Classics Challenge 2009

Welcome to the Classics Challenge 2009

Classics: We love them, we hate them, now we are going to challenge ourselves to read more of them.

**Choose Your Level (Keep reading for Bonus)
1. Classics Snack - Read FOUR classics
2. Classics Entree - Read FIVE classics
3. Classics Feast - Read SIX classics

**Rules/Guidelines
1. Cross-posting with other challenges is allowed (and encouraged!)
2. Audiobooks are fine
3. Re-reads are acceptable, BUT books must be finished after April 1st to count for the challenge
4. Lists don't have to be set in stone; you can change your selections at any time.
5. Have Fun!!
6. You do NOT need a blog to participate.


I saw this Challenge on Wendy's post over at Musings of a Bookish Kitty and thought it would be fun challenge. And I can even cross-post with other challenges so that is an added bonus. Playing alone with this challenge will also count towards me Read-What-You-Own Challenge. My choice off the menu is the Classics Snack and here are my four choices:

• Mansfield Park

• Emma

• Northanger Abbey

• Persuasion

I'm really excited about this challenge because I've been "meaning" to read these books for so long and hopefully I really will!!! If you want to play along click on the link below the Challenges Picture...you know you want to!!!

The Sugar Queen - my thoughts

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
311 pages.
Large print edition
Copyright. 2008

From the back cover:
At twenty-seven, Josey Cirrini bears little resemblance to the wild-haired, temperamental daughter everyone in her North Carolina hometown remembers. Ever since her beloved but elusive father's death Josey has devoted her life to caring for her aging, irritable mother. Her only solace has been nightly escapades to her closet where she hoards sugary treats and paperback romances. Fleeing her abusive boyfriend, local waitress Della Lee Baker has decided that Josey's closet is a safe place to hide. She see right away that Josey's is not the closet of a happy woman. The pair strike a deal: in exchange for her refuge, Della Lee will change Josey's life.

Well, this book was not as enjoyable for me as her first novel, Garden Spells. But it was charming and I did like Josey, except for the fact that I don't believe any self-respecting twenty-seven year old woman would let her mother belittle her on a daily basis and just sit there and take it. That part of the story I had a hard time swallowing, but the rest was a pleasant reading experience. Sarah Addison Allen tricked me though!! I won't tell you how but needless to say I never saw the twist coming and I should've, she put it right under my nose several times to find. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that I've been under the weather these past three days and sometimes my mind has been too foggy from cold/flu medicine to make sense of things...yeah, that's what I'll blame it on!! If you liked her previous work, then I think you will enjoy this story. There's just enough mystery, romance, and magic to hold your attention!!

And because I love to find passages that touch me, I will leave you with this one:

"Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course."

p. 206

Other Reviews:

Dar at Peeking Between the Pages

A book review and why I'm so late writing this!

We were invited to our neighbors house for their annual New Year's party. I was all ready to go and have a great time ringing in the new year. I made a crock-pot of meatballs for our passing dish, put on my makeup, and raced out to the truck. So every time my husband and I go out I try to call dibs on being the person that gets to drink. I wish that Matt would've beat me to the punch last night!! As soon as we got there we found out that they were waiting for us so that the drinking of Lemon Shots could commence. Me, I am a sucker!! I love Lemon Drop shots!! But I'm also quite the flyweight when it comes to alcohol. That did not matter last night. I was determined to get a good buzz no matter what. I'm a fool!! Just writing this is making my stomach queasy!!!


Take this picture and multiply it by 8!!! I think...!! At midnight I wasn't feeling too good but I managed to make it outside and watch the awesome fireworks the guys put on for all of us!! Prior to that I was rockin' the house with Rock Band on the x-box 360. It is amazing how when I get a little, LOT, drunk I really think my voice is awesome. The kids seemed to love my version of Crazy Train by Ozzy!! Then of course I had to sing Hotel California, Joker, and some other oldie stuff. By 12:40 I was sitting on the couch with my 2009 tiara and trying harder than hell not to get sick. We got home around 2:00 and I took a long, hot bubble bath, climbed into bed, and managed to sleep until about 9 a.m. When I woke up I had the mother of all headaches!! Then after downing 3 Advil I fell back to sleep until 3:30!! What a loser!! It is now 10:23 pm and I'm still not feeling that great. I really did have a fun time last night but I'm mad about losing most of the day to my wonderful hangover!! I've already told my hubby to not let me drink again next year!!! We'll see if it works or not!!



