with scarcely more than a few months’ rise in happiness. And it's eyeopening to learn that we will keep walking through great traumas with scarcely more than a few months’ dip in happiness. Interesting. Unexpected. Good to know. For more good books on happiness, I recommend: Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman  Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Leyman Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project and Happier at Home  The Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness Sonja Lyubomirsky’s earlier book, The How of Happiness. For more info, take a look at a Today Show piece with Lyubomirsky and Gretchen Rubin: ‘The Myths of Happiness’: Do you know where to find it? Here's the tour schedule:  Wednesday, January 23rd: Positively Present Thursday, January 24th: Build Your Soul Purpose Monday, January 28th: Everyone Needs Therapy Tuesday, January 29th: readerbuzz Thursday, January 31st: Patricia’s Wisdom Monday, February 4th: Balance In Me Tuesday, February 5th: evenminds Tuesday, February 5th: Midwife For Your Life Wednesday, February 6th: A Daring Adventure Friday, February 8th: The Watered Soul

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

                 

What I Finished Last Week Quiet                                     Just Like Jesus  Hearts on Fire                           Scent of Darkness

What I Reviewed Last Week Mr. Penumbra's Bookstore: A Novel Clay Jannon shuffles into Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore  in search of a job and discovers another world.  Clay mans the bookstore during the long hours...more Chopsticks Forgive me, but I’m not much of a YA reader.  Teens are always living on one end of the spectrum (despair)  or another (elation); I find it exhausting...more Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington I saved this book to read on the day we in America celebrate  Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. What a wonderful story!  Booker T. Washington...more Look! Another Book! Look! A Book! is a popular choice at my primary school library.  I know this book will be equally beloved.  I can already see the torn pages that will...more The Myths of Happiness (Review coming tomorrow) Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas Paris. Sigh. I’m a sucker for anything-Paris.  I’m so blinded by the beauty of Paris that I can’t properly evaluate  any set-in-Paris book. And this...more Son by Lois Lowry Are sequels ever as good as book one?  I can’t think of a single time I have found this to be true. And, consequently, I’ve formed my policy of Reading Only...more Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction Wanna-be writers like me are always looking for good books on good writing.  I love Tracy Kidder’s writing and, if Richard Todd is, indeed, Kidder’s...more

What What Arrived Last Week and I'm Reading Now Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day One for the Books The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeno Society Jubilee  by Carolyn Brown Big Questions from Little People Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

What are you reading today?!




It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme Book Journey loves to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. Book Journey offers a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling BJ how many you visited.

Hot!

Last week, I left you with my little jalapeños  on the kitchen counter, awaiting their fate, a pot of chili for the church chili cookoff. The time has come. I start by sautéing the jalapeños with onions. I don't know where people get the idea that  Texas chili doesn't have beans.  My Texas chili has beans. And lots of them. It turns out there are enough jalapeños to throw a couple into the cornbread, too. Marinated stew meat...fire roasted tomatoes... chili powder...pinto beans soaked overnight... and jalapeño peppers....  Woo hoo! My dad and I walk away with the prize for the Beaniest Chili!

View from a Yoga Mat

For more wordless photos,

go to Wordless Wednesday.

Top Ten Settings I'd Like To See More Of

1. Paris. 

I'm a sucker for anything-Paris.

You don't really have to write much 

of a story if you will just set it in Paris.

2. Japan.

Peaceful Japan.

I feel peaceful just thinking about Japan.

3. Morocco.

Magical. Mysterious.

4. Dangerous places.

I'm too afraid to actually go to

places that are very, very cold

or places that have lots of scary insects and reptiles,

but take me there in a story.

5. Islands.

I'd live on an island, if I could,

but my husband doesn't swim,

so islands.

 

6. Italy.

Could I get a little pasta and a nice glass of wine with that, please?

7. Coffee shops and bookstores.

Better yet, a coffee shop/bookstore.

 

8. Spain.

Or Central America. Or South America. Or Mexico.

Or anywhere people speak Spanish.

I speak Spanish, so I love seeing lots of Spanish words

in a story.

 

9. Bakeries.

Bread. 

Love bread.

 

10. Out in space.

Or back in time. Or in the future.

I like to travel in space and in time now and then,

but could you leave off the vampires? 

What did I miss? Where do you like to go in your stories?

Share your ideas with me.

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.


All photos are Creative Commons photos posted at Flickr. Paris: Photo by agaw.dilim. Japan: Photo by PermanentTraveller. Morocco: Photo by andy castro. Dangerous places: Photo by On Being. Islands: Photo by Edgar Barany. Italy: Photo by kygp. Coffee shops and bookstores: Photo by Orbiter7. Spain: Photo by DavidDennisPhotos.com.