About Me

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I'm a reader who enjoys posting comments and recommendations about the books I read. You will not find a synopsis with my recommendations because you can just click on the book title for a link to www.goodreads.com for a synopsis and reviews by other readers. I prefer the 3 Reason format: the reason I chose to read it; the reason I liked (or disliked) the book; and the reason I recommend it.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

How To Marry a Millionaire Vampire (Love at Stake, #1)How To Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Free Friday selection from B&N

I could have given the author more stars for her writing craft for I like the well-defined supporting characters and I thought she did a good job plotting the story line. I felt prudish for my dislike of her sex scenes which I skipped over. I'll avoid the genre of paranormal romance after reading this book.



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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Borneo (World's Wild Places)Borneo by John MacKinnon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Armchair traveling can also help set priorities for where I want to travel and can drop places down on that list. Borneo just dropped down on the list of places to go with one phrase from this book, "...multitudes of leeches..."

I can enjoy this book without bringing a box of salt and cigarettes with which to burn off the leeches.



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Monday, February 21, 2011

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and PakistanStones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Please read this book for a reason to feel good about the work that the Central Asia Institute is doing to help people who want to provide education for their girls in the midst of extreme conditions on this planet. A remark made about the school in Wakhan Kirghiz was "In place of our help, what they needed most was the sense of empowerment that comes from knowing that they had done it on their own."

"When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children." When they listened to the story of Farzana, she told them about the need for desks to be included in the schools for the children to feel safe and with the desks the tents feel like schools.



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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Pigs in HeavenPigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book gives me a case of writer's envy and amazement. I enjoy the story and the plotting done by the writer. When I read sentences like, "When you're given a brilliant child, you polish her and let her shine", I say, "Amen to that!" I will remember her sentence, "Every mud puddle is surrounded by a prayer group of small blue butterflies."





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The Himalayas (World's Wild Places)The Himalayas by Nigel Nicolson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Again, I enjoyed the text as much as I enjoyed the pictures. This time I was surprised by the idea of tropical rainforest climate, forests and the Tibetan plain before this reader got to the part of what I had come to expect when the topic is the Himalayas and mountaineering.



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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Beyond Candlesticks: New Japanese Charting Techniques Revealed (Wiley Finance)Beyond Candlesticks: New Japanese Charting Techniques Revealed by Steve Nison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I needed several months to finish reading and studying this book. I spent lots of time trying to find the patterns on current charts to learn identification on my own. This book also covers three-line break charts, renko charts and kagi charts. You have to really be interested in this stuff to want to read this much about the topic of Japanese candlestick charting techniques.



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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Wilderness Europe (The World's Wild Places)Wilderness Europe by Douglas Botting

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is another book from the armchair-travel genre whose text is as enjoyable as the photographs. I enjoyed reading about the author's experience with the otters from "Ring of Bright Water." If I ever get the opportunity to travel to these areas, this book provides me with places I might like to visit some day.



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Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I look forward to Big Reads discussions of this book at local libraries. It is a well-written creative non-fiction that provides strong emotional content to the reportage of big themes of our history of racism and its legacy of mistrust, plus the evolving topics of medical research ethics and cell and tissue culture.



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Monday, February 07, 2011

Friday, February 04, 2011

Fall of GiantsFall of Giants by Ken Follett

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Maybe, because this book had so much marketing hype, I rated it 2 stars instead of 3; but I found it disappointing because I've read other multi-generational books by other authors that I enjoyed more. This book is the first part of a trilogy about five families in different parts of the world in the 20th century; and yet, when the book ended I really did not care what happened to any of the characters. I don't eagerly anticipate the next book.



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