RAT: Hours 7 and 8

Finished my last magazine, and now I'm into my first book of the RAT (and possibly my only, as it's a chunkster).  Still going strong.  The next few hours will see a slow-down, however, as I will be watching my Bulldogs play Arkansas, starting in a few minutes.  I'll still be reading, but probably just during the commercials...

Title of book(s) read since last update: Food Network magazine; Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine; All You magazine; Hold the Dream by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Number of books read since you started: part of one magazines; two full magazines; part of one book.
Pages read since last update: 84
Running total of pages read since you started: 370
Amount of time spent reading since last update:  100 minutes
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 400 minutes
Mini-challenges completed:  Opening meme
Other participants you’ve visited: Nikki at DLRP Wonders, Fran at Nightjar's Jar of Books, Malin, Liz, courtney; Millie at Millie's Musing About Books, Sya, Keona at KeonaReads, Shadowhunter Frishta, Sam at The Little Munchkin; Kat, Ellie at Book Addicted Blonde, Ellie at Bookaneers with Ellie and Indah, Jamila Davis, Aubrey Negen.
What I've eaten/drunk: leftovers from last night's dinner at Carrabba's; some Everlasting Gobstoppers; water with Fruit Punch flavoring in it; fruit slices candy; Cheetos (I mainly eat junk during the RAT); Campbell's Chicken Mushroom Barley soup; plain water; more fruit slices candy; more Everlasting Gobstoppers; water with lime juice.

Hope everyone is hanging in there.  Don't throw in the towel - we're only a third of the way through!!!

RAT: Hours 5 and 6

Still going strong!  Finished my second magazine, and have started my third and last TBR magazine.  Ate lunch, and will be visiting a few more RAT enthusiasts soon.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Food Network magazine; Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine; All You magazine
Number of books read since you started: part of two magazines; one full magazine.
Pages read since last update: 91
Running total of pages read since you started: 286
Amount of time spent reading since last update:  100 minutes
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 300 minutes
Mini-challenges completed:  Opening meme
Other participants you’ve visited: Nikki at DLRP Wonders, Fran at Nightjar's Jar of Books, Malin, Liz, courtney; Millie at Millie's Musing About Books, Sya, Keona at KeonaReads, Shadowhunter Frishta, Sam at The Little Munchkin Reader.
What I've eaten/drunk: leftovers from last night's dinner at Carrabba's; some Everlasting Gobstoppers; water with Fruit Punch flavoring in it; fruit slices candy; Cheetos (I mainly eat junk during the RAT); Campbell's Chicken Mushroom Barley soup; plain water.

Hope everyone else's reading is still on-track!

RAT: Hours 3 and 4

Started a new magazine in Hour 3, and I'm making good progress.  Should finish it up in the next hour or so, and go on to my third (and final) mag of the day.  Once I finish those, I'm on to a proper book, and I can't wait.  Is it wishful thinking that I'll finish that book and go on to another during the RAT?  We shall see...

Title of book(s) read since last update: Food Network magazine; Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine
Number of books read since you started: part of two magazines
Pages read since last update: 99
Running total of pages read since you started: 195
Amount of time spent reading since last update:  90 minutes
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 200 minutes
Mini-challenges completed:  Opening meme
Other participants you’ve visited: Nikki at DLRP Wonders, Fran at Nightjar's Jar of Books, Malin, Liz, courtney
What I've eaten/drunk: leftovers from last night's dinner at Carrabba's; some Everlasting Gobstoppers; water with Fruit Punch flavoring in it; fruit slices candy; Cheetos (I mainly eat junk during the RAT)

How is your reading going?

RAT: Hours 1 and 2

I feel like I've gotten a good start on things.  Finished the magazine I started with, and I'm about to pick up another.  I'm going to visit some other blogs before I go on, too.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Food Network magazine
Number of books read since you started: part of one magazine
Pages read since last update: 96
Running total of pages read since you started: 96
Amount of time spent reading since last update:  110 minutes
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 110 minutes
Mini-challenges completed:  Opening meme
Other participants you’ve visited: None yet
What I've eaten/drunk: leftovers from last night's dinner at Carrabba's; some Everlasting Gobstoppers; water with Fruit Punch flavoring in it.

Read-a-Thon Opening Meme

I'm back to RAT'ing once again!  I missed April's RAT, due to a previous commitment that couldn't be changed (Women in the Outdoors, a fabulous program to get women more interested and involved in outdoor activities - it was like grown-up Girl Scout camp, and it was worth missing a RAT for).  But I was sad about missing the action, so now I'm back.  As always, here is my opening meme:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?  Florida!

