Sunday Salon - A quick update

Due to the fact that I am feeling a bit tired and just want to get to bed at the moment, this post will be fairly short and sweet.  At the moment I am starting to prepare my place for the Christmas season.  I realize that its only mid-November, but with an ankle sprain, its going to make getting ready this year a little more difficult.  But with some help, I'll be able to do so.  Foot is healing nicely, but am still careful as to how much I use it.

I was able to get some books completed this past week, but not as much as I had hoped for.  Hope you have a relaxing Sunday.

Reviews:
1) The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (review)
2) Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber (review)

Call Me Mrs. Miracle - Debbie Macomber

Title: Call Me Mrs. Miracle
Author: Debbie Macomber
File Size (Pages): 329 KB (257)
Published: 2010
Challenges: Ebook
Genre: Fiction, Christmas, Romance
Edition: E-book
Source: Library

Description: This Christmas, Emily Merkle (call her Mrs. Miracle ) is working in the toy department at Finley's, the last family-owned department store in New York City. And her boss is none other than...Jake Finley, the owner's son.

For Jake, holiday memories of brightly wrapped gifts, decorated trees and family were destroyed in a Christmas Eve tragedy years before. Now Christmas means just one thing to him--and to his father. Profit. Because they need a Christmas miracle to keep the business afloat.

Holly Larson needs a miracle, too. She wants to give her eight-year-old nephew, Gabe, the holiday he deserves. Holly's widowed brother is in the army and won't be home for Christmas, but at least she can get Gabe that toy robot from Finley's, the one gift he desperately wants. If she can figure out how to afford it...

Fortunately, it's Mrs. Miracle to the rescue. Next to making children happy, she likes nothing better than helping others--and that includes doing a bit of matchmaking (via Goodreads)

Thoughts:I had wanted to read this book a few years ago and when I was browsing through the e-book selections available through my public library, I thought why not.  It wasn't great, but then it wasn't particularly bad either.  It was basically so-so. I wasn't exactly expecting a great masterpiece, but I think I was expecting a little more than I ended up getting.  I also didn't expect that the story would be as short as it was, as it was about half of the e-copy that I had borrowed and the other half were two other stories that I didn't really expect.  Maybe I should have read the other stories included in the e-copy to get a better idea, but since I had only wanted the main story of the book, I felt that I had basically done my duty.

Bottom line: Its a good Christmas story and if you are looking for something that will be fairly easy to read during the upcoming holiday season, I would recommend the book, especially if you are needing something to occupy your time for an afternoon.

Rating: 3/5

Pages for 2013: 17, 377

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (Nov.11)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a fun weekly meme that is hosted by Shelia at Book Journey, in which we share what we've read and reviewed and what we plan on reading in the coming week.


What I have reviewed since the last post:
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (review)
• The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (review) 

Books I plan on working on this coming week: 
• The Count of Monte Cristo 
• I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
• The Snow Child
• War & Peace 
• The Goldfinch
• Call Me Mrs. Miracle
(I have a foot injury and therefore one of the few things that I can do is read; I didn't abandon Eleanor & Park, just had to return it to the library, as I ran out of time, but I did get about 3/4 of the book completed and am hoping to get it soon to pick it up again)

What's up next:
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince  (sorry if this is sounding like a broken record, I am really intending on reading it soon, just the weekly list seems to be adding new books)     

The Good Earth - Pear S. Buck

Title: The Good Earth
Author: Pearl S. Buck
Pages: 357
Published: 2004 (first published 1931)
Challenges: The Classics Club, Historical Fiction, OfftheShelf, Embarrassment of Riches
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary
Edition: Paperback
Source: Personal

Description: This tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall.

Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.  (via Goodreads)

Thoughts: It took me at least until the half-way through the book to get into the book and to actually understand the point of the book and see its importance in the modern literary canon.  Its almost as though the land is a part of Wang Lung, no matter how poor or wealthy he becomes; as though he is a nurturer of the land around him and sees himself as a steward for the earth, treating it in a manner that is respectful and honourable.  The book, in a way, could be a morality story on how to treat the land, in that if one treats the land well and with respect, it will in turn treat you well and with respect; almost an early form of environmentalism before the term was being used frequently.

