Lisa the Librarian...

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a librarian. I was under the false assumption that if you were a librarian, you could just sit around and read all day. I loved books then, and I love them now. I love the way a book store or library smells, looks, sounds. I can spend literally hours, just browsing. This summer, I have taken advantage of having time off and time I need to spend off my feet. I have also taken advantage of our local Good will and thrift stores, and read quite a bit already. Some of them were old, some new. Some really really good, some not so much. Every time I would finish one, I would think that I could never get lost in a story quite the way I just did, and immediately find myself transported into the next.




I thought this one would be fluff..and it pretty much was, but surprisingly, a Christian take on a classic love story--boy meets girl, boy isn't what she thought he was, girl meets another boy, etc.




I love love love the shopaholic series (and somewhat relate as well....) and this is one written by the same author before the shopaholic series was published. I liked it better than I thought. I especially liked the way that one of the characters deals with the feelings of being a new mother.






Maeve Binchy is probably my very favorite author. I have read everything she has ever written, and I love the way that the characters from one novel show up in later books. Her books are clean, set in Ireland (for some reason, I love books set in Ireland!), and just all around good reads.


Usually, Oprah's books are a little too deep for me to enjoy too much as summer reads, but I loved this book. It's a book about a little girl who has Tourette's, the underlying feelings, how she deals with it, how she overcomes. I have always been fascinated by autism, tourette's, etc. and I loved this book. I especially like the way that the girl's salvation plays into the story.






Ehhh. It was alright. Not great. Not horrible. Just slow.









This is a huge step out of my reading comfort zone...written by a man, and more of a man's book. It is a mystery of sorts, a love story of sorts, funny at times too. I really, despite myself, enjoyed it! You do have to realize that it was written by a man, and some things are not handled as delicately as if written by a woman, but overall, a good read, and I think I would read another by him...if I were to find it on the shelves of Goodwill!





This one was a surprise. I loved the first part of the book. The middle bored me. I did like the way that it all came together toward the end, but hated the ending.








I love Jane Green as an author as well. She is another that I have read everything she has written. Her earlier books deal with life as a singleton, then sort of follow her own life into dating, marriage, babies, love later in life. This one was a good one, but I didn't enjoy it as much as her previous books. I bought it with a gift card from my kids at school, and I wish I would have spent it on another selection.





I had never heard of this author or book, and was quite surprised that it ended up being one of only two Christian books that I picked up. I loved loved loved this book. It's about a famous author who writes a book for her son, who has seemingly lost his way. The book is told in two parts--her story of the trials with her son and then the story that she writes for him, an allegory about the story of salvation. She is also teaching a course in how to write a novel in this book, and I found that fascinating as well!


Another surprise! I picked it up, thinking...eh...it will be alright. It is a series of stories following a girl throughout her life in a small town...the making of pies ties into most of the stories.






I am admittedly a HUGE Barbara Delinsky fan...even though I know they are predictable, and fluffy. This one, though, was my most memorable read of the summer so far. A tale of a girl who dies and is given three wishes (or so she thinks...you don't know until the very end whether it was a dream or not). Of course said girl is beautiful without knowing it, meets the man of her dreams with whom she lives an idyllic life until the tragic ending of this story. I must have cried for an entire hour after I finished!


So, eleven down in 3 weeks...not bad. About eleven to go...can't wait for my next story!