What are you reading this summer?

[stacey79]

It started when I was a kid and in the library reading programs, but even as an adult, it seems like I have more time to read during the summer.

So far this summer I've been very into Stuart Woods and Barbara Delinsky books. I also found a Jennifer Cruise book at the library that I hadn't read before. I always like her, too.

I like easy reads that are fun, especially in the summer. I have to admit I do have a copy of Harry Potter pre-ordered through Amazon and am looking forward to that. I actually found a link on this Web site a couple of months ago where if I ordered through them it would somehow benefit the ICN, so I did that.

What are you guys reading this summer?

[GriffsMommy]

It seems that I never read anymore now that I have a toddler but I can not wait for the new Harry Potter!! My MIL said she would buy it for me as an early birthday present. I'm sure that I'll do the same as the last book and read it every spare moment I get until it's done. Then right after I'm done my hubby will snatch it up from me and read it himself. I make him let me read it first because I was the one who got into them first :smile tee

[ICNDonna]

I've been reading a rather sleazy mystery this week. I'm determined to finish it!

Donna

[SharonA]

What is it about Summer and reading? It must be because it is too hot outside to enjoy being there.

I have just finished reading "The Rising" by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. It is the 1st of 3 books that are about what happened to the characters that led up to when the "Left Behind" series takes place. I have ordered the 2nd and 3rd book and am looking forward to reading them.

I also have "The Preacher's Daughter, The Englisher and The Brethren" by Beverly Lewis waiting to be read. They are the 3 books in her Annie's People Sereis .

So many books...so little time. :lmao:

[Kara29]

I'm reading many things.

Simple Abundance (Sarah Ban Breathnach) One topic a day
Oprah's Magazines
(silly, I know but a VC Andrews Book called Scattered Leaves)
Dead Shot (Annie Solomon)
Mysteries (my mom passes them down to me)

I'm waiting for some books to come in for the rest of the summer.

You are your choices (Alexandra Stoddard)
Choosing Happiness (Alexandra Stoddard)
A weekend to change your life (Joan Anderson)
Moving On (Sarah Ban Breathnach)
The Last Summer of You and Me (Ann Brashares)

Happy Reading Everyone!

Kara

[vm]

Too weird, Sharon! I was just looking at those books this morning on my library's website! :) I've read all the Abram's Daughters books and a few of her others. I love her!

I am getting ready to read the book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Here's the description:


This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls “Anne Lamott’s hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister”) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.


After that I am reading:

Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom:


Though she is only twenty-three, Zoya has witnessed and endured more tragedy and terror than most people experience in a lifetime. Born in a land ravaged by war, she was robbed of her parents when they were murdered by Muslim fundamentalists. Devastated, she fled Kabul with her grandmother and started a new life in exile in Pakistan. She joined the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an organization that challenged the crushing edicts of the Taliban government, and she took destiny into her own hands, joining a dangerous, clandestine war to save her nation.

Direct and unsentimental, Zoya vividly brings to life the realities of growing up in a Muslim culture, the terror of living in a perpetual war zone, the pain of losing those she has loved, the horrors of a woman’s life under the Taliban, and the discovered healing and transformation that lead her on a path of resistance.

(I've been on a bit of a non-fiction kick. :))

[SharonA]

Kim...Have you read Kite Runner? It is about a boy in Kabul during the Taliban. It is very moving and wakes you up to how horrible things were for the Afgans during that time. What got to me the most was his description of the autrocities that the Afgans faced on the Soccor Field in Kabul. When I went to Kabul, I actually was able to be inside that Soccer Field. I was in tears the entire time.The Guest House we stayed in was in the neighborhood where this boy grew up. I will have to put "Zoya's Story" on my list of must reads. Thanks for the title.

[vm]

Oh, how neat that you got to go there! Yes, I have read that book. I really like books about the Middle East.

Have you read Not Without My Daughter? That's a great one - it was made into a TV movie.

Betty Lover met the perfect "dark stranger" in a Michigan hospital. Her Iranian therapist, Dr. Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, became her husband and the father of their daughter, Mahtob. Despite the vicissitudes of the Iran-U.S. hostage crisis, Betty and he flourished until their summer "vacation" in Iran in 1984. The next year and a half were a nightmare. Betty and Mahtob, held hostage by Mahmoody and his family, were subjected to Islamic fundamentalism, Persian nationalistic fanaticism, and a life of squalor. This compelling tale of their terror and escape from Iran is recommended for most libraries.

