Replaced

Ugh, I started reading Lost City Radio, and I realized that I have checked it out from the library before and not been able to get into it... So I'm took it back to the library this morning and picked up a book for our upcoming trip to the German Alps: The Land of Ludwig II by Peter O. Kruckmann.

Also, my inlaws arrive on Sunday, and then we're going to be crazy busy. Hopefully I'll find some time to read, but I am not counting on making too much progress until the new year...

M

Taking a break from the books

Taking a break from the books to blog about Christmas, and it's a list of "101" things, so I figured it kind of fit in here. I borrowed this from Amy's blog and made a few revisions, including a new addition at the end! I know it's long, but at least skim through it, some of the ideas were new to me and things I'd like to try... 18 days until Christmas!



1. Volunteering at school or participating in a literacy program
2. Putting on a Christmas play to be performed at retirement center3. Baking a pie with your Children for a lonely neighbor
4. Saying I love you-even to someone who isnt acting loveable at the moment!
5. Sending a card to a dear friend or relative.
6. Giving a a message to special someone.
7. Caroling in your neighborhood to benefit a nonprofit.
8. Giving flowers to the person in your life who will least expect them!
9. Making dinner for a friend in need.
10. Buying a pointsetta and taking it to church
11. Giving sweets on a special occasion either homeade or store-bought
12. Holding hands with your spouse, children, or another loved one
13. Traveling somewhere new, either far away or nearby bed and breakfast
14. Decorating your home for the holidays
15. Going for a walk in the snow or making a snow angel.
16. Learning how to say Merry Christmas in a new language.
17. Making hot cocoa and savoring every drop!
18. Vising a nursing home with your children.
19. Reading a child a bedtime story.
20. Going to a christmas tree farm and cutting down your own tree to decorate
21. Making a wreath from outdoor greenery.
22. Driving a sick realative to see the wonder of Christmas lights
23. Taking a child to a reindeer farm
24. Handing out candy canes on your way to work
25. Building a snowman
26. Taking children to see Santa
27. Volunteering to wrap presents for someone else
28. Serving food to a homeless at a church mission program.
29 Donating old jackets the needy.
30. Taking eggnog to the postman.
31. Mailing a fruitcake to someone.
32. Tying a christmas card to a balloon and letting it go.
33. Giving your pet a special treat.
34. Forgivng someone especially if its hard.
35. Wearing a Santa hat and jingle bells
36. Going for a sleigh ride
37. Pulling children on a sled or go sledding yourself!
38. Baking a Turkey to share with others
39. Hanging Mistletoe
40. Decorating your co workers desk
41. Picking up trash on your street
42. Giving your employees a bonus.
43. Throwing a holiday party
44. Sending a singing a email
45. Writing a surpise love note
46. Going ice skating with a friend
47. Serenading someone on the subway.
48. Offering to help carry bags for someone
49. Babysitting for friends
50. Wearing a holiday tie
51. Putting Christmas lights on your lawn
52. Giving up your seat on the bus.
53. Putting a present under your tree
54. Treating a friend for his or her favorite meal
55. Being part of a community cereomony
56. Making paper snowflakes
57. Painging a picture of your family5
8. Going to a pageant or another Christmas performace
59. Making a video and showing it your friends.
60. Giving a complimenta day.
61. Having a snowball fight
62. Giving someone a Christmas cactus
63. Lighting a candle at Church
64. Spraying a pine scented air freshner
65. Seeing a favorite holiday movie
66. Offering to shopping for an eldery person
67. Celerbrating the true spirit of Christmas with your family
68. Making Christmas cards wfor your friends
69. Giving someone a hug
70. Telling someone a secret
71. Giving an admirer a kiss on the cheek
72. Putting up a Nativity scene
73. Making tin foil stars and hanging them around the tree
74. Buying balloons for a child
75. Helping deliver presents.
76. Calling distant family members
77. Buying a Christmas tree for someone who dosent always have one
78. Sharing Bible verses
79. Building a fire in the fireplace in and outdoor firepit.
80. Listening to Christmas songs
81. Wearing holiday jewlery
82. Faxing a holiday greeting
83. Baking cookies to share with any teachers you know!
84. Buying your dog a holiday sweater or reindeer antlers.
85. Helping a friend decorate her house for her party
86. Putting on icicle lights to dnagle from the roof.
87. Hnaging stockings on the mantle
88. Putting out cookies and milk for Santa!
89. Remembering to have an apple or a carrot for Santa's Reindeer
90. Taking someone to a Christmas candlelight service
91. Making bows for presents
92. Shooting fireworks
93. Wearing glittery makeup or getting a new makeover!
94. Making a friend a holiday sweater.
95. Knitting a scarf for a friend
96. Giving a co-worker a basket of fruit
97. Shoveling's someone's driveway
98. Putting fake snow on the windows.
99. Buying a Pointsetta for your mother in law or lonely neighbor.
100. Smiling more often-it will bless everyone around you.
101. Leave me a comment on this blog to brighten their day!

