Results are in!

The goal was to read 100 books in one year. After carefully updating my reading page, blogger promptly refused to post it and managed to lose the last 18 books I recorded.  Phooey.  I'm too lazy to retype them, but I'll have you know that most of the last 18 books came from the Hannah Swenson series by Joanna Fluke  :-P

But I am proud to say that I managed to log ***91*** titles this past year!  Had I updated my list at the beginning of winter break, I probably would have hit the magic 100.  I still feel as though I did well. 

How did you do on your reading challenge?  Do you have any reading goals for the next year?

Still Reading!

I've been very naughty about tracking what I have been reading. I'm sure you are all SO surprised about this!  I spent some time updating my reading list yesterday.  I still have a few more to add, I just need to look through my piles of books to refresh my memory of what I've read  :)

Some titles are ones I have read before, but I'm very much a kid at heart who loves to hear the same story repeated.  Besides, I couldn't resist replacing a few favorite tomes with digital copies on my nook.







What?  Isn't this how you display your books at home?????

Book Challenge: Week 6 and 7

I'm still reading!  My time to read has been very limited this month due to evening school activities and weekend family committments.  I'm well on the way to making my goal of reading five titles this month.

I read through Collage Lab: Experiments, Investigations, and Exploratory Projects (Lab Series).  I'm really excited to try some of these -I'm thinking I can easily adapt some of these projects for my classroom too!  I have so many how-to books on art.  Maybe its time I stop reading about art techniques and get practicing.  Hmmmmm.

The next book I'm adding to my list is actually a kid's book coming out in March:  Spiky, Slimy, Smooth: What Is Texture? (Jane Brocket's Clever Concepts).  I love the realistic pictures.  They aren't your standard pictures:  these are styled, magazine quality photos.  It will be perfect for my Montessori Classroom and I am already thinking what extensions I can make to go along with this book.  I'm hoping that "Clever Concepts" splashed across the cover means that there will be other books in this series.  If they are of the same visual quality then I'm sure each and every one will be part of my curriculum!  In fact, a review of this book will probably show up on my other blog........

 

Book Challenge: Week 4

Have you ever read books that make you say "I cannot believe what remarkable timing this was!"  This past week I experienced not one title that made me say this, but two!

First up was Cinch! by Cynthia Sass.  I decided I wanted to read this book after the author cleverly wrote an article in a magazine and gave a few of her recipes from the book.  Get this, Cinch! is about a healthy eating plan that PROMOTES EATING CHOCOLATE EVERY DAY!!!!  Any food plan that tells you to eat chocolate every day has got to be worth at least looking at, right?

Well I believe it was definitely worth reading.  Basically the plan is a Mediterranean diet which I absolutely love but had a hard time figuring out on my own.  The book is very detailed as to what foods to eat and when.  There are many tasty-looking recipes included, but the author also gives you the tools to build your own recipes as well.  I'm actually trying the 5 Day Fast Forward plan and have already survived the first day.  I'll report back my results at the end.  I've never really been a huge fan of fad diets, but this is an eating plan that sounds doable not just for me, but one I can get my family on board with. (DH actually told me my dinner last night smelled really good!)  It is sensible, it promotes eating real food (as opposed to manufactured food products),no food groups are eliminated,  it is based on lots of scientific research, and has already been proven to be successful at helping people lose weight.

The other amazing book I read this week was recommended by my buddy Monika.  Somehow I missed it in all the Flylady chatter, but it is Switch by the Heath Brothers.  I love reading about the psychology of motivation and change, and this is about dealing with change.  There are so many ways I can apply the techniques from this book, but I'm most excited to see how I can affect change in my classroom and personally at home.  After reading this I think I can make my ACTION plans actually work (I have an elephant problem).  And now I truly belive that Cinch! will work for me because it gives me all the tools I need to deal with the change in lifestyle.  What an inspirational week for reading!

