31 August, 2010

Teaser Tuesday



Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading

This is how it works
  • 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.
  This weeks Teaser Tuesday comes from

 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver


"I ought to bring him fruit, I guess." She glanced apologetically at the M&M's in her lap. "But Lord, you know he'd never eat them.
We shared a sympathetic look, mutually marveling that kids who commit grown-up crimes still have their little-boy sweet tooth.

I'd love to know what your teaser is this week. Leave me a link!

30 August, 2010

It's Monday! What are you reading?


What are you reading Monday  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey. Head over and check out what others are reading!

It's been a couple of weeks since I have participated in this. Apparently a new job can do that to you!

What I have finished this week

Two books this week.

What's Happening to our Boys by Maggie Hamilton

Celebrity Detox - Rosie O'Donnell (review to come)

What I am reading now

We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

From Goodreads:

The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry

Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.
What's next?
Hmmm, not sure. The too read list does not seem to be whittling down at all - this job at the library is not helping!! I am excited to finally be reading Kevin though.

So what are you reading? Leave me a link!

29 August, 2010

What's Happening to our Boys?

What's Happening to our Boys? by Maggie Hamilton.

This is the companion volume to What's Happening to our Girls? which I reviewed here.

Similarly to Girls, Boys looks at how different the world is for today's boys and what parents can do to build strong, positive relationships with their boys to help guide and support them to become strong, wonderful men. Again, it was both terrifying and reassuring.

The thing that has struck me most about both of these books is how all the tweens and teens she interviewed stated they did a lot of stuff not because they wanted to, but in order to fit in. They don't really want to drink, take drugs, have sex, but it's perceived as what you must do in order to fit in. Now if only they would tell each other that, a lot of problems and pressures could be solved! However, as they are unlikely to be that open with each other, as parents, we need to provide them with the tools and the safety net to do what they want to do and survive the cut throat world of being a kid.

As with girls, Maggie Hamilton stresses the importance of open and honest relationships with our sons. Start talking to them early, and about real, important stuff. Discuss how they are targeted by marketing. Talk about the long term effects of alcohol and drug abuse. Acknowledge they are intelligent beings and saying "just don't do it because I said so" won't cut it. Use the video games and movies they watch to talk about the effect of violence on our society and how it's not an effective way to deal with problems and issues in our lives. Studies found that children who came from families like this were less likely to drink, take drugs or be influenced by peer pressure. We cannot under estimate our importance in our children's lives.

What's happening to our Boys and What's happening to our Girls are two books I recommend all parents read.

24 August, 2010

Teaser Tuesday



Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading

This is how it works
  • 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.
  This weeks Teaser Tuesday comes from

 What's happening to our boys? by Maggie Hamilton


As I did with the companion volume to this book, What's happening to our girls?, I'm likely to give you a handful of teasers. 


PLEASE BE WARNED, SOME OF THE TEASERS INCLUDED ARE DISTURBING AND MAY BE UPSETTING.


As boys enter their teens their bodies change beyond recognition, and their brains go into partial meltdown, making life exhilarating and bewildering. 

Though illegal, boys who know their way around cyberspace can watch everything from young women being choked with penises tot he detailed, graphic deflowering of young girls. One site encourages boys who find themselves with a drunk girl to grab a video camera and call up their mates so they can all have a good time with her, then post their exploits on the site.

Recent figures indicate that almost 4000 children under 10 in Australia have been prescribed anti-depressants. Over 500 of these kids were under 5. With the number of prescription drugs now taken during the childhood years, it's less of a leap for teenagers to take prescription drugs for recreational purposes.

When you challenge them, you have to do so with support. When you do, you see their confidence and resilience grow, and often you see them step up to something higher.

Does any one else find the second and third of the quotes incredibly disturbing?

I'd love to know what your teaser is this week. Leave me a link!
 

23 August, 2010

It's Monday! What are you reading?

What are you reading Monday  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey. Head over and check out what others are reading!

It's been a couple of weeks since I have participated in this. Apparently a new job can do that to you!

What I have finished since the last time I did this!

Three books finished (and reviewed!).

Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson  -  our August book group book


The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer -  saw it while reshelving at work and thought why not!

What I am reading now

What's Happening to our Boys by Maggie Hamilton

From Goodreads:



What kind of world are our boys growing up in?

