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What’s the largest your personal library has ever been? What’s the greatest number of books you’ve ever owned at one time? (Estimates are fine.)
Is your collection NOW the biggest it’s ever been? Or have you down-sized?
What’s the fewest number of books you’ve ever owned (not counting your pre-reading years)?
Maggie McFierce as in Margaret McPherson, who happened to be one of the toughest and, yes, fiercest deputy district attorneys assigned to the Van Nuys courthouse. She also happened to be my first ex-wife.
Title: The Lincoln Lawyer
Author: Michael Connelly
ISBN: 978-1455500239
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing/2005
Pages: 544
Mickey Haller runs his office from his car. He owns four Lincolns and uses those one by one. He has two ex-wives, one who kinda helps him run his office, and other is a DA! He is in good terms with both. Everything seems to be fine. His only regret is maybe he goofed up in the case of Jesus Menendez, who it seems is innocent but gets a life term for a murder he did not apparently commit.
Then out of nowhere, Mickey gets a big league client in the form of Louis Roulet, a upcoming real estate broker. Louis is charged with assault and he hires Mickey to defend him. Mickey Haller sees dollars in the deal. And thinks it is one hell of an easy case. And somehow gets embroiled in a situation which he had not envisaged at all.
Now he has to save his own skin as well as that of an innocent man. He faces evil in such a form that he couldn't have foreseen. It becomes a personal war for him and becomes the most difficult case of his life.
As Mickey defends Roulet and we slowly discover who Jesus Menendez is and his connection to this case, we watch the thin line and also juxtaposition of guilt and innocence and the eternal clash of good and evil. The very existence of our Lincoln Lawyer is threatened. And Mickey has to find out the truth.
I found the novel vastly entertaining, and the suspense element is sustained throughout. And Connelly created a memorable character in Mickey Haller. This was my first Connelly. I am going for more!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, we get a theme to list our top tens.
This week's Top Ten is: Ten Bookish Websites, Organizations, Apps. Etc.
Most will highlight the well known bookish sites. But I am going to highlight the lesser known or unknown bookish links. Here I go:
1) zoetrope: All-Story is a quarterly literary publication founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997 to explore the intersection of story and art, fiction and film. I simply love exploring this website
2) Journal of Mythical Arts: It is sponsored by the Endicott Studio, a nonprofit organization dedicated to literary, visual, and performance arts inspired by myth, folklore, fairy tales, and the oral storytelling tradition.
3) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: You will find everything related with her. Poetry, short stories, new projects.
4) Crime Time: An excellent magazine devoted to crime and mystery fiction.
5) The Financial Fiction Genre: A web site,on banking and finance in fiction from the classics of Dumas, Dickens and Thackeray to modern financial thrillers.
6) Poetry Daily: All about contemporary poets and poetry
7) Google Books
8) Short Story Classics: The Best from the Masters of the Genre
9) PoeStories.com: This site contains short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe , story summaries, quotes, and linked vocabulary words and definitions for educational reading. It also includes a short biography, a timeline of Poe's life, and links to other Poe sites.
10) sffworld: Everything to do with sci-fi. Do check it out!
Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial killers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right. 
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Have you ever read a book that inspired you to take up a cause? What book was it, and what is/was the cause? |
| My girls waiting to go live on stage for a short play I had directed, December 10, 2010 |
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and Follow Friday 40 and over is hosted by Java
The Mayfair Mysteries: The Case of the Ruby Necklace
What, if any, kind of music do you listen to when you’re reading? (Given a choice, of course!)
I prefer soft music while reading. Symphony music is better. It helps me concentrate on my reading. I can block out outer noises that way.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, we get a theme to list our top tens.
This week's Top Ten is: Top Ten Reasons Why We Love Book Blogging!
Here I go:
1) I get to know about new books!
2) I also read about new genres
3) The world has become smaller for me.
4) I love to get comments
5) All those memes help in building a community
6) I can talk about books ad nauseam and don't have to worry if anyone is bored.
