Books Begging to Be Finished!!

Do you have books in your collection that you've started reading, but haven't yet finished reading? 

I have a short stack of books that I began reading at various points in time over the past couple of years and have yet to finish reading. The book titles are as follows:

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen

Fish on Friday by Brian M. Fagan

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Butterflies of Grand Canyon by Margaret Erhart
Room by Emma Donoghue

It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading these books at the time. Quite the contrary. I guess you could say that it just wasn't the right time to be reading them due to various things that come up in life. 

Sometimes you lose the momentum to continue reading where you left off in a book. This is what happened to me, so I found myself moving onto other books. 

Now, I'm trying to decide what to do with regards to reading the above mentioned books. Do I start reading them from the beginning all over again? Or, do I continue where I left off, hoping that I can pick up the storyline and plot details?

Friday Finds #3

Friday Finds is a book meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading. It’s a chance to share and show off the books you discovered during the week and would like to add to your reading list. Or simply feature the books you've actually purchased throughout the week and have added to your to be read pile!

 This week, I've added a coffee table book to my wishlist. The book is titled Dali's Mustache by Salvador Dali & Philippe Halsman.

I think Salvador Dali's art work is very cool! I've enjoyed his art work for over 20 years now ever since taking an art appreciation class in college.

In 2008, I even had the opportunity to visit the Dali Museum in St. Petersberg, Florida with my husband. What a wonderful experience to see his original art work in person verses photographs in a book! A docent guided tour of the collection, gave me a whole new perspective on Salvador Dali's talent.

I am also slowly becoming familiar with famed photographer,
Philippe Halsman's work.

So, which new books have you added to your wishlist or to be read pile?

The BFG by Roald Dahl

As a youngster, I had enjoyed reading Roald Dahl's novels, James & the Giant Peach and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.

So, when I had received the audiobook version of The BFG by Roald Dahl from a fellow Bookcrosser, I looked forward to listening to it.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to The BFG!! It's an amazing story --- well written, fun and engaging! The audiobook dramatization of this children's novel was superb and only enhanced the already wonderful story.

The following is an Amazon Review of The BFG:

Evidently not even Roald Dahl could resist the acronym craze of the early eighties. BFG? Bellowing ferret-faced golfer? Backstabbing fairy godmother? Oh, oh ... Big Friendly Giant! This BFG doesn't seem all that F at first as he creeps down a London street, snatches little Sophie out of her bed, and bounds away with her to giant land. And he's not really all that B when compared with his evil, carnivorous brethren, who bully him for being such an oddball runt. After all, he eats only disgusting snozzcumbers, and while the other Gs are snacking on little boys and girls, he's blowing happy dreams in through their windows. What kind of way is that for a G to behave? The BFG is one of Dahl's most lovable character creations. Whether galloping off with Sophie nestled into the soft skin of his ear to capture dreams as though they were exotic butterflies; speaking his delightful, jumbled, squib-fangled patois; or whizzpopping for the Queen, he leaves an indelible impression of bigheartedness.  

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Jasinda Wilder -- Author Spotlight!

Book 1

I've recently become acquainted with the writing of author, Jasinda Wilder. I've read the first three  short stories in Ms. Wilder's 'Big Girls Do It' series:

Big Girls Do It Better, Big Girls Do It Wetter, and Big Girls Do It Wilder. 

There's even a 4th short stories in this erotica series titles Big Girls Do It On Top, which I have yet to read. All 4 short stories are eBooks and may be purchased through the Amazon website individually or all together as a boxed set.

Book 2

As I'm sure you've guessed by the title, the lead character, Anna, is a plus sized woman. She's a disc jockey with an amazing voice who finds the hottie of her dreams, Chase (aka Mr. Sexypants), while working as as a disc jockey at a club with her DJ business partner, Jeff. Anna hooks up with Chase in book #1 for quite a hot romance.

Book 3

In book #2, Anna hooks up with her DJ partner, Jeff, after Chase leaves for New York to record a record with his band. 

Jeff has had a crush on Anna forever and the two of them connect in 'Big Girls Do It Wetter'.

In book #3, Anna is invited to New York to reunite with Chase, but is only burned by him in the end. Chase becomes a scoundrel in my eyes in the third installment, 'Big Girls Do It Wilder'. 

Book 4

I only wish that Anna hadn't suckered up and gone running back to Chase when it seemed like she had a good thing going with Jeff, her DJ partner in Big Girls Do It Wetter.

I'm looking forward to reading Big Girls Do It On Top in the future.

Until my next post, happy reading! 

Personal Library Kit

Personal Library Kit

The 'Personal Library Kit' is perfect for the bibliophile who enjoys sharing their books with other family members, friends & other book lovers!

