Kelly Rae Roberts and Andrea, SF, CA, Canon Digital Rebel XSi
Kelly Rae’s new e-course: Flying Lessons: Tips and Tricks to Help Your Creative Business Soar. This course is a huge to gift to anyone who has dreamed of making a living from their creative work or is in throes of starting a creative business. Kelly Rae is a brilliant and generous teacher… you will be in such good hands!
Joshua Radin: Simple Times
When you feel sick as a dog for three months straight, you will read a lot of books. I want to share my favorites that I have devoured in this first trimester:
Get Lucky: A Novel
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
The Last Song – This is not great literature, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this teen love story. My excuse is that I am VERY hormonal, but I cried through most of it. 😉
The Help
Books I am looking forward to reading:
Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces
What I Would Tell Her: 28 Devoted Dads on Bringing Up, Holding On To and Letting Go of Their Daughters
The Butcher and the Vegetarian
My Nepenthe: Bohemian Tales of Food, Family, and Big Sur
Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life
Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change into Gift and Opportunity
Now I will turn it over to you dear readers, what books have you especially loved lately?
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Emergency Care, 11th ed. It wasn’t a great read, and at times it wasn’t even fun. But I am revisiting my childhood dream to work in medicine. I started with an EMT class, and I am slowly pulling away from a successful career in grant writing so that I can begin pre-requisites for a physician assistant program. It’s been a very long semester with a full-time job, night classes and a toddler, but you have inspired me to follow my dream, and I just want to say thanks.
Nice to read you like the sound of Joshua Radin. I love his songs too.
If you like his music, you might like the lovely (but sometimes very sad) quiet calm music of William Fitzsimmons and you should have a listen to the record of Laura Jansen – absolutly beautiful!!!
Greetings from Germany,
Susanne
i LOVE katherine center’s books! i’ve read all three and am now awaiting the next one.
the other author that i am gobbling up right now is anita shreve.
and if you haven’t read diana gabaldon then you are really missing out!! she is a wonderful writer and i am convinced she LIVED in the times she writes about. jamie and claire are two of my best friends.
hand wash cold is an excellent book. a truly great read and so refreshing. what a fantastic writer.
great list of books!
Finished reading A Reliable Wife and found it dark, but satisfying. Reminded me of a really good piece of dark chocolate.
Oh, I loved The Help. Can’t wait to hear what you think after you finish.
I also read Love Walked In and Belong To Me, both by Marisa de los Santos – absolutely fantastic. And I can’t wait to read Hand Wash Cold.
I just finished a JYA book, actually, called “when You Reach Me.” It won the Newberry Medal this year and I a found it a fun and light read. There are some real touching parts about dealing with the increasing self-awareness and peer awareness that happens in early adolescence; along with the broken and battered relationships that occur along the way. There is also a mystery at the novel’s center, a sub-plot involving the $20,000 Pyramid, and another involving “A Wrinkle in Time”. I really enjoyed it, even though I tend to be attracted to hardcore literature.
I have just re-read The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron. Amazing! I loved it the way it sounds like you loved Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow! Now I need to find some lighter reading for the upcoming summer!
I just finished Hand Wash Cold – loved it. Also reading through short story collection Darwin’s Bastards – edited by Zsuzsi Gartner and includes an amazing array of writers. I love (LOVE!) short stories. Also bedside – Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan.
Thanks for sharing!
I just read “Just Kids” by Patti Smith, about her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Really good read.
I finally read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It was beautiful and it made me cry. Now I want to go back and read Everything is Illuminated, especially after seeing the movie. I’m also a fan of Katherine Center and am looking forward to reading the latest one…
I loved Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life, made me want to by the dozens as gifts for Mother’s Day. I would be sitting during my Metro commute crying, so moved by her wise words.
I also highly recommend Three Cups of Tea. So inspirational, it really shows our capacity to help others…
Great recommendations! (Happy to see Josh Radin listed here – I’m a fan and saw him live in Montreal last fall.)
Books? Just finished reading “Always Looking Up” by Michael J. Fox – Loved it! (As well as his first one, Lucky Man, if you haven’t read it yet).
Just before that, read “Devoted” by Dick Hoyt, half of the inspiring Team Hoyt. (Got to meet them in Boston a couple of weeks ago!!!)
xox
Who can be happier than you two? Your happiness also affected me.
i too LOVED Broken Open as there were several things in that book i could relate to….Elizabeth Lesser is a gem….so much beautiful insight to offer.
now i am in the baby stages of “Loving What Is” by Byron Katie. I think it is going to be pretty good….I also have “A Reliable Wife” which i was told is quite the page turner and will keep you on the treadmill at the gym!!!!
thank you for sharing your books witb us….
and Joshua Radin….i adore him!!!!
xoxoox
k
Read “Fireworks over Toccoa.”
But you’ll bawl ala The Last Song–but sooooo worth it. Trust me!
The best book I have ever read …. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. She is am amazing storyteller
My favorite of the last 6 months was The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I also just finished one called The Condition that was really fascinating. And I’m currently reading Traveling with Pomegranates a non-fiction story of a mother and daughter and it makes me want to head off to Greece.
Hooray! Thank you for saying such lovely things about Get Lucky! I’m so happy you liked it!! And I have to second all good words about Marisa De Los Santos: Love Walked In is one of my faves! I am halfway through The Help–actually on my iPod–right now and it’s totally compelling. I’m also reading a book about whales. But it’s all slow going. I have big plans for going totally old-school this summer and reading only things written on PAPER. It feels thrillingly retro, and I can’t even imagine that I’ll actually manage it. Love seeing the pic of your beautiful 12-week self! xoxoxo!!
Hooray! Thank you for saying such lovely things about Get Lucky! I’m so happy you liked it!! And I have to second all good words about Marisa De Los Santos: Love Walked In is one of my faves! I am halfway through The Help–actually on my iPod–right now and it’s totally compelling. I’m also reading a book about whales. But it’s all slow going. I have big plans for going totally old-school this summer and reading only things written on PAPER. It feels thrillingly retro, and I can’t even imagine that I’ll actually manage it. Love seeing the pic of your beautiful 12-week self! xoxoxo!!
The Late Bloomer’s Revolution by Amy Cohen…laugh out loud funny and heartwarming too.
The Late Bloomer’s Revolution by Amy Cohen…laugh out loud funny and heartwarming too.
I just discovered “Broken Open” and Elizabeth Lesser in the past six months and SOOOOO know what you mean about reading it slowly! I love the bus metaphor, and so, so much more about her delicious book. And oh! “The Help”! One of the few books that every single person in my book club read cover to cover BEFORE our gathering to discuss it! (And that’s saying something!!) 🙂
One book we read last year that stands out is “The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk. I’ve never read anything by her before, though have appreciated quotes I’d heard. It’s not the easiest book to read in certain parts, but the overall message is gorgeous and hopeful.
Happy Mamma’s day to you, Andrea!
I picked up Broken Open based on your recommendation (I actually keep lists of books you recommend for my library trips, you have never let me down-ha!)
OH MY GOOD SWEET GOODNESS. I’m going through a separation after 12 years of marriage and her chapters on her Phoenix Process are like reading my life. I keep having 100 aha moments a page!! Thank you for putting it out there, it’s helping me get through a difficult time.
As always, you inspire. 🙂 Good luck with the pregnancy!
Just want to say what a great blog you got here!
I’ve been around for quite a lot of time, but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!
Thumbs up, and keep it going!
Cheers
Christian, iwspo.net