Jan - June 2006

January 2006
Grail, by Stephen Lawhead
The fifth book in his King Arthur series, and the followup to Pendragon. This book was all right, but the first three books are far better than the last two.

The Endless Knot, by Stephen Lawhead
The end of the trilogy started with The Paradise Wars. Good book.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
I loved this book. It's about a girl who grows up in Brooklyn, and she's poor, and she reads a lot to escape the crappy reality she lives in. It's wonderful.

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
This is one of those books that I forget about for years at a time, then re-read and wonder why I don't own it so I can read it over and over and over and over again. So now I do own it, and have started collecting a lot of her other books. Yay for good books!

February 2006
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe, and Everything, by Douglas Adams
Hitchhiker's Guide is great goofy sci-fi. There are actually five books in this "trilogy", and I own all five, and someday I will get around to reading all five. The problem is that I have to start at the beginning every time, and by the time I get through three or four, I'm spent. It's goofy and non-sensical and fun, but there's only so much a mind can take. Someday, I'll read the fifth book. I think I've read the fourth one once. The quality declines as the series goes on, but I really enjoy the first one.

March 2006
Circle of Grace, by Penelope Stokes
In that slightly cheesy Christian fiction way, this was a really good book. It's about four very different girls who live together in college, then go their separate ways. They keep in touch by circulating a journal around, although they haven't seen each other in quite a few years. Then one of them learns that she is dying, and she gets the other three to visit her without really telling her why. All four of them have been keeping big secrets from the others, and they finally come clean and become better friends for it.

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
I love this book. And it appears I feel the need to read it every 24 months.

April 2006
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden
I never saw the movie - still haven't - but I really enjoyed the book. It's about a geisha in Japan, and how she becomes a geisha and all the misery and secrets behind what appears to be a very glamorous lifestyle. It was highly entertaining.

A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L'Engle
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeleine L'Engle
Many Water, by Madeleine L'Engle
More adventures from the characters in A Wrinkle in Time. All excellent books, although the first will always be my favorite.

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi
I love this book, too, and re-read it periodically. It's about a girl whose parents send her on a ship to America to meet them. The captain of the ship is evil, and the sailors are all there to get revenge on him. Charlotte is the only passenger (which is not quite what her parents planned), and she gets in the middle of things. It's great.

May 2006
The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
Tears of the Giraffe, by Alexander McCall Smith
An African woman opens a detective agency and solves a couple local mysteries. Fun reading.

The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks
I never saw this movie either - why watch the movies when you can read the books? - but I read the book all in one sitting. Fortunately, my husband went to bed well before I finished, because I cried through about the last fifty pages. It was so sad. Not too bad of a book for a sappy romance, except that it was way too sad.

An Unfinished Life, by Mark Spragg
This was a One Book Arizona selection a couple years ago (you know, where they try to get everyone in the state to read the same book at the same time - I've seen it in other states, too). It was pretty good - about a woman who finally leaves abusive boyfriend #500 and takes her daughter back to her father's ranch in the middle of nowhere. The woman and her father haven't spoken in years and years, so they finally have to learn to forgive each other, and she has to learn to find a boyfriend who isn't abusive, and her daughter has to learn what it's like to grow up not scared.

The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
Fun, I enjoyed playing along with all the clues that Da Vinci left for them to solve the mystery. Just remember that it's fiction, people, and don't get so worked up about it.

Perfect Match, by Jodi Picoult
An attorney discovers that her child has been molested, kills the priest that she believes molested him, and hangs out in jail for a while as it is discovered that everything isn't really as it seems. A good read (although I prefer books that don't involve child molestation, but that could just be me).

Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner
The author is raised Jewish, becomes an Orthodox Jew in college, then converts to Christianity after college. She does a ton of reading about the religions and their history and beliefs and everything else she can find before, during, and after each religious step. It's pretty informative.

June 2006
Sadly, this month ceased to exist in my reading life. I blame it on the fact that I was taking a summer accounting class and moving. *sigh*