Top Ten Tuesday: Beach Reads

This week for Top Ten Tuesday, The Broke and The Bookish asks us to come up with 10 beach reads. I'm sure we'll see a variety of interpretations of the term, but to me the quintessential beach read is light, breezy, easy and has a happy ending. It's something you can easily put down and pick back up. It doesn't take too much focus. It makes you smile.

8 beach reads I've enjoyed:

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"Wicked Appetite" is the first installment of one of Janet Evanovich's newer series, but I think any of her books -- particularly the Stephanie Plum novels -- make great beach reads. Janet Evanovich is one of my favorite authors, and many of her books contain the perfect mix of humor, suspense and romance.

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"Twenties Girl" is my favorite Sophie Kinsella book, but any of her fun stories -- like "The Undomestic Goddess," "Remember Me" and the Shopaholic series -- are good for light and easy reading.

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This fun mystery novel is told from the dog's perspective.

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As with Sophie Kinsella and Janet Evanovich, any of Jennifer Crusie's humorous romance novels are perfect when you need a fluffy read.

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I've only made it to book 5 of the Sookie Stackhouse series, but eventually I'll get the rest read!

 

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Some of Jennifer Weiner's more recent books are a bit too serious to be considered "beach" reads, but her earlier novels like "Good in Bed" are quick and enjoyable.

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There's even a section that takes place at the beach!

 

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This breezy Mr. Darcy-themed book wasn't my favorite ever, but I enjoyed it well enough. Read my review here.

And two books that are probably perfect "beach reads" currently collecting dust on my bookshelf:

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Book Review: "Paris in Love: A Memoir"

"Paris in Love: A Memoir" by Eloisa James (a.k.a. Mary Bly)
First published in 2012
260 pages
My rating: 4 out of 5
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After her mother's death from cancer and her own breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, romance novelist/college professor Eloisa James decided it was time to embrace life. So in 2009 Eloisa, husband Alessandro, 15-year-old Luca and 11-year-old Anna sold everything and moved to Paris for a year of adventure.

Written in short snippets taken from Eloisa's Facebook and Twitter commentary during her year in France with a few short essays thrown in for variety, "Paris in Love" is everything you'd expect it to be. It has food, shopping, museums, chocolate, wine, lingerie, parks, charming homeless people, more food -- not to mention humorous (and occasionally sentimental) remarks about the kids and their year at an Italian school in Paris.

Eloisa takes us through the four seasons with wonderful detail, and we're with her when she explores French markets, samples calf head pie and finds the perfect bra. It is now one of my life goals to find a cafe in France where I can be served hot chocolate as Eloisa was -- in two silver pitchers, one filled with melted dark chocolate and the other filled with steaming cream, to be mixed together. Sigh...

"Paris in Love" was a fun, charming memoir of a year spent abroad in one of the most romantic cities in the world, but it was also a tale of love and family togetherness. I'm happy to recommend the book with one caveat: Just know that it will make you want to travel, shop and eat lemon tarts!

Furry Friday

I love the way Conan's eyes look in the sunlight!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Feature Travel

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time for my second-ever Top Ten Tuesday link-up with The Broke and the Bookish. Man, I knew participating in TTT was going to be hard, because I have an absolutely horrible memory. In fact, that's the main reason I started this blog -- so I'd have a quick and easy reference for books I've read. But it's fun, too, to have to (attempt to) think back over all the books I've read and reminisce.

This week's prompt is books that deal with travel in some way, which is fitting getting into summer vacation season. Some of the books I've chosen are memoirs, some are fiction and some are related to travel in ways that probably don't quite fit with the theme, but whatever. Here goes:

Books I've Read:

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"My Life in France," Julia Child's autobiography, is one of my favorite books! I read a good chunk of it on the beach when we lived in Hawaii and thoroughly enjoyed being transported to France with Julia as she explored Paris and learned to cook. (FYI, the picture behind my blog header is of "My Life in France" and gorgeous Bellows beach on Oahu.) Read my review here.

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Now this is a true travel book! "A Walk in the Woods" is Bill Bryson's account of his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail with a (somewhat overweight) friend. It was funny and fascinating! Read my review here.

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"Outlander" deals with travel in a different way -- time travel from 1940s England to mid-1700s Scotland. I absolutely loved this book, which is a total page-turner with an epic romance, suspense, even a bit of humor -- it was enthralling! Some day soon I hope to read the second book in the series, but that's a bit of a commitment because it's a mere, oh, 750 pages long.

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I love the Percy Jackson books, especially the newer "Heroes of Olympus" installments. In this Greek mythology kids' series, Percy is a teenage Greek demigod and he and his friends from Camp Half-Blood are frequently charged with saving the planet from Greek monsters, rogue gods and catastrophes. They travel across America (and later the world) to do so.

I'm anxiously awaiting the release of latest book, "The House of Hades," in October. Read my review of "The Son of Neptune," first in the "Heroes of Olympus" series, here.

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"The Paris Wife" was one of the best books I read last year. It's about Hadley, Ernest Hemingway's often-overlooked first wife. Hadley moved with Ernest from Chicago to Paris, where they mixed and mingled with the "Lost Generation" of writers including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. Read my review here.

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Speaking of the best books I read last year, the first two books in Deborah Harkness's All Souls trilogy are at the top of the list. "Shadow of Night" is the second installment in this supernatural series and involves travel back in time and to a different continent. Read my review here.