Back Online!

Our internet is finally back up at home. Living abroad and not speaking enough of the language, especially technical words and phrases, makes it hard to call tech support when your internet goes down! It is back up though, and (((fingers crossed))) that it doesn't happen again!

I'm still reading Full of Grace, but I also picked up another book at the library yesterday and started reading it this morning. So #21 is Daniel Alarcon's Lost City Radio, set amidst a civil war in South America.

With the holidays quickly approaching, I am trying to get some reading in before things get really busy. My inlaws will be here to visit in less than two weeks, and they will be here through the end of the year. I'd really like to finish twenty-five books by the end of 2007. We shall see...

This is what Amazon has to say about the two books I am currently reading:

Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life - Godly womanhood and femininity are the focal points in this book by Benkovic, founder and director of a Catholic communications ministry called Living His Life Abundantly. Using Mary, the mother of Jesus, as her prime example, Benkovic shows how Mary's faithful example of obedience provides a model for the spiritual lives of women today.

Lost City Radio - Set in a fictional South American nation where guerrillas have long clashed with the government follows a trio of characters upended by civil strife. Norma, whose husband, Rey, disappeared 10 years ago after the end of a civil war, hosts popular radio show Lost City Radio, which reconnects callers with their missing loved ones. So when an 11-year-old orphan, Victor, shows up at the radio station with a list of his distant village's "lost people," the station plans a special show dedicated to his case and cranks up its promotional machine. Norma, meanwhile, notices a name on the list that's an alias her husband used to use, prompting her to resume her quest to find him. She and Victor travel to Victor's home village...

Catching Up

Our internet is down again, and I can't access Blogger from the library anymore, so I haven't been able to post in a little while. Fortunately, our neighbor offered her computer, so I am taking this time to get caught up...

The Book Thief (#18) - It took me a few chapters to get used to the idea of "Death" narrating a story about the Holocaust, but once I did, I could hardly put the book down. I read through the 500+ pages in just a few days.

After The Book Thief, I read Babylon's Ark (#19) by Lawrence Anthony. It was about the wartime rescue of the Baghdad Zoo, and I found it really interesting. I was actually a little disappointed in myself at the end... After Katrina, the first thing I did was make a donation to the Humane Society to help rescue animals, and I even offered to foster or adopt some of the animals displaced by the storm... And when my husband was deployed to Iraq, he had a pet cat that I sent food, toys, and treats to, but... I didn't think of the animals in Iraq during the invasion. These animals were in the middle of Baghdad, trapped in their cages, kidnapped by looters to sell on the black market, and without water and food for weeks. Anthony did a really good job telling their story and his story about his role in helping get the zoo back open.

Now I am reading Full of Grace (#20) by Johnnette S. Benkovic. It is about women's spirituality, and I thought it was a good choice to kick off the Advent season that started on Sunday and lasts through Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Finished this a few days ago, but our DSL is down at home... I'm at the library now trying to get caught up on some emails, so this is going to be a short review. I thought the book was okay. It was written in the 1950s and is comprised of Carlos Levy's essays, observations, interviews, etc. from his travels to Sicily. He is an Italian himself, but he is not Sicilian, so he has a different perspective than other books I've read about Sicily. It wasn't the best book I have read on Sicily, but it did have some interesting pieces on the peasants and how they live and are treated in the Sicilian countryside, on farms and in the mines. The book is translated from Italian, and some of the parts don't make too much sense, but it is interesting to read the footnotes about the Italian and Sicilian words. I'd give it three out of five stars!


