Due to the wonders of Goodreads, this week's topic is a pretty easy one to track. Here are the last ten books I added to my to-read list!

Ink and Bone: The Great Library by Rachel Caine (I find it incredibly hard to resist a book about books.)
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan (And books about dragons. They're just fascinating!)
Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe (And books about Jane Austen. Hmm, maybe I have too many types of books that are irresistible. . . That could explain the lack of space on my bookshelves.)
How To Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis (A bookish memoir)
Teaching Will: What Shakespeare and Ten Kids Gave Me that Hollywood Couldn't by Mel Ryane (As a teacher myself, I love great success stories. Especially when they include bunny ears on the cover.)

The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon (I've been hearing lots of good things about this book. And it's just the sort of random topic I find interesting in nonfiction.)
A Room Full of Chocolate by Jane Elson (This looks like a tug-at-your-heartstrings sort of book. Plus, it takes place on a farm in Yorkshire, an area of the world I've loved since discovering James Herriot.)
The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl (The play on words in the title was all it took to get me to add this book to my list!)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (I just couldn't hold back from putting this one on my list any longer.)
Around the World in 50 Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth by Albert Podell (The ultimate armchair traveling book!)

It's been a great weekend, and I'm looking ahead to a great week! Friday night was book club, and Sunday afternoon was spent with my family celebrating my brother's birthday. This week is Holy Week, including lots of church services and choir and handbell practices to prepare for the gloriousness of Easter!

The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt (As if I wasn't already eager enough for the free, lazy days of summer!)

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (Books and the Queen England. Can it get any better?)

Never A City So Real: A Walk in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz (There is hopefully a trip to Chicago in my not-too-distant future. I've been there before, but I'm always looking for new places to explore!)

I really wasn't sure what to expect with this book. The first time I heard of Love in the Time of Cholera was in the movie Serendipity with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. (Having read the book now, I kind of understand the connection there.) I haven't read anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez before, but I have heard that he is an amazing writer. I knew that he often includes magic realism in his stories, a genre I was introduced to through Sarah Addison Allen's novels. And I figured, based on the title, that this was a love story altered by the disease of cholera.

Well, I was sort of right. Here is the description on the back of my copy: "In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty-one years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again."

622 affairs?? Will someone please explain to me how that counts as remaining faithful to your first love?

The style of the book took some adjusting. There is very little dialogue. Most of the events are just described. It's harder to feel connected to the characters that way, yet I still ended up caring very much if Fermina and Florentino got their happy ending or not. The description on the back covers the basic plot of all but the last fifty pages or so. The book begins by Florentino declaring his love on the day of Fermina's husband's funeral. Then it retraces the history of their lives that brought them to that point. And Gabriel Garcia Marquez certainly leaves you guessing about that happy ending.

This is a poignant story of frustrated, unrequited, and occasionally fulfilled love. It introduces us to a world and a time that is very different from our world today. And it reminds us that it is never too late to go after what you really want. Always chase after your dreams.

Find it on: Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Better World Books

There have been plenty of books in my lifetime of reading that have given me book hangovers. But I never in a million years expected In the Woods by Tana French to be one of them.

Let's start with all of the reasons I thought I would hate this book. (Actually, most of these reasons still apply after reading the book.)

1. I hate murder mysteries. I go out of my way to avoid TV shows that start with a dead body in the first five minutes. I close my eyes or skim over the pages if I come across murders in shows or books.
2. I get mental images really easily. And nightmares. Hence my avoidance of books like this.
3. The language. Not a fan of that, either.
4. This book is about kids who get murdered. Incredibly sad.

I could go on, but it's pretty repetitive. Crime, murder, detectives, blood - all things I avoid. You get the picture.

But my book club chose In the Woods as our March selection, so I didn't want to skip reading it, even if it wasn't my sort of book at all. I gritted my teeth and began reading. I only read during daylight (after dark would freak me out too much), and I set myself a goal of 50 pages minimum a day, so I could get through it in a timely fashion.

So I must admit that I was completely shocked as I read to find myself enjoying the book against my will. Tana French's writing is amazing, and her characters are incredibly alive. This book broke my heart over and over. It terrified me, and yet I had to keep coming back for more.

This is the last book I ever expected to give me a book hangover. I'm actually considering reading more of Tana French's books because I loved her characters so much, even though the plot horrified me. That is the sign of a truly great writer.

I have been a reader from the beginning, so there are a lot of books from my childhood to sift through. And a lot of my favorites I have reread many times (in fact, I'm working on a reread of the Chronicles of Narnia right now). So for this list, I tried to pick titles that I haven't reread recently, if at all. This was harder - and a lot more fun - than I expected. :)

Wren to the Rescue by Sherwood Smith (This is probably my #1 want-to-reread. I loved this book so much that I pretty much wrote fan fiction about it.)
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink (Oh, how I wanted to be Caddie!)
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney (I honestly don't remember much about this book - just the feeling that I loved it.)
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (Fantasy and funny. Doesn't get much better.)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (This book was just so different from anything else I had read.)

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (If I couldn't be Caddie Woodlawn, then I wanted to be Harriet.)
Eleven Kids, One Summer by Ann M. Martin (I loved her Baby-Sitters Club books, but I liked this one more. The idea of huge families (11 kids!) always fascinated me.)
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary (Ramona is amazing.)
Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray (The idea of wandering from town to town as a minstrel is quite intriguing.)
The Silver Pencil by Alice Dalgliesh (I loved to write as a kid, and this book was one of my inspirations.)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (Okay, I had my list of ten and then I remembered this one. No way I could leave this book off the list!)

