Karen's Book Nook

My coffee table book that I’m reading right now is Simpler Times  by Anne Christian Buchanan featuring Thomas Kinkade‘s beautiful, peaceful artwork. (I often find lots of Victorian houses that I would love to live in among his works!)  I hope to get a lot of reading done this week since I’m on school vacation and I’ve been so behind.

This one is my “purse book”  that I can pick up when I have a few extra minutes to spare. I’m reading Green Chic: saving the earth in style by Christie Matheson. It’s full of green tips; many that I I’m already doing but I’m sure I’ll pick up something new along the way. I’m really making a conscious effort to do my part to live as green a life as I can. (Of course, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to live in comfort and style so I’m looking forward to reading it.)

Currently reading The Biggest Loser by Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, the stories of the contestants from the first two seasons of my favorite show.  Also contains exercise and diet tips following the principles used on the ranch.

Since I’m here in San Diego on vacation, I’m able to catch more reading time than I do when I’m home. I know I committed to read Pillars of Earth but picked this one up first because it was calling to me and is so much shorter it doesn’t seem as daunting. I’m catching  lots of little snippets of time to read and since it’s light “chic lit” it’s an easy read. It’s making me itch to pick up my pointy sticks but I don’t have knitting with me here on vaca. I do have some things started at home though which I pick up while watching movies on Saturday nights.

Today’s book is The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard. It’s another one that I got from a fellow teacher when I left school in June. She handed me a stack of books to read over the summer and I’m glad to be able to return them to her READ, next week. I just realized that she also wrote The Deep End of the Ocean, one of Oprah’s Book Club selections years ago. I believe I read it right here on vacation in this very spot many hundreds of books ago.

Finished yesterday’s novel, The Virgin of Small Plains and LOVED it! (My comments are with the library entry.)  Today’s read is Sail by James Patterson. It should be a quickie as his usually are. I’ve been squeezing them in between more “meaty” books. I should be done this one in no time today.

Since I’m on vacation, I’m able to read to my heart’s content!  This is one that someone at work gave to me to read at the end of the school year and I knew I wouldn’t get to it until the summer. Since I’m going back next week, I bumped it up to the front of the list. Today’s book is The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard. I’ve never read her before but even if it wasn’t given to me I probably would have grabbed it while looking at books on the shelf  because the cover appeals to me.

On my quest to read as many books as possible on my vacation, this one should be a quickie as I can always blow through a Patterson in no time.  Today’s book is Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson.

I just finished The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman and this one, The Seduction of Water is coming due as well so I bumped it to the top of my pile.  The first book that I read of hers was The Lake of Dead Languages and it blew me away. I read it a couple of years ago and thought about it for weeks. Having just finished Ghost Orchid yesterday, I can say that I enjoyed it but since it wasn’t my first experience reading her, I was more used to her style and sort of knew where it was going. I’m curious to see if I enjoy this one as much or if it will be too predictable to me since the newness is gone.

I just finished The Guy Not Taken and this one  came in from the library hold. I’m planning on reading it while reading Carol Goodman’s,  The Ghost Orchid because it’s a totally different type of book. Weiner is very light and funny and Goodman is much more deep and dark. Besides.. I always read Weiner super-fast and I’ve got tons of books to read!