Getting New 'Eyes' & Wisdom Whilst Reading...

I have been reading The Book of Lost Things... there are some great quotes and beautiful wordings to be found in there.
Although, I must say, John Connolly's sense of creativity makes me wonder about him a little much! If you like Lewis Carroll, and Grimm's grim fairy tales, then this is definitely the book for you... it's odd. Amusing? Yes. Gripping? Sure. But also quite oddly done...

As for me, not sure if I'll finish it. (Pro'l'y will.) But still not sure, as I'm only a couple chapters in so far and it's getting more & more interesting (yes) but also weirder & weirder (!) Kind of reminds me of Sylvie & Bruno crossed with The Hobbit crossed with The Smithsonian Book of Books.
All that being said, there were several good quotes to be found & noted in the first pages. I thought the following one was the best, and good enough to share:

"I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don’t read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways…It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being."

– John Connolly (The Book of Lost Things)

That quote was the best part of the book so far....for me anyway.
Well, besides the fact that books talk in this story! Just imagine what it'd be like to hear books talking! It boggles the mind to think of all the widely different things they'd be clamoring to say to us!
Fun to think of. :)

So, what do you think? Have you read this book (or any of Connolly's other popular fiction works)?
The quote I shared has several little holes in it's 'fabric', I know. Not everything in the world can be solved by sitting down and delving into a fictional book to make 'extracts' from it! In fact, many, many  things can't be accomplished to any success that way. Book-worming is fun, but it should be used as a tool for learning &  the ''getting of wisdom'' (Proverbs 4:5).

P.S.~ Thanks everybody for sharing your top book choices with me!
I received quite a few wonderful recommendations. Many of which I hope to read & review very soon. :]

1 Book, 2 Books, Red Book, Blue Book....

This shall be a post for my own personal gain!
Just warning you! ;)

I would like to asking my reading friends what are the top 3 books you've read & enjoyed this year?
The ones that you can think of first, and you enjoyed reading the most.

The reason I ask is because...

1. I'm a book worm! Bookworms crave more books! One or two is never enough...
2.  I'm on a challenge to read more books this years than I ever have before (way over 250 hopefully!)
3. I genuinely want to know what you guys like to read. :)

So, pretty please, tell me your book favorites in the comments, ya'll!
Or, if you have a Shelfari account like I do, you can just recommend the books right to me through that. :)

{I need this clock. I think it would help me keep track of my time better...}

What I Have Learned From Julie's Life

Julie Andrews is one of my favorite actresses (right up there with Audrey Hepburn and Emma Thompson!) I'm not sure exactly what it is about her, or her acting that draws me in, but it does. I always felt like I could identify with many of the characters she played in her various movies. Her role as Maria Von Trapp, in Sound of Music, is of course of special note. :)

However, there definitely always is much more to a person than just what they do for a living, right? The same is true for Julie; she was more than just her acting and singing careers.  I knew that she played great roles and was a wonderful singer, but I knew next to nothing about her own life, and the 'real' Julie Andrews!

    That's why I ordered this book (only $4!) off of Barnes & Nobles to read. Home, is Julie's memoirs of her early years from her birth to age 28. What first struck me as reading was that she did not come from a 'perfect home'! I guess I just always assumed that Julie Andrews ...I don't know, came from this perfect, happy-family dream world! Something like the Trapp family! Well, that was not the case at all; her parents, Barbara Ward Wells and 'Ted' Wells, both came from very poor, abusive backgrounds and met while working in the vaudeville/nightclub business.
     Once married they had two kids, Julie and her brother Johnny, before her mother left her father for another man (Ted Andrews) less than a decade after marriage. Eventually, when Julie was around 12 years old, her parents divorced and her parents went their separate ways. The resulting years were spent between the two families: her Mum and large, load, rough 'Pop', and her Dad and new timid, but kind wife. 

   Two things happened as Julie neared her teen years: Her Mum and Pop decide to change her name, from her christened name Julia Elizabeth Wells, to Julie Andrews. Julie was apparently very upset and averse to the change at first, but it stuck anyway. Secondly, her 'Pop' began giving her singing lessons and then later sponsored her to attend lesson by Madam Lilian Stiles-Allen. Turns out.... Julie had an amazing voice!

And the rest, is history basically. :)

     I thought it was particularly neat to see the pictures of her as just a young, slight girl meeting young Queen Elizabeth. Julie Andrews was & is such a special lady. A common theme I find in her life story is forgiveness, humbleness, and perseverance. Whenever people hurt her, or whenever she got praised, or whenever things got particularly rough, she responded in the same way, every time: by pressing on with a smile and hope in her heart. Now maybe that sounds like 'sentimental fluff', but I think it's a valid claim.

