Featured Book (2 and 3): The Meaning of Matthew by Judy Shepard and Shine by Lauren Myracle

The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie and a World Transformed

Publisher (Hudson Street Press) ISBN (978-1-59463-157-6) Price ($25.95)

About the Books:

While I had hoped to do full reviews of both of these books, I knew I would run out of time this month. I wanted them both featured in the month of October since it is National Bullying Prevention Month. Believe me when I say both of these books are extraordinary. I have started both of them and I rarely read two books at once. I could not decide between the two.

For those of you who do not know the story behind these books and how they are tied in, I will clue you in. Matthew Shepard's mother, Judy, wrote the above memoir about her son after he was killed after a brutal hate crime attack on October 12, 1998. She shares his story, her story and how his death brought to light the reality of hate crimes.

Shine by Lauren Myracle is a new novel with a very similar story to what had happened to Matthew. She was nominated for a National Book Award and it turned out to be a mistake on the Board's part. Her book was mixed up with another. Myracle kindly withdrew herself from the list with no drama but was pleased that the Book Award Board made a generous donation of $5000 to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Shine by Lauren Myracle

Publisher (Abrams) ISBN (978-0-8109-8417-2) Price ($16.95) Genre (Young Adult)

Why I wanted to read these books:

It's no surprise to most in my life how strongly I feel against hateful feelings towards gay people. Hate crimes tick me off. I think it needs to be talked about more and more. I think people who bully and teach hate should face some justice. I feel we should teach our children compassion for others, no matter if they are different than us or not.

If I could donate a million dollars to Matthew Shepard's Foundation, I would.

If only it could erase hate. It will never go away but I believe awareness and education

are the beginning.

These stories, one true, one fiction, need to be told.

You can read more about the National Book Award story and

Matthew Shepard's Foundation here.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Challenging myself

If you've read my last post you will know that I am taking a break from review requests and focusing on reading more of what I own (or see at my library). My main goal is to get back on track for my Mystery Challenge. I've been picking the shelves (at my library) and my own for the books I want to read. I discovered Linda Castillo's Amish Mystery Series while working at the library this week and picked it up right away.

She will be my "C" pick and review should come up next week!

I have also come across The White Devil by Justin Evans ( I think he is going to be my "E" pick) and Absent Friends by S.J Rozan (my potential "R" pick).

I'm glad I finally decided to refocus because I am really jazzed about these books.

Ahh, now just to keep focus going and NOT get distracted. :)

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Featured Books

Hello, my name is Michelle and I am a Book Worm.

This is a joy and a concern these days. My list of books to read and review has gotten to be, in my opinion, a bit too large. I have been very honest with my timelines when accepting books to review but lately I feel a bit behind. In an effort to give these books attention they deserve, I have decided to showcase these books in a Featured Post. They will not be reviewed by me because I have not read them fully. I will simply share with you all what they are about, why I was interested in reading them and if possible, links to other reviews.

My goal this fall is to simplify my reading and focus on reading what's on my shelves and completing challenges, mainly my very own A-Z Mystery Challenge. I am horribly behind on that! (Bad Michelle, BAD!) It is getting close to the season I love the most and I really want to hunker down and read some gothic scary novels and creepy mystery/thrillers.

I hope you will all stop by and check out my Featured Posts.

Thanks for being such great readers and supporters of my blog, as I tweak here and there.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

To be Seen or Not to be Seen, that is my Question.

I've wanted to throw these questions out to the blog universe for awhile now especially since I've been back from BEA.

Do you have a personal picture of yourself on your blog?

If not, why?

Do you like knowing what the blogger looks like? Does it make you feel closer to the blogger?

Here are my thoughts. For the longest time, i had a generic picture up and then i had a picture of my son. My blog has always been about books with a little bit of me thrown in there. I've included a few more pictures of myself and my son over the years but have kept it on the down low.

When I finally did post a picture of myself, I remember getting comments that we really positive and excited saying that it was nice to put a face to a name.

I would REALLY like to know what some of my favorite bloggers look like. That's just me! Now that I have met several at BEA the past two years, it is really nice to bring that community even closer.

What do you all think?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

I'm doomed.

Like I need more books, right? I'm doomed.