I've already started my next book (#18/101)... I am reading the Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and I think it will be a quick read, because so far, it is very good. Here is a very brief summary from http://www.booksamillion.com/:


"Set during World War II in Germany, Zusaks groundbreaking novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing, encounters something she cant resist: books."

Up Next

Now I'm reading Carlo Levi's, Words Are Stones: Impressions of Sicily, in hopes that reading of my warm, sunny Motherland will help me to overcome the dark and dreary days that we've been been having all too often here in Germany... This is #17 on my list of 101 books.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

#16/101

Yesterday I picked up reading on page sixteen, and today I read all the way through the 360+ pages. I don't know what it is lately, but it has been taking me a while to get interested in a book and then when I do, I read the entire thing. So today I finished, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. I've read a lot of "Middle Eastern" fiction lately, and it's all so new and fascinating to me... i.e. Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion, when the Taliban came, their customs and religion, the food, the carpets, the literature, etc. I also find it very depressing. All of the stories are so tragic and heartbreaking, and this book is no different. I cried a little in the beginning and then pretty solidly throughout the last 1/3 of the book. Not that crying determines whether it is a good book or not, but it definitely takes skill to write in such an emotion-provoking manner. I would definitely recommend this book, and after, The Kite Runner, and now, A Thousand Splendid Suns, I look forward to seeing what Khaled Hosseini writes next!

And this is what Amazon has to say... "Afghan-American novelist Hosseini follows up his bestselling The Kite Runner with another searing epic of Afghanistan in turmoil. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent misogyny—"There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only the systematic business of beating and being beaten"—is endorsed by custom and law. Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters."

Lost and Found

I know it sounds like a sorry excuse, but I haven't been able to read for the last couple of days because I misplaced my book, lol. Actually, I left it out where I always do (on the coffee table, I think), and my husband went on this crazy cleaning spree the other day, and (how dare he?!?) put it on the bookshelf! I looked all over the floor, tables, counter, etc. before finding it in the middle of a stack of books this afternoon. And... I won't lie, with the change in time, it is getting dark so early here. I am not a big fan of winter in Germany (although the snow is pretty). The days are so short and so dreary. I haven't seen the sun in forever, and it is really depressing. So when I am home and have free time, I am more inclined to nap instead of read. Bad, I know!

15/101

I finished #15, The Ladies Auxiliary, which was about the small, Orthodox Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee. I have a read a lot about the Holocaust, but that is really the only perspective I have read about Judaism. It was interesting to read a modern account of the faith, and it was unlike anything I have ever read. It wasn't the best book I have ever read, but it was definitely fascinating to read about their beliefs and customs. Growing up Catholic in Nashville, Tennessee, I could definitely relate to being a religious minority in the Protestant-dominated Bible belt, but it was also nice to see some of the Southern ways that I grew up with incorporated into the story. I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars!

I really need to make more time for daily reading. Lately, I have been starting a book and then not picking up for a few weeks... and then when I do pick it back up, I spend a whole day or two and read it all the way through. It works okay, but I would rather spend 30-60 minutes at a time reading. I think it would help break up my day and also, be a nice way to relax in the evenings.

As lazy as this may sound, I haven't been reading before bed, because we don't have any lamps in our bedroom so we use the overhead light, and I don't like getting all warm and cozy in bed and then having to get back up to turn off the light after I finish reading. Yeah, I said it was lazy!

I'm not sure what I'm going to read next year. This evening, I have some homework to do for my German language class, and I want to work on my Religious Ed lesson plans for Sunday. Maybe later I'll check out my bookshelf and pick out my next book... By the way, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Hope everyone has a fun, safe day!

Madelyn

My Bookshelf

I just received another order of books from Amazon today, and I thought I'd share the next couple of books on my bookshelf that I plan to read...

