Archive for the ‘books’ tag
I like…
LANA nursing pads are THE BOMB. Love them. I am a bigtime leaker and these contain the overflow wonderfully. Plus they are so soft and warm and I don't have to deal with that sour milk smell that pervades disposable nursing pads.
This baby keepsake album! My MIL got it for my 10 year old to help chronicle Jake's babyhood. It's perfect! And my 10 yo DD feels SO important to be in charge of this important documentation.
Reading list (updated 7/1/2007)
Update 7/1: Yowch, I've been bad about keeping this updated. Cleaning it up now! Also, going to the bookstore later today – woot!
Update 5/28: Did some book shopping this weekend. Yippee! I think I have enough of a book stash now to get me through my due date and hopefully somewhat beyond. Half Price Books had a Memorial Day sale – an extra 20% off! I didn't know about it in advance – we caught a lucky break. To that end, I just signed up to be notified of all future sales and special offers. 
In queue: On my nightstand
Roughly in the order I intend to read them
Reading now: Mary, Called Magdalene, Margaret George
The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
Travels in West Africa, Mary Kingsley
The Loves of Charles I, Jean Plaidy
The March, E. L. Doctorow
The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult
The All of It, Jeannette Haien
The Forest Lover, Susan Vreeland
Book 3: The Silver Rose, Susan Carroll
Eagerly awaiting publication:-)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (preordered!)
Wish list: Planning to obtain
Roughly in the order I intend to read them
The Age of Abundance, Brink Lindsey
Book 1: The Dark Queen, Susan Carroll
Book 2: The Courtesan, Susan Carroll
The Perfect Royal Mistress, Diane Haeger
Avalon, Anya Seton
A Rose for the Crown, Anne Easter Smith
The Night Drifter, Susan Carroll
Atlas Shrugged, Ayne Rand
BTDT: All done 
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth (December 2006)
Marie Antoinette, Antonia Fraser (January 2007)
Courtesan, Diane Haeger (January 2007)
Victoria, Victorious, Jean Plaidy (January 2007)
Mrs. Kimball, Jennifer Haigh (February 2007)
Baker Towers, Jennifer Haigh (February 2007)
Matters of Chance, Jennifer Haien (February 2007)
Katherine, Anya Seton (February 2007)
East of Eden, John Steinbeck (March 2007)
Hello to the Cannibals, Richard Bausch (March 2007)
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (April 2007)
Forever, Pete Hamill (April 2007)
Pope Joan, Donna Cross (May 2007)
I, Elizabeth, Rosalind Miles (May 2007)
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., Sandra Gulland (May 2007)
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (May 2007)
The Winthrop Woman, Anya Seton (May 2007)
The Birth Partner, Penny Simkin (June 2007)
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield (June 2007)
Tales Of Passion Tales Of Woe, Sandra Gulland (June 2007)
The Last Great Dance on Earth, Sandra Gulland (June 2007)
The Secret Wife of King George IV, Diane Haeger (June 2007)
The Ruby Ring, Diane Haeger (June 2007)
Spiritual Midwifery, Ina Mae Gaskin (June 2007)
Blah: Mission aborted
The Divine Husband, Francisco Goldman (January 2007)
Feel free to comment with recommendations of other books you think I might like!
How prosperity made us more libertarian
This book caught my eye at Borders today (yes, I went there, too *chagrin*):
The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture
In the six decades since the end of World War II, Americans have been busy exploring the new environs of mass affluence. Those decades have witnessed both exhilarating discoveries and tragic errors, as well as a great deal of blind groping and simple muddling through. The story of postwar America is thus the story of adaptation to new social realities.
At the heart of this process was a change in the basic orientation of the dominant culture: from a culture of overcoming scarcity to one of expanding and enjoying abundance. From a more rigid and repressed social system geared to achieving prosperity to a looser and more expressive one geared to taking wider advantage of prosperity’s possibilities. American capitalism is derided for its superficial banality, yet it has unleashed profound, convulsive social change. Condemned as mindless materialism, it has burst loose a flood tide of spiritual yearning. The civil rights movement and the sexual revolution, environmentalism and feminism, the fitness and health care boom and the opening of the gay closet, the withering of censorship and the rise of a “creative class” of “knowledge workers”—all are the progeny of widespread prosperity.
