WWW Wednesdays September 28

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

To play along, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?  

What are you currently reading?  

I am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I am reading this book for one of my book groups and I have to say I will be glad when I am done with it and can move on to something else. We are meeting later this week. Whew! 

 

What did you recently finish reading?

I recently finished The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross. Loved it! I will be posting my thoughts soon. The book made me think about the complexities of families and how what we think we might know about our own family may not really be what it is.

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Next I am going to lose myself in Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich. I need to get to the library today to pick up my hold and then I am diving in! 

Nobody bother me tomorrow!! Stephanie, here I come!!

Happy reading everyone!

Can't wait to see what everyone else is reading. 
 

I read banned books!

I work in a library and libraries all over are celebrating Banned Books Week this week. 

From the ALA (American Libraries Association) website ~~

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. 

Here are some links to sites that are great to show what this event is all about. 

InfoGraphic - Top Ten Banned or Challenged Books Of 2010

Test Your Knowledge of Censorship and Banned Books ~ Take this quiz

Frequently Challenged Books ~ More specific information is found using the links below  

• Top Ten Challenged Books by Year 2001-2010
• Most Frequently Challenged Authors of the 21st Century
• Banned and Challenged Classics

AND you can check out all these wonderful blogs that are participating in the Banned Books Week Hop and maybe win some wonderful stuff! I am not participating in the blog hop this year but plan to next year.

Now go get a banned book to read!

The Gin & Chowder Club by Nan Rossiter

Set against the beautiful backdrop of Cape Cod, The Gin & Chowder Club is an eloquent, tender story of friendship, longing, and the enduring power of love. . .

The friendship between the Coleman and Shepherd families is as old and comfortable as the neighboring houses they occupy each summer on Cape Cod. Samuel and Sarah Coleman love those warm months by the water; the evenings spent on their porch, enjoying gin and tonics, good conversation and homemade clam chowder. Here they've watched their sons, Isaac and Asa, grow into fine young men, and watched, too, as Nate Shepherd, aching with grief at the loss of his first wife, finally found love again with the much younger Noelle.

But beyond the surface of these idyllic gatherings, the growing attraction between Noelle and handsome, college-bound Asa threatens to upend everything. In spite of her guilt and misgivings, Noelle is drawn into a reckless secret affair with far-reaching consequences. And over the course of one bittersweet, unforgettable summer, Asa will learn more than he ever expected about love—the joys and heartache it awakens in us, the lengths we'll go to keep it, and the countless ways it can change our lives forever. . . ~~synopsis from Goodreads

I loved this book. I loved the setting of Cape Cod. Cape Cod is a place that I would love to visit someday. And this book took me there now. I could really feel the place from Ms. Rossiter's writing. She is a very good writer and the words seemed to flow off of the pages and through my mind.  

The Gin & Chowder Club is a beautiful story of love and broken hearts. The story made me happy but it also made me cry a little too. There was a lot of growing up to be done after that summer.

The only thing I seemed to have trouble with was the age thing between the two main characters that have the affair. The young man was heading off to college and the women was older and a family friend. 

I know, I know, this kind of thing happens all the time but I kept going back to the fact that he was only 18. Only 18! And there didn't seem to be very much angst about that fact. Sometimes I just didn't let myself think about how young he was. Other than that, the story was great and I am glad that I read it. 

Author's website

I received this book from Goodreads for my honest opinion. Thanks Goodreads!  

This is amazing...........

You really need to look at these pictures in shadow!

 

Dirty White Trash by Tim Noble & Sue Webster

Check the link below for some more amazing shadow art!

Shadow Art – The Reality That We Imagine

We see what we want to see. We perceive the world around us in our own way and sometimes it is far from reality. We have got used to rely on our feelings and emotions when we see or judge something and sometimes this leads to the misinterpretation of the things around us, because feelings and emotions can’t be objective. For example, let’s look at the shadow art. Each sculpture is a masterpiece that leaves amazing shadows on the walls and each of us can find something new in these shadows, while this sculpture is nothing more than pieces of materials joined together to make the breathtaking chaos. As usual, the artists of this trend use ordinary stuff or even just rubbish to create the shadow art sculptures and the projector helps the viewers to turn on their imagination and see the cool shadows on the wall. Let’s enjoy of the most interesting shadow artworks that are collected in this post now!

http://www.designfloat.com/blog/2011/03/23/shadow-art-reality-that-we-imagine/

 

WWW Wednesdays September 21

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

To play along, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

I am currently reading The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross. I just started it last night but so far I am loving it.

I am also, sort of, reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I am two-thirds of the way through it (Eat and Pray). I just need to have it read by the end of the month for my book group so I am going to wait on the Love part. I was struggling with the book and was finding other things to do besides read because I really was not into this book. Now that I put it aside, I am enjoying books again and am ready for some fun reading.

Interesting how a book we like, or maybe don't really care for, can influence our immediate reading habits.

What did you recently finish reading?

I recently finished 2/3 of Eat, Pray, Love. (see above) I also read Here, Home Hope by Kaira Rouda and The Last Page by Lacy Camey. My review for Here, Home, Hope will be posted soon. I read The Last Page for a blog tour that is going on right now. I will be posting my review and an author guest post on October 6th!

What do you think you’ll read next?

Next I am not sure what I will be reading. No book group or blog tours in the immediate plans so it will be just whatever is on my book shelf that I have been wanting to read, just because I want to. Hmmm, maybe it should be Smokin' Seventeen or Indulgence in Death to get myself caught up on those series. Yep, I'm thinking I am going to read one of these. FUN!!

Happy reading everyone!

Can't wait to see what everyone else is reading.