7) I have a poetry blog where I post my poetry and meet many other poets.
8) Blogging has honed my writing skills
9) The days I don't read books, I read blogs!
10) Blogging is not a hobby, it is a passion!!!
"Henry appears, doing up his cuff links. He's wet, dirty, and unshaven. He looks about forty. But he's here, and he gives me a triumphant smile as he walks through the doors of the church and down the aisle." ~~Page 102, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Title: The Time Traveler's Wife
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
ISBN: 978-0156029438
Publisher: Vintage Books
Pages: 615
The Time Traveler’s Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger is an unconventional love story story, between Henry and Clare. Henry is a Time Traveler who has no control over it. He travels in and out of any of his chronological age. But Clare is a normal person. They meet unconventionally and the decision is already made for them that they will marry, which they do. Henry waits for Clare to grow up before he can even think of having a relationship with her. Clare does seem impatient at times, to have a physical relationship with the man she fell in love when she was only a child.
Henry De Tamble is suffering from a rare genetic disorder called Chrono Displacement. This is what makes him time travel and he meets his future wife in one of those travels. From there, their love story starts. Clare is aware that Henry can't be there for her always. But she loves him and they do manage to live an amazing life. They do have problems but love is so strong that they survive.
It is written as short diary entries, going back and forth, which can a bit confusing initially but falls into place after a while. One might find it a little confusing in the beginning but soon the pieces fit together, and it is easy to get lost in the world of Henry and Clare.
This is not a novel which goes from one point to other. It takes off tangentially. And everything fits together well. Not a novel to be taken lightly. And not for everyone. Those who like different kind of novel, will love it. As I did.
Theodore Boone is back in a new adventure, and the stakes are higher than ever. When his best friend, April, disappears from her bedroom in the middle of the night, no one, not even Theo Boone-who knows April better than anyone-has answers. As fear ripples through his small hometown and the police hit dead ends, it's up to Theo to use his legal knowledge and investigative skills to chase down the truth and save April. Filled with the page-turning suspense that made John Grisham a #1 international bestseller and the undisputed master of the legal thriller, Theodore Boone's trials and triumphs will keep readers guessing until the very end.
Do you like movies made from books? Which ones do you think have been done well — kept mostly to the plot of the book, etc?
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| A lone white dove. Rarity in our vicinity. I was successful in catching it from my balcony |
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and Follow Friday 40 and over is hosted by Java
With the advent (and growing popularity) of eBooks, I’m seeing more and more articles about how much “better” they can be, because they have the option to be interactive … videos, music, glossaries … all sorts of little extra goodies to help “enhance” your reading experience, rather like listening to the Director’s commentary on a DVD of your favorite movie.
How do you feel about that possibility? Does it excite you in a cutting-edge kind of way? Or does it chill you to the bone because that’s not what reading is ABOUT?
I prefer little distraction while reading. The interaction should be between the reader and the printed word, which creates vivid images in the mind. I have learnt the meaning of new words just by reading, never looking into a dictionary. Reading has to be unadulterated.
It’s not easy for a man in a wheelchair and an able-bodied woman to embrace, but Zack and I had had practice. When my husband ran his hand up my leg, he groaned with pleasure. “You’re wearing the black slip,” he said. “God, I love this slip.”
~The Nesting Dolls by Gail Bowen
Product Description from Amazon
Just hours before her body is found in a car in a parking lot, a young woman hands her baby to a perfect stranger and disappears. The stranger is the daughter of Delia Wainberg, a lawyer in the same firm as Joanne Kilbourn's husband. One close look at the child suggests that there might be a family relationship, and soon the truth about the child Delia gave up for adoption years ago comes out. The boy must be Delia's grandson. Then his mother is found dead, sexually assaulted and murdered. Not only is there a killer on the loose, but the dead woman's partner is demanding custody of the child.
Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at A Girl and Her Books. Brook of TheBluestocking Guide is hosting for the month of June.