Questioning Authority
No one has analyzed the process of cultural reorientation more exhaustively than University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart, who for decades has been using attitude surveys to track the progress of what he calls “postmodernization.” And his research has examined cultural trends, not only in the United States, but in dozens of other countries as well. The best-documented aspect of postmodernization is a shift from “materialist” to “postmaterialist” values, in which the “emphasis on economic achievement as the top priority is now giving way to an increasing emphasis on the quality of life. In a major part of the world, the disciplined, self-denying, and achievement-oriented norms of industrial society are giving way to an increasingly broad latitude for individual choice of lifestyles and individual self-expression.”
According to Inglehart, the shift toward postmaterialist values is only one part of a broader process. Specifically, the heightened emphasis on subjective well-being as opposed to material security is highly correlated with a marked change in attitudes on a host of apparently unrelated issues, from adherence to traditional religion to trust in government to views on sex and sexual orientation. The central thrust of this “Postmodern shift” is a “broad deemphasis on all forms of authority,” whether political, economic, religious, or familial. Once the quest for personal fulfillment and self-realization becomes a dominant motivation, all cultural constraints that might pose obstacles to that quest come under sustained and furious assault.~ From How prosperity made us more libertarian, by Brink Lindsey
The Golden Compass movie!
Woo! I didn't even know that Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy was getting made into a movie. I'm thrilled! I've been looking forward to sharing Lyra's world with my kiddos (I think B and HM are just about ready to read the books, too).
In the epic trilogy His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman unlocks the door to worlds parallel to our own. Dæmons and winged creatures live side by side with humans, and a mysterious entity called Dust just might have the power to unite the universes–if it isn't destroyed first. The three books in Pullman's heroic fantasy series, published as mass-market paperbacks with new covers, are united here in one boxed set that includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Join Lyra, Pantalaimon, Will, and the rest as they embark on the most breathtaking, heartbreaking adventure of their lives. The fate of the universe is in their hands.
The first film comes out in December: The Golden Compass. They've done a neat job with the promo site for this movie. You can try to figure out the altheiometer and meet your dæmon. Here's mine! Rrrrrroar….
Vox Hunt: An Interesting Life
Book: Show us a great biography or memoir.
Scott got me this pair of books about Mary Kingsley for Valentine's Day (after hearing NPR's featurette about these books on his way into work one day that week).
She was a remarkable woman – self-educated as well as incredibly insightful and enlightened, particularly considering the times (Victorian). I just finished reading Hello to the Cannibals (a fictionalized account, blended with another story) and will soon start in on the travel memoir she wrote recounting her adventures (cannibals and crocodiles and leopards, oh my) – all while wearing corset and crinoline!
Looks like NPR also has an excerpt form Travels in West Africa.
Vox Hunt: Shhh!
Book: Show us a book that made you laugh out loud.
Submitted by Red Pen.
Overall, not on my list of favorite books ever – and ultimately the story is quite sad – but there are passages in this book that had me laughing nearly to the point of tears. And then I'd read them out loud to Scott and we'd both be cracking up. Fun memory! (The movie really couldn't do any justice to this, so I found it disappointing in that way.)
100 books meme
Thanks to Red Pen for the meme!
Instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you have read a bit from but never finished, italicize the ones you might want to read in the future, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10-foot pole, and do not do anything to the ones you’ve never heard of.
Like Red Pen, I used a lighter font color for books I've heard of, but haven't read – and may or may not read someday.
As you can see, most of the time I finish the books I start. And there are very few books I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.
1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride And Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Brontë)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkein)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (E. Brontë)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
42.The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Gift & Award Bible NIV (Various)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brahares)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. Th
e Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Reading IS sexy
Ohhh, thanks to shellakers for the invite to the Reading is Sexy group!
It is totally sexy. That my hubby is also a reader is not an insignificant part of my attraction to him.
I thought I would intro myself to this group with a picture of my nightstand, the book queue, if you will (not including, of course, the wish list I maintain on amazon).
I have quite a few books on deck! I read FAST, though. I guzzle books. Usually about 3-5 books per month, though posting to this blog is slowing me down a bit. (Then again all the neurofeedback and orthodontia appointments have probably evened the score…)
And, happily, Scott's nightstand is also all cluttered with books, although he lingers longer with stories. His tastes are quite different, too. Where I like long, dense novels, he prefers mystery or science fiction short stories. Or technical books.
Mom to 4 kids and 2 stepkids, I work at home in the heart of the chaos. Founder and executive editor of SheKnows.com and various other sites. Homeschooling. Knitter. Family chef. Gadget geek. Wordphreak. LAZY BLOGGER. 