Average Girl Reads

Once again, I am spending a holiday weekend without sufficient reading material. I blame it on my hubby this time. He didn't allocate 20 minutes out of his busy workout schedule to stop by the library and pick up the books I reserved. He runs all the errands for the family, so I am trying to stick to my new practice of "no negative words toward my spouse" and not fuss at him about it.

Saying that I have nothing to do this weekend would be an exaggeration. I could always try that Diabolo manga that M has been trying to push on me. There is also a book of teenage love poetry on hand -- don't know if I could last through that. Of course, this might the perfect time to finish sifting through my list of books that the library said it would have in circulation soon and add them to my TBR list. I also have my "not at my library" list that I would like to check against the library's catalog to see if my library has gotten any of those books yet.

RECENT READS: Since the last time I did a Sunday Salon post, I've made it through a few books --




To be fair, I only made it through 3.5 of these books. The Dorothy Parker book got dropped from my list for the second time. I enjoyed the short stories but was out of my Parker mood by the time I got to the poetry. Perhaps the next time I pick up this book, I'll turn straight to the poetry. The other books will have reviews appearing on this blog soon. If I wait too long to write them, I'll forget what I read!

I don't do memes very often, but I am a sucker for these "how many on this list have you read" memes. I found this one on a blog called Open Mind, Insert Book.

The rules are as follows: bold the ones you’ve read, mark in blue the ones you want to read, cross out or mark in red the ones that you don’t want to ever touch, and italicize the ones that you have never heard of.

1. The DaVinci Code -Dan Brown
2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
3. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
4. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
5. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers – Tolkien
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the ring -Tolkien
7. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – Tolkien
8. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
9. Outlander -Diana Gabaldon
10. A fine balance – Rohinton Mistry
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -Rowling
12. Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – Rowling
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
15. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – Rowling
17. Fall on your knees – Ann-Marie MacDonald
18. The Stand – Stephen King
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – Rowling
20. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
21.The Hobbit – Tolkien
22. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
23. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
24. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
25. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
28. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
29. East of Eden – John Steinbeck
30. Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
31. Dune – Frank Herbert
32. The Notebook -Nicholas Sparks
33. Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
34. 1984- Orwell
35. The Mists of Avalon – Bradley
36.The Pillars of the earth- Ken Follet
37. The Power of One – Bryce Courtenay
38. I know this much is true – Wally Lamb
39. The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
40. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
41.The Clan of the Cave Bear – Jean M. Aurel
42. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic – Sophie Kinsella
44. The Five people you met in heaven – Mitch Albom
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina -Tolstoy
47. The Count of Monte Cristo- Dumas
48. Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
49. The Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck
50. She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb
51. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
52. A Tale of Two Cities – Dickens
53. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
54. Great Expectations – Dickens
55. The Great Gasby – Fitzgerald
56. The Stone Angel – Margaret Laurence
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – Rowling
58. The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
59. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenger
61. Crime and Punishment – Dostoyevsky
62. The Fountainhead -Ayn Rand
63. War and Peace – Tolstoy
64. Interview with the Vampire- Anne Rice
65. Fifth Business – Robertson Davis
66. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Grabriel Gracia Marquez
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – Ann Brashares
68. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
69. Les Miserables – Hugo
70. The Little Prince – Antonie de-Saint Exupery
71. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Fielding
72. Love in the time of Cholera – Marquez
73. Shogun – James Clavell
74. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
75. The Secret Garden -Frances Hodgson Burnett
76. The Summer Tree – Guy Gavriel Kay
77. A Tree grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
78. The World According to Garp – Irving
79. The Diviner’s – Margaret Laurence
80. Charlotte ‘s Web – EB White
81. Not Wanted on the Voyage – Timothy Findley
82. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
83. Rebecca – Daphne DuMaurier
84. Wizard’s First Rule – Terry Goodkind
85. Emma – Jane Austen
86. Watership Down – Richard Adams
87. Brave New World – Aldous Hexley
88. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
89. Blindness – Jose Saramago
90. Kane and Abel – Jeffrey Archer
91. In the Skin of a Lion – Ondaatje
92. Lord of the Flies – Golding
93. The Good Earth -Pearl S. Buck
94. The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
95. The Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum
96. The Outsiders – SE Hinton
97. White Oleander – Janet Fitch
98. A woman of substance – Barabara Taylor Bradford
99. The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield
100. Ulysses – Joyce

