Book Wrap-Up: February 2010

Read in February 2010:

9. Hate List - Jennifer Brown
10. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
11. Roasting in Hell's Kitchen - Gordon Ramsay
12. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris
13. The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness
14. Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult

Quote of the Day

"'You give her all your french fries, even when she won't give you back onion rings,' Sophie says. 'And when you say her name it sounds different.'

'How?'

Sophie thinks. 'Like it's covered with blankets.'"

- Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult

Library Loot: Week of February 27, 2010

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg of Reading Adventures and Eva of A Striped Armchair that encourages bloggers to share books they've checked out from the library.

I haven't posted in a while so this is list is a compilation of books I've gotten from the library over the last few weeks.

The Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman
The Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell
Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell
The Wordy Shipmates - Sarah Vowell
Take the Cannoli - Sarah Vowell
Cleaving - Julie Powell
The Shack - William P. Young
Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving
The Strain - Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
Noah's Compass - Anne Tyler

Musing Mondays

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by Rebecca at Just One More Page.

Today's Musing Mondays post is about keeping books. Do you keep all the books you every buy? Just the ones you love? Just collectibles? What do you do with the ones you don't want to keep?

I do have quite a collection of books but they're mostly books I want to read, not ones I have read. I don't keep very many of my books. If I like a book enough that I know I will re-read it, or if it's one of my all-time favorites, I definitely will keep it.

The books I don't want to keep I take to a local used bookstore. They take used books in trade for store credit so I take bags of books there and use my in-store credit to buy more books! It's really a win-win situation for all involved. :)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at
One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Read last week...

Roasting in Hell's Kitchen - Gordon Ramsay

I enjoyed this book, but not because it's was particularly well written. It wasn't. It's a typical memoir written by a celebrity, so of course it's not going to be well written. But it was enjoyable, mostly because I just love Chef Ramsay! I recently started watching Kitchen Nightmares and reruns of Hell's Kitchen and wanted to know more about the man. If you're a fan of Chef Ramsay, I would recommend this. Otherwise, you're probably not going to enjoy it, sorry to say.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris

Another one I wasn't quite impressed with. My relationship with David Sedaris' writing is kind of touch and go - some of his pieces are absolutely hilarious while others simply fall flat. This is a mix of both, almost most of them were, to put it simply, just boring.

Currently Reading ...

I just today started reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. I've read so many good reviews of this book so I wanted to give it a try. So far I like it but I'm only about 10 pages in so it's hard to tell yet if I'll enjoy it.

Quote of the Day

God: I resent you blaming me for everything. And I do not exist to give you what you want.

- Angry Conversations with God, Susan E. Isaacs

Quote of the Day

All a rainbow is is light that walks behind a raindrop and its colors fall out.

- A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs

Book Wrap-Up: January 2010

This is what I read this month:

1. Wishin' and Hopin', Wally Lamb
2. The Unit, Ninni Holmqvist
3. In the Woods, Tana French
4. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
5. Paper Towns, John Green
6. New Moon, Stephenie Meyer
7. Stardust, Neil Gaiman
8. Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer

I don't think I've ever read so many books in one month! I've been back in college for the last four years and I'm finally finished so I'm using all my new free time to catch up on all the reading I've been backed up on in the last four years! Yay!

Quote of the Day

"I think it's beautiful when men show their physical strength openly without being ashamed of it or apologizing. And I think it's beautiful when women dare to be physically weak and accept help with heavy jobs."

- from The Unit, Ninni Holmqvist

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by J. Kaye at J. Kaye's Book Blog to discuss what we are reading this, as well as books completed the previous week.

Books completed last week:

Stardust, Neil Gaiman
Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer

Books I gave up on:

Again, none. So far my choices have been good!

What I am currently reading:

Fluke, Christopher Moore

After that:

I will be finishing off the Twilight series with Breaking Dawn.

Quote of the Day

"There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person."

- Anais Nin

Quote of the Day

"... then he turned to me in the darkness, pulled me close, one arm around my shoulders, the other holding my head against his chest, and I pressed myself against him with my arm around his waist, my forehead against his breastbone and one leg wrapped around his thighs, almost as if I were climbing him"

- from The Unit, Ninni Holmqvist

Friday Fill-In #161

Friday Fill-In is hosted here.

