PHS Summer Challenge discussion

Once I got over the co-author of "Pearl Harbor" being Newt Gingrich, I enjoyed the story very much. Lots of great background on what led to the actual bombing and entrance of the United States into WWII. 10 points...now on to "Mary Poppins," a little light reading for a series that rocked my socks back in the day!

25 points total

A Year Without "Made in China" One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy by Sara Bongiorni
I am almost finished. In reviewing the points I realize it is worth 15 points as it was recommended to my by my daughter. I have started to look at labels and realize what the author is saying. Most of our goods are "Made in China" Finished the book last week. Struggled with the author as I am now reading lables everywhere and realizing what the term "out sourcing" means and the impacts. Also brings into light the consumerism of our culture. Wow! good read if you want to follow a family as it struggles through the challanges of the seasons, box stores and daily living with stuff....

Summer is for light reading, damn it, so I served myself up some John Grisham and some John Lescroart, probably as light as you can get without falling into the Romance category - ack! The Grisham title was "The Appeal," and is the first of his books I've read that didn't have a happy ending, the bad guys losing scads of money, the good guys triumphant, and someone laying on a sunny beach with a foo-foo drink in hand. In fact, this was one of the most depressing - but all too true - books I've tackled so far this summer. I'm a happy-ending girl, but it was surprising in a good way that Grisham didn't wrap the whole thing up in a pretty bow like he usually does.

The John Lescroart book, "Rasputin's Revenge," is one of his earliest works. I've loved his Dismas Hardy mystery series and discovered this unrelated title by accident. It is the second featuring Auguste Lupa, supposedly the son of Sherlock Holmes. I will go back to read the first one soon. I kind of have a Russian thing going on this summer, it seems, as this novel also features the days of the Russian Revolution!

70 points total

I read the first two books (Twilight and New Moon) of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Both recommended to me by a friend.
30 points

I read "Greywalker" by local author Kat Richardson, whose birthday is in May. This is a series about a female private detective who, after being clinically dead for two minutes, has encounters with the dead and the mostly dead. I'm getting the rest of this series ASAP!

75 points

ok i forgot i was doing this for a while so here is what i have so far. for oldest book not yet read on my shelf i read go west kate alexander'kates book' by mary francis shura. it is set on the trails to oregon, it was a good book i should have read it earlyer!!!!! so that one was ten points. another book i read was breathless by lurlene mcdaniel it was a really intresting book too just it was sad, so if you cant handle sad books you shouldnt read i( i cried!) well anyways that one was narrorated by children well acually four children, i dont want to say anything else cause alot of describing it would give away the story too much! so that one was worth five so i have a total of fifteen... so far:)

I'm finally posting...between a houseful of guests and the start of summer school I'm behind. I was sort of reading three things at once:

I started with Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and followed up by watching a BBC production (hmmm..how did Miranda end up with such pristine, fashionable togs afer being marooned for 13 years...starting when she was three??). So 10 points.

Then on to "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose," an account of a group of students in WWII Germany who defied the Nazis by circulting flyers questioning what Germany had become. Very interesting, and well-writen, although it wasmore about Hans Scholl and his friends than about Sophie.I saw a movie a while ago, and searched Goodreads for a book in hopes of turning it into a dramatic speech for someone. Stephanie gave it 5 stars...so 15 points.

And then I finished "The Order of the Stick: No Cure for the Paladin Blues," a graphic novel satirizing Dungeons and Dragons and the various nerdy types that play the games, recommended by many of my strange friends. 15 points.

And its sequel, "The Order of the Stick: War and XPs." 15 points.

Total 55 points.

15 points for "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama. Recommended by my wife. Excellent book.

i read "hit and run" by lurlene mcdaniels in which the narrorator is a child and safe by susan shaw also where the narrorator is a child. both were good books but again they were both sad. out of the two i liked "hit and run" best McDaniels serries of books is really good(and most are narrorarated by children, her books are a insperational serries about "children who face life altering situations" i read about her and it said that she chose to do this because her son developed diabitties and it changed his life. all her books are intresting and i would highly recomend them!!! so far my point total is 25 points.

FINALLY finished my 3rd book (summer school and home painting projects bogging me down). It was "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Really, really good. Liked it a lot. Recommended to me by a friend for 15 points. Total so far for me is 45 points.

I read "Middlesex" 2 summers ago -- couldn't put it down! Icredible story and even more impressive was the prose. LOVE the way Eugenides writes.

Carol Alex

I read Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles, a book recommended by my friend. 40 points total.