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?  Probably Hold the Dream, the second in the series about Emma Harte, by Barbara Taylor Bradford.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?  Either ordering pizza for dinner, or my leftovers from last night, which I'm about to eat for breakfast.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!  I'm an attorney, I'm married, and my husband will be joining me a little later to do some RAT'ing himself, and I recently changed jobs at the beginning of the year, which made me endlessly happy.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?  I probably won't do anything much differently today than I usually do.  One of my cats/reading buddies is now gone, so I think I'll miss cuddling with him while reading.  :(

Okay, off to the races!  I'm starting out with some magazines (a RAT secret weapon of mine) that I need to catch up on, but once I get through those, I will be starting Hold the Dream.  Ready...set...go!!!

Review: Dance with Me by Luanne Rice

This book was one I received in a shopping bag full of books from my mother-in-law. It's not my typical fare (I've never been into "women's fiction" or whatever you might call this type of book), but I simply cannot let a book pass through my doors without reading it, so I held onto the book and am finally now getting around to reading it.  It was good, a quick read - one of those books that hold your attention while you read them, but forget the plot of almost as soon as you're done.

This book is all about damaged people - Jane Porter, who gave her daughter up for adoption and spent the rest of her life wishing she hadn't; Dylan Chadwick, who lost his wife and daughter in a shooting incident directly related to his job; Chloe Chadwick, who has spent her life wondering why her birth mother would have abandoned her; Sylvie Porter, who has put her life on hold to take care of a mother debilitated by diabetes and the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.  But, somehow, when all of these lives converge, they bring their broken owners into something resembling a family.

Jane, a baker who caters to New York's rich and famous, comes home to help care for her mother (and try to help her sister make the difficult decision to put their mother into a nursing home), but she has a hidden agenda.  The daughter she gave up at birth lives just down the road, and Jane is yearning to connect with her.  Dylan came home after the deaths of his wife and daughter, to operate the family orchard.  Chloe doesn't know that Jane is her real mother, but she has longed her entire life to know the woman who gave her up.  These three lives crash into each other in a small orchard in Rhode Island.  What will happen when Dylan and Chloe learn who Jane really is?  Will Jane and Dylan be able to forge a relationship?  What about Jane and Chloe?

I liked the book.  It was good.  It made me cry a lot.  But I feel like I'll forget about it next week.  It's just not one that will stick with me.  I give it three out of five Whatevers.  Worth a read to pass the time, but not the greatest literature on earth.  Recommended for those who like romances, who are in the market for a quick read, and those who like stories about apples or the Northeast.

2014-8

Review: The Forge by T.S. Stribling

I am on a mission to read the (fiction) Pulitzers...it's a challenge I set myself years ago, and I'm making slow but steady progress.  The Store, the second book in this trilogy, won the Pulitzer in 1933.  And, of course, I couldn't read the second book without reading the first!  I believe I purchased the book from either Amazon or AbeBooks, as the books are somewhat scarce - I don't think I was able to Mooch it.

The Forge introduces us to the Vaiden family, a seemingly normal family of the pre-Civil War South.  The book is an interesting look into the reactions of plantation owners and Southern aristocrats to the Civil War.  The Vaidens - how should I describe them?  Proud, somewhat dense, blind to their own shortcomings, but also kind-hearted (some of them).  The book follows the various members of the Vaiden family in the time just before, during, and just after the Civil War.  Outwardly, the book is just the simple story of this family, how they cope with the changes in the South after losing the war.  However, Stribling, while being a Southerner himself, takes a somewhat different view of the South than most others writing at the same time.  His tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the dying breed of Southern men and women that he knew as a young boy was often incredibly humorous.

Fair warning:  the book was published in 1931, and it was written about a period in history that was not so, ahem, socially conscious as we are today.  The Southern planters refer to any African-American person as the n-word.  There is a rape scene involving a slave girl and one of the planter's sons.  Women are seen as domestic goddesses and not much else.  Some of the Vaidens join the KKK after the war.  It is definitely a warts-and-all look at life in the Civil War and Reconstruction South.

But Stribling finds the humor in the attitudes and beliefs of the family.  I found myself chuckling at his one-liners quite often.  It is an interesting look at the "typical Civil-War-era Southerner" from a truly non-typical Southern viewpoint.  I didn't think I'd like the book; I guess I expected it to be dry and boring, but I found it really interesting and at times hilarious.  Four out of five Whatevers.  Recommended for Civil War buffs, those who like family sagas (because it is that, too), and anyone who wants to read a classic from one of our forgotten American authors.

2014-7