When you give a girl a bookstore

she's going to buy some books.  That's exactly what happened last night after the first Book Challenge book group meeting.  I know that even if you weren't with us personally, you were with us in spirit as we discussed books from Manga to Crime and Punishment.

Anyhoo, I hardly ever get to the bookstore these days.  You know, it is such a long drive for me (all of 15 minutes AND you have to cross a river to boot).  So I took advantage of being Turtleless to prowl around a bit.  It was tempting.  It also didn't help that the Queen of Handselling was walking around with me pointing out scrumptious titles that I just Have To Read.  I'm thinking it's a good thing for my wallet that this group is meeting once a month.  It is already far too easy to purchase nookbooks!

I escaped with one magazine and 2 books that will hopefully help me along my artistic path:

 

Book Challenge: Week 3

Two more books finished!

First up was A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table.  First, let me suggest that you DO NOT read this book if you are hungry.  Yes, there are lots of yummy recipes.  I am just dying to try the Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystalized Ginger and the Cornbread with Cream.  Each recipe is prefaced by an essay about how the recipe comes into the author's life.  Great for those who love reading about food.  The author achieved what most bloggers secretly dream about:  her blog turned into a book deal  :D

Next, Anne of Green Gables (Sterling Classics).  I loved the PBS series that came out in the late 80's, but I never got around to reading the books.  When I was trolling the cheap nookbook section, I found the whole ebook set available for 99 cents.  Anne of Green Gables is absolutely charming!  I can't believe that a girl like me who loved the Little House series somehow missed out on reading about the adventures of Anne Shirley. After reading the first book, I realize that the TV series was so well done because it was faithful to the original story.  Hmmmm, I wonder if I can instant watch the series on Netflix.........

What have you been reading this week?

The Book Challenge Update

Reading has taken a back burner to Real Life and School.  Still, I have managed to finish a few tales worth mentioning.

First and foremost, I finished reading A Discovery of Witches: A Novel.  It has to be the most amazing book I have read in a long time!  It is a romantic tale, but not in the typical romance style of writing.  Without the relationship between the two main characters, you wouldn't have much of a story.  But the romance takes a back burner to the plot, which is complex and rich in historical and scientific detail.  Seriously detailed.  Think The Da Vinci Code with a lot of weight and substance.  And with chapters longer than two pages.  Do you like witches and vampire stories? Then you MUST read this book.

I was sucked into this story & refused to emerge until I was finished.  Once finished I howled in frustration because this was an Advanced Readers Copy, so you can't even get it in the stores until February and the sequel is in the distant future.  Sigh.  Curse you ms. caboo for loaning me this book!

Speaking of ms. caboo and books, I won a copy of The Bag Lady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing It All from her last month.  This was a quick, easy read about someone who suffered at the hands of Bernie Madoff.  I don't fully understand the entire situation, but basically Madoff conned a lot of people into believing he was protecting their money when in fact he was just taking it.  The author had all her money with Madoff so when he went down, she lost everything.  The book is about how she recovered from her loss.  She may have had an enviable life, with a fantastic apartment in New York and sophisticated tastes.  But she also worked hard for that lifestyle, so when she lost everything, she lost BIG.



On the lighter side of things, I read Great Gals: Inspired Ideas for Living a Kick-Ass Lifeby Summer Pierre.  It is basically a summary of important women in history, but it is also a journal with writing prompts after each entry.  Considering it is part journal, it was a BIG MISTAKE on my part to read it as an ebook.  Of course, if I really wanted to I could transfer the writing prompts to a journal of my own choosing.


At any rate, I'm continuing to read even though school has started up again for me (only 9 more Mondays until Spring Break!).  Currently, I have my nose in:  The Montessori Method, Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education (2nd Edition), and In the Company of Vampires: A Dark OnesNovel.

In honor of the first week of the reading challenge, I would like to pass on the book that I won from ms. caboo -The Bag Lady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing It All.  If you are interested in reading this book, just leave a comment (open to entries from around the world).  I will pick a winner from random next Saturday, January 15.

What have you been reading?