Teaser Tuesdays

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

I started A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin last week, and thanks to a cold that won’t go away, I’m still reading it.  That, however, is not a bad thing because I am so in love with this book!

“His claim is the true one, he is known for his prowess as a battle commander, and he is utterly without mercy.  There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.” (589 of 787 on Nook)

The Sunday Salon – The Not So Much to Report Report

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Somehow, I came down with a cold last week.  I denied at first that I was sick at all.  Who wants to be sick before Christmas right?!  I spent several days sniffling and sucking cough drops as though they were the essence of life itself and then, toward the end of last week, I gave in.  I admitted defeat and succumbed to the cold germs that threatened to bring down my holiday if I didn’t rest.  Three days later and I’m still feeling the effects of the dreaded germs but in general, I am feeling much better.  My husband may argue that I’m still very ill and should be sitting on the couch numbing my brain with TV but I feel all together different on that point.  🙂

Being sick meant I didn’t get a lot of reading in this week which annoyed me because I’m reading A Game of Thrones and loving it so so much.  Cold medicine made my head fuzzy and took away any focus I managed to cobble together so I was only able to read about five pages at a time before I was forced to put the book down.  I’ve rebounded this weekend and am happy to say I’m loving this book even more now than when I started.  The world building is so awesome and I keep falling deeper and deeper into the court drama.  It’s leaving me at a loss for words — or is that the cold medicine — either way, I’m not sure what to say about it other than you should read it.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to come up with more than that when it comes to time to write a review…

This afternoon I’m heading out to the suburbs to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Imax.  I’m so excited.  🙂  I was beginning to feel as though everyone but me had seen it already.  I was foiled at Thanksgiving with sold out shows, had to hold off for our trip to Colorado, then it was my birthday, then I got sick, and then it snowed.  So today is the DAY!  Yes, today I get to see the movie.  It’s become a little tradition among our friends to trek out to the burbs to see it on the big-butt screen so I’m very excited all around.  A good movie and some time with friends before the holidays descend in full force and we all scatter to our respective home states.  Will you be seeing a post about it later this week?  Maybe.  Depends on whether I can get butt in chair before packing up the car and spending hours sitting in traffic pretending to be cheery listening to Bruce Springsteen belt out that Santa song for the hundredth time.  I digress.  Back to books.

December seems to have become my nemesis this year.  Not in a bad way.  Well, it did make me a year older but I’ve gotten over that.  No, it’s timing.  There’s so much going on that I haven’t had the chance to sit down and write reviews the last few weeks.  I would like to get some thoughts down for The Lost City of Z by David Grann and the same goes for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  So far, I have been less than successful.  My reading has also fallen behind a bit but that I’m all right with considering my reading slows down in December anyway.  Well, I’ll just have to see how this week goes.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today’s Book — A Game of Thrones

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I’m reading A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin and let me say right here — it’s wonderful.  You should read it too.  If you love fantasy, it’s for you.  If you love great characters, it’s for you.  If you love a good story, it’s for you.

Of course, I’m only on page 252 of 787 so it’s possible that my thoughts will change but I doubt it.  A cold has made it nearly impossible to read the last few days as my addled brain hasn’t been able to focus (so please ignore my rambling this morning and any subsequent typos which I’m sure will occur) but each time I pick up the book, I don’t want to put it down.   The fact that I’m taking cold medicine and keep falling asleep is what makes me put it down.

The world created by Martin is fantastic.  Winter and darkness loom over everything and while summer is still warming the world at this point in the book, you know it’s coming and it seems few, especially the king, are prepared for it.  Did I mention there are dragons too? What good fantasy wouldn’t have dragons?  So far, they’re only legend, but I have a feeling some may find a place in the story.  All right, so I googled the book to find out.  🙂  I like spoilers.

There was one thing that worried me about this book early on — the sheer number of characters.  Each chapter is told from the perspective of one person and a few chapters in I regretted the fact that I wasn’t taking notes.  Thankfully, that worry has passed.  Yes, there are a lot of characters in this book but you soon become able to distinguish each one as they’re drawn so carefully.  It’s an interesting way of telling this story, and while I wasn’t sure about it in the beginning, I have to say it’s grown on me.

