I'll have you know I should be balancing my checkbook right now, because the moment is right. Dorien is snoozing on my lap and my little station on my bed is set up and ready to go. But I found myself thinking about some books we got at the library on Friday and how much fun we've had reading them.  

Thanks to Renee at FIMBY and her list of recommended Spring Reads, I headed with my family to the library on Friday armed with a list. On that list were several books and authors she recommended, such as the Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco, and Bizzy Bones and Uncle Ezra by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, to name a few.  For her full list, look here.

Sadly, I was unable to locate all the books she recommended in the one trip, but I did end up with several books by Patricia Polacco.  Aside from the great illustrations, the names, characters and storylines of the books we read by her were funny, engaging, thought-provoking and inspiring. I will say that I picked up a book by her involving a girl with two mommies. I did not check that one out.

I do love finding new authors to enjoy. Books are like nectar to my family. More precisely, we are the bees and they are our flowers. They attract us either by their pretty covers, or because they were recommended to us by friends and then we get all up close and in them like a bee on a flower and if we like them, we pollinate by telling you about them.  Meanwhile, the knowledge, information, wisdom, humor, morals and lessons stick to us and we take them into our family units just like a bee to its hive and we turn them into honey - we live off the memories, they comfort us, we pull them out to remember how much we enjoyed them, we read them together and bond over them, we discuss them and learn..and personally, we store that experience and it shapes us, nurtures us, establishes a framework in our minds just like a wax honeycomb is built piece by piece by workerbees. 

I just found another link to a spring reading list that I'll pass on to you. Some of these names are familiar, but others are new. I hope you find as much joy in reading as we do and if you have good books/authors to pass along, please do so!

If you're a reader, you know what I mean.

A good book sucks you in like a black hole and, seriously, everything disappears.  Everything, that is, but the book.

You lose track of time. You bide your time doing mundane activities, just waiting for the moment when you can reenter that world with which you have become entangled. Hopelessly. 

It's even better when you are stuck in that world with a friend. Which, in my case, means Kyle checked out the book, began reading it, and I found the book and started reading it while he was at work...

A good book replaces for awhile, the world in which you presently live.  You become part of another time, another language, another relationship, another event, another mood, another job, another everything.  You feel the pages slipping through your fingers and you itch to turn yet another to keep living in this world and to see what's next, but you also mourn the turning of each page because it means you're that much closer to the last page.

You wonder to yourself..."Does he do it? Is he successful? Does he go back? Does she go with him? Will they make it? Who is Jimla? What's the significance of the Yellow/Orange/Black Card men??"  And even worse...does this book end badly? Am I going to be really upset when the back of the book is all I have left to flip over? 

Don't know yet...but I am way more than knee deep in this book and right now, if you're not part of it, you just might not be anything more than a bluish haze to me...

A few years back, I discovered an author I absolutely adore. Her name is Maeve Binchy. Just say that a few times out loud. It's addictive. Around here, she's a household name for several reasons. One is that her name is just fun to say and Kyle and I like to toss it around. "oh, that Binchy..." "Nothing better than a Binchy" Two, she is one of my favorite authors and I can't get enough of her books!! Good thing she's incredibly prolific! She's also the standard by which all Irish authors are measured and for good reason!

As you might have guessed, she writes about Ireland and about people and neighborhoods and relationships and real life in such a way you're literally sucked right in. You find yourself forcing yourself to turn out the lights at 1:30 in the morning because you can't put it down. You find yourself slightly surprised that you're not, in fact, Irish. You get a hankering for a good cup of hot tea, because her characters are always putting on a kettle of tea or hopping down to the pub. I'm not so much one for pubs, but bring on the tea! (over the last 2 days as I've been reading this book, I think I've had about 6 cups of Earl Grey...I'm due a teeth cleaning for sure!)

Her latest book, Minding Frankie, is in much demand at our local library. I've been on a hold list for weeks now waiting for my turn to read it. Finally, Kyle brought it home to me. I snatched it from his hand like it was a dark chocolate truffle and have stolen moments from the past few days to read and read and read. And I finished it this afternoon while the kids napped. Blissful sigh....I just want to give her a big ole hug.

FYI - if you are considering reading this book, go for it. But also keep in mind that her characters from all her novels are tied together, so you may find yourself at the local library hunting down all the other related books and cloistering yourself at home for a month to read them all. I'm just saying.

I'm currently reading a book called The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. This on the heels of her first novel which I read on our Seattle vacation: The House at Riverton. If you're looking for books to read, thick ones that drag you in and haunt your waking hours with a persistent need to steal away and continue reading, this might be an author for you.

Her books, at least the two I've read, weave a story between the present day and a past point in history (the 20's, the 40's) during which the story's chief narrator (in present day) relives and/or revisits the past to uncover a mystery, explain their own personal history and bring to light previously unearthed truths. It could be because I love the time periods Kate Morton has chosen to explore or just the gift she has at portraying the enigmatic nature of human relationships, but she has quickly become one of my favorite authors.

Not only that, but at the back of The House at Riverton she divulged some of her own favorite authors, people whose style of writing has influenced her own and inspired her. I looked into some of them, such as A.S. Byatt (Possession), Thomas H. Cook (The Chatham School Affair), and a few others who kind of creeped me out. I will say that Possession and The Chatham School Affair are excellent reads, though. She also cited as inspiration period movies which explore the interplay between servants and masters, such as Gosford Park (a personal favorite!).

In short, it's good stuff! So if you like to read, you might take a gander at some of her material!

Within a span of 16 hours, I finished reading two of the best books I've ever read. Totally different types of books and yet, they contained great similarities. One similarity is that they were recommended to me by Mary Beth, a woman who apparently knows her books!

Around 12:30 last night, I read the final words of The Book Thief, softly closing the pages and sinking back into my pillows. My dreams all night were filled with snippets of characters and plot, my mind unwilling to let go of the book. It was a very powerful book, incredibly written. Set in Holocaust Germany, the book tells the story of a young German girl who captures the attention of Death. Death happens to be very busy taking care of souls, as is horrifically understandable given the massacre of Jews and other politically incorrect individuals during the late 30's and early 40's. However, this girl catches his eye and he keeps tabs on her, ultimately pocketing the autobiography she has penned to describe her own life during this period. We hear her tale with little inserts from Death's perspective. While heartbreaking, the book's writing and imagery literally lured me in for the long haul. On parallel tracks, we see the absolute worst of humanity and the absolute best.

Then, just a little bit ago, I wrapped up The Wednesday Wars, equally fantastic! This one was about a seventh grade boy living during Vietnam who gets stuck spending Wednesday afternoons with his teacher while the rest of his classmates split up to go to either catechism or bar mitzvah classes. As the lone Presbyterian in his class, he finds himself eye to eye with a teacher he realizes hates him. She really doesn't, as he discovers. What she does is challenge the pants off him. She gets him into Shakespeare - turns out he loves it. She teaches him how to run, how to think for himself, how to stand up for what's right and as any great teacher will do - she equips him with the tools to be truly great. The ironic thing is that the teacher's name is Mrs. Baker.

The teacher to whom I credit having the greatest impact on my life was also a Mrs. Baker. As a sixth grader, she essentially did for me what The Wednesday Wars do for the main character, Holling Hoodhood.

I will be adding both of these books to my personal library.