Tomorrow is the annual Ladies Auxillary Book Sale in my hometown. The ENTIRE ice arena is filled with tables of books. Tomorrow is the last day and for the morning from 8-12 it is only $4 for a bag. A BAG! After 12, it is free! FREE!

Why does this happen one month before BEA?

This event is fun and stressful at the same time. I get excited and continue filling up bags. Last year I agreed on ONE bag. I got FOUR.

Oh well...this is my destiny. To live surrounded my books that I may never read. Reading From My Shelves Project be damned.

sigh.

red headed book child

A Book Signing, some shameless promotion, Adele and some Tea

What do these things have to do with one another?

Well, they sum up my weekend.

First, a book signing. Above you see a very fuzzy, snowy picture of a bookstore called

Once Upon a Crime. This is one of my favorite little shops to pop in every now and then in Minneapolis. They are exclusively a seller of all things mystery. It's tiny. Very tiny. But it works. I never leave there without a list a mile long. And they have amazing author events. They get the big local authors, sure but they also get a lot of the well known national authors as well.

On Saturday they had both local, to me, and national author, Laura Childs. She was there to sign her newest book in her Tea Shop mysteries. I was there to see her and also to partake in a little of the tea action. Yes, there were treats. Finger sandwiches, scones, yummy Chai tea. Delicious!

I have only read her first two books in her Cackleberry Club series and her first book in the Tea Shop series. I brought all of those and she was lovely enough to sign them for me. I also brought the one copy I had of her scrapbooking series as well, which I have not read.

She was incredibly delightful and kind. Her husband tried to take our picture but it didn't quite turn out. Too fuzzy! That's okay. It was a pleasure to see her as she is becoming a favorite cozy mystery author of mine.

Fun fact: She is actually from my dad's hometown and her father knew my grandpa.

Small world, isn't it?

Overall, it was a pleasant way to spend a bit of my afternoon.

Which leads me to the shameless promotion piece...

For those of you new to my blog, you will not know that I met a fabulous new mystery author last year at BEA. Her name is Sandra Brannan. She was at the Book Blogger Convention and we had a chance to have breakfast and chat a bit. Well, long story short, she is delightful and I read her book, In the Belly of Jonah, on the plane ride home. I LOVED IT and I was lucky and honored to be the blogger that kicked off her book release that September.

At that time, I tried to get her book in the bookstore I was working at then and also suggested to the publisher to try Once Upon a Crime. I thought maybe with some of my contacts and whatnot I could put in a good word. Well, it didn't happen.

So, being that a I was there, I decided I was going to go for it and tell them all about Sandra Brannan's book. (I had just received ARCs of the second book and was totally stoked to read it!). I basically talked the owner's ear off for a bit about how they should stock it and told them how wonderful Sandra is, yada yada.

Cross your fingers that it works out and they carry her book. It's an amazing bookstore with an amazing reputation. To be a mystery author and have your book there is a good thing.

More on Sandra later. I will be having a giveaway of her second book in May and lots more fun stuff. So keep your eyes open for it all. I hope to spread the word even more with this second book because Sandra deserves all the success she gets!

Whew! Must wrap this up. Last thing of the weekend was my recent discovery of Adele. Do we all know her and her wonderful music?? Holy cats, is she amazing! I have been listening to the song Someone Like You over and over again. (please click on the link and listen) Of course, I am also crying my eyeballs out a bit too remembering how bloody full of angst I was as a young twenty something and how much I would have been ALL over this song back then.

Anyhoo, there is my weekend in a nutshell. Reading? Well, I did finish one book.

That's something, right?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Family Ties

Untied by Meredith Baxter

"What would we do baby, with our love? Shalala....!"

(oh the theme song to Family Ties is coming back....)

For those of you who grew up in the 80s, Family Ties was one of the most popular shows. I loved it! It was definitely one of my favorites and I watched the entire series until the end.

Those were the days when you had good shows about strong families and you were able to watch them grow and change through the years. You could identify. I miss that in TV.

Meredith Baxter (Birney, at the time) was the cool mom. She had style, she had sass and she had a great sense of humor. I loved her in that show and loved her in the many movies she did afterwards. In fact, whenever I would imagine a Lifetime movie of my life, she would be play my "mom". (he he) Her or Sally Field of course. :)

A few years back she came out as a lesbian on the Today show. This morning she was back talking about her new memoir, Untied. It's pretty easy to gloss over a lot of "celebrity" memoirs these days because it seems that everyone has one. I certainly am not interested in most of them but when it is someone I have enjoyed on screen or in music, my curiousity gets the best of me.