Why are increasing numbers of boys suffering body image and self-esteem problems? Why do they feel worthless without the latest branded toy, game or item of clothing? What makes soft drinks, snacks and fast foods so attractive? Why are they drawn to countless acts of violence on TV, in movies and in computer games? What impact does our highly sexualised climate and our emphasis on success and money have on them as they grow? And why are so many boys vulnerable to cyber bullying and to porn?

Childhood and teenage life is changing rapidly, leaving parents exhausted and confused as to how best to tackle the many issues they face. How does this high-pressure environment affect a boy's confidence, his values and aspirations, his wellbeing, his sense of community, his attitudes to girls and women?

In her follow-up book to What's Happening to Our Girls? Maggie Hamilton asks these and many other vital questions, as well as providing numerous tips for parents and educators on how to create a more promising future for our children.
This is the companion volume to What's happening to our Girls? It has moved to the top of my list because it is only a two week loan from the library. I will be buying both of these books eventually.

What's next?
Well surprise surprise, I still need to re read   We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.  It will be our September book group read.

So what are you reading? Leave me a link!

22 August, 2010

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

I wasn't going to read this. I have read the Twilight series and her book The Host, but had decided I was done with it. Then last week at work I was reshelving and came across this and thought "What the hell - it'll be a good quick read."

I was right about the quick bit. It's not that there was anything particularly wrong with the book, it was just a bit bland. For me it didn't really add anything to the series, and the cynical side of me says it was simply a money making exercise. A way to have something new on the shelves so the Twilight brand could be stretched a little further. Most probably a must have for die hard Twilight fans, but that is about it.

It did remind me of this song though!

Mistborn Book One: The Final Empire

Mistborn Book One: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

First off, don't you just love the cover of this? I think it's fantastic. I'd frame it and hang it on my wall even!

This is our book group book for August.

From Goodreads:

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the Sliver of Infinity, reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Rulers most hellish prison. Kelsier snapped and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark. Kel's plan looks like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

For me it was a bit slow to begin with, but it picked up speed and quickly became un-put-downable.  Sanderson has created a world and a story that would be so easy to turn into a movie - and apparently he has sold the rights. It has everything - betrayal, deception, romance, good v's evil.  I will definitely reading the other two. 

18 August, 2010

I Love My Job.

Seriously - I love my new job. An avid reader, in a library! Does it get any better. (Well, I have lost a lot of reading time, but apart from that!) Here is what I have bought home from my first week of work.

 These books I actually borrowed. In fact, the top four I took of the shelving trolley as I spent my first four days reshelving. (Yep, four days of nothing but reshelving! I now know the library forwards, backwards and inside out!) Personally I feel I was incredibly restrained!

Then today there was a trolley of young adult fiction that had be discontinued. Not sure why - may simply be multiple copies that are not moving much anymore. I love Maureen McCarthy so couldn't go part this pile of them. The top Meme McDonald looked interesting too. Again, I could have taken a lot more!

Finally there was a bunch of quilting magazines that were being taken out of circulation as well.

Now all I need to do is find some reading time!

Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

I put this book on hold at the library after I read a review on Gerbera Daisy Diaries. You can read her review here.

On May 27, 1992, a mortar struck a line of people waiting to buy bread in Sarjevo, a city under siege. 22 people were killed. For the next 22 days, Vedran Smailović, a renowned Sarajevan cellist, played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor.

Galloway uses this event to explore the lives of three fictional characters living in a city they once moved about freely, but are now confronted with the very real possibility of death every time they step outside their doors.

I remember the siege of Sarajevo. I can remember wondering why no one did anything, why the world sat by and let it happen. I cannot imagine being scared to walk around a city I have known all my life. Dashing across roads in the hope that there wasn't a sniper focused on it, and if there was, that I wasn't the one today. 

The Cellist of Sarajevo moved me in an intense way. My heart broke for those people who lived through this and those who didn't. Those who died for the whim of someone on a hill with a gun.

17 August, 2010

Life is a bit hectic at the moment!

I got a job. A pretty good job actually. After two years of struggling with the Education Department in Queensland, I, on a whim, applied for a job as a library assistant at the library - and got it. Applied Thursday, interview Friday, started Tuesday (Monday was a public holiday.).  After not working for 2.5 years and not working full time for over 8, it has a been a bit of a shock. It's only full time until the end of August and then hopefully 4 days until the end of September. After that, who knows, hopefully they will extend me again.
In the meantime, bear with me as I adjust to this new schedule! (My google reader currently has 441 unread items!) I have however been featured over at The Readings of a Busy Mom! I'm very excited! Go check it out!

