2014 TBR Pile Reading Challenge

  Hosted by Bookish    Levels:   1-10 - A Firm Handshake
11-20 - A Friendly Hug
21-30 - First Kiss
31-40 - Sweet Summer Fling
41-50 - Could this be love?
50+ - Married With Children   I'm shooting for First Kiss

2014 Banned Books Challenge

photo credit: Old Books by Petr Kratochvil 

Hosted by Buckling Bookshelves

DATES: January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014

RULES: Any book that has been banned or challenged counts for this challenge. Books can be read in any format and overlap with other challenges is allowed (encouraged!)

LEVELS: Below are the levels you can choose from. Changing your mind is OK -- you can go up or down in level at any time.

     Making Waves: 1-2 Challenged Books
     Trouble-Maker: 3-5 Challenged Books
     Rebel: 6-9 Challenged Books
     Insurgent: 10-14 Challenged Books
     Leader of a Revolution: 15+ Challenged Books

I am choosing Rebel 6-9

Life has a way.....

Hello everyone! 

Wow, what a year 2013 was!  I don't know about all of you, but I'm really glad it is over.   I am hoping that this new year is full of new beginnings and changes for the better. 

I plan on getting back on track with my reading and blogging and hoping to do it soon.  I am looking forward to it actually! 

Hope you all had wonderful holidays and will see you soon! 

Armchair BEA: Genre: Non-Fiction

Design credit: Nina of Nina Reads

Non-fiction is our genre discussion for today.  I have read more non-fiction over the past few years and there are a few that stand out to me.  I had never really liked non-fiction until I picked up these books.  I always wanted to be transported to a different place when I read. The following books changed my mind...... 

A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah: It is an amazing story of his life as a soldier in the army during the war in Sierra Leone. The descriptions he gave of the death of people, the killings, and his escape play at all of your heart strings.














Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

In reading the prologue to this book, I was hooked.

"Their bodies, burned by the sun and stained yellow from the raft dye, had winnowed down to skeletons. Sharks glided in lazy loops around them, dragging their backs along the rafts, waiting."

You can find my review HERE 

 

Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown by Eric Blehm:

WOW! What a story! This story follows Adam Brown from childhood through SEAL training to the Middle East. I laughed and I cried through this book.

These 3 are my top picks.  All 3 of them pull at your heart strings in more ways than one but they all leave with you with different perspectives on life.

Armchair BEA: Ethics and blogging.

Design credit: Nina of Nina Reads.

Today we are discussing Ethics and blogging.  What exactly does that mean? 

In the blogging world, there are no specifically written laws as to what we are supposed to do or not supposed to do.  Yes, there are lists of things that are recommended that we do, but there is no way to enforce it.  There is a difference between illegal and unethical.   Many professions have their own set of rules to follow when it comes to ethics.  Lawyers, physicians and nurses all are governed by a licensing board. I, as a nurse, have a set of specific rules that I must follow in order to keep my license safe, both personally and professionally.  For example, I can have my license revoked by my state for being arrested while driving under the influence, just as quickly as it could be revoked by harming a patient. 

We as bloggers don’t have a license that is in jeopardy, but we can lose credibility with our readers if we don’t follow certain guidelines. 

• ·         Always give credit where it is due.  If you use a photograph that you didn’t take, give credit to where you obtained it. If you use the words of another blogger, give them credit.
• ·         Always be truthful. If you receive compensation for your reviews, tell your readers.
• ·         Never plagiarize.  We all work hard on our blogs, don’t steal others work.  If you have to steal others work, then don’t blog.
• ·         If you make a mistake, admit it. We are all human and humans make mistakes.
• ·         Be courteous and fair.  We all have different opinions on things, just because you may not agree with someone, that’s ok. BE NICE! You can express your opinion, but BE NICE.