I plan on placing a request for this at my library today!

Did anyone watch Family Ties?

Did you have a favorite TV show from the 80s?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

I'm over you snow!

So this is what it looks like outside, my back porch. It's been snowing all day. After trudging through banks of it, running errands with my little toddler (who LOVED kicking off his boots!), I've decided, I'm so over it.

So, I prefer to spend my time doing this. (not in picture=glass of wine)

The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor

So far? Unputdownable.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse

Oh, to discover this book a day before Christmas and to find out it does not come out until February 3.

I would love to sink into a couch and get lost in this one right now.

Sigh.

I'm browsing the internet too much today. :(

From Goodreads:

Kate Mosse is back with a haunting ghost story from the French mountains|From the bestselling author of LABYRINTH and SEPULCHRE - a compelling story of ghosts and remembrance. Illustrated throughout by Brian Gallagher.

The Great War took much more than lives. It robbed a generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson's case, it took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. In the winter of 1928, still seeking resolution, Freddie is travelling through the French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. He stumbles through woods, emerging in a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful woman also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries.

By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage. THE WINTER GHOSTS is a gorgeous illustrated novel inspired by The Cave, Kate Mosse's short story written for the Quick Reads Initiative for adult emergent readers.

Mosse's depiction of life in Southern France between the wars is utterly convincing. Not only that, the book itself is a work of art - with stunning illustrations by artist Brian Gallagher and copies of vintage maps as endpapers

Has anyone read her before?

red headed book child

Holiday Tag!

(sorry guys, this made me laugh. he DOES have a tough job, you know?)

Lori at DollyCas's Thoughts tagged me in this fun Holiday Tag!

Please stop by her blog. She is a delight you all must get to know!

When do you usually know and feel that it's finally the holidays?

When the Christmas music starts on the radio.

What do you want for Christmas this year?

A vacation! A real live, feet in the sand, book on my lap vacation!

My husband and I deserve it!

If that doesn't happen, well, I guess I want an Ipod. Finally. I want to be able to sing and dance down the street while listening to the Glee Soundtracks!

Do you go all out with decorations?

NO! It takes everything in me to just get the darn tree up! My husband loves it. I just don't. I don't know why...well, yes, I do...because I am the one who has to clean it all up and put it all away before Easter rolls around. :)

What are you doing Christmas Eve?

We spend the Eve at my inlaws making lasagna, drinking wine and eating cookies. Then we watch The Christmas Story and pass out!

What are you doing Christmas Day?

We celebrate with my family with lots of goodies; Swedish meatballs, Oyster stew, Herring, ooooh...lots of good stuff!

It's Christmas time. What are you reading?

I participated in the Christmas Spirit Challenge and read one book so far. Right now I am trying to finish up Faithful Place by Tana French (SO not a Christmas read) and then I am going to move on to Deck the Halls by Mary Higgins Clark OR Gingerbread Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke.

Favorite movie to watch during the holidays?

Elf with Will Farrell, The Ref with Denis Leary and The Christmas Story, of course!

Favorite Christmas song?

O Holy Night sung by Linda Eder

Favorite holiday drink?

Hmm, I just drink lots of wine because I have the family back up for

taking care of the toddler.

I let it all out!

How is your Christmas shopping going?

We always keep it really simple so I'm doing okay!

If you could spend Christmas Day anywhere else, where would you spend it?

New York City!!!!!!

Any holiday traditions?

Our traditions are changing every year with our family expanding so much. We did start making Christmas cookies with my son and my mom this year. That was fun!

Favorite thing about the Holidays.

Now that I don't work retail? I enjoy the days off to relax!

I would love to tag the following three bloggers.

Share with us your holiday fun pass it on to 3 more!

Jo Jo Loves to Read

Lit and Life

Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Yummy Blizzards

Yummy Blizzards, right?

I wish.

Nope. It's more like this crappy blizzard.

My husband's out of town.

I'm home with my mother, bless her heart.

