Read one book a month

I just finished my twelfth book for the year which means I met my goal. Yeah. It was “100 Simple Secrets of Happy People, The: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It (100 Simple Secrets)”by David Niven and I really got some good tips from it. This also helps me with my goal “To Be Happy.” Think I’ll keep the reading a book a month goal for next year since it kept me on target.

Finsihed “Nighttime is my Time” by Mary Higgins Clark. While Clark is not a challenging or “thoughtful” read, she’s usually more entertaining than in this book. Not much of a mystery, which is sad for a mystery story. Didn’t even really care who “dunnit,” to tell the truth. On the bright side—only one more book to read this year and I make my goal!

A couple days ago I went to the local library’s used book sale. There were so many books it was hard to focus. I bought Frommer’s Portable San Diego, regularly priced at $9.95 for only 25 cents! And it was practically new! San Diego is my favorite place, and I’ve been there so many times I know it pretty well, but I found a couple interesting things in the book. It wasn’t a very big book so I was able to finish it quickly. I have a visit planned in November and I got some ideas of places to go from the book, so it was well worth the 25 cents, ha ha.

I finished “Three Junes” by Julia Glass yesterday. It’s a bestselling novel that has won several book awards. It seems like a book I should like, but overall it was just OK. It’s broken down into three chapters, each focusing on a different person’s life in June in a different year, but whose lives are all intertwined. I liked the first two Junes stories but the last one, not so much, so it fell apart for me. Well written though, with many memorable passages.

I’m also happy to be on track with my reading goal, staying one month ahead. Reading this book went slower than I would have liked so I need to take care picking a real page turner next. lol.

Finished the Glass Castle yesterday. This is my bookclub’s selection for July. I can’t believe I’ve actually read it before our meeting date. I wasn’t sure if I’d like the book since it seemed like a depressing story, but I reallly did love the book. It’s a recounting of the author’s (Jeannette Walls) life growing up with a disfunctional family-alcoholic father, wanderlust mother. Interesting study on how some people overcome life’s difficulties while other’s succumb. You know when you drive down a back road and you see a squalid house with a collection of treasured junk around it and you wonder about the people that live there, well this book takes you inside. Highly recommend it.

Finished The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. I REALLY liked this book and hated for it to end. Very well written with characters you cared about. Theme revolved about people living out lives with regrets or hidden secrets that impact how other’s lives may have been. Powerful stuff that makes you think about how your decisions impact those close to you. Edwards has also written a collection of short stories and I think I’ll try to read that someday as well since I liked Edwards writing style a lot.

I finished “Best Loved Poems” a collection of poems by various poets. It is one of my goals to read a poem a day. I ended up reading far more than one a day on average since many are so short. I really didn’t like this collection that much and realize I tend to like a certain type of poetry and should just stick with poets I like or write in a similar style. I found an old anthology of American Verse that my sister had from a college class and she had discarded it. I had stuck in a box and ran across it while trying to organize some things so I think I’ll beginning reading my daily poem from this collection. I see in contains poems by e.e.cummings, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, some of my favorites, so I hope I enjoy this collection.

Just finished “Bait and Switch: the Futile Pursuit of the American Dream.” This is by the same author, Barbara Ehrenreich, who wrote Nickel and Dimed, which I had liked, so I thought I’d like this one as well. Well I didn’t. It was about her year long search to look for a white color job while studying how other Americans struggled to find jobs. I just felt her approach was ridiculous. I would have never hired her so I wasn’t surprised she couldn’t get a decent job by the end of the book. Good thing she can fall back on her writer’s contracts. Next book I choose will have to be fiction. I want something more enjoyable.

I’m actually a book ahead, Yahoo! I just finished the last of the Joan Anderson triology, ” A Walk on the Beach” which is about her relationship with Joan Erickson, the wife of Erick Erickson who was the famed pychologist who developed the theory about life stages. The book was just OK. Frankly I found both Joans to be self-indulgent and self-absorbed. Wealthy, educated people’s struggle to find themselves and have meaningful lives while living in a beach house on the Cape can be a bit much. Not sure what my next book is going to be. I was going to read the Mermaid’s Chair but I just saw the movie and found it be be a knock off of the Thorn Birds and kind of the same boring struggle of a wealthy bored woman as the book I just finished. Think I’ll find something else to read.

Just finished “Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry,” by Susan Shaprio Barash. I didn’t intend this to be my three book, I was going to finish the Joan Andersen trilogy, but I saw this by chance when I was at the library and found it fascinating. I learned a lot of interesting things about women and their relationships with other women. She said that unlike men who retrict competition to specific spheres, women tend to globalize their rivalry. For example, a man at work competes with co-workers to get ahead, but a woman at work competes about the job, their looks, their relationships, how good a mother they are, how well their children are doing, their weight, their age, etc. I hadn’t thought about that before but it is true. Also she said that women’s relationships do best when they feel more equal like they are both dating, or both divorcing, or both having problems with their weight, etc. As soon as one does better than the other, then envy sets in and these works negatively on their relationships. This book gave me lots to think about. Enjoyed it.