My first book review of 2009!! It took me 2 hours to finish the last 15 pages!! It was my headache holding me up, not the book!

A Mercy by Toni Morrison
From the inside book cover: in the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root.
Jacob in an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady." Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at ther new master's house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.
There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who's spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens' mother. These are all men and women iniventing themselves in the wilderness.

rating:
bookshelves:	read, must-read-in-2009, winter-reading-challenge-2009 (edit)
status:	Read in January, 2009
review:	I really did enjoy this book but I found Florens voice very hard to understand. I was very thankful that Morrison did not write the book entirely from her viewpoint. This is a story about slavery, and how women's lives are hugely impacted by their owners, which were almost always men. It wasn't until the ending did I realize what a Mercy was truly about. The final chapter is Floren's mother. It helps put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The character Jacob is central to the main story as e...more I really did enjoy this book but I found Florens voice very hard to understand. I was very thankful that Morrison did not write the book entirely from her viewpoint. This is a story about slavery, and how women's lives are hugely impacted by their owners, which were almost always men. It wasn't until the ending did I realize what a Mercy was truly about. The final chapter is Floren's mother. It helps put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The character Jacob is central to the main story as each woman's life revolves around him. He deplores slavery but finds it acceptable when he feels that he is saving someone from a miserable life. I truly loved the other voices in this book, Lina, Rebekka, and Sorrow. This is a story that will stay with me for a while as I contemplate what the conditions were for slaves being traded and sent to the colonies on ships with deplorable conditions. To know that most of them would rather jump ship and die a horrible death to the sharks is disturbing. I've never experienced such despair and lack of hope. Then to know that most all women regardless of their race were held hostage by the men in their lives. This is a very moving and powerful story.

2009 Pub Challenge- Sign up People!!!

2009 Pub Challenge hosted by 1morechapter.com
I hope you’ll consider joining the 2009 Pub as well. For those who didn’t participate last year but want to read more 2009 releases, join us. New members are always welcome! The challenge lasts for all of 2009.

Here are the 2009 rules:

1. Read a minimum of 9 books first published in 2009. You don’t have to buy these. Library books, unabridged audios, or ARCs are all acceptable. To qualify as being first published in 2009, it must be the first time that the book is published in your own country. For example, if a book was published in Australia, England, or Canada in 2008, and then published in the USA in 2009, it counts (if you live in the USA). Newly published trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks do not count if there has been a hardcover/trade published before 2009. Any questions on what qualifies? Just leave a comment here, and I’ll respond with the answer.
2. No children’s/YA titles allowed, since we’re at the ‘pub.’
3. At least 5 titles must be fiction.
4. Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
5. You can add your titles as you go, and they may be changed at any time.

I've decided that I'm going to add my titles as I go because I'm just not up on books that are going to be published in 2009.

Book 1 is going to be this one, Shelter Me by Juliette Fay

Book Overview:

Four months after her husband's death, Janie LaMarche remains undone by grief and anger. Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband—now his last gift to her.

As she reluctantly allows construction to begin, Janie clings to the familiar outposts of her sorrow—mothering her two small children with fierce protectiveness, avoiding friends and family, and stewing in a rage she can't release. Yet Janie's self-imposed isolation is breached by a cast of unlikely interventionists: her chattering, ipecac-toting aunt; her bossy, over-manicured neighbor; her muffin-bearing cousin; and even Tug, the contractor with a private grief all his own.

As the porch takes shape, Janie discovers that the unknowable terrain of the future is best navigated with the help of others—even those we least expect to call on, much less learn to love.

Sounds good and I'm all signed up for it at my local library!! I'm #1.....Yippee!!!