Two exciting happenings around our house this week - the daffodils have started to poke out of the ground, and we now have running water for the bathroom we are adding upstairs! (My life is thrilling, I know. But hey, small victories should be celebrated, too.) What exciting things happened in your life this week?

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book, but I can safely say that this wasn't it.)

The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (This book looks delightful. I'm excited to read it!)

I love the phrase "shiver language." It so aptly describes what it is - languages, words, phrases that send a shiver down your spine because they are so well-written or because they show the world in a way that you would otherwise never have seen it. (The traditional phrase for this is "figurative language", but that doesn't strike me as particularly descriptive. Figurative language makes you do what - figurate?)

I recently discovered a book that was a surprising source of shiver language – Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. It was the Newbery Award winner of 2006. I’ve had a rather hit-and-miss experience with Newbery winners so far. Some of them are awesome; some of them make me wonder why anyone liked them, let alone voted for them to win. So I was excited to find shiver language scattered throughout Criss Cross. (In addition to the shiver language, it really is quite a good coming-of-age story set in the 1970s.)

I’d like to share with you some of writing that sent a shiver down my spine:

“The edge of the night moved visibly across the sky.”

“A guy with a guitar climbed onto the stage and started plunking out chords that dropped softly into the noise of the room, making pockets of quiet wherever they fell.”

“Life was rearranging itself; bulging in places, fraying in spots. Sometimes leaving holes big enough to see through, or even step through, to somewhere else.”

“The remnant of a question hung in the air.”

“A fact, a feather of knowledge, had been floating around the outside of Debbie’s mind searching for a place to enter, for an opening in the light but unbroken cloud cover that had surrounded it a little while ago.”

“A time-honored line of reasoning that encompasses both truth and quicksand.”

“They shared their golden selves with the world, and the world smiled back.”

“She had an invisible cloud of new feelings that went around with her.”

“Debbie’s heart sprang up and bounded across the room in one jump.”

“But their secrets inadvertently sidestepped each other, unaware, like blindfolded elephants crossing the tiny room.”

“Her face was intent and summery in the wobbly light.”

“The part of her that was open to the universe was facing in another direction just then.”

I have mentioned many times on this blog that I am a one-book-at-a-time kind of reader. I pick one book, I read it until it's finished, and then I pick up another one. And I've never been any other kind of reader - through childhood and college, this was the way I would read.

And yet, I'm discovering there are situations where reading two books at once can be useful (I'm not sure I could handle more than two quite yet!). About a month ago, I picked up The Little Book by Selden Edwards. I loved the first fifty pages so much that I knew this would be a book I wanted to savor and read slowly. And then the next day, we had a snow day, which usually involves a lot of time spent reading. Since I didn't want to rush through The Little Book, I set it aside and picked up The Tale of Applebeck Orchard by Susan Wittig Albert. It was the perfect book to read curled up in my library during my snow day. So sometimes having a book to savor and a book to zoom through works for me.

The second situation came up last week. My book club decided to read In the Woods by Tana French as our selection for March. Murder mysteries are one of the last genres I would ever choose to read, but how could I just skip out on a book club book? So I read In the Woods during daylight hours, and switched over to Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott once it got dark outside. It worked perfectly. I got through my scary book without a single nightmare.

So I guess I can't always say I'm a one-book-at-a-time kind of reader anymore. Turns out reading two books at once can occasionally work for me.

This isn’t exactly a review. It’s more like my collected thoughts about Quiet, a book which has been life-changing for me. I read it almost two years ago now, and I still think about it and reference it weekly. I can’t say that about many books, so you know this one has got to be good.

I could always have told you that I’m an introvert. There’s no doubt in my mind. I can also tell you that I’m rather shy and, it turns out, highly sensitive (at least according to page 136). Most of the time, I’m perfectly happy with who I am. But then there are those times when I’m sitting home again on a Friday night, wishing and wondering if I should be out partying with a group of friends. Or when I walk into a room full of noise and wish I could walk right back out again.

Guess what? There’s nothing wrong with me! I’m just an introvert! I saw myself on every page of Susan Cain’s Quiet, and I saw reassurance on every page as well. Being an introvert is not a problem; it’s simply a different way of reacting to situations and people. I’m exactly the way God made me, and I should rejoice in that.

Beyond the reassurance for us diffident introverts, Susan Cain offers a lot of fascinating facts and studies about introversion and extroversion. She also explains why working in groups is not always necessary – in fact, it’s often counter-productive. Being an introvert actually brings many benefits to your work and your workplace.

There is a lot to be gleaned from Quiet, whether you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert. It’s a fascinating, wonderful book that helps you look at yourself and the people around you in a new way. If you haven’t read it yet…well, what are you waiting for?

Find it on: Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Better World Books

It hit 50 degrees this week! And there are little green things peeking up in my garden - the first hint of spring daffodils. There's still snow piled up in some places, but it finally seems spring-like!

Top Ten Tuesday - Books for Readers Who Like to Armchair Travel
Regency Romances - All the Same, Yet Different (for fans of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer)
Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Review

In the Woods by Tana French (Terrifying and fascinating, all at the same time.)
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (Enjoyable, but not exactly what I expected.)

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt (Now that it feels like spring outside, I'm ready for summer and vacations!)