Books I Have Read

... or am reading, or will read again.

I love to read.  Oh yeah, reading a book, that's a perfect summer day activity.  Or a perfect winter day activity if you include an afghan or a quilt.  Snuggled up in the corner of the couch, reading away until someone interrupts with conversation or I have to go to the bathroom.  That's my idea of heaven.

I just finished reading Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard.  (I wouldn't give you 2 cents for BO'R on Fox News Network.  I think he's a pompous you-know-what.  And I don't know how much is BO'R and how much is Martin Dugard.  I could hazard a guess.  Martin Dugard is a New York Times best selling author on his own and has written historical works before.  He plays nicely with others including James Patterson.)

Killing Lincoln reads with all the excitement and tension of a novel and whoever was the brains behind it knew their stuff.

My DD gave me that book and Killing Jesus for Christmas.  One guy at work saw me reading it and said he read it too.  He also read Killing Patton, Killing Kennedy and he's reading Killing Jesus.

Unfortunate titles, I guess.  I passed Killing Lincoln along to another coworker who is also anxious to read it.

I'm also listening to an Anne Perry novel on CD in the car.  I'm excessively fond of her Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, and her William Monk detective novels.  She also wrote a couple or three World War I novels, the first one of which is called No Graves As Yet.  That's the one on the CD in the car.  So far it's good, classic Anne Perry with lots of details and very accurate historically.

When you listen to books on CD you get an interesting perspective since a lot depends upon the skill of the reader.  If they have an accent, or if their inflection is good or not so good, it can change the whole experience.  The person who is reading No Graves is a man with a British accent, and he does subtle tone changes so you can follow who is speaking pretty well, even if he wouldn't be saying "said Joseph hurriedly".

This book is about the pre-war activities at Cambridge and the surrounding area.  It's so good that sometimes I want to just stay in the car and listen instead of coming into the office!

Thomas Pitt is a detective/commoner married to a gentleman's daughter in Victorian London.



William Monk is a policeman who lost his past memory, married to a nurse, also Victorian London.

I read book books, borrowed from the library or purchased.  I'll buy second hand books or as I call them "pre-read" books.  The words are all there after all!  I tried to list all the books I know I've read on Library Thing but I exceeded their free quantity so I stopped. 

On a recent Facebook challenge for how many a person read of the 100 on this list, I read over half.  Some I've read multiple times.  I have read Gone With The Wind at least three times.  Ditto Pride and Prejudice, The Hunt for Red October, and Black Beauty. 

 

I also read books on my Kindle, and I sometimes listen to them on CD in the car.  Lately I haven't listened to any in my sewing room because most books on CD are now MP3 files, and I evidently have an ancient CD player which doesn't 'read' the MP3 files.  Maybe time to start my Christmas wish list...


Here are some more authors I love and books I need to locate and put on my 'to-do' list:

A Jesse Stone novel, now I see Tom Selleck when I read them. RBP has passed away but the new writer is nearly as good.

Stephanie Plum, girl bail-bondsman, a riot and a half.  They made a movie of one of her novels and a friend of my son's from high school played one of the characters, Stephanie's cousin the cop.

Love JK novels, most of the feature Alex Delaware, a psychologist who works with the LA Police Dept.



Another favorite author, and a detective who is very flawed and human.



The newest Inspector Gamache novel.  Contemporary mystery, takes place in Canada.

If you see me near the book racks in my local Goodwill, please walk past quietly, I'm not supposed to be buying any more books.  I currently have 50 on my bookshelf that I should start reading.

But what the heck, they don't cost THAT much...

Read on...



Kindle and Tablet Keeper

In January there was a blog hop at Nancy Zieman's place, all about the new templates she designed for making tablet keepers or iPad or Kindle covers.  The templates make three sizes.  About 20 different designers made a version and every day there was another beautifully executed tablet keeper to see.

Everyone did their own special technique.  Some were quilted, some were bright and others were more muted.  There was painting and there was piecing.  It was pretty amazing.

Kindle cover, closes with a magnetic snap.

Here's mine, completed in February.  I found the template set at my local quilt shop.  I bought the hard plastic insert pack too.  I suppose I could have used any stiff material but for the first one I thought I'd do it using the materials specified in the pattern.