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life by Johnnette S. Benkovic

What is the What by Dave Eggers

The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Saint Teresa

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

As always, recommendations are welcome and greatly appreciated! I am always looking to add to add good books to our collection. Yesterday, I organized our bookshelves and even made room for more books, and I've made a lot of progress with the book I am currently reading. I should finish it up tonight or sometime tomorrow.

Conde Nast Traveller

I realize that it is a magazine and not a book, and I'm not counting it toward my 101 books. However, we are new subscribers, and both Jared and I have really enjoyed it so far. There isn't too much that we can enjoy reading as a couple, but this has been great for both of us and our relationship. With each issue, we have so much to talk about, and we have so many more travel destinations to add to our places-to-see list. I think it's really going to help make our next year and a half overseas, and even when we move back to the States and continue to travel the world, more interesting! If you haven't read it before, I would highly recommend checking an issue out... http://www.cntraveller.com/

Slacker

I know my last post assured everyone that I was on track and would meet my goal, which I will, but I really only wrote that blog to assure myself. I've been so busy lately with traveling and my volunteer positions that I haven't had as much time to read as I would like. Correction, I have had time, I just haven't made it a priority. So I leave tomorrow for a weeklong church retreat, and I am adding two books to my packing list. Since it is something that makes me happy and relaxed, I will find more time to read in my busy schedule.

Still on track

I just checked my progress, and I have 2 years, 4 1/2 months to read 87 books. That is an average of a little over 2 books per month, so I shouldn't have any problem meeting my goal to read 101 books in 1001 days!

Happy Columbus Day!

We're back from our Columbus Day weekend in Ireland, and it was wonderful!

Unfortunately, I did not find as much time to read as I would have liked... I did read two other books: #13 Irish History, by Seamas Mac Annaidh and #14 The Guide for Daisy Girl Scout Leaders. We picked up the book on Irish history at the Waterford Crystal Factory in Waterford, Ireland, and the other book is one I am reading in preparation for my first Daisy troop meeting on Thursday! I think the unplanned reads are sometimes the best!

Blog for the Environment

October 15, a week from today, is Blog Action Day, and the theme this year is the environment.

If you have a blog and want to join in, all you have to do is use that day to post something related to the environment, in whatever way, shape, or form you prefer. You can pick an environmental issue that has meaning for you and let us know why it's important. Organize a beach or neighborhood cleanup and tell us about it. If you're into fiction writing, give us a story with an environmental theme. Have a podcast, videoblog, or photoblog? Join the fun!

The idea here is to have a mass effect on public awareness by sharing as many ideas in as many ways as possible.If you're game for participating, go register your blog with the 7,000+ other blogs (with 5 million readers!) that are already signed up. Also, see the Blog Action Day blog for more on how bloggers can change the world.

Moving On

I finished reading Amirrezvani's, The Blood of Flowers, and I have to admit, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Like I said yesterday, it took me a few pages to get into it, but once I did, I could hardly put it down. The ending wasn't what I had hoped for, but it was still good.

I'm not sure what I will read next... My to-read stack is growing with each trip to the bookstore or visit to Amazon.com. I am looking for something light and quick. The Old Testament and The Blood of Flowers were both heavy reads, and I need a change of pace. I think I'll go with one I picked up off the freebie shelf outside the library. It's called, The Ladies Auxiliary, and it is written by Tova Mirvis.

Let's see what Amazon has to say about it...

"The world of this confident, insightful debut novel is the tightly knit Orthodox Jewish community of Memphis, Tenn., a social structure that unravels when an unconventional New York convert settles there with her five-year-old daughter. Newly widowed Batsheva Jacobs is both shockingly modern and fervently spiritual. She lovingly raises her daughter, Ayala, in the Orthodox tradition, but she sings loudly and enthusiastically at shul (perhaps a sign of unseemly ego), visits the mikvah to cleanse herself (an act that raises eyebrows, since she has no husband), and she wears flowing clothes that show her figure. All of which is noted suspiciously by the local women whose common goal is to preserve tradition. In Memphis, where Shabbos dinner includes fried chicken and black-eyed peas, that task isn't easy. ..."