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I had mixed feelings about this post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel which is set in outer space. I know some people who are just as obsessed with "Ender's Game" as I am with Harry Potter, but I just wasn't quite that taken with it. However, the plot has stuck with me many months later and I'm looking forward to the movie version of the book, which comes out this fall. Read my review here.

Book I'm Reading Now:

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In this memoir, author Eloisa James moves to Paris for a year with her husband and two kids after a cancer scare. The book is composed of daily blurbs and a few expanded essays compiled from James's Facebook and Twitter posts about day-to-day life in France and getting settled in in a romantic new place where she doesn't speak the language.


Residing On My Bookshelf, To Be Read At Some Point In My Lifetime:

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After being left by his fiancee days before their wedding, the author took his brother on his would-be honeymoon to Costa Rica. The trip sparked a lust for life in the brothers, inspiring them to quit their jobs and spend two years traveling the world.

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I grabbed "Fried Eggs With Chopsticks: One Woman's Hilarious Adventure Into a Country and a Culture Not Her Own" at the thrift store a couple years ago because the cover caught my eye. Oh, and it was 50 cents. Eventually I'll get around to reading about the author's seemingly humorous adventures and mishaps in China.

Book Review: "The Yellow Birds"

"The Yellow Birds" by Kevin Powers
First published in 2012
226 pages
My rating: 2.75 out of 5

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This story of the early years of the Iraq war was the kind of book I knew I'd finish but wanted to be done with as quickly as possible. "The Yellow Birds" is a story told by a 21-year-old Army private who made a promise to an even younger private's mother that he would bring him home. Yeah, you can probably see where the plot was going...

"The Yellow Birds," written by an Iraq war veteran, is an amazing, heart-wrenching depiction of being young and in war. It makes you feel sick, thinking of 18-year-old soldiers -- kids, really -- and all the horrible things they have done and have witnessed and the fact that they have to come home and try to make peace with themselves. They're so young, so innocent, so naive when they head off to war. And sometimes -- more often than we'd like to think -- they're ravaged by guilt and grief when -- if -- they come home.

Many have probably said the book was "beautifully written," but I had a hard time with the writing style. I found it to be ostentatious and overly poetic. (In the author's defense, the book jacket proclaims he has won an award for his poetry.) It was the kind of book where you read a string of words that have a certain lilt to them, they flow together in a pleasing way. But then you try to process what you've just read and go, "Uhhh... what?" and realize that it was mostly nice-sounding nonsense. Also, I can't recall ever having to look up so many unknown words in a book before. Fricative? Semaphore? Solipsist?

While the story was so melancholy and sad, I felt it had the power of truth behind it, unlike some other war novels I've read by people who obviously have no idea what military life is like. This is not a book that will leave you feeling happy or hopeful -- just the opposite, in fact. I'm glad that books like this are written, because despite our yellow ribbons and care package campaigns I think we Americans all too often remain blissfully ignorant of what our soldiers are really experiencing "over there" in some faraway place, out of sight and out of mind. And while I support any novel that jars people to really see better the cost of our freedom... I didn't really care for this one.

Book Review: "The World's Strongest Librarian"

"The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength and the Power of Family" by Josh Hanagarne
First published in 2013
291 pages
My rating: 4.5 out of 5
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Before I ever opened "The World's Strongest Librarian" I was all set to love it. I mean, it has pictures of books on the cover and the word "librarian" in the title. And when I laughed out loud several times in the first chapter, I knew it was a winner.

Josh Hanagarne is a reference librarian at a public library in Salt Lake City, but he doesn't look or act like your stereotypical librarian. He's a man, for one thing, and at 6'7" an imposing man at that. But a library -- a quiet place by nature -- is the last place you'd expect Josh to work because he has Tourette Syndrome, which fills his days with uncontrollable tics ranging from rapid blinking and issuing random whoops and hollers all the way to chewing the inside of his cheeks raw and punching himself in the face. Josh is also a former-ish Mormon and a weight-lifter. In short, he's a Very Interesting Person.

He's also very funny, witty and self-deprecating, and he tells lots of hilarious stories about library patrons --  true gems that I could definitely relate to or at least totally imagine happening at my library job. But "Strongest Librarian" is also insightful, forthright and full of love. Josh is so passionate about books and the power of knowledge. He honestly describes his struggle with his religion. And he is strong in ways far more important than being able rip a phone book in half. The way he's dealt with his Tourette's, though not without struggles, is truly inspiring.

While I really enjoyed Josh's life story -- from his childhood (and adulthood) obsession with Stephen King to his Tourette's diagnosis to his Mormon wedding to competing in a Highland Games strongman competition and everything in between -- his awesome writing is what made the book. It's obvious that he's a book lover, because this memoir reads like a novel more often than not.

 

I definitely recommend "The World's Strongest Librarian." It will leave you laughing, thoughtful and maybe even a little bit in awe.

Furry Friday

I am in love with this picture! Handsome Conan in the front, lovely peonies in the back: perfection!

Conan likes to stop and smell the flowers.

Here we have Lily stalking a chipmunk on our deck. Too bad she's terrified of going outside... And I think the chipmunk knew this, because it just sat there eating it's snack and staring right back at Lily without a care in the world.