Bottom line: I would probably recommend this book that enjoy books by the likes of Steinbeck, Hemmingway, and Faulkner.  It has the same sort of epic and literary quality that one can find with those authors (yes, I have read at least one piece of each).  Highly recommended.

Rating: 4/5

Pages for 2013: 17,120

Sunday Salon - A bit of set back

Unless you follow me on Facebook through my personal Facebook account, you probably have no clue what I mean by my title.  So I'll explain.

As some of you know, I severely sprained my left ankle this past August and for the past few months, I have been avoiding walking much to allow my ankle to heal and within the last two weeks, it had started to feel a bit better and hence I started to use a bit more by walking and taking the bus places rather than my car.  And this past week I decided to walk to the bus loop at my local mall starting on Monday.  Monday was great and everything went fine and I had no issues.  Tuesday I took the car, as I was slowly introducing my ankle to more walking but so far it felt fine, so I decided to walk to the bus loop the next day, Wednesday.  And as I was walking to Starbucks to get my morning coffee, I had a vision of my slipping on the path that I like to take down to the bus loop area and decided to shake it off because I thought it was nothing.  Little did I know how true it would become.  So as I was going through this path, I slipped and somehow I twisted my left ankle.  I have slipped there before and done the same thing with my left ankle and I was able to shake it off and go on my way, but this time I was unable to do so and I re-injured my ankle.  Fortunately I have a good set of lungs and somebody saw me slip and I was able to get some help and within 30 min I was in an ambulance on my way to emergency.

Sat around the ER for about 3 hours before getting a diagnosis of a sprained ankle and here I am sitting with my left ankle wrapped up, still a bit sore (not as bad as it was in August), and elevated for the next few weeks.  I have been up and around doing things, as I have the aid of crutches and my mom who came a bit earlier than she intended to help me out for a bit.  As my mom said, its a set back, but not much of one and since I know what to do when one has a sprained ankle, I am a bit more patient and little more willingness to sit around and let it heal a bit more properly this time.

Fortunately the swelling is also going down more quickly this time around, as I can move my foot a bit more than in August at around the same time, but I feel as though the pain is a lot more sharp than what it was in August, but then I am not popping Advil as much this time around and trying to avoid taking pain medication as much as possible and trying to ice it as much as I can.


As I mentioned above, I have been able to get a bit of reading in and about an hour ago, I finished reading The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (I'll put up a review sometime later this week) and I started a few Christmas reads for the Ho-Ho-Ho Read-a-thon that is taking place this weekend. 

Hope you all have a good Sunday and happy reading :)

Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

I love Christmas, especially the lead up and with a re-injured foot from an injury suffered a few months ago, I will have lots of time for doing some reading, especially of the holiday variety.  And I have always loved this challenge and have participated in the last couple editions of this challenge and I encourage you to join up, especially if you like reading holiday-themed books.  You can find the sign up here or by clicking on the photo above.

As for me I will be attempting the Mistletoe level:
1. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley (review)
2. The Dogs of Christmas by W. Bruce Cameron (review)
3. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (review)
4. Starry Night by Debbie Macomber (review)

And will also be doing the FaLaLaLa Films challenge as well.
1. Love Actually
2. The Holiday
3. A Christmas Story
4. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
5. A Christmas Carol (1951)
I don't know if I will do reviews of the films, but if I do, I will link them here.

But to kick off this reading challenge, will be hosting a readathon for the first weekend of the reading challenge.  You can find more information about the readathon here or by clicking on the photo below.  Hope you can join me there as well.

Ho-Ho-Ho Read-a-Thon Starting point

So it starts, at least in a couple of hours from now and since I re-injured the foot I injured about 3 months ago, I will be definitely reading this coming weekend.  I don't know how much, but I am hoping that most of the weekend will be taken up with reading with books, especially those of a Christmas/Holiday variety.  I do have to read The Good Earth, but that shouldn't take too much of my time.

Here are the books that I have selected:
• Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber
• I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

I don't know how much I am going to get done of each book, but I am hoping to finish Call Me Mrs. Miracle and Half-Sick of Shadows.  I will likely aim to start reading The Snow Child instead of completing it.