In case you are wondering, I am still on track to meet my goal of 101 books in 1001 days. With approximately 29 months to go and 89 books to read, I need to read just over 3 books a month to stay on track. And on that note, I am going to say goodnight and retire to bed with my new book to get started...

Slow and Steady

It took about 12 pages of reading, but I finally started to get into The Blood of Flowers. Now I'm on a roll and halfway through it. I don't really have much of an opinion yet to write about, so here's a review from Amazon...

From Publishers Weekly: In Iranian-American Amirrezvani's lushly orchestrated debut, a comet signals misfortune to the remote 17th-century Persian village where the nameless narrator lives modestly but happily with her parents, both of whom expect to see the 14-year-old married within the year. Her fascination with rug making is a pastime they indulge only for the interim, but her father's untimely death prompts the girl to travel with her mother to the city of Isfahan, where the two live as servants in the opulent home of an uncle—a wealthy rug maker to the Shah. The only marriage proposal now in the offing is a three-month renewable contract with the son of a horse trader. Teetering on poverty and shame, the girl weaves fantasies for her temporary husband's pleasure and exchanges tales with her beleaguered mother until, having mastered the art of making and selling carpets under her uncle's tutelage, she undertakes to free her mother and herself.

A few more unexpected reads

Finished #10 and #11... After months and months, I read all 1000+ pages of the Old Testament. I am going to take a little Scripture break so that I can focus on preparing my upcoming Sunday school lessons and Catechist formation class. I do plan on returning to the Bible and finishing the New Testament soon though... I also read Ireland for Dummies in preparation for our upcoming trip to Ireland. I haven't really gotten into the Blood of Flowers yet, but I've been busy and kind of distracted. I'll have to give it another try tonight before bed. Anyway, just wanted to update. I know it's been a while, but our internet is still down at home, so it is hard to find time to blog. I'll try to write (and read) more... Madd

Unexpected Read

In preparing for the new religious ed school year, I was going through my boxes and bags of supplies and materials, and I came across, The Faith-Filled Classroom. I decided to go ahead and read it before I started my lesson plans for the year. It had some really nice inspirations and a great ice-breakers section. It really motivated me to get excited for the fourth grade class I'll be teaching this year!

LOVED The Namesake!

I highly recommend this book! I really loved it and look forward to reading more of Lahiri's books and short stories. I also want to see the movie that is based on the book that was released earlier this summer.

Big thanks to Kathy for letting me borrow the book for my plane ride back from the States last week. I think this is the first book we've both liked and agreed about, lol.

Next up:

The Blood of Flowers

Anita Amirrezvani

Goodreads

Checkout my reading list on Goodreads - where you can see what your friends are reading.

www.goodreads.com

Moving on

After my second unsuccessful attempt to read The Poisionwood Bible, I just decided to pass on it right now. Before I left Louisville (oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I'm back in Germany now!), K gave me a book by Jhumpa Lahiri called The Namesake (the new 8/101). I started it on the plane, and so far so good. I'm excited to really get into it once I sleep off this jet lag and can function like a normal person again! In the meantime, here's what Amazon has to say about it...

"Any talk of The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies--must begin with a name: Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. Rescuers caught sight of the volume of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that he held, and hauled him from the train. Ashoke gives his American-born son the name as a kind of placeholder, and the awkward thing sticks.

Awkwardness is Gogol's birthright. He grows up a bright American boy, goes to Yale, has pretty girlfriends, becomes a successful architect, but like many second-generation immigrants, he can never quite find his place in the world. There's a lovely section where he dates a wealthy, cultured young Manhattan woman who lives with her charming parents. They fold Gogol into their easy, elegant life, but even here he can find no peace and he breaks off the relationship. His mother finally sets him up on a blind date with the daughter of a Bengali friend, and Gogol thinks he has found his match. Moushumi, like Gogol, is at odds with the Indian-American world she inhabits. She has found, however, a circuitous escape: "At Brown, her rebellion had been academic ... she'd pursued a double major in French. Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge--she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, or expectation of any kind." Lahiri documents these quiet rebellions and random longings with great sensitivity. There's no cleverness or showing-off in The Namesake, just beautifully confident storytelling. Gogol's story is neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity: real life. --Claire Dederer"

7/101

I finished Miep Gies book about Anne Frank's family when they were in hiding. You can get it from the Anne Frank House online shop at www.annefrank.org.