She can't shovel, nor can my two year old.

So that leaves me and I'm going to be honest, I'm a wuss.

Oh, yeah, I'm going to say it. I pissed and moaned the whole way.

BUT I did it.

Though after a day of shoveling over a foot of snowball, I climbed my way over to my neighbors and begged them to snow plow my driveway.

Thank goodness they didn't think my over sized man boots, wet pants, red cheeks and big fuzzy hair were not too crazy and said, "Sure!"

So now I can actually walk down my path and drive out of my driveway without cursing!

No reading done, not when you are solo with child for the whole weekend or entertaining your mother. Christmas cookies were made, though and that has to be good for something!

red headed book child

R.I.P Elizabeth Edwards

"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."

- Elizabeth Edwards

Resilience

(click to read more)

Saving Graces

(click to read more)

Rest in Peace,

Elizabeth Edwards

Thanks for stopping by.

red headed book child

Memoirs: suggestions from loved librarian Nancy Pearl

Thank you to my friend Cheryl for sending me this link to Nancy Pearl's suggestions for wonderful memoirs to read.

All descriptions were written by Nancy Pearl.

I listed the three memoirs that I am really interested in reading.

NPR's link to Nancy Pearl's full article

Blue Blood

By Edward Conlon; paperback, 576 pages; Riverhead Trade, list price: $17

If you, like me, could watch Law & Order reruns eight hours a day, or if you've ever been curious about the inner workings of police departments, you'll want to rush right out and read Edward Conlon's Blue Blood. After graduating from Harvard, Conlon came home and joined the New York City Police Department, walking a beat in some of the worse housing projects in the South Bronx. His wide-ranging book is partly a memoir of his experiences (he is now working as a detective for the NYPD); the effects — pro and con — of the Giuliani anti-crime years; the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo cases; Sept. 11; and the scandals and the triumphs, both large and small, that mark the history of the NYPD. Nicely written (some of it appeared in The New Yorker as "Cop Diary" under the pseudonym Marcus Laffey) and filled with interesting characters (both cops and perps — wait, make that suspected perps), this is both a pleasure and an education to read.(Nancy Pearl)

Cakewalk: A Memoir

By Kate Moses; hardcover, 368 pages; The Dial Press, list price: $26

I am not a foodie, although some of my best friends are. Thus, there's no way I would have picked up Kate Moses' Cakewalk to read but for the photograph on the cover, which made me smile. (See, you can judge a book by its cover!) I continued reading it because Moses is a writer of salutary talents. And if I hadn't read it, I would have missed not only an affecting memoir but also some recipes that I feel sure — if I were a baker — I would immediately try out. If my oven even works. Luckily, those friends of mine who do bake have, in return for lending them the book, let me try samples of the ever-so-tasty results of several of Moses' recipes. Mainly focused on her life during the 1960s and '70s, her memoir is marked by parental discord and differences (her mother and father were spectacularly unsuited to one another), frequent moves, and a thorny family history. Cooking and reading were her lifelines out of the unhappy situations she found herself in. Each chapter includes a recipe, and each — from cheesecake to linzer tort, from spiced pecan cake to chocolate truffles — sounds more scrumptious than the one before. One bit of advice I feel compelled to give: brownies, page 209. Thanks to my friend Jeanette, I know the first version (with walnuts) is amazing.(Nancy Pearl)

---

Stuffed: Adventures Of A Restaurant Family

By Patricia Volk; paperback, 256 pages; Vintage, list price: $13.95

In Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, Patricia Volk delivers an affection-filled tribute to both family and food. In a series of vignettes, she lovingly describes her adored extended family. Each chapter, titled for a different food, from Butter Cookies to Caviar, is primarily devoted to one of her relatives. Among them are her great-grandfather, who was the first to import pastrami to New York; her grandfather, who invented the wrecking ball; her mother, forever trying to improve her daughters ("Mom made me, and now she will make me better"); her beautiful and best beloved older sister, Jo Ann; her embittered Aunt Lil, who embroidered a pillow with the phrase, "I've never forgotten a rotten thing anyone has done to me"; and her magnetic father, who taught her:

how to swim, speak French, drive, eat using the utensils American-style (which nobody in America seems to do), spot weld, solder, emboss, ride English, ride western, merengue, sing pop songs from World War I's "Keep Your Head Down Fritzie Boy" up through his favorite — the one that chokes him up, although he's not sure why — "Younger Than Springtime," remove a splinter, sap a blister by sticking a sterilized threaded needle through it then tying the exposed ends in a knot, carve a Thanksgiving turkey, chop, dice, and mince, make canapes, deglaze a pan, suck meat off a lobster a lobster doesn't know it has, blind a mugger, kill a rapist with a rabbit punch, remove stains, cloisonne, and intimidate a tennis opponent by clenching my teeth then drawing my lips back and growling like a gas-station dog.