1. Wouldn't it be easy to run away and start over.

2. The love is better than ever!

3. I love the taste of chocolate!

4. There are too many books in the living room.

5. The first thing we're going to do is finally watch the last two episodes of Doctor Who.

6. Ting, ting, ting; drip, drip, drip; plop, plop, plop.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to boyfriend time, tomorrow my plans include family time and laundry and Sunday, I want to figure out what I'm doing on Sunday!

Quote of the Day

"Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you.

I'd been broken beyond repair."

- from New Moon, Stephenie Meyer

Quote of the Day

Starting a new feature here at You Are Quite the Human ... the Quote of the Day. Being a book addict, I of course love words themselves, and oftentimes certain lines or passages in books (or even movies sometimes) catch my eye and I have to remember them. I have a notebook I keep just for these quotes.

So, to get us started, here's a quote about books!

"But the not-very-highbrow truth of the matter was that the reading was how I got my ya-yas out.

For the sake of my bookish reputation I upgraded to Tolstoy and Steinbeck before I understood them, but my dark secret was that really, I preferred the junk. The Dragonriders of Pern, Flowers in the Attic, The Clan of the Cave Bear. This stuff was like my stash of Playboys under the mattress."

- from Julie & Julia, Julie Powell

WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer these questions:

- What are you currently reading?
- What did you recently finish reading?
- What do you think you'll read next?

My Answers:

I am currently reading: Stardust, by Neil Gaiman, and really enjoying it. It got off to a semi-slow start but it's picking up. Neil Gaiman has a great writing style. I've heard him speak before, and I think his voice and accent are beautiful, so I am kind of reading it with his voice in my head (if that makes sense!) and that's making it even better!

Before that, I finished: New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer. It was a lot better than Twilight (which I did enjoy) and I'm really looking forward not only to reading the next in the series but also seeing the movie. ('Cause I think that Taylor Lautner is a cutie patootie!)

Next Up: Continuing the Twilight series with Eclipse...

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's this week's teaser:

"Tristran Thorn, at the age of seventeen, and only six months older than Victoria, was half the way between a boy and a man, and was equally uncomfortable in either role; he seemed to be composed chiefly of elbows and Adam's apples. His hair was the brown of sodden straw, and it stuck out at awkward, seventeen-year-old angles, wet and comb it howsoever much he tried."

From Stardust by Neil Gaiman

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly meme hosted by J. Kaye at J. Kaye’s Book Blog

to discuss what we are reading this week, as well as books completed the previous week.

Books completed last week:

Paper Towns / John Green

New Moon / Stephenie Meyer

Books I gave up on:

Again, none. So far my choices have been good!

What I am currently reading:

I just started Stardust by Neil Gaiman, for the second time. I just love his writing style.

After that:

I will be continuing with the Twilight series and reading Eclipse.

Books for which I still need to write reviews:

Um, pretty much all of them? I’ve read In the Woods, Twilight, and Paper Towns and have to write those reviews. I’m still very new at this blogging thing so I have to find a rhythm for reviews.

Musing Mondays

MUSING MONDAYS is hosted by Rebecca at Just One More Page.

This week, Rebecca asks:

Where do you keep any books borrowed from friends or the library? Do they live with your own collection, or do you keep separate? Do you monitor them in any way?

I generally don't borrow books from friends, mostly because I have so many books of my own in my to-be-read list that I know I probably won't get to theirs for a while and I wouldn't want to keep them waiting for their books.

As for library books, I do get many, many of them, and they go in a pile separate from my other books. My own books are stacked up in bookshelves in my living room; my library books live in a pile on my desk in my living room. I even try to keep them in order of due date so I can at least try to get them read before they have to go back. It almost never happens, but I try!

Friday Fill-Ins #160

Friday Fill-Ins is hosted here.

1. You have a chance to change the world. Do it!

2. I need some chocolate right now!

3. There is a castle on a cloud.

4. Break it now and pay later.

5. It's time to eat!

6. His feelings for me are up in the air but it'll all work out in the end.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to boyfriend time, tomorrow my plans include a visit with old friends, and Sunday, I want to clean my kid's room and get some laundry done.