Ok, Book Meme

Gretchen, over at www.Lifenut.com/blog/, tagged me for a book meme. Now I will have to confess to you the junk I read, LOL. I used to like good stuff, back in high school and college, but now all I have time for are trashy novels that are easy to put down when life calls.



Total Number of Books Owned:

Does that include children's books? We just got rid of a bunch of college text books when we moved, and boxes of paper back novels too, so between us Chris and I probably have only a few hundred books, but the kids have another 2 hundred or so. It's hard to really say; whatever the number is, Chris is always reassuring me it is too many LOL

Last Book I Bought:

AstroBall Free-4-All, a book for Troyer. I've been very good about going to the library for my own reading, instead of spending $. If I could have found it, it would have been a book titled King Me, a Christian book on Dads raising sons. I heard about it on Mid-Day Connection a few months ago. I was hoping it would turn up in a bookstore near me, but I haven't seen it. Yeah yeah yeah I know, I could get it online.

Last Book I Read:

Here is where you find out just how low my literary tastes have fallen since I had kids, LOL. I just finished a trilogy by Michael Phillips called The Stonewycke Trilogy. It is a set of historical romance novels set in 19th century Scotland. Somehow in college I became fascinated by Scotland, and also my roommate got me hooked on reading time-travel novels. I read the series of books by Diana Gabaldon and enjoyed the parts about the history of Scotland and time traveling, and even for the most part the plots; the sex part, ick. I'd have been just as happy if they had left it up to our imaginations LOL.

I am currently reading another Michael Phillips series, The Secrets of Heathersleigh Hall, starting with Wild Grows the Heather in Devon. Michael Phillips is a Christian author so at least there isn't any sex in these, LOL.

5 Books That Mean A Lot to Me:

Wow, that is tough. It would be hard to pick out only 5. At the same time, it is hard to pick out a whole 5. I have read sooo many books, I am sure I'll post the answers to this meme and then in a few days smack my forehead and say "I can't believe I forgot THAT book!" Ok, so here goes:
First that comes to mind is The Great Controversy, by E G White. It is a fascinating book about the ultimate battle between Good and Evil, and how the Earth got caught in the middle of it.

Second is Northwest Passage, by Kenneth Roberts. I read it in 10th grade English class. It stands out for me because it is totally a guy's book, all about an exploration party searching for a Northwest Passage through Canada in the 19th century, not the sort of book I'd ever read, yet I remember enjoying it so much. I loved that class because we read so much that year, most of it books I'd never pick up on my own.

Third, another Christian novel Some Wildflower In My Heart, by Jamie Langston Turner. This is part of another series, and I don't think it is the first one, but it is the first one I read of them. What got me about this book is that there is a character, Birdie Freeman, who I shouldn't like at all; plain, sticky sweet kind, a total overkill of Christian goodness that normally I would be gagging over, and yet this book actually succeeded in making me want to be like her. I liked this book best out of the series.

Fourth, Hmmm, I knew this would start getting hard, lol. How to choose which ones meant more than others? Really, I blow through books so fast, I hardly remember one from another after I'm done. Well, I guess this is where the truth comes out. I don't have a high standard for my daily reading, lol. I will critique one romance novelist over another, because honestly some of them are really horrible and not even worth finishing the book yet others are fun to read. (I enjoyed Victoria Holt books, but even they get predictable when you've read 7 in a row. There is one author my sister and I have read who is remarkably inconsistent. Some of her books are great, and others just make us gag.) In the end, though, I guess I just read for escape at this point. Reading the really good stuff was more fun in school where we discussed the books in groups. It's no fun to have profound personal discoveries and insights if you don't have anyone to share them with. My husband doesn't like to read with me because he always feels dumb trying to discuss it. I read the Hobbit and was going to read The Lord of the Rings, since he read them and liked them, but he wouldn't discuss any of it and I lost interest. Romance is fun because there is seldom anything profound in them LOL.