Musing on a Monday

Fall is definitely in the air, where did the summer go? Time seems to fly by faster now that I am over the hill! I spent a quiet weekend at (work) the hospital, thank goodness! That means less people were out there doing stupid things and getting themselves hurt. I’ve had a hard time lately, my vasculitis has really been painful so I have not been getting much sleep and have had to resort to taking steroids. They make me gain weight, but I guess it is better than being driven crazy form the pain and itching. During my sleepless nights I have been reading like crazy from my new kindle that hubby gave me as a birthday present. There’s nothing like a good book to keep the mind suitably occupied (then I don’t think about the itches…)

The questions today- I am borrowing from Dana Huff’s Much Divine Madness blog, and she calls it ‘Musing Mondays’. She has a lot of good content about reading and book reviews on her blog. Play along with me and do some musing about these questions…

1. What was the name of the last book you borrowed from the library?
2. What was the last book you purchased?
3. The last book you cried over?
4. The last book you disliked and could not finish reading?
5. The last book you read and loved?
6. The last book that was given to you or that you received for review?
7. The last book you gave to someone?
8. When was the last time you stayed up way too late reading?

My answers:

1. I checked out ‘Citizen of the Galaxy’ by Robert Heinlein from the local library about a week ago and I am about 1/3 of the way into it. I’ve wanted to dig into some good old fashioned sci fi lately.  I go to the library weekly, just to poke around a bit. I don’t check out books each time but, if they would let me check out 100 books, I would probably do it just because I like having them around.
2. One of the last books I purchased was a copy of ‘Twilight’ for a buck, at the local thrift store. I’ve been resisting reading it but with a new movie installment coming out soon, I gave in and figured I had better find out what all the hype over this series is about. Heck, it only cost me 100 pennies. I can always donate it back to the thrift store when I’m done with it.
3. The last cry fest I had while reading a book was a few weeks ago as I read ‘Hunger Games’. It is a pretty violent book for young adults, imho. I really became entwined with the characters while reading it. Katniss, don’t be so dumb, give Peta a chance will you!!! I cried when Rue died and Katniss decorated her body with flowers. All in all, the whole book was quite emotionally wrenching.
4. I picked up ‘The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane’ at Barnes and Noble and put it down a few days later. The premise for the book seemed quite intriguing but I could not get past the author’s writing style. It was all hoity toity and it seemed like the author was just trying to prove to the reader how astute and intelligent she was by writing this book. After a few chapters I asked myself why I was wasting my time reading it and decided that there were plenty of other books I could like if I just put this one down-and picked up something else.
5. Recently I read and loved ‘Only Salt Remains’ by Meryl McQueen. I stumbled upon it in the Kindle store and downloaded it for $0.99. I am interested in just about any book dealing with Sicily because that is where my grandparents were born. It was the bittersweet saga of the life of two orphaned brothers scratching out a living in Sicily and one of them eventually immigrates to the USA. The author seems to have thorough background knowledge of what southern Italians/ Sicilians are like because I found myself saying over and over again as I read it…”Yes, my relatives are like that,” “Oh, yes, they do that,” and “That is similar to how my relatives think and do things!” It is rather a sad tale tinged with fatalism, just like the people who lived there at the time. A fascinating read.
6. I ‘won’ two e-books from the author give-away which is a monthly feature on the site LibraryThing, For the price of a book review written by you and posted on the site,  you can enter lotteries to get free books every month. I am a member of this site, a big spender, too because it is a whopping $20 dollars for a life time membership. The site lets you catalog your books, post book reviews, there are numerous discussion and challenge groups, personalized recommendations of more books you might like, networking with other book lovers and authors, etc. etc. The one I received and read this month was ‘Let’s Get Digital, a Guide to Self-Publishing and why you should do it’ by David Gaughan. It was a really good book that introduces would-be authors to the world of digital publishing. It contains a lot of useful information and the author also lets people download copies of his book for free at Smashwords. I hope I can actually be a published author this way in the future.
7. The last book I gave to someone was the ‘Worldwide Ward Cookbook’ which I included as part of my niece’s wedding present a little over a week ago.
8. I  have to admit guilt and throw myself on the mercy of the court for the last one because I stay up too late reading almost every single evening!!  Until next time………ciao!