choosing my passion

I recently had an epiphany that seems to be changing my life… or rather, changing my pop culture landscape. I was sitting in the cinema waiting for the start of Julie & Julia and watching the trailer for The Time Traveler’s Wife when it hit me: both were books I always intended to read [...]

5 things I love this week

April 26 – May 2, 2009
 1. Children of the World choir. Every one of these children has been personally impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, yet each of them has found joy in knowing Jesus Christ and has found a father in God. They have suffered as no child should ever have to suffer, but they [...]

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC

February 28, 2009, at Movies 14 in McKinney, Texas

No one describes me as a “chick flick” kind of girl, but I did read the first book in the Confessions of a Shopaholic series and found myself laughing throughout the story. Her woes with credit card debt and persistent phone calls from said debt collectors were [...]

5 things I love this week

February 8-14, 2009
1. Creative inspiration from design publications. I have shelves of decorating magazines and books, scores of jpeg images on my computer, and bookmarks all over the place leading me to inspiration for my home and my personal art. But still I spend hours every week poring over webpages and blogs and random postings [...]

5 things I love this week

February 1-7, 2009

1. Grounds of Hope fair trade program. By supporting the Grounds of Hope program, consumers will be able to purchase coffee and other goods to directly benefit the farmers and providers of these goods. By giving a fair price for their products, we are able to directly impact lives around the world and [...]

2008 Pop Culture Year-In-Review

The Best and Worst Pop Culture Moments of 2008   for me, at least
movies | television | celebrities | books | music

Favorite New Film

WALL•E — Even all these months later, my affection for the film continues to resonate. It is beautiful, heartbreaking, full of joy and life, comedy and tragedy. That it’s a computer-animated entity still [...]

AN IRISHWOMAN’S TALE by Patti Lacy

Genre: Women’s Fiction
ISBN: 0825429870
Acquired: from the author (my beloved cousin)
Reading Began: August 20, 2008
Completed: October 13, 2008
Overall Rating:Seven out of ten
 
An Irishwoman’s Tale is the story of Mary, torn from her mother at 5 years old and sent away from her Irish homeland to live with a couple in America. Through the years, Mary yearns [...]

PLAYING FOR PIZZA by John Grisham

Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780385525008
Acquired: Half Price Books
Reading Began: July 31, 2008
Completed: August 18, 2008
Overall Rating:Five out of ten
 
A die-hard fan will read anything written by a favorite author, and I am that for John Grisham. I don’t always care for the end results, but I will always give his books my all. Last winter I finally [...]

EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer

Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780618329700
Acquired: purchased 2006
Reading Began: March, 2008
Completed: July 26, 2008
Overall Rating:Nine out of ten
 
The novels of Jonathan Safran Foer are more than just engaging stories; they are puzzles whose pieces are laid out in non-linear fashion from multiple perspectives over many generations. Although one large story is being told, it takes much attention by [...]

EVERYONE WORTH KNOWING by Lauren Weisberger

Genre: Chick Lit
ISBN: 9781416543008
Acquired: Bookcrossing.com
Reading Began: July 19, 2008
Abandoned: July 20, 2008
Overall Rating:One out of ten
 
Having greatly enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada (and well before there was a movie), I put Lauren Weisberger’s follow-up on my reading list as soon as it was published. I finally got around to reading it, thinking this would be [...]

THE TIPPING POINT: HOW LITTLE THINGS CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE by Malcolm Gladwell

Genre: Nonfiction
ISBN: 0316316962
Acquired: Bookcrossing.com
Reading Began: May 3, 2008
Completed: July 15, 2008
Overall Rating:Seven out of ten
 
You might think that the two months it took me to read The Tipping Point means I struggled with the writing or the content or the length or something similar. In fact, the delay had nothing to do with the book [...]

LOOK ME IN THE EYE: MY LIFE WITH ASPERGER’S by John Elder Robison

Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 9780307395986
Acquired: McKinney Public Library (loan)
Reading Began: March 15, 2008
Completed: March 29, 2008
Overall Rating:Six out of ten
 
Asperger’s Syndrome is virtually unknown to most people, and up until three years ago, it was to me, as well. But then my nephew began exhibiting signs of Asperger’s, and with his challenges I was compelled to begin [...]

THE BROKER by John Grisham

Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780385510455
Acquired:purchased on original release, Jan 2005
Reading Began:January 21, 2008
Completed:January 27, 2008
Overall Rating:Seven out of ten
 
I’ve said it many times and it still holds true: I’m a sucker for Grisham’s thrillers. Yes, people call them lightweight, and sometimes they can be, but I enjoy the easy pace of the books. I enjoy the intrigue [...]

SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 0849900417
Acquired:loan from Kilgo
Reading Began:October 3, 2007
Completed:October 17, 2007
Overall Rating:Nine out of ten
 
This book had been making the rounds of our staff for several weeks but I hadn’t really explored it on my own when a coworker put it in my hands and said, “You have to read this. This book will make you [...]

THERE AND BACK AGAIN: AN ACTOR’S TALE by Sean Astin

Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 0312331460
Acquired:Bookcrossing.com
Reading Began:July 26, 2007
Completed:August 8, 2007
Overall Rating:seven out of ten
 
You don’t have to know me very long to discover my great love for Lord of the Rings, both book and films. I never tire of hearing the stories surrounding the history-making production of the movies, and I seek out all behind-the-scenes information that [...]

Summer Loves

My cousin, author Patti Lacy, recently held a reading list contest featuring what she termed Summer Loves. The loves are, of course, those books we read during our summer months which inspire, envelop, buoy, and (sometimes) disappoint us, but which are never forgotten. In response to her own story, I created my current list of [...]

VANISHING ACTS by Jodi Picoult

Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0743454553
Acquired:Bookcrossing.com
Reading Began:July 2, 2007
Completed:July 11, 2007
Overall Rating:seven out of ten
 
This book is my introduction to Jodi Picoult, and it’s a fine choice for that! I thoroughly enjoyed the story, was engaged by the many characters, and simply could not put it down on some occasions as it was truly compelling. It’s not a [...]

THE HISTORY OF LOVE by Nicole Krauss

Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780393328622
Acquired:QPB
Reading Began:June 3, 2007
Completed:June 15, 2007
Overall Rating:Seven out of ten
 
Two vastly different stories run through The History of Love: teenaged Alma, who is simultaneously searching for the woman after whom she was named while desperately seeking a mate for her widowed mother; and Leo, a man at the end of his life, so [...]

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 1400080452
Acquired:Bookcrossing.com
Reading Began:May 22, 2007
Completed:June 3, 2007
Overall Rating:ten out of ten
 
I rarely give a book a perfect 10 on the ratings scale, but I have to do so in this case. It’s not that the book itself is perfect, nor the author extremely engaging in her own right, but I found the experience of [...]

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS: SCENES FROM AN OBSESSIVE GIRLHOOD by Jennifer Traig

Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 0316158771
Acquired:Half Price Books
Reading Began:May 19, 2007
Completed:May 28, 2007
Overall Rating:Five out of ten
 
I’m not sure how I feel about this book, even still. I was intrigued when I first heard of it a few years ago, very interested to read a true life story about the struggles with OCD. And the fact that [...]