Letters From Burma bu Aung San Suu Kyi. 15 points for a non-fiction book about a current event. While the book itself is not necessarily current the topic is. Burma (also called Myanmar) is run by a brutal military government that will not recognize Aung San Suu Kyi as the rightfully elected leader. Instead she has been under house arrest for most of the past 20 years.

She is seperated from her family and forced to live under severe restriction, yet still lives a life full of grace and purpose. She is an amazing world leader who we should know more about.

http://dassk.org/

check out this website for more info

Finished my fourth book of the summer. "Icy Sparks" by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. Very easy to read and a great story about how a little girl grows up in the 1950's with a disorder that dr's can't diagnose. Loved it. Recommended to me by my husband. 15 more points. Total = 60 points for me.

Just finished "Ysabel" by Guy Gavriel Kay. Great book, set in Provence, France. Kay details layers of history through the region while weaving in a supernatural thread and a lot of suspense (including some questions that are never quite answered). 15 points for a total of 70.

Next up, "Good Omens" by Pratchett and Gaiman. Looking forward to some silliness.

The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell. An interesting investigation into how certain things become epidemics, how they catch fire and take off. He investigates many different things, like Sesame Street and Airwalk shoes, and shows the similarities in how they caught fire. Pretty good. Recommended by my friend and my wife. 15 points

Just a follow up to a previous book I read

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf...

This link is a good explainer to the ordeal of Aung San Suu Kyi. This is from CNN.com 8/11/09, today.
Her prison sentence was extended.

Finished my 5th book, "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. I stayed up and read for 4 hours last night to finish it. As a mother, this book presents questions that I hope I never have to answer. I cried (actually, that's too mild, I was bawling) for most of the 2nd half of the book. I know it is a movie now, but I haven't seen it yet. The book is fantastic, written from different perspectives, and well worth the read.
Recommended to me by my step-mom for 15 points. Total = 75 points.
Kim Demianiw

Kissing Annabel by steven herrick, it was an intresting book, i am not sure if i like the way it is written it lacks detailes where they are needed. it was recomended to me by my friend ashley j because of the format. which was intresting, but again lacked the importaint deatales. 55 points total

i read "The summer i turned pretty" by Jenny Han it was a really good plot and well written except for the abundacy of the word 'like' every other word!that got on my nerve a little bit, every character in the book does noy need to constantly keep saying like every time they speek! haha i got to the point i would skip that word. i really loved the stories plot and the characters in the story. if possible i would marry the boy jeramiah in it... you will have to read it to find out about him ;) this book was recomended by again my friend ashley j. she read a million books on her vacation so she has a million for me to read! so thats another 15 points. givving me 70 points total.

I realized that my postings have not been consistant. Sometimes I post in "Points" and sometimes by the name of the book I just read. So here's a recap of all the books read since June 23rd:

Wanderlust - Danielle Steele (recommended - 15 pts)

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Me, Myself, and Them: A firsthand Account of One Young Person's Experiences with Schizophrenia - Kurt Snyder (author's names the same 25 pts)

Playing For Pizza - John Grisham (food - 10 pts)

Dark Summer - Iris Johansen (summer in name - 5 pts)

In a Sunburn Country - Bill Bryson (recomm. 15 pts)

O Pioneers! - Willa Cather (recomm. 15 pts)

The Highest Tide - Jim Lynch (child narrates - 5 pts)

Tortilla Flat, The Moon is Down, Cannery Row -
John Steinbeck (3 short stories = 328 pgs - 25 pts)

"Inconvenient Truth" (just finished it) 15 pts (8/27)

"The Tiger Warrior" - David Gibbons (483pp)
"The Country Ahead of us, the Country Behind - David Guterson (short stories 164pp) (same name = 25 pts)

I would never have picked up Tiger Warrior and then certainly never finished it if it hadn't been for the summer reading challenge. Too heavy on the ancient history/archeology & not enough on human interest!Read it over a 4-day holiday and then read Guterson's short stories 8/31/09, finishing at 11:00pm under the wire for our challenge deadline.

Total summer points: 155 pts

I finished "Good Omens." It is less silly than I thought, but still very entertaining. I liked the authors' version of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the Hell Hound. Recommended by several friends, total 85 points

I'm about half way through the book-waiting-longest-on-the-bookshelf "All Tomorrow's Parties" by William Gibson.

I've finished "All Tomorrow's Parties." Gibson has a very stark, almost Dickensian view of the future. I've read some of his other books ages ago, so it was nice to revisit a possible future. Recommended by my hubby, and the book that has been sitting on my bookshelf the longest, for 15 points. Total 100 pts. (pales in comparison to some of you over achievers!)