I think I'm going to go back to the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and give that another chance. I fly back to Germany on Tuesday, so I'll have plenty of time on the plane to read. I'm about 1/4 of the way through it, but I just can't get into the story. I'm going to try though...

Halfway

I'm halfway through the Anne Frank book. It's a really good, quick read for me. Miep Gies is a clear, simple writer, but she writes with a lot of passion. It's interesting reading about Anne's story from someone else's perspective. Should finish it tomorrow...

Still reading

Trying to maintain a little normalcy in my life right now even though all I want to do is lay in bed and cry... I miss my cat :(



I did finish Flies on the Butter (#6/101). It was a decent story, but nothing great... It wasn't a bad airport read when I was flying to and from Kansas City. I picked it up on the freebie shelf outside the library, so I didn't expect too much from it anyway.


I am now reading Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family. I bought this book last Summer when I was at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It is written by Miep Gies, the women who hid Anne Frank's family. If you've seen the movie Freedom Writers, the class reads Anne Frank's diary and then meets Miep Gies at the end. I am usually more of a fan of non-fiction, and anything about the Holocaust (or any genocide, actually) piques my interest, so this should be a quick read...

I know I'm a little off schedule with the number of books I've read, but I'm not too worried. I knew I'd get a little behind on this trip and have to play catch up when I get back to Germany in a few weeks.

So sad

My precious kitty passed away yesterday. I'm sure if you're on here reading this, you already read our other blog, but if not, please look at Buddha's Tribute. I am just devastated at the loss of Buddha. I have spent just about every day of the last eleven years with her, and I am having a really hard time imagining life when I get back home to Germany (I'm still on my trip to the States) without her... I do take comfort in knowing that she did not suffer, and she received more love in her short life than most people get in a lifetime. She was my baby, my best friend, my battle buddy, and my companion...

Rest in peace my sweet little princess Buddha

6/16/96-8/2/07

Vacation

I've been on vacation for two weeks now, and I have to admit, I am not getting nearly as much reading done as I had hoped. I had been trying to read the Poisonwood Bible, but I just couldn't get into it. So today I started Flies on the Butter by Denise Hildreth. It's a much lighter read, and I'm flying through it. Not bad for a book I found on the freebie shelf in front of the library. Hopefully it will help me get back on track. I need to finish it and read three more in the next two weeks to stay on track. Wish me luck! Will post a review soon...

Mother Teresa

Four and five down...

After finishing Don Cheadle and John Predergast's Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, I started the equally motivating and inspirational book by Mother Teresa, A Simple Path. The book is about Mother Teresa's work all over the world (120+ countries), especially in India, where she ran homes for lepers, TB patients, the mentally handicapped, the destitute and dying, and orphans. She worked with the poorest of the poor, while treating everyone with respect and dignity and judging no one. Her writing is as simple as her life, but just as special. Her words have a way of making you feel good inside and closer to God, and I feel blessed to have chosen this book. It's going to be a tough act to follow... I'm not sure what I'll read next, but I leave tomorrow for five weeks in the States, so I'm sure I'll do plenty of reading on the plane. I know I always say this and never actually do it, but I think I'll try to find something light and fun to read next...

Never Again

"A President will not necessarily act alone to do the right thing. In fact, failure to act is the rule, not the exception. But if citizens, through their actions, show that they support stronger U.S. action to end genocide, our leaders will be more confident to take actions." (p. 184)

This book is an eye opener for anyone who is not aware of the genocide taking place in Darfur. Don Cheadle and John Prendergast are so honest and down-to-earth in their writing, and that is what makes this book, along with the power and emotion of the events taking place in Darfur, so moving and inspirational. They offer straight-forward, simple solutions that we can all be doing to help stop the genocide... I remember when I first learned about the Rwandan genocide, I was shocked that it had happened during my lifetime. To me, genocide was what happened during the Holocaust, and that was sixty years ago. I never thought it could happen today, but it has, and it is, and this book offers solutions to stop the genocide today and make sure it does not happen in the future.