I first came across the 'Personal Library Kit' on the Mental Floss's online storefront and is being sold for $14.95. The 'Personal Library Kit' is described as follows:

Revive old-fashioned library circulation techniques for fun and book retention with the Personal Library Kit!

• The perfect gift for the generous reader
• 6 x 7.5 x 1.25 inches; 20 self-adhesive pockets and checkout cards; date stamp and inkpad; pencil

I totally love the idea of the Personal Library Kit!! What a cool novelty item!! Would you use something like this?

Bookish Quote of the Day!!

"A good book is the purest essence of a human soul." - Thomas Carlyle

Coffee Table Books

I don't know about you, but I truly enjoy hardback coffee table books! I don't own many coffee table books, but the ones I do have are true treasures to me. 

I pretty much like the following subjects when it comes to coffee table books: 

Architecture, Cityscapes, Gardens, Art, Fashion, Jewelry, Optical Illusions, and so on.

How about you? Do you like coffee table books? Share with me a few of your favorite coffee books from personal collection!

I own perhaps 10 to 12 coffee table books. I'd say my top three favorites at the moment are as follows:

Iconic Audrey Hepburn

The Audrey Heburn Treasures: Pictures & Mementos from a Life & Style with Purpose by Ellen Erwin and Jessica Z. Diamond.

I wouldn't say that I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan, but I've always admired her personal sense of style. 

The Audrey Hepburn Treasures is a large hardback book that I received as a gift from my mother a few years ago for Christmas. This book is set up to look like a scrapbook in many ways. It is filled with pictures of Ms. Hepburn and little mementos, giving this book a more intimate feeling when viewed by the reader. It almost feels like I'm looking at something that Ms. Hepburn may have put together herself.

Beautiful 37 acre estate!

Lotusland: A Photographic Odyssey by Theodore Roosevelt Gardner and William B Dewey is another favorite coffee table book of mine that I've had for years! I love botanical gardens and estates. I've had the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G opportunity to visit Lotusland in Santa Barbara, California multiply times over the years. Lotusland is an unbelievably gorgeous place to visit and unlike any other botanical garden in the world. Words alone cannot describe the beauty of this 37 acre estate created by the late Ganna Walska, a socialite & opera singer, originally from Poland. She devoted some 40 odd years creating several beautiful gardens on her estate. When Ganna Walska passed away in 1984, Lotusland "became a nonprofit botanical garden and opened to the public in 1993." Lotusland: A Photographic Odyssey is a wonderful, visual keepsake of my visit to Lotusland.

National Historic Landmark

Casa Del Herrero: The Romance of Spanish Colonial by Robert Sweeney & Matt Walla is another fabulous coffee table book! Casa Del Herrero is also a phenomenal place to visit and I have been there several times over the years as well. 

Casa Del Herrero was the home of George Fox Steedman and his family. The following quote comes the Casa Del Herrero website:

Few of Montecito’s legendary estates remain essentially unchanged. The Casa del Herrero, designed by architect George Washington Smith and completed in 1925, is noted as one of the finest examples of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in America, is included on the National Register of Historic Places, and in January 2009, was designated a National Historic Landmark by then Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne.

I hope you enjoyed today's post. I look forward to reading which coffee table books you enjoy! Until my next post, happy reading!!

Library Bars

I've now heard it all!! The library bar is a new and unusual concept to me. I'd never guess that a bar would ever be combined with a library, but in downtown Los Angeles there is a library bar called, what else, The Library Bar! There are also several other library bars in the Los Angeles area as well, like The Wellesbourne and XIV.

See The Library Bar's website for more details by clicking on the link above. 

Or visit the Jetsetta link titled, Library Bars, for the awesome pictures of some of LA's unique library bars!

Friday Finds #2

Friday Finds is a book meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading. It’s a chance to share and show off the books you discovered during the week and would like to add to your reading list. Or feature the books you've actually purchased throughout the week and have added to your to be read pile!

This week I've added the following book to my wishlist:

The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World by Laura J. Snyder

15 Authors' Epitaphs

I always end up finding some interesting articles to read on the Flavorwire website. I recently found one article written by Emily Temple titled Famous Last Words: 15 Authors’ Epitaphs, in which Temple writes the following:

In this the spookiest of months, we find ourselves occupied with the world’s darker themes, and we got to wondering — what words have sent famous men and women of letters into the great unknown? Or perhaps more precisely, which words were chosen to honor them for eternity? From the tongue-in-cheek to the ponderously serious, from the knightly to the poetic, and even one that doubles as a grave robber’s curse, we’re fascinated by the epitaphs of famous authors, so we’ve collected a few of them here for your shivering pleasure.

Check out the link above to read the last words of some very famous writers! 

Until my next post, happy reading!!