A wonderful book in the same vein recently is Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam . It is SO good. Here's a description:

The question "why did they stay?" haunts this engrossing memoir, as Salbi shows how Saddam Hussein "managed to make decent people like [her] parents complicit in their own oppression." "Growing up in Baghdad," the author remembers, "was probably not unlike growing up in an American suburb," but then Salbi's father became Saddam's private pilot. Gradually, the man who treated her like a niece became a man she called " 'Amo' [Uncle] not out of affection, but because I was afraid to say his name—Saddam Hussein—out loud." Interspersed with Salbi's memories are her mother's recollections of imposed visits from and disquieting parties with Saddam. These riveting passages reveal a self-absorbed man who, as Salbi comes to understand, "saw no conflict between feeling fondness for people and killing them." Making a physical escape from Iraq was easy—a marriage was arranged in the U.S. to an abusive husband (from whom Salbi also had to escape)—compared with making the new life that culminated in founding Women for Women International, an organization that assists women victimized by war. Books to come will offer more historical and statistical data, but this may be the most honest account of life within Saddam's circle so far; not a rebel's account, although Salbi is certainly a dissident, rather, it's an enlightening revelation of how, by barely perceptible stages, decent people make accommodations in a horrific regime.

Both of those are true stories and very, very compelling.

[SharonA]

My list is growing. :) Thanks, Kim, for the recommendations.

[SandyRN]

I started the Sue Grafton series all over again, starting with A is for Alibi. I'm done with them all for the second time, waiting on her new book with the title starting with the letter T to come out in December....too long to wait.

Just read The Good Guy by Dean Koontz. Read it in a day and a half...it was a really good book, but too easy a read.

The Cell by Stephen King.

All the old Patricia Cornwell novels on her Kay Scarpetta series....reread them all from the beginning too.


Reading The Face by Dean Koontz now, and I love it.

I'm going to read some Pat Conroy books when I've finished this Koontz book...The Water is Wide, Beach Music....I love him and his stories remind me of my favorite place on the planet, the NC/SC shore!

[MerryBerryMoose]

I started to read a series a month ago called Maximum Ride by James Patterson. It's young adult fiction but it's pretty good. I just started the third book.

[verdicries]

whoa boy...what am i NOT reading lol? i am in the middle of 'raise high the roofbeam, carpenters' by jd salinger AND 'red dragon' by thomas harris. then i'll read the new HARRY POTTER! and start salinger's '9 stories'. i recently finished re-reading 'franny & zooey'. i also read a lot of true crime novels. i'm addicted to that (and cold case files/american justice/etc).

[ICNDonna]

I like mysteries and my favorite authors are J.A. Jance and Mary Higgins Clark. They aren't writing as fast as I can read --- I need to find another author's books --- any suggestions?

Donna

[mary124]

I have read alot of James Patterson books so far this summer; 3 of them.

Also 2 of Margaret Truman (she is the only child left of Harry S. Truman (former President of US) -- she has written books such as Murder at the Washington Tribune; Murder at the White House. Her newest book is Murder at the Opera. She has about 21 books out that starts out with "Murder at the..." then she has some others including her Mother and Father.
I also have some Lisa Jackson mysteries; and Nora Roberts that I haven't read yet.

Happy reading everyone!!

[ABliske]

wHAT has James Patterson written? That name sounds familiar. I am reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. It took me a while to get into, but I really like it.
I liked The Kite Runner - it's very sad though. UC Santa Cruz, the local college, did a play on it. I didn't see it, but it seems like it'd be a tough book to act out.
I just finished Never Let Me Go. I was another good read, not my favorite though because it went a little slow for me.

[SandyRN]

I like mysteries and my favorite authors are J.A. Jance and Mary Higgins Clark. They aren't writing as fast as I can read --- I need to find another author's books --- any suggestions?

Donna

If you like Mary Higgins Clark, try reading Sue Grafton's series, and start with "A is fo Alibi". I love the heroine's character in this series...she's funny, a smart butt, and just a fun character to watch grow through the series.

Also, Tami Hoag writes some great mysteries. I suggest Dark Waters, Cry Wolf, Prior Bad Acts, Kill the Messenger...

And, like I said in my other posts, the Patricia Cornwell, Kay Scarpetta series, she's a female medical examiner, the chief med. examiner in Virginia....her first 8 books or so are the best. I don't like the ones outside the Scarpetta series so much. I know you worked in a hospital....you'd probably like the forensics, etc in these books. The first book in the series is "Postmorten".

I know we've talked about this before and we seem to like the same authors....let me know if you read any of these. These books are one's that take my entire day away, and keep me up all night because I just can't stop reading them.

[stacey79]

Stuart Woods is another decent mystery writer. He's not all blood and gore or anything, but usually good for keeping attention. I think his books are fast reads, too.

My mom loves James Patterson a lot. I'm not as crazy about him for some reason.

I just finished Patricia O'Brien's "Ladies Lunch" over the weekend. It was a mix of chick lit and mystery.

One of my all-time favorite authors is Phyllis Whitney. Her books are timeless and have mystery to them. I don't think she even writes any more. I read through the entire selection at my local library.

