Wednesday, April 26, 2006

(last amended June 28th, 2006...)


This is a continuation of a journal held in another place.

For ease of use I have included an index of titles and the date of entry:
"A Match Made in Heaven," June 4th, 2006
"Can you keep a secret," Apr 26th, 2006
"Chasing the dime," May 4th, 2006
"City of Truth," May 8th, 2006
"Killer Takes All," May 14th, 2006
"Lie By Moonlight," May 31st, 2006
"The Jury," June 27th, 2006
"The Rescue," June 28th, 2006

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date: today

"Can You Keep a Secret," by Sophie Kinsella, c. 2004

It's from booksfree.com and will be next after Jared's Love-Child by Sandra Field, c. 1999

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date: May 4th 2006

"Chasing the Dime," by Michael Connelly, c. 2002

book is from Davidson Public Library.

It will follow Shadows at Sunset by Anne Stuart, c. 2000

I collect quotes as I read. These ones are fun, poetical, or even philosophical. Take what you like, and leave the rest. Note that these aren't necessarily the "best" in the book. These happen to be close to the spot where I stopped reading each night.

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 --
Before leaving, he went back into the living room and stood before her bookcase. Her shelves were crowded. Hardcover books only. It was an altar to knowledge and experience and adventure. He remembered one time walking into the living room and finding her on the couch. She wasn't reading. She was just looking up at her books.
One of the shelves was completely dedicated to books about tattoos and graphic design. He stepped over and let his finger tick along the spines of the books until he found the one he knew was there and pulled it out. It was a book about Chinese pictograms, the book from which she had chosen her tattoo. He turned the pages until he found 'fu' and read the copy. It quoted Confucius. "With coarