The Adventures of a Constant Reader

Hello there!  I seem to have fallen behind again.  On a good note, my baby is now four months old and growing like a weed!  I'm so very proud of her. A couple of months ago my book club read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  This was my pick.  I loved Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch and have been looking to read more Gaiman and Pratchett.  I had also just started watching the Starz TV series so I figured it'd be a good way to read the book before I continued with the series.  I love the concept of this book.  When people immigrate to the United States they bring all sorts of things with them, why wouldn't they also bring their gods?  It's interesting to think about the different versions of each god living all around the world and how they would all be different due to the influence of the different areas they've been living in.  I also love the conflict between the old gods and the new gods....

This month's read for book club was In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware.  Ware is a mystery/suspense writer and she's also known for the novel The Woman in Cabin 10, and The Lying Game .  I was looking forward to this one.  I tend to like suspense novels and I needed something fun and easy to read since my brain is mush from lack of sleep.  My adorable daughter seems to have gotten her days and nights confused recently.  I had also read some reviews that described this book as scary, something that needs to be read with the light on.  I do love a scary book.  This proved to be exactly what I needed and I finished it so quickly that I immediately checked out The Lying Game from the library.  I cannot stress enough what a wonderful resource your local library can be.  I've made a resolution this year to not buy as many books as I typically do.  My goal is to only purchase books that I know I'm going to read multiple times, or are written by ...

Let me tell you, life as a first time mom is rough!  Learning to take care of my daughter, round the clock feedings, and trying to get some sleep have taken up a lot of my time lately.  I have been reading, I just haven't been able to make it to my computer to type up my reviews for a while.  Now I'm back! First up in my to be reviewed queue is Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.  I read this book in high school, but I didn't remember very much about it so I was looking forward to a re-read.  The movie was just about to come out when we decided to read this for book club.  Once we were finished reading we went to see the movie together so I'll be reviewing that too. The Book The book finds Christie's famous detective, Hercule Poirot, embarking on a trip via train.  In leu of a leasurely vacation he ends up with a new case when one his fellow passengers is found murdered in his room.  Hercule reluctantly takes the case and beg...

In September I received a notification in my email from the Book of the Month Club that said I could get Stephen King and Owen King’s new Book Sleeping Beauties for free if I resigned up for the monthly subscription.  I had been planning to pick up this book anyway so I figured, why not?  Their usual box is $14.99 per month.  I got a “credit” for one book and had to pay the $9.99 they typically charge for an additional book for the second book.  So for $9.99 (shipping is free!) I got Sleeping Beauties and Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker.     When you first sign up for the Book of the Month Club ( https://www.bookofthemonth.com/enroll ) they’ll ask you some questions about the types of books you like, and how many books you read per month so they can get a feel for what to recommend for you.  You’ll fill in all your billing information and it’ll give you a few books to pick from for your first box.  You can either pick jus...

     I'm back!  I've been MIA for a little while because I was preparing for my daughter to arrive.  She was born last Saturday!  We're in good health and now that we're starting to get a routine down I can work on my blog again.      I was really excited when one of the book club members requested that we read The Wars of the Roses:  The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones.  Not only am I an avid attendee of both the Renaissance fairs in my area, but I've always been interested in the history behind the British throne.  I recently found out through ancestry.com that one of my ancestors, William Duke of Hastings, was pretty heavily involved in the events that occurred under the rule of King Edward V so I was interested to see what this book would have to say about him.      I was initially worried that this book would be dry, since it's a history book, but I was pleasan...

                                  First, I want to apologize for skipping last week.   Things have been kind of crazy getting ready for Olivia to arrive.   We’re getting down to the wire, they’ll be inducing me in about three weeks!   I can’t believe how fast time is going right now!                 Anyway, what you’re really here for is a new book review.   This week I’m going to be reviewing the collection of short horror stories I finished up last week, Ghostly .   The book was edited by Audrey Niffenegger and contains 16 short ghost stories written by various authors.   There are a couple of stories that you see quite often in collections like these.   I feel like “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, and “The Be...

I finished The Death Cure over the weekend.   Overall, I’m happy to be finished with this series.   I know it was a popular series, but I just couldn’t find much to recommend about it.   The Death Cure does have more action than the previous two books in the series, but I just can’t get past the fact that they probably could have achieved the desired outcome in a much shorter time frame, with less torturing of children, if they’d have just used imaging machines to scan the brain patterns of the immunes and compared them to patterns in the brains of the infected.   Since I couldn’t get on board with the premise, I couldn’t get on board with the series.                   I also didn’t feel very connected to the main character.   Not only does he spend most of his time in the last two books either sleeping or passing out (it seemed like every chapter in The Scorch Trials ended wi...