[mary124]

James Patterson has written The Women's Murder club- which includes; 1st to die; 2nd Chance;3rd degree;4th of July; The Jester; Beach House;Along came a spider; I can go on- but it would fill the whole block here! (as you can tell I think I read all of this books (except the last to that goes with the Murder Club). Anyway, been reading him forever. Really like him because his chapters are short, this way you can always put his book down but then pick it back up just as quick.

[Breezy1218]

I just read Beach Road by James Patterson (there's another author on that one too, I apologize because I can't remember it) and I thought it was great.

[mimimama]

I love to read and just read The Kite Runner...great book!

I indulge in magazines..My favorite is Vanity Fair. i love getting the poop on celebs, politicians and the elite!:smile tee

[Breezy1218]

Mimi, I am constantly buying magazines! Whenever I hit the grocery store (or more often the drugstore~I am ALWAYS at Walgreens, lol!) I can't leave without a rag!

[LeeAnn]

If you liked The Kite Runner you would also like his latest book A Thousand Splendid Suns.

There is also a book written by a different author that is called Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea which is actually based on her diary entries after staying in Iraq for two years when her husband was a Peace Corps Volunteer back in the 1940's or 1950's. I read it several years ago before 9/11 happened and honestly I'm a little surprised that most people haven't heard of this book, especially in light of current world events. It is beautifully written and you learn a lot about the Iraqi people & their customs and come to love many characters in the book---and they are real people.

Before becoming an OT I was a 7th grade teacher, mostly Science, but I did teach one section of 7th grade history on Islam and I read small parts of this book to my students and they were mesmerized by it and were never so quiet as when they listened to these excerpts. Occassionally they still email me (3 years later!) asking for the name of the book so they can go out and buy it.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Guests-Sheik-Ethnography-Iraqi-Village/dp/0385014856/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-2836972-2169616?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184440645&sr=8-1

[ABliske]

I just read My Year of Meats. It was a really interesting book about the hormones used in Cattle. It made me not want to eat red meat! It's also a novel about a journalist and her bosses wife who lives on the other side of the world.

[mimimama]

I purchase organic beef from a local farmer. If you are interested in finding a local home-grown source for beef and poultry check out:www.westonaprice.org

It tastes so much better and I really believe alot of the health problems us ladies are having are hormonally related. The FDA allows SO much garbage to be put into our food.

Thanks for sharing your book recommendation! I will read it.

[hoping4acure]

The Kit runner was one incredible book...he has another one out now, a thousand splendid suns. I just reserved it.

I love jodi picout--just read the tenth circle and nineteen minutes. Both were excellent.

[ABliske]

Anybody read the Rice Mother? it's the one I'm on now.

[kadi]

My latest reads:
"Aama in America" by Broughton Coburn. A former Peace Corps volunteer returns to Nepal & brings back his host mother to America to visit. Shows the US through the eyes of this rural 84 year old Nepalese woman.

"Lift Your Mood Now: Simple Things You Can Do to Beat the Blues" by John Preston. Available in the ICN shop linked at the top of the page.

"Water for Elephants" - Fiction story of an elderly man in a convalescent hospital who reminisces about his year working in the circus during the Great Depression. The descriptions are so vivid, you feel like you're there!

"Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall. The whole series is delightful. Set in Botswana, the principal character is a creative woman who forms her own detective agency to solve minor mysteries in her town. I've loved each of the 7 books in the series available in paperback. (Am waiting for the 8th one, but it's still hardback only...)

So many books, so little time!

[mimimama]

I just finished Fortune's Daughter..excellent read.

I am currently reading The Last Town on Earth which is about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1908. Very good read.

Next on my list is Water for Elephants. I canot wait to dig in.

I LOVE to read. It is truly my way to relax and escape. I couldn't live without my books:)

Anyone read the Devil in the White City? Now THAT is a great book if you love historical fiction which is my favorite!

[July]

I read Water for Elephants earlier this summer. It was a really good story, and I really liked the writing. It was hard to put down until I finished it to see what happened!

I just finished a novel called Gracelin O'Malley by Ann Moore. I checked it out of the library, but I am going to have to get a personal copy of it. It was sooooo good. :smile tee It is historical fiction about a young woman in Ireland during the Irish potato famine. I recently learned it is book one in a trilogy, so I was happy to learn that the story/characters continue.

[Berkshire Road]

I'm reading The Bourne Identity and sequels. We saw the preview for the newest Bourne movie, and I said, "Gee, I wish I'd seen the other two because I might really enjoy that movie, " and my husband said, "You know, we actually own the books that they are based on." Oh. Right. So now I'm reading those. I've saved up a whole bunch of editions of Paris Match magazing to take on vacation with me, but I need to find some books too. I'm looking for light reading, beach reading kinds of books. All suggestions welcome!