The funny thing about this list is that I didn't have to change a lot of the markings when I copied it from the other blog. All the books the other blogger had never heard of were ones I had never heard of, either. We've read a lot of the same books, too. One of the biggest differences I saw was that I have no interest in the Dan Brown or the Jane Austen books where she does.

--Sometimes my library list is balanced, but more often than not it is weighted toward one family member or another. This week, C2 is the winner. Since her preferred genre is graphic novels, we have a rather colorful stack:



I enjoy a good graphic novel myself, so I may read one or two of these when she's done with them.

--As most of you know, my reading time is pretty much unfettered. I don't solicit ARCs, I rarely join challenges, and I don't belong to any book clubs. I read what I want to read when I want to read it. This week, however, I seem to have added some "required" reading to my list. First, a friend and I have decided to do a Bible study together. Then, another acquaintance on a weight loss listserv suggested that we all read Geneen Roth's Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything, which was featured on Oprah recently. After that, I got word that I won a book through Goodreads First Reads program. Perhaps this taste of structure and commitment will revitalize my reading life.

A Promise for Ellie by Lauraine Snelling

Genre: Christian romance, historical fiction
On my TBR list?: yes

Book 1 of 4

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Summary (my own):

Andrew and Ellie have known each other since grammar school and have loved each other almost the whole time. High school graduation is right around the corner and they plan to marry immediately after that. However, Andrew's father throws them for a loop by asking them to wait based on a feeling he has from God. Ellie takes it in stride, but the request unleashes such an anger in Andrew that he alienates Ellie and everyone around him. Will his emotions jeopardize their plans?

Although the words "Daughters of Blessing #1" on the cover led me to believe that I was reading the first books of a series, I soon learned that this wasn't accurate. Technically, it is a new series, but Lauraine Snelling has written NINE books involving the Bjorklund family and friends prior to this one. Although I was interested in Ellie and Andrew enough to finish the book, I wouldn't consider this a stand-alone story. Many references are made to events in the other books, and even though enough information is given to keep the story going I still felt like I was missing something.

Other than the feeling that I was jumping into the middle of a series, this is pretty much a standard Christian historical romance. The book is set in Dakota in 1900, so there are plenty of descriptions of farm life and women having babies. The one difference from the other Christian romances I've read is how Snelling discusses various women's issues. I've had limited experience with this genre, but this is the first Christian novel I've read where women talk about their periods, postpartum depression, and desiring their husbands, among other things.

Overall, this book felt like a gift to the fans who read the two previous series. It is probably not the best book to start with if you have never read Snelling's work. I am going to back up and read An Untamed Land before I decide whether I like her writing style.


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There are two types of readers. Some just want to read story after story. Others appreciate the medium as well as the story. The latter are what I call true book lovers. They like the smell of old books, they pay attention to covers, and they place importance on owning the exact copy that was given to them for graduation or owned by one of their ancestors.

I've never been a book lover, but I've recently developed an attraction to portable libraries. This week I'm reading The Portable Dorothy Parker which was published in 1944 as part of the Viking Portable Library collection. It is a hardcover but it is the size of the paperbacks I read as a kid (paperbacks seem to be bigger now). I love the way it feels in my hand. I also like the idea of having a shelf full of these, with each volume giving me a taste of a certain writer or writing style. More than that, I think I want vintage copies. I don't think a Penguin Classics paperback printed in 2009 would give me the same satisfaction that this vintage hardcover has.