I had more I wanted to talk about but the brain is craving a rest.  Enjoy Thursday.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

By JK Rowling

Scholastic

ISBN: 0-439-35806-X

4 stars

It’s taking me longer than I thought to finish my Harry Potter re-read this year but that’s all right, I’m in no hurry.  Let’s face it; it’s not as if I don’t know the story. 🙂  In all honesty, I was hoping to re-read the entire series before seeing the latest movie but that’s not going to happen so now I’m just enjoying the story.

The short re-cap: Harry is waiting patiently to return to Hogwarts when he’s attacked by dementors, almost gets expelled for performing underage magic in front of a muggle, gets off by a slim margin, heads back to Hogwarts to find out that the Ministry of Magic is slowing doing its best to take over the school.  And there’s that small little matter of Voldermort who would like to see him dead.

As always, spoilers below.  You’ve been forewarned.

The Order of the Phoenix, I hate to admit, is not my favorite book in the series.  Not to say it isn’t good but I forgot just how moody and cranky everyone is in this installment.  I can’t blame either Harry (who’s got a price on his head and feels everyone is lying to him, which in some ways they are) or Sirius (who’s still in hiding and unable to do anything to help the cause or Harry) for their dark moods but there is only so much male PMS I can take.  However, the Weasley twins stepped up and provided enough lightness to make me remember why I fell in love with the series — the magic these two manage is wonderfully silly, and so disgusting, that it makes me want to procure a flyer and order a few of their concoctions.  Umbridge is so mean, annoying, and sniveling that I somehow found myself enjoying her character this time around.  I won’t say like because that would go too far but her attitude brings out some wonderful qualities in others characters such as Professor McGonagall who goes to great means to control her temper.  Snape.  I didn’t plan on mentioning him but he does play a critical role in Harry’s fifth year and his actions only keep me securely on the hate Snape bandwagon.  I’m so very done with him, except I’m not really and I have two more books to fully loathe him, which I plan to do.

In some ways, I feel as though there is too much going on in this book.  It’s long, and that’s not a bad thing because we do get to know a few characters better — Luna and Ginny who are among my favorites — so I don’t want to point to that as the main reason for my lack of overflowing love.  So many sub-plots show up here and it’s a major turning point in the tome.  The danger is much more palpable in this one than the proceeding books and it carries on with the sadness that made its way into the series when Cedric was killed by Voldermort.  But Harry’s attitude is sometimes too much for me.  I do have to admit that I did enjoy the fight at the Ministry of Magic though.  The rooms in the Department of Mysteries are so fascinating.

Well, on to hunting horcruxes.

Teaser Tuesdays

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

I started A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin a few days ago.  I haven’t had the chance to read much, but what little I’ve read, is fantastic.  Let me share…

“Bran pulled himself up, climbed over the gargoyle, crawled out onto the roof.  This was the easy way.  He moved across the roof to the next gargoyle, right above the window of the room where they were talking.” (86 of 787 on Nook)

Gushing on Colorado and a Book

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Hello everyone.  It’s good to be back! Over a week and I’ve missed my little part of the world here.  🙂

In the last week, I’ve enjoyed Denver, rented the biggest SUV I’ve ever driven (henceforth it will always be known as the Arctic Beast), admired the Rockies on the drive down 70W from Denver to Breckenridge, snowshoed up a hill, hyperventilated a little, skied in 10 inches of fresh powder (heaven), and loved every minute of it.  Colorado is one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I’d been there once before, over 15 years ago, and knew how wonderful a place it was but this trip solidified my love of the fantabulous state.  I’ll show a few pics below.  I wish I had more but I’ll admit that I’m not a good picture taking person.  Even though I remembered to pack the camera, I didn’t always remember to take it with me on out excursions.  So, once again a lack of photos from another vacation but it is what it is.  Be prepared for a lot of snow pics.  I heart snow so much and took many a photo of it.  🙂

A small creek we crossed while hiking a snow shoe trail. With snow shoes on!