The optimists are the ones who keep us all from getting too bogged down with life and forgetting to LIVE.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

Resources:
Favorite movies of Julie Andrews - Sound of Music, The Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mary Poppins.
Websites: http://www.julieandrewsonline.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Andrews

Sarah's Key: A Book to Read & Remember

Have you ever read a book that left you shaken?
Utterly and completely moved? It is only a very good book, and a very skillful author that can write such a book.

Well this book, Sarah's Key, did that to me. Reading through it was amazing, but painful (because of what the story was about.) But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, I should explain how I came to own this book in the first place! The simple answer is I got it from a libarian. The kind-hearted little lady that was running the 'Friends of the Library' shop last week was reading it as I came in the shop. (I always check the Friends shop for 'new' old book; I've grown my collection of over 35 antique books just from their selections for sale!) So, I always check the shop and stop in to chat with whoever's there for that day.
  That day, there was a grandmotherly looking figure sitting behind the desk, with a very sweet face. :) She smiles and we exchanged 'hellos' as I came in. Looking around for a second, I found a 1945 leather-bonded atlas for sale for $2. Grabbing that, I said to myself.
I could not find anything else worth spending my few, college-student bucks on so I plopped my atlas down to 'check out'. :) A little boy (maybe 6 years old) and his dad had come in meantime; the dad was checking out the old VHS collections for sale while the boy found a dinosaur book. So sweet. :) The little guy, wearing a matching baseball cap like his dad, was chattering about why he loves dinos to the librarian lady. (Did I ever mention I love seeing kids, being able to live just as they should be--kids? Curious, trusting, smiling. It's a gift, a real gift.) He was clutching the dollar and 75 cents necessary to buy the book in his little hands.

Anyway, the Dad wasn't ready to check out yet so even though the dinosaur lil' guy was ready, he let me graciously go first. So I was getting ready to buy my only book when the cover of the book the lady was reading stuck out to me. 'What's that book like?' I asked. She looked surprised to be asked about it first, then she smiled and said, 'Oh, it's a great book. A really good one! I've been sitting here all afternoon reading it and it's amazing...' Oh? hmmmmm, sound like a good one, thought I. I asked her what it was about.
She told me it was about the wars in Europe, the French occupation, and what happened during and after the Nazis rounded up several thousand French Jews. She said, be warned, it was a tear-jerker.

What's the first thing that goes through our  minds whenever we hear words like "Nazis", "World War I or II", 'the Jews'? What goes through your mind whenever anyone speaks of those things that happened long, long ago? I know what goes through mine.

Images and feelings of deep pain, horror, sadness.
Huge losses of lives, of families, faith,  and innocence.

It's hard to put into words what kind of things so many went through so long ago, especially when you yourself have no idea of just how painful all that must have been.

This book is about a fictional girl named, Sarah Starzynski. Her actual account is fictional only in the sense that she never existed. However her story, and the story of the French Jews men, women and children of Vel' de Hiv' like her was very, very real.

This book is much like another book I read, The Shape of Mercy: A Novel. It's not for the faint of heart.
But it also tells a story that should not be forgotten.
So, if you are up to it, read on and remember.

A Tale About Alice

Life is full of surprises.   For my birthday (which was last Saturday, the 12th) I received a very special book from a friend of mine. It was a book on one of my favorite subjects: Alice, from the Alice in Wonderland book tales!
This book was a story in which the authoress, Melanie Benjamin, mixed the fact and fiction surrounding Alice Pleasance Liddell's and Rev. Charles Dodgson's (aka Lewis Carroll's) lives into a quaint, curious tale that both entertains fully as well as leaves you puzzling... "so what was the real story?"

My favorite thing about this book (besides the cover, and inside photographs of the real Alice!) was the way Benjamin wrote the tale: in the present, first-person. This is my favorite way to write and read a book, however I seldom find it used and especially not to this extent! This alone made it a very enjoyable read for me.

    Other than that all that, all you need to know before running our & buying or borrowing this book is that you probably should read up on the real story first, if you want to be able to distinguish it through the reading. Now, if that's no concern for you, and you just want it all to blend together beautifully in your head:this is the perfect story for that. :) Go right on ahead...
    Also, Melanie Benjamin really did her homework on the facts that we do know about the two families. So, if you're any sort of a historical AiW buff, you will really enjoy (like I did) all the little details carefully tucked in the story!

Just don't forget to, 

"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." *

~Hannah