Little Thoughts About Books and Stuff

I've been a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America - Central New Jersey (JASNA-CNJ) since August.  We meet every other month and for some reason I've never posted about it and what we've read.  At this month's meeting we read Lady Vernon and Her Daughter and had the authors present for a book discussion. Lady Vernon and Her Daughter : A Jane Austen Novel Author: Jane Rubino, Caitlen Rubino-Bradway Published: November 2, 2010 Publisher: Crown # Pages: 336 Description : Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan was written during the same period as another novella called Elinor and Marianne –which was later revised and expanded to become Sense and Sensibility. Unfortunately for readers, Lady Susan did not enjoy the same treatment by its author and was left abandoned and forgotten by all but the most diligent Austen scholars. Until now. In Lady Vernon and Her Daughter, Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway have take...

Lie with Me Author: Stephanie Tyler Series: #1 in Shadow Force Published: October 26, 2010 Publisher: Dell # Pages: 384 Description Forced together by fate, bound together by desire Framed for a double murder, Delta Force operative Cameron Moore is given a new leas ... more e on life by the CIA—provided he pays them back by doing their black ops dirty work. But now Cam is ready to renegotiate the deal, and he thinks he’s found the perfect bargaining chip: Skylar Slavin, bestselling author of esp...

Book Club This month we read When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James.  Our discussion covered both this book and our January read which was Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James.  Both of these books are in her Fairy Tales series and I believe the Princess and the Pea is the next fairy tale she’s going to be reimagining. 2011 Support your Local Library Challenge I checked out eight books this month (as well as a bunch of DVDs). In February I checked out and returned Fannie’s Last Supper and Decision Points by George W. Bush, but after a few weeks I was ready to read them so I checked them out again.  I finished Fannie’s Last Supper but I’m slowly working my way through Decision Points.  It’s not that I do not like the book; I just forget I have it. Of the six other books I’ve checked out I flew through 5 and haven’t touched Lie with Me by Stephanie Tyler yet. Fannie's last supper : re-creating one amazing meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 cookbook by Christop...

Two kids with the same name were born blocks apart in the same decaying city within a few years of each other. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, army officer, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.  – From book homepage theotherwestmoore.com I heard about this book when it was being discussed on a number of talk shows.  I thought it sounded interesting and added it to my To Be Read list.  I honestly forgot about it for awhile as I do with most books I add to that list, but then a few things happened that brought it back to my attention.  Before I talk about what brought it back to my attention I want to talk about why it was of interest for me. Like Wes Moore I know there is someone out there with my same name, who lives in the same area I live in.  Unlike Wes Moore, I’ve known about her since I was about 9 years old.  They brought her file in...

         This idea came up in two books I have recently read.  Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal and Fannie’s Last Supper by Christopher Kimball. Both books came to this idea differently but it just stuck me as interesting that two books on two different topics would each make that point and that I’d read them one right after the other. In Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal points out why reality is broken and how fixes taken from the world of gaming can help fix reality.  One of the key points is that many of the popular games on the market today rely on overcoming obstacles and in a sense is a form of work.  Games ranging from Golf, to Solitare, to a MMORPG ( Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) like World of Warcraft. We get a sense of pleasure from working hard at these games to get better at them, yes we have fun but we feel the pay off of the work we put into getting better.       ...

For March we read When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa james. -Plot- Miss Linnet Berry Thrynne is a Beauty . . . Naturally, she's betrothed to a Beast. Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant, lives in a castle in Wales where, it is rumored, his bad temper flays everyone he crosses. And rumor also has it that a wound has left the earl immune to the charms of any woman. Linnet is not just any woman. She is more than merely lovely: her wit and charm brought a prince to his knees. She estimates the earl will fall madly in love—in just two weeks. Yet Linnet has no idea of the danger posed to her own heart by a man who may never love her in return. If she decides to be very wicked indeed . . . what price will she pay for taming his wild heart? --From goodreads.com. -Discussion- Since our meeting was canceled for January and was a chocolate tasting and book browsing for February we discussed both the January and the March book selections.   Lucky for us they were books ...

Book Club This month wasn’t a normal meeting.  We did a book browsing and chocolate tasting in order to get more B&N costumers interested in the Romance Book Club.  We’re hoping more people join so we can do more author events.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed. 2011 Support your Local Library Challenge I checked out five books this month (as well as a bunch of DVDs and CDs). I finished reading two of the books rather quickly, A Shore Thing and Marrying Daisy Bellamy.  I’m still working on Claude and Camille from last month and really couldn’t focus more attention on Fannies Last Supper and Decision Points.  I returned Fannies Last Supper with Plans to check it out again and I checked Decision Points out as an ebook and couldn’t get very far in it during my 2 week check out period.  Assholes Finish First was just checked out so I’m reading that, Tucker Max can only be taken in small doses. 1.      Fannie's last supper : re-c...