alisonwonderland (Alison)’s Comments (group member since Feb 03, 2008)

alisonwonderland (Alison)’s comments from the The Book Challenge group.

what i read in april:

18. Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
19. The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer
20. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
21. Cross Country by James Patterson
22. Hot Lunch by Alex Bradley
23. I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
24. Pigboy by Vicki Grant
25. Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale
26. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
27. Lucky by Alice Sebold

what i read in february and march:

8. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
9. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
10. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
11. Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman
12. Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
13. The Associate by John Grisham
14. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
15. North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
16. The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
17. Adrift by Steven Callahan

(That's about half as many books as I need to read in two months' time to meet my goal for the year. Sigh.)

Operandi wrote: "I changed Kiss Me Once, Kiss Me Twice to The Kite Runner."

The Kite Runner is fabulous!

what i read in january:

1. The Rhyming Season by Edward Averett
2. Team Moon by Catherine Thimmesh
3. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
5. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
6. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
7. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Dawn wrote: "19.~The Secret Life of Bees~
Sue Monk Kidd

this is one of my all-time favorite books! i'm looking forward to the DVD too.

i've added The Reading Group to my to-read list. thanks for the review!

Dawn wrote: "14. ~The Glass Castle~
Jeannette Walls

I read this in 2006 but am now listening to it on CD since it's the pick for one of my book clubs this month. Definitely heartbreaking!

a new year, a new goal!

in 2008, i read 80 books. in 2007, i read 76 books.

for 2009, i'd like to read 104 books (the same goal that i had for 2008). but i will be almost happy with exceeding 80.

78. The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
79. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin
80. The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

So I ended up with 80 books (of the 104 I'd hoped for). Not too bad!

i also picked up Xinran's Sky Burial for X - but i haven't read it yet.

Anna Quindlen is good for Q.

i'm looking at Lisa Unger for U and Cynthia Voight for V.

71. Chocolat by Joanne Harris
72. The Quickie by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge
73. Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
74. InterWorld by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves
75. Escape by Carolyn Jessop
76. Wait for Me by An Na
77. She's All That! Poems for Girls by Belinda Hollyer

Just six days left in the year! Twenty-seven books needed to reach my goal ... but I will exceed last year's total!

Allison wrote: "Finished #12: Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I *loved* it! Definitely one of the best books I read this year. ..."

i received this one in my book club's Christmas book exchange - and we're going to read it for January's meeting. i'm really looking forward to it!

i've heard that Jemima J is good. i'll have to get to it as soon as i can.

64. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
65. A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
66. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
67. Lucky Man: A Memoir by Michael J. Fox
68. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
69. The Wall by Eve Bunting
70. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

57. A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen
58. Mermaids in the Basement by Michael Lee West
59. Teach With Your Heart by Erin Gruwell
60. Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
61. Bronte's Book Club by Kristiana Gregory
62. To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel by Siena Cherson Siegel and Mark Siegel
63. Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen

thanks for the encouragement, VegasGal!

with just three months to go in 2008, it's highly doubtful that i'll make 104 books. how many do you think i'll finish?

if i'm on the same pace as the previous three months, then i'll end up with 75 books. i think my goal at this point is to end up with more than 75!

37. Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich
38. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
39. Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
40. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
41. Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
42. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
43. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
44. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
45. Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers
46. 1776 by David McCullough
47. The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
48. Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks
49. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
50. The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
51. Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark
52. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
53. Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky
54. Violet on the Runway by Melissa Walker
55. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
56. The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

27. The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
28. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
29. Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult
30. Windfalls by Jean Hegland
31. Don't Know Much About the Universe by Kenneth C. Davis
32. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
33. Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
34. The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
35. Dead Time by Stephen White
36. Dark Assassin by Anne Perry

it's almost June 30 - half way through the year. if i'm going to make my goal of 104 books in 2008, i'm really going to have to get a move on!

i think april is going even slower than march did. i'm still working on Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, but i never even started The Lady in the Tower. i'm almost done with The Camel Bookmobile. here are the ones i've finished this month so far:

24. Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
25. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
26. Someone like Summer by M. E. Kerr