Here are some websites to check out to learn more about the crisis in Darfur:

www.enoughproject.org

www.savedarfur.org

www.darfurscores.org

www.standnow.org

www.genocideintervention.net

www.sudanreeves.org

www.darfurisdying.com

www.crisisgroup.org

Another one down!

So I finished the book this morning while I was at the gym. To respond to Celeste's comment, I thought it was okay. I thought it was really interesting to read about life in Iran before and after the Revolution... What I didn't like as much were the references to books she taught in class, mainly because I haven't read those books. I think I may read Lolita and The Great Gatsby, and then I might try to reread it. In the back, there is a suggested reading list, along with discussion questions. I found them to be somewhat helpful, but I think the book would have been much more enjoyable if I had been more familiar with the characters and stories in those other two books...

I'm not sure what I'm going to read next... I just picked up Don Cheadle and John Predergast's Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond. I think I'll read that and then move on to something a little lighter and summery.

2 down, 99 to go!

We're all moved to our new place in Wiesbaden, but we don't have internet yet. I'm at the library, so this is going to be short. I just wanted to update that I finished Living History, and I've moved on to my third book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi. Will write more about it soon...

M

Some progress

Despite the move, I am still trying to make time to read. I am 2/3 of the way finished with Hillary's book and look forward to finishing and beginning #3/101 this weekend!

M

Ciao!

The time has come for us to say ciao for now... Our internet and phone will both shut off tomorrow. I'm sure we'll find ways to check our email, but our blog posting may be kind of random over the next couple of weeks. As of right now, we won't have internet and phone hooked up at our new house until 10 July, but they said we could call and check for cancellations and try to move it up. So if you don't hear from us, this is where we'll be over the next couple of weeks...

12 June: motorcycle orientation class
13 June: new house inspection/ internet and phone shut off
14 June: motorcycle license test/pre-move inspection
16 June: Happy 11th Birthday Buddha!!!
18 June: pack day
19 June: move day
20 June: vet appointment/ final walk-through with landlord
22 June: motorcycle safety class all day

8 July: M fly to the States
10 July: internet/phone back on!

My cool headlight

Lol, a few nights ago I wanted to stay up and read, but Jared was ready for bed, so he went and got this strap-on headlight out of his Army room. Apparently, he bought it while he was in Iraq, so he could read and do work after his roommates went to bed. I think it's incredibly dorky, but very practical... and now it's my new reading light :P



P.S. Ignore my cheesey smile. I felt so silly wearing it at first, I couldn't stop laughing long enough for Jared to take a picture. I'm now able to wear it without giggling insanely.

I've got company!

Celeste and Lacey have decided to join me with 1001 day projects! I'm so excited to be able to share this project, and I know we will all be able to motivate each other to keep going and finish!

Celeste's Journey Through Words

Lacey's 101 Split in 1001 Days

Playing for Pizza

John Grisham is taking a break from the courtroom and traveling to Italy to write his next book. I've always been a fan of his legal thrillers, and I liked Skipping Christmas. I'm looking forward to seeing how this book turns out...

John Grisham Sets Next Book in Italy

New York Times

The New York Times Book Review

Living in Germany and being fascinated by its history, especially World War II and the Cold War, The Berlin Wall: A World Divided 1961-1989, by Frederick Taylor, looks especially interesting. I think I might have to add it to the bottom of the list, especially since it looks like one Jared and I can share and read together.

Also, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season, by Jonathan Eig, looks like another book we'd both be interested in reading. Growing up listening to my dad's stories about playing stickball in the streets with the Brooklyn Dodgers made me an early fan of New York baseball.

John Prendergast and Don Cheadle, Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, write about the crisis in Darfur. I feel an obligation to our fellow humans to read this book and be aware of what is happening in the world. It is so hard for me to fathom that genocide is still taking place, and it frustrates me that so many people don't care or don't know about it. Hopefully Don Cheadle's celebrity status will do some good and bring more attention to the situation in Africa.