03 August, 2010

Teaser Tuesday



Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading

This is how it works


  • 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.
  This weeks Teaser Tuesday comes from
 
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

What makes the difference, he realises, is whether you want to stay in the world you live in. Because while he always be afraid of death, and nothing can change that, the question is whether your life is worth that fear. Do you face the terror that must come with knowing you're about to die, just for the sake of one last glimpse of life?

I'd love to know your teaser! Leave me a link!



02 August, 2010

It's Monday! What are you reading?

What are you reading Monday  is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey. Head over and check out what others are reading!

What I have finished this week

Two books finished (and reviewed!) this week!

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb - finally managed to finish it this week! Yay!

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo - I came across this while shelving books at my son's school library and given how much I loved The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, I had to borrow it. I read it in a couple of hours this morning, between loads of washing, while sitting on my deck in the sun. Bliss!


What I am reading now

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

From Goodreads:

Sarajevo: a city under siege. As the mortars fall and the snipers conduct their deadly chess manoeuvres, a cellist sits at his window. The piece he plays, Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor, is all that restores his hope, at least for a time. On this day a bomb falls on the street below him, killing twenty-two people waiting in line to buy bread. For the next twenty-two days he will carry his cello into the cratered street at four each afternoon and play the Adagio in memory of the dead. The Cellist of Sarajevo imagines those twenty-two days through the eyes of three of its citizens. Kenan Scaron;imunović, who sets out every few days to fill containers with water for his family, with no idea whether he will return home. Dragan Isović, who longs to be reunited with the wife and son he smuggled out of the city months earlier. Arrow, a crack 'counter-sniper' too nimble and skilful to be killed by the besiegers in the hills, who is assigned the job of keeping the cellist alive. Exquisite and profoundly moving, The Cellist of Sarajevo gives life to the suffering, cruelty, courage and endurance of a broken city. It is a story about survival in a time of war, about honouring the dead while struggling to stay alive, about the temptation to hate and the refusal to do so, about the power of music to shape our humanity.
 I picked this up from the library after reading a review on Gerbera Daisy Diaries. Sounds very intriguing and after the long, at times torturous read of The Hour I First Believed, a quick read is very much in order! 

What's next?
Next on my list will be August's book group read - Mistborn: The Final Empire  by Brandon Sanderson. After that I may finally get the chance to read   We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. We decided at book group yesterday to reschedule this one for September.

So what are you reading? Leave me a link!

01 August, 2010

The Tale of Despereaux

The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo

Having read and loooooooooooooved The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, when I saw Desperaux as I was reshelving books at my son's school, I had to borrow it.

One of the first things that caught my eye was the "about the author" note at the front of the book.

Of "The Tale of Despereaux," Kate says, "My best friend's son asked me if I would write a story for him. "It's about an unlikely  hero," he said, "one with exceptionally large ears." "What happens to this hero?" I asked. "I don't know," he said. "That's why I want you to write the story, so we can find out."
Seriously, how cool to have a story written about a hero with exceptionally large ears because you want to find out what happens.

Despereaux is a mouse with exceptionally large ears and exceptionally non-mousy behaviour. Having fallen in love with the human princess and broken several mouse rules, he is banished to the dungeon where the rats live. What follows is the tale of how he escapes and how he saves the princess as well.

DiCamillo is a fantastic children's writer. While I think Edward is better than Despereaux, I can see me buying a copy of this and others she had written. Her books have that wonderful magical quality needed to shine in the world of children's fiction. It will be read aloud frequently in this house!

The Hour I First Believed

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

The problem I feel when reading a book that you have heard lots about is whether or not it lives up to expectations. There is also the problem of trying to condense a book during the blurb to adequately explain what it is about.

I thought The Hour I First Believed was about a couple's attempt to recover after the tragedy that was Columbine, and while that was an aspect of the book, in the end it was a minor part. Columbine was the catalyst for Caelum and Maureen to move back to Connecticut. It's the root of Maureen's problem, but the heart of the book is about Caelum's discovery about his family history and how that helps him reconcile the person he has become.


Once I dealt with the fact that this is what the book is about, I quite enjoyed it. I did at times find it, not necessarily hard going, but challenging. It most probably wasn't until towards the end that I could see where the story was going and what the point of the whole thing was. I would like to read Wally Lamb's other stuff, but feel I will need to be in the right mood to do so.