Classics Challenge

All right.

I'm open to suggestions on this one.

Seriously. I've considered a dozen books for this challenge but haven't settled on anything.

So, suggestions anyone?

I need five classics and I'm open to any suggestion you might want to throw my way.

***EDIT***

Because I'm tired and forgot to add something:

All you Jane Austen fans, I would especially like to hear from you! Which of her books would be the best 'first read'?

Friday Fill -in 20

1. There is absolutely NO way you can get me to stay awake much longer!

2. The balmy, 34F windchill factor of the other day reminds me that summer is almost here!

3. I cannot live without my dog.

4. Retirement and winning the lottery are two things I'd like to try.

5. When life hands you lemons pucker up!

6. Christmas morning is my favorite childhood memory.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include getting away somewhere, anywhere and Sunday, I want to adjust to my shift change!

Booking Through Thursday 33

Manual Labor Redux May 15, 2008
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:39 am


Following up last week’s question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we’re expanding the question….

Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?

Do you ever read manuals?

How-to books?

Self-help guides?

Anything at all?


Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Cook books.

I've been known to page idly through the nearest cook book when I'm bored. I like the pictures and I like reading about fixing things exotic and untried. I even try them every now and then.

As for the others - I'll read enough of a manual to know how to do the basics with whatever the manual is for. Once I've done that, I usually wind up going back to figure out something a bit more complicated. It would, of course, make sense to read the entire thing all the way through but c'mon, who's got time for that?

Sifting Thoughts Tuesday

Well, I'm about to embark on the week from hell. More than a week, actually. Starting tomorrow afternoon I'll be working ten days straight and some of those days may be 12 or 16 hours. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Added to the joy of that schedule is the fact that it's shift change weekend. I'm going on straight nights (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.) starting Monday. The guy who set our schedule up thought he would reward the night shift officer by giving that person Saturday and Sunday nights off. Personally, it complicates the heck out of things by making it hard to schedule anything unless it's for Monday.

Today, however, was a good day. I had my massage today. If you've never had one, I can recommend them whole-heartedly. I get a 30 minute massage once a week and it has literally cut my back problems in half, if not even better.

Since we've established that I know next to nothing about computers, I've decided to finally break down and ask a question:

How do you create a link in a comment to a post? Is it the same sort of code that you use here to create a link? I mean the basic a< href="http:// sort of thing with the URL inserted after the // and the < / a>? I hope that makes some sort of sense...

I'm almost halfway through The Historian and am thoroughly enjoying it. Infidel has already made me both sad and furious. And The Thirteenth Story is going to be one of those books, I think; right up there with To Kill A Mockingbird, The Book Thief, and Boy's Life. Can't ask for more than that.

So, how's the reading going for y'all?

Mother's Day

Well, not technically any more but what the heck. A migraine kept me off the computer at home but I'm at work now and seems a wee bit better. Besides, I've got eight hours to fill.

Happy Mother's Day out there to all those of you who are mothers. My nieces include me in the celebration by getting me a card. They say I'm their second mother and their card always makes me teary-eyed. I hate that.

But I love them.

Summer Book Reads

According to today's Detroit Free Press, these are the 'hot' books to be reading this summer:

Nonfiction:

The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport by Carl Hiaasen which, according to the Free Press, is a 'hilarious memoir about golf'.

Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter by Sidney Poitier - a follow up to his 2000 autobiography

America's Hidden History by Kenneth C. Davis - this book is subtitled "Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation"

A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Buraroughs - Stranger than fiction seems to be the guiding principle of this memoirist, best known for "Running with Scissors"

Audition by Barbar Walters - I think she's gotten enough TV time lately that I don't need to explain this one.

The Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg - The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist offers up his third memoir, this one focusing on the travails of fathers and sons

Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science by Richard Preston - exotic epidemics make for equally frightening nonfiction as novels

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris - New essays from a twisted comic mind that makes the mundane seem bizarre

Out of the eight titles, I would only consider reading two - Poiter's and Davis's. The others don't interest me in the least, especially not the one on killer viruses. I just can't see reading that at the beach...

How about the rest of y'all? Anything catch your eye?

The Freep also recommended fiction, suspense, and debuts books. I'll list them later, if you'd like.

Book Review: Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong

Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong
Bantam Books
480 Pages
2007
Challenge – Spring Reading Thing

Nadia Stafford is a former cop who ‘retired’ from the force after being involved in a shooting that wasn’t quite ‘right’. She is also a woman with a past that haunts her – the death of her best friend after the girls had been kidnapped when children.

After her ‘retirement’, Nadia buys a lodge in the wilds of Canada hoping to live a quiet life. Things, however, don’t go quite as easily as she hopes and she finds herself signing on as a professional killer for the Tomassini crime family. Her work is limited to other crime figures and people who probably deserve to die.

Things change, however, when Jack, her mentor, arrives at the lodge with a proposition; he asks her to help him hunt down the Helter Skelter killer. The killer, a man who strikes at random, killing indiscriminately, is so named because he always leaves a page from the book “Helter Skelter” behind. He is also, Jack in forms Nadia, one of them – a professional killer. There is a small band of paid killers banding together to hunt the Helter Skelter killer down and stop him for good. Nadia leaves the safety and comfort of Canada to head for the United States on a hunt for what may be her most dangerous prey – a cold-blooded killer.

This was one of those books for me. I liked the story for the most part, but the characters never caught my imagination. Nadia’s back story, what was supposed to be the driving force behind her transformation from cop to killer, was never explained well enough for me. That, of course, might be my own prejudice about the law enforcement community. And second, the male lead of the story, Jack? Nadia’s mentor? The one she trusts enough to work with? Bad habit of talking like this. In incomplete sentences. Everything a question? I found it distracting and annoying. Here’s an actual example:

“I’ve been away,” he said. “Out of the country. Got back. Heard the news. Wanted to warn you. Then this.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Cops think he’s a pro.”

There’s also what I would call a subplot involving the Helter Skelter killer himself. I’m not sure why he was doing what he was doing and his attempt to panic America and blackmail the government into paying one dollar for every citizen to end the killings seemed rather lame to me.

Armstrong is better known for her Otherworld series. She wrote Exit Strategy because she ‘wanted to try something different’. The story, even thought it didn’t grab me, shows that she has a way with words. There are some very vivid and memorable passages in the book:

Desolate. Some words evoke images; others, emotions. Desolate is a shivers-up-the-spine word, full of loneliness and emptiness. And as we approached unit 510, the word sprang to min and lodged there.

Empty houses stood stark against the darkness, looking not half finished, but ruined. Tarps over the windows and roofs billowed like spirits chained to the houses, flapping and slapping in the wind as they struggled to fly free.

Recommendation: Even with its flaws, the last part of the book kept me reading far into the night as Jack, Nadia, and their small band race against time to stop the rogue killer before he kills again. If you like suspense, you might consider giving this one a try.

(And even though I passed on the Weekly Geek Challenge officially, if you've read this book, leave me a comment and I'll add a link to my review)