View overlooking the town of Breckenridge, CO.

The mountains.

More snow from the hiking trip.

I haven’t read much in the last week.  I finished The Lost City of Z by David Grann, which I enjoyed, and only one other book.  The Lost City of Z was an interesting story that really felt like a long historic and scientific based article rather than a book about the Amazon but I still found it a good read.  I’ve yet to write a review and I’m not sure if I’m going to either, since with the holidays ramping up, I’m not sure where I’m going to find the time.  We’ll see how it plays out though.

One book I do plan to write a review of is Jane Eyre.  I’d never read it — I know, I know — it’s been on my shelf forever and this is the first time I’ve picked it up.  OK — dear readers, I hang my head in shame for my negligence.  Now, what did I think about it?  I loved it of course.  Oh, Ms. Bronte, how you drug me into this story and wouldn’t let me leave it.  Jane, you crave love so badly that it’s all you think about.  Yet, for all your neediness, you’re so lovely, so smart, and so grounded.  Dear Jane, you make the story so wonderful.  I kept reading slower and slower as the story went on because I wanted it to last.  I will get around to writing a review of this one very soon.  It’ll be more my thoughts than an actual review since I know, with the exception of me, probably everyone has read this book.

This afternoon we’ll be decorating our tree.  We’re a week behind because of the CO vacation and we ended up with a bigger than usual tree thanks to the fact that about 700 people beat us to the tree place before we got back and we had to go for the over eight foot variety.  It was supposed to be seven to eight feet but I think it was bigger than that.  We had it trimmed down but it still touched the ceiling which it pretty high.  There was a slight Griswold Christmas Vacation moment after bringing it in the house, getting it situated in the tree stand, and then realizing it was crunched up against the ceiling.  Out came the scissors and a ladder and off went the top.  It’s looking good and is ready for lights!  Maybe if I remember to pick up the camera, you’ll get before and after photos sometime this week too.

I hope to get back to a regular schedule this week and plan to have a few reviews posted too.  I had a chance to read a few pages of A Game of Thrones yesterday and may try to get a few more pages in by the glow of our tree later this evening.

Happy Sunday!

The Snow Post

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So, that’s a little lie because there’s no snow where I live (at least not at the moment) but I’m hoping to step off a plane in Colorado and see some.  Yep.  I’m taking a few days off to enjoy winter weather fun.

I’ve downloaded several books to my Nook and packed a warm sweater (OK, I can’t lie, I packed several sweaters.) and I’m off.  I shall return soon with photos of snowy mountains to share.

Since all will be silent here, I wanted to leave you with a few videos I found.  The next book on my reading list is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte so I thought a link to the movie trailer would be appropriate.  The movie comes out in early 2011.

One of the books I downloaded for this trip was A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin because HBO will showing a series based on the book next year and I must read it before that.  Well, I wanted to read it for a while but this is my reason at the moment and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, enjoy. 🙂

Today’s Book

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I’ve been reading The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann.  The book is aptly named considering Grann spends almost the entire book talking about Percy Fawcett’s (an Amazonian explorer that disappeared) dogged need to constantly be trekking through the jungle searching for a city that almost no one but him believes exists.  And what can I say, it’s fascinating.

I’m coming to the part where Grann heads into to the Amazon to follow Percy’s last route and it’s interesting to see how he tempers his own obsession.  As others before him that have gone into the jungle to search for Fawcett, he too finds himself following any hint of information.  He even makes several trips to England and Brazil before going into the Amazon to read Fawcett’s papers and speak with family members in the hope of gleaming something useful for his own trip.

Grann’s writing is straightforward — he is a journalist — so there’s not a lot of flowery language which fits his topic well.  He does add some vivid descriptions of what a jungle disease can and will do to human flesh, and if you’re like me and find yourself at this point while eating lunch, it will make you want to stop eating but not stop reading.  He’s amusing as well especially when he talks about his shopping excursion to a Manhattan camping and hiking store to buy supplies.

This is starting to sound a lot like a review so that is all this morning.  Happy reading.