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I read you read we all read

Book meme stolen from Jennifer…

  1. One book that made you laugh: I can’t think of any off hand. Meg Cabot can be pretty funny.
  2. One book that made you cry: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. WHAT. Do not tell me that you did not shed a tear for Fred, for Lupin, for Tonks.
  3. One book that you loved as a child: I loved a lot of books as a kid, most notably the Sue Barton Student Nurse books (Helen Boylston), anything by Edward Eager, and the Betsy-Tacy books (Maud Hart Lovelace). When I saw the entire set of Betsy-Tacy books at Barnes & Noble in a nice reprint, I bought them ALL. Love ’em.
  4. One book you’ve read more than once: I read a lot of books more than once, but the book I’ve read the most is Jurassic Park.
  5. One book you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: I read a lot of crap, I am not embarrassed to admit it. I will never admit to having read most of the Jackie Collins oeuvre though. Oh wait.
  6. One book you hated: Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath can suck it.
  7. One book that scared you: I was quite freaked out by the R.L. Stine books when I was a kid.
  8. One book that bored you: Most of Shakespeare, The Color Purple, Red Badge of Courage, um, most of the books I was supposed to read in high school.
  9. One book that made you happy: The final book in the YA series from Meg Cabot, The Mediator. I forget what it was called, but it pretty much embodied the perfect ending to a series: nicely wrapped up with a happy ending. Sweet.
  10. One book that made you miserable: I don’t read miserable books. I can think of a few that pissed me off to the extent that I stopped reading the author’s books.
  11. One book that you weren’t brave enough to read: Most of the horror genre. Despite my love of zombies and gore, I just don’t do horror.
  12. One book character you’ve fallen in love with: I kind of love Stu Redman from Stephen King’s The Stand, even though I never finished it. (still 200 pages to go)
  13. The last book you read: After the Kiss by Suzanne Enoch. It was okay.
  14. The next book you hope to read: The new Artemis Fowl.

Now I think I’m going to look for my copy of The Stand and maybe finish it.

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An Amazonian Triumph

So I was at the library today trying to find one of my favorite books as a kid, Bella by Anne and Edward Syfret. It is about an evil doll and two friends during World War II ish. It’s much more clever than that description, and I just loved it, and have read it multiple times even as an adult.

Despite heroic effort on the part of two children’s librarians, today I discovered that the library has GOTTEN RID OF MY PRECIOUS BOOK. NOOOOO.

As an admitted bookaholic, anytime the library gets rid of books, even if they suck, a part of me dies a little inside. I love books. I looooove books. If Bella, an awesome little book that is much more sophisticated than a lot of contemporary children’s books, is doomed, what does that say about Sue Barton, Student Nurse?? My heart it doth break should more classics be relegated to the trash.

So I went on Amazon and bought the book, a sturdy library version, even, for $1.50. The shipping cost more than the book. And when it arrives, it ushers in a new era: The Melissa Buying Every Children’s Book She Has Ever Liked Era.

It was bound to happen.

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In One Ear

Lately, I’ve been noticing that a lot of people are posting about the books they are reading for the summer, for pleasure, for whatever. I have noticed one consistent similarity throughout all these posts and that is this: I will probably never read those books. I am not a Grapes of Wrath sort of girl.

I am a romance/zombies/Templars/fantasy/dinosaurs kind of girl:

Current TBR

Okay, there are no dinosaur books in that TBR pile, but only because I can’t find Tyrannosaur Canyon at the moment. As soon as I dig it out from under my bed, there it will go!

What are you reading?

***

I have completed my first week of Atkins. It has kind of sucked, but not too hard. I am not crazy-hungry like the last time I did this. I feel healthier, like my system is restarting itself and has purged most of the junk out of it. Next weekend I’ll be done with Atkins and start Phase 2 of South Beach, which includes fruits and whole grains. I am not really missing bread or noodles or rice or whatever, but I’d like to have some fruits again, especially some Brooks cherries.

I have been eating a lot of brussel sprouts.

Two weeks till Texas!