I received two books in my mailbox, thanks to Hachette India!
The Rome Prophecy by Jon Trace:
A woman has been arrested on the streets of Rome. She's young. She's beautiful. She's covered in blood. And she claims to be on the run from a mighty power that centuries ago brought the eternal city to its knees. Ex-priest Tom Shaman teams up with a headstrong policewoman to unravel the mystery. But within Rome's churches and corridors of power, stealthy enemies are conspiring against them. And someone is re-enacting sinister legends from the city's bloody past...Loaded with action that rockets from gothic plazas through majestic cathedrals and into the vast catacombs lurking beneath the city, this electrifying thriller will dazzle fans of Dan Brown and Chris Kuzneski.
Murder in the Ashram by Kathleen McCaul
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?I finished 12 books in May. As I have been a bit slow in my reading, this came as a surprise. A few are e-books but so what? I am way behind in my reviews. Sometime I think should I bother writing reviews? Am not so sure about that.
Here are the books I read in May:
12) Borderlands by Brian McGilloway (CF)
11) Caribou Island by David Vann
10) The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly(CF)
9) The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger*
8) Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson*
7) Room by Emma Donoghue**
6) His Lady Mistress by Elizabeth Rolls
5) The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress by Lynne Graham
4) Married by Mistake Abby Gains
3) Speed Dating by Nancy Warren
2) Homespun Bride by Jillian Hart
1) The Wicked House of Rohan by Anne Stuart
I read Aisle B's post today and she has mentioned Johanna Lindsey's lovely locks! Thought I ought to show mine! Why not?!! AS you can see I have jet black hair. I keep it braided as shown here. Left open, it is totally unmanageable!! Those who are on FB might have seen me with long hair! Folks, what do you think! Should I cut it off? Thinking about it.
Sister by Rosamund Lupton
“In this debut novel, Beatrice is informed of her sister's disappearance and she returns home to London to fulfill what she assumes will be her usual big-sister-role over the free-spirited Tess. Instead, when Tess is found dead by apparent suicide, Beatrice delves into her life and becomes obsessed with solving what she believes to be a case of murder. Beatrice's recounting of her sister's death becomes a letter of tribute to Tess and touches the reader with the depth of a sister's bond. Written with a clever twist, Sister is both poignant and captivating.”
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and Follow Friday 40 and over is hosted by Java
All things being equal (money, space, etc), would you rather own copies of the books you read? Or borrow them?
To be short, I would want to own them. But if I think about it, there are books, I seldom ever re-read (who has the time?). I would prefer to borrow those. I buy a lot and also get free review copies, which I do pass on to my nieces, nephews, friends, old age homes or orphanages.
It is not practical to keep those books which I am not going to read again. From an initial yes for owning, I am saying, it is better to borrow. I already own 2500+books. No place for more...
What about you?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, we get a theme to list our top tens.
This week's Top Ten is: Top Ten favorite book settings
This is something one has to think about. Let's see:
1) Ancient Rome: I can read anything to do with it.
2) Mayan Civilization. It always appeals to me
3) Russia: Any book set in Russia gets me going!
4) A deserted Cabin in the mountains
5) Trains: these are a metaphor for journey of life
6) Venice
7) Any European city for Crime Fiction
8) Alaska. Somehow the cold, bleak place makes sense for life's struggles
9) Victorian Era
10) Of course, Hogwarts!!
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Book Bloggers Friends, do participate in WEEKLY GEEKS. It is posted every Saturday. You have one full week to do it. It is one the oldest memes in the book blogging world started by late Dewey. Don't let it fade away. We owe it to her for bringing the book blogging community together. Please do check it out.
This week's Weekly Geeks has two options. You can chose to do any or both. I will do both!
Option 1: Write a post (or leave a comment) with suggestions for future weekly geek topics! Share as many ideas as you'd like! Be as creative as you want. Or if you can't think of any "new" topics of your own, consider listing your top five topics from the past, from our archives.