I have never had my content plagiarized, but I am well aware of what it is.  In graduate school, EVERY paper I wrote had to be submitted to a site that checked just for that.  If it came back to us at or above 10% we had to re-write it.  The 10% showed that at least 10% of our paper was identical to another paper.  Do you realize how hard it is to write a 50+ page paper to begin with? Much less re-write it?  Yeah, I’m very cautious. 

What are your thoughts??

Armchair BEA: What is Literary Fiction?

It took me some time to decide about this.  What books do I include? What books do I leave out?  Many of the books I thought of immediately, I have previously mentioned in our Classics discussion. So I did some searching.  

According to Wikipedia, the definition of literary fiction is that the work must be “critically acclaimed” and “serious”.   The plot is focused more on the “inner stories of the characters that drive the plot”.

So…with that definition in mind, some of my favorites are

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon:  I absolutely LOVED this book.  For any bibliophile, who wouldn’t love a story about “the cemetery of forgotten books”.  The writing is amazingly beautiful.  I won’t go into all the details, but will give you a few quotes:  

"Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart."

"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you."

"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens."

 “One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.”

 

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill: What a story..A story of a girl that spans 60 years and who helps change history. All of the emotions that I went through with this book are, to me, a sign on a wonderful book. I cried with her, got angry with her, grieved with her and rejoiced with her. Her story was truly an adventure.

“I remember wondering, within a year or two of taking my first steps, why only men sat to drink tea and converse, and why women were always busy. I reasoned that men were weak and needed rest.” 

“But I have long loved the written word, and come to see in it the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating.” 

“Some say that I was once uncommonly beautiful, but I wouldn't wish beauty on any woman who has not her own freedom, and who chooses not the hands that claim her.” 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: Another story that is one of growing up in more ways than one. This story brought me through every emotion possible. Seeing things a child shouldn't see, living through things they shouldn't and being able to move forward with life is what this one is all about. 

“She said, 'I'm so afraid.' And I said, 'why?,' and she said, 'Because I'm so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.' I asked her why and she said, 'They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.” 

“...and every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.” 

“He knew I'd seen everything in that alley, that I'd stood there and done nothing. He knew that I'd betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. ” 

There you go.......3 of my favorites.  The story lines in the last two are not for the weak at heart, but they make you think, make you feel, and that's what a great story is all about. 

Armchair BEA: Genre Fiction

Today's genre focus is genre fiction.... What do you read? What do you stay away from at all costs?

I have to say that I read so many different genres.  I love historical fiction.  I LOVE anything to do with World War II, so many of the books I read are written during this time period.  WWII isn't the only time period I read though.  I love historical fiction in general.  I love being able to see how life was during different time periods, how people acted, how society saw things, and how over the years the world has changed in general.  I can read a book and think "in today's time, it wouldn't be like that".  Some of the stories make you think about what it would be like to live during those times, and others make you thankful that you didn't.

I also love mystery/thrillers/horror.  I love a good "scary story".  Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Joe Hill are just a few that come to mind right off.   I love scary movies, but they don't tend to scare me the way a book can.  In a movie, you can always tell when something is about to happen...scary music, standing in front of a picture window, running to the top floor of the house, and let's not forget running to the car and it won't start.  Now a book...... ahhh....the power of imagination!!!

Apocalyptic: this genre I haven't read much of, but I am tending to appreciate it more and more.  Some of the ones I have read made me sit back and think "that might actually happen" (The Road), while others are so very far out there but make a good story.

I'm not a big fan of romance novels.... the bodice ripper types.... if I'm reading a book and it has romance in it, it's fine.... but as for the all romance stories....not so much.


I have ventured out into different types of books I read.  There are still some genres that I don't list as my favorite or read on a regular basis, but I am willing to give them a try.  I gave myself a "100 page" rule.  I will read 100 pages and then decide if I will continue with it.  I figure that gives me some time to get hooked or not.  There are too many wonderful books waiting to be discovered to continue reading one that I don't like.

What are some of your favorites?