For fabric I chose a piece of bright floral with a black background that was left over from a quilt project we worked on at family night.  I originally purchased two yards, then shared it with aunts and cousins, giving almost all of it away.  (Yeah, I know, what was I thinking???)  After my aunt made her quilt with my second donation, I took back the scraps!!  I had about a half yard in various chunks and I was saving it for a special project.  The greens were left from another project... of course I have a huge tub of green fabric, it's my go-to color.

Notepad on left, Kindle on the right, pen ready in the middle!

You're supposed to use a flat hair band for the 'grippers'.  I was doing this late on a Saturday night so the only thing I found in my resource center was a box of round pony tail holders.  Cut apart they only provided enough length for one corner, thus different colors.  I also discovered that they ROLL when you sew them!  So the bottom left corner of my Kinldle is always slipping its moorings.  I added a small pad of paper and a pencil holder.  It closes with a magnetic snap.

It's one of a kind, I can always spot it when I put it down.  I can easily tell which is mine if there is more than one Kindle on the table.  I do have my Kindle marked with my name and address but I'm sure if I ever lost it, it would be gone forever.  Although you never know, do you?

If you've never tried making a tablet or reader pad, you might want to try the Nancy's Notions template.  (I was NOT paid to endorse this product!!)   I found it easy to use, but I never tried to make one without the template.  I have nothing to which to compare it, so my opinion and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee somewhere!  The instructions were pretty clear and it was an easy project.

Now DD, DDIL, and DS want one for their reading devices too.  I guess I won't run out of projects!

Keep on sewing!

What I'm Reading

Every night before I go to sleep I spend 15 minutes to a half hour reading something.  Anything.  Lots of things.  I just cannot hit the pillow and drift off unless I'm super tired.  So I read until my eyes start closing, turn off the light and sleep.

I tried making a list of all the books I've read in the past year.  I went to a site called Library Thing and used their search function to list the authors and books I've read in the last decade, and topped out the 200 things you can put in for free.  If you want to list more you have to pay.  So that ended that.

On my nightstand right now:  Nights in Rodanthe, The Woman Who Heard Color, Legacy of Ashes - the History of the CIA, and V is for Vengance.  I started The Woman Who Heard Color but the beginning is kind of choppy, so that one sits while I read Legacy of Ashes.  I'm holding V is for Vengance for next week.  Then today a guy at work stopped by my office with a Steve Berry novel, asking if I'd like to read it.  Historical Fiction, you bet!  I can read several things at once and keep them straight.  If something gets juicy or really interesting I'll read that until it's done, but I'm good at multi-tasking.

My favorite types of books are (in no particular order) biographies, mysteries, detective novels, historical fiction, history, drama and comedy.  I think I've read everything Agatha Christie wrote, and nearly everything by Robert B Parker and James Lee Burke.  I love the victorian novels of Anne Perry and the ones by Elizabeth Perry, and I don't think they're related.  And Dick Francis wrote the best novels ever about horse racing.  I read Julia Child's bio before they made it into a movie. I've read all the Harry Potters, all the Nancy Drews, and all the Anne of Green Gables too.

Did I mention I like books about sewing and knitting?  Oh yeah, I love those, shelves and shelves of them.  I have two five-shelf bookshelves of books about crafting.  Embroidery, quilting, garment sewing, applique, knitting hats and mittens and scarves and on and on and on!  When someone I know needs a reference book, I probably have it.  I do use them, probably not as frequently as I should.  However, I did teach  myself to knit socks, do redwork and Sashiko embroidery, and Hawaiian Quilting, all with books I own.

I'm passing on the love of books to the grands.  They all get books from me for birthdays and Christmas, and I buy them books I can read to them and with them.  They love reading together.  I tell them "reading makes you beautiful".

I love book books, real books with paper pages.  I was given the gift of a Kindle when they first came out with the small version.  I like the size of it, and it beats lugging a bunch of books around on airplanes and car trips.   Sometimes the Kindle version of a book is free or less than the price of the paperback.  Sometimes the idea of a pile of books is nice and other times not so much.  On the Kindle at present I am reading the Biography of Benjamin Franklin, The Egyptian Cat Mystery, Here We Go Again by Betty White, and the Bible. 

I don't mind used books.  I buy used books quite frequently.  Downtown Books in Milwaukee has an awesome selection, as do a few other places.  And after all, the words are the same the 19th time they're read as they were the first time.

The library is also a good place to get books -- that is, if your card is current.  I have to check on mine, I think it may have expired.  Besides, they want you to bring those books BACK!

Here's my favorite quote about books:  Outside of a dog, man's best friend is a book.  Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.