Boring History

Sorry Hillary, but now I remember why I never read your book... I just came across my bookmark from my last attempt to read this book on page 63. Something about it is just incredibly boring. I don't think it's the content. Maybe it's just the way it is written. It's very flowery. I guess it's the politician coming out in her, but I just can't get into the story. I'll keep trying though... To stay on track, I need to read a book every 10 days, which is no problem if I actually sit down and read. I finished the last book in three days, so I have some leeway. Well, I'm going to eat breakfast and get some stuff done around this house. I plan on getting everything done this morning and afternoon so I have some time to read before dinner. The landlord starts showing the house tomorrow, and we hope to be moving next week, so that has been keeping me busy!

Five books

FIVE BOOKS EVERYONE SHOULD READ AT LEAST ONCE

By Vince Passaro

The wisest poetry, the most extraordinary prose: five top-shelf books that will blow open your understanding of the world.

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov

It blows open a new understanding of the world, its gorgeousness, its corruption and pain, all embedded in the 20th century's most extraordinary English prose.

Four Quartets

T.S. Eliot

This is the most musical and wisest poetry in the language of our time and place. (Short of that, The Complete Poems 1927–1979, by Elizabeth Bishop.)

The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century

translated by Thomas Merton

We all sometimes need to imagine what it would be like to live simply and purely, dedicated to a force larger than ourselves.

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett

We need to remember that just because we're sad, that doesn't mean we're not also marvelously comical and transcendently courageous.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

This, the first in Achebe's monumental and unsparing trilogy of Igbo life in western Africa, is the strongest and most important novel of the postcolonial world.

One down, one hundred to go

After five years of undergraduate and graduate studies in Political Science, I was kind of burned out on the subject. Now, two years later, with the upcoming elections, my interest is starting to grow again. I've had Bill and Hillary's autobiographies for years, and I just haven't been in the mood to read them. Both books have now been added. I also have Barrack Obama's newest book, a biography on President Truman, and Elizabeth Edwards' memoir on my list.

I also want to share one of my favorite book sites, Oprah's Celebrate Books page. You can see current and past book club selections, as well as books from Oprah's personal collection and recommendations from Oprah guests ranging from Madeleine Albright to Ellen Pompeo. I've used some of those recommendations for my reading list, and I'll be sure to note the recommender when I read and write about those books. Now I'm off to bed... Goodnight!

My 1001 Day Book Project

Read the entry on our family blog that inspired it all...

101 Things in 1001 Days

On June 1, I sat down to create an Excel spreadsheet of 101 books that I'd like to read in the next 1001 days. The books are a variety of classics, chick lit, autobiographies, and current events. I've read some of them before, while others I've done my best to avoid since high school English (i.e. Moby Dick). Feel free to comment on my reviews and thoughts, leave book recommendations, or join in and start a 1001 day project of your own!

Start date: Friday, June 1, 2007

End date: Friday, February 26, 2010

I decided to start with a book that I already had, but never made the time to sit down and read... until now. I'm currently reading Helen Fremont's After Long Silence.

Amazon.com review:

In her mid-30s Helen Fremont discovered that, although she had been raised in the Midwest as a Catholic, she was in fact the daughter of Polish Jews whose families had been exterminated in the Holocaust. Fremont's tender but unsparing memoir chronicles the voyage of discovery she took with her older sister, ferreting out information from Jewish organizations and individuals and worrying about its impact on their angry, overpowering father and reticent, nightmare-plagued mother. Fremont has the courage to paint a nearly unsympathetic portrait of her parents' secretiveness and initial reluctance to have their children dredge up the past; as the narrative unfolds, readers comprehend the tormented roots of their behavior without forgetting the psychological problems it created for their daughters. Fremont's re-creation of her parents' ghastly ordeals--her mother narrowly escaping the murder of nearly every Jew in her hometown; her father surviving six years in the Soviet gulag--is a triumph of dogged research and sympathetic imagination. Her book tells a deeply American story of identity lost and reclaimed, complete with Fremont coming out to her parents as a lesbian, yet it also achieves understanding of the dark European past and its icy grip on her family.

Next up: Hillary Clinton's Living History

Ongoing read: The Bible