It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

                                 

I'm off rock hunting in Oregon. I hope to have Internet access, but one never knows what will happen in the wilds of Oregon.

What I Finished Last Week Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout (Review coming soon.) How to Be Perfect:  Poems (Review coming soon.)

What I'm Reading Now Wild by Cheryl Strayed Wizard of Earthsea

What I Might Read Next Children on the Oregon Trail

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.

We Were Going to Italy: Oprah's New 2.0 Book Club and Book Serendipity

We were going to Italy. My husband-who-only-leaves-Texas-for-rock-digs actually offered to go with me to Italy this summer. He even got a passport. We even made airline reservations for Italy...$2,722.00.

That's love.

You see, my mom passed away last summer and I've been sad all year. The kind of sad where you find yourself wearing turquoise every day (my mom's favorite color) and where you unexpectedly bake chocolate chip cookies on weekends though your husband doesn't eat sweets (my mom was known for baking 100 dozen chocolate chip cookies at a time). 

So, Italy. My mom's people are from Italy. So, Italy.

And then not Italy.

I woke up the night after we made the airline reservations and got on the phone and cancelled them. Too much. It was too much. It was overwhelming. I'd just stay home this summer and...well, brood.

Then my husband decided to go on a rock dig. To New Mexico. I don't know why, but I told him if he'd wait until school was out for summer, I'd tag along.

We made out plans for New Mexico. Airline reservations. Cabin reservations. A whole trip.

So, New Mexico.

And then not New Mexico.

Two weeks ago, we started hearing about wildfires in New Mexico. We tried moving our dig farther north. More wildfires. There was a possibility that the airport in Albuquerque might even be closed because of the smoke from the fires.

My husband decided to move the whole trip much farther north. Oregon.

And I proceeded to do what I do best:  plan Oregon: Books.

I began to load up my iPad with library books. One of the e-books I found at the library was a book from my Amazon wishlist called Wild. I didn't know much about it. Not even sure how it ended up on my wishlist. But I checked it out last week. Before the hoopla.

So now I'm off to Oregon tomorrow, reading along with Oprah and a bazillion other folks, with the perfect book in hand for me to read on this trip.

Pure serendipity.

Get the Wild Reading Group Guide.

Sign up to join Oprah's 2.0 Book Club.

Top Ten Books I Never Want to Read

Way back in August of 2010, 

I listed the 

Top Ten Children's Books I Can't Believe I've Never Read.

Now I'd like to make a list of 

books everyone has strongly recommended,

but which, honestly, do not appeal to me.

Here goes:

Book: East of Eden

Why?  Couldn't get into the characters.

Book: Middlemarch

Why?  Too much detail.

Book: Infinite Jest

Why? Too quirky.

Book: Frankenstein

Why?  Tedious.

Book: Beloved

Why?  Couldn't get into the story.

Book: War and Peace

Why?  Too many characters.

Book: Moby Dick

Why?  Too much plot and too few characters.

Book: Ulysses

Why?  Takes too much concentration to get through a paragraph.

Book: Lolita

Why?  Can't get past the subject matter.

How about you? 

Are there books you've been told you should read, 

yet you think you probably never will read?

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.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

What I Finished Last Week (Reviews Coming Soon) Friday by Michel Tournier Safe Within by Jean Reynolds Page Drop Dead Healthy A. J. Jacobs

What Came in the Mail This Week The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier The Bully Goat Grim by Willy Claflin Time for Kids Big Book of What?

What I'm Reading Now Photo Op: 52 Inspired Projects for the Adventurous Image-Maker Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America's Languages by Elizabeth Little Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

                                            

                                              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.

Top Ten Children's Books Written In The Past 10 Years That I Hope People Are Still Reading In 30 Years

This week at Top Ten Tuesday,

it's Top Ten Books Written in the Past Ten Years

That I Hope Will Be Remembered in Thirty Years.

So I tweaked mine to Top Ten Children's Books

Written in the Past Ten Years,

using only books listed in the book,

1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.

Here are my picks:

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The Tale of Desperaux by Kate Dicamillo

Wolves by Emily Gravett

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner

Flotsam by David Wiesner

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

The Boy Who Grew Flowers by Jen Wojitowicz

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

What do you think?

Any books you'd add to this list?

What did you choose for your Top Ten list today?

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.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

                                 

What I Reviewed Last Week The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler I almost decided I didn't want to finish it....more Behind the Beautiful Forevers:  Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo This is the India you don't hear about any more,  the India that the technological revolution has left behind,  the India that we once heard about every...more Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected  by Kelle Hampton  Kelle lived a charmed existence, marrying the man of her dreams,  having a beautiful baby girl, expecting her second child,  surrounded by warm loving...more How to Train a Wild Elephant by Jan Chozen Bays That wild elephant is our mind. Something we've been told since  childhood that is easily malleable and teachable.  Bays shows us the reality of our...more Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman  I've been fascinated with happiness in the last five years,  so it seems obvious that this book, now considered a classic in the field,  would be a book...more The Loop by Joe Coomer Lyman works nights, driving around and around the Loop that circles Ft. Worth,  assisting drivers with stalled cars, removing suitcases and furniture a...more  The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight  by Jennifer E. Smith I must tell you that I am far from the target audience of this book.  Probably forty years older. And forty years more jaded...more The Voluntourist by Ken Budd Ken Budd is trying to come to terms with the reality that  he desperately wants children and his wife,  just as firmly, does not. His beloved father...more Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon Alice has been married for twenty years and the zing is gone...more

What I'm Reading Now Safe Within Drop Dead Healthy

What I Might Read Next Thinking, Fast and Slow Trip of the Tongue What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite

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.