COYER Scavenger Hunt...a little late

I have decided to participate in the COYER scavenger hunt. What is Coyer? Coyer is Clear Out Your E-Reader. This is an area that I really need help with. I am continually downloading ebooks only to have them stay in my Kindle unread. This challenge is hosted by Fantasy is More Fun, Because Reading and Books,Movies,Reviews. Oh my!

Please check out their blogs for more details.

The COYER Scavenger Hunt started on June 4 and goes to September 4. This will allow the hosts to sponsor several challenges, twitter parties and giveaways.

I am very excited to be a part of this group of readers that will be using their ereaders often this summer. Please join in. You do not have to be a blogger to participate.
______________My Goals___________


1. Read and review 13 books.
2. Visit and comment on 13 reviews a week.
3. Participate in 4 readathons.
4. Participate in 3 twitter parties.
5. Join in social media fun weekly.

Will I succeed? Check back to see.

http://fantasyismorefun.com/2015/05/coyer-scavenger-hunt-its-time-to-sign-up.html

Books, Travel Talk and Sanity

"I'm leaving on a jet plane..." That song may date me a wee bit. We are flying out of our hometown for 8 wonderful days in California. So excited.

But then a problem arose...

What books do I take? Do I take actual books? If so how many? Do I use my Kindle while I'm gone? I am traveling with my dh, daughter, son and his girlfriend. None of them are readers. (Blasphemy!!!) So when I pose the question to them they just stare at me like I have spoken some sort of foreign language. Books? Why? Because that's what I do. I read. I go to wonderful places with fascinating people. You four will just be sitting there. I will be experiencing life from another perspective.

I decided to take my current read.

I'm only on page 86 but it seems as if it is a light, easy read. Nothing real deep. I hope it is just that because I'm one of those travelers that listens to other peoples conversations. Nosey...perhaps. I prefer just observant.

I am convinced I will need several books, right?! Once again, they just stare. So I will take laptop with Kindle app. Not a big fan of ebooks. Just would rather have the actual physical book in my hand. Oh I know...I can just visit bookstores while I am there. Who cares if my fellow travelers don't understand? I know there are many of you out there in blogland that do understand. Let them stare! Let them question my sanity! We all know whose sanity is in question!!

This is a new meme hosted by Sugar & Snark. It came about when Sugar was wondering which cover to use for her #70 Cover of the Week post. Sugar kept on thinking of more than one, and they all seemed to have a theme/characteristic. So she decided to switch things up a bit!

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite covers with that characteristic. You don’t even need to participate, just stopping by and saying hi would be great! Don’t forget to stop by the other participants!
http://sugarandsnark.co.za/?p=14616

Today’s cover characteristic: Car(s)

Barefoot Dogs Stories by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho---What I Thought

An unforgettable debut of linked stories that follow the members and retinue of a wealthy Mexican family forced into exile after the patriarch is kidnapped.

On an unremarkable night, José Victoriano Arteaga—the head of a thriving Mexico City family—vanishes on his way home from work. The Arteagas find few answers; the full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico’s vast and desperate underworld, a place of rampant violence and kidnappings, and government corruption. But soon packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues.

Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruination fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together: in a swimming pool in Palo Alto, Arteaga’s young grandson struggles to make sense of the grief that has hobbled his family; in Mexico City, Arteaga’s mistress alternates between rage and heartbreak as she waits, in growing panic, for her lover’s return; in Austin, the Arteagas’ housekeeper tries to piece together a second life in an alienating and demeaning new land; in Madrid, Arteaga’s son takes his ailing dog through the hot and unforgiving streets, in search of his father’s ghost.
From Goodreads

What I Thought...

What did I think? This was not my usual type of read. The book was sent to me in The Trust Fall subscription box curated by The Book People. I read this one in one sitting. So I can not say that I didn't like it but I didn't really like it. OK...hang in there for a bit. Let me explain. It does follow the lives of people who are in some way attached to Jose Victoriano Arteaga. All of the individuals have been displaced from their home country of Mexico following his kidnapping. We see how their lives are changed and how they are coping. The stories (similar to chapters) are interesting. A few of them are not quite my kind of writing. The language is a little strong in some of them. I am not a purist but some of the language shocked me.

It is an easy read. I'm confused because I'm not sure how to recommend this one. If the language would not bother you and you like street tough novels, then give this one a try. I gave it a 2 star. So not a complete waste of my time. (Wow! That sounds harsh, I didn't mean for it to sound that way). I just know I would not have read this if I had not received a signed first edition from The Book People.

Have you read Barefoot Dog Stories? If so, what did you think? If not, would you read it?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Feature and Follow Friday #1

THE FEATURE & FOLLOW IS HOSTED BY TWO HOSTS, PARAJUNKEE OF PARAJUNKEE’S VIEW AND ALISON OF ALISON CAN READ. EACH HOST WILL HAVE THEIR OWN FEATURE BLOG AND THIS WAY IT’LL ALLOW US TO SHOW OFF MORE NEW BLOGS!

This is my first time to participate in Feature and Follow Friday. So here it goes...

Each week a question is selected for bloggers to answer. This weeks question:
Is there a book that you were required to read in school that you actually loved? – Suggested by Natalie Hearts Books.

There actually are several. One that I was required to read was Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

Here is what Goodreads says about Catcher in the Rye

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation

This book was such a new experience for me. I was reluctant to read it. Putting it off as long as I could, I finally picked it up a few weeks before school started that year. I became engrossed in the story. So glad it was a Must Read for my Novels class. I really enjoyed it.

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Thursday Quotables: The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be. Thursday quotables is a feature designed by Bookshelf Fantasies.

My review for this book will be posted later today. Ian McEwan has an amazing way with the English language. His descriptions are almost poetic. As I was reading The Children Act (my first read by Ian McEwan), I was taken back by the words he had put down. Absolutely beautiful...

In the description of one of the characters Mr. McEwan wrote:
It was a long, thin face, ghoulishly pale, but beautiful, with crescents of bruised purple fading delicately to white under the eyes, and full lips that appeared purplish too in the intense light.


My favorite description is the entire books is when our main character is looking out over an old city.

She had a taste for this kind of exuberant tangle of muscular cast iron, of postindustrial steel and glass, of old warehouses teased out of decrepitude into a fantasy youth of coffee shops and bars.

Hope you enjoy my snippets. Please leave a comment and be sure and go to http://bookshelffantasies.com/2015/06/25/thursday-quotables-a-dirty-job/ to post your quotables for the week.

Waiting On Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday was created by Jill @http://breakingthespine.blogspot.co.uk. "Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event that focusing on upcoming releases that we re eagerly awaiting.


The Flying Circus by Susan Crandall

Set in the rapidly changing world of America’s 1920s, this is a story of three people from very different backgrounds: Henry "Schuler" Jefferson, son of German immigrants from Midwestern farm country; Cora Rose Haviland, a young woman of privilege whose family has lost their fortune; and Charles “Gil” Gilchrist, an emotionally damaged WWI veteran pilot. Set adrift by life-altering circumstances, they find themselves bound together by need, and torn apart by blind obsessions and conflicting goals. Each one holds a secret that, if exposed, would destroy the makeshift family they’ve created. But their journey of adventure and self-discovery has a price --- and one of them won’t be able to survive it.
Summary courtesy of Bookreporter.com

This book sounds like a book that would draw me in from the start. Books that have something that draws strangers together is always a positive for me. I think the suspense of the reason for the attraction is so exciting. This one is definitely on my radar.

Let me know what you think about The Flying Circus by Susan Crandall and what is on your radar.