Volk's family is sufficiently odd enough to keep anyone's attention, while her writing (she's also the author of a novel and two collections of stories) is both witty and tender. I pored over the all-too-few family photographs, wished that there was a family tree that I could refer back to, and most of all wished that I, too, could be part of the whole Volk/Morgen clan. (Nancy Pearl)

Happy reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

The Borgias on Showtime

Check out this trailer for The Borgias on Showtime.

I only came acrossed it because I signed on to review this book from Sourcebooks.

Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower

With the highly talked about Spring 2011 premiere of Showtime’s new series The Borgias, there is no doubt this notorious and legendary crime family will soon be in the spotlight. Sourcebooks would like to introduce the original, fifteenth-century Sopranos to twenty-first-century readers. From author Sarah Bower comes Sins of the House of Borgia, a complex, unvarnished portrait of one of history’s most notoriously corrupt families. The story is set in fifteenth-century Italy, where sex, scandal, and murder are masked by the glamorous riches of those in power. The scheming families of Rome rule Renaissance Italy and the grand ambitions of the Borgias stop at nothing. With rich descriptions and fascinating historical details, Bower recreates this world flawlessly in her compelling tale of a girl, Violante, who gets caught up with the wrong family.

The book sounds good and the show looks like it will be fabulous! I have only seen the first season of The Tudors and they are saying this is just as good.

Anyone else interested in this?

Happy reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

George R.R. Martin Book Signing

You may all be surprised to see the name George R.R. Martin as a title of one of my blog posts. Science Fiction/fantasy? Have you ever read a Sci/Fi review on this blog?

Well, I don't think so.

It is not a genre I read a lot of but it is one that I have an enormous respect for

and a curious interest in.

What prompted me to go to this signing and to post about it is my sheer love of books and for talented writers. George R.R. Martin carries a weight not only in the world of Sci/Fi but in Literature as a whole. He is extremely talented and I have lost track of the amount of friends, co-workers, and family members that have grabbed hold of my shoulders and exclaimed, "For goodness sakes lady, why have you not read him yet?"

I LOVE that kind of enthusiasm. It doesn't matter what genre you may be applauding. I appreciate passion of any kind of reading!

For those of you new to George R.R. Martin, he is the author most known for his

Ice and Fire series which includes;

Book 1: A Game of Thrones

Book 2: A Clash of Kings

Book 3:A Storm of Swords

Book 4: A Feast of Crows

Book 5: A Dance with Dragons (forthcoming)

Book 6: The Winds of Winter (forthcoming)

Book 7: A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)

I went with my good friend Rachel (pictured above on the right) who is a huge fan and has read the entire series. She was giddy and excited to hear him speak. She was even more excited that I brought my camera to capture the moment. She asked excitedly,

"Are you going to put it on your blog?"

Well, of course, and when I asked Mr. Martin if that would be okay,

he simply said with a smile

"As long as you don't say anything mean!"

I told him he was delightful and gave a great discussion! He was even kind enough to sign my ARC copies of his short stories.

Whether or not I will read the entire series and let's be honest, I probably won't, I will give Mr. Martin a try. I will dust off my old copy and see what all the fuss is about. I must before Spring because THAT is when the HBO series starts with Sean Bean as the lead (yummy!). It is going to cover the first book and a teeny tiny bit of the second one. In theory, the goal is to have a season per book but the fate of that is in the hands of the viewers and

the success of the first season.

Going to book signings make me happy. It gives us readers a chance to connect a bit more with those authors we love or the ones we are curious about.

I only wish I had more time to see more!

Author Website:

George R.R. Martin

Who has been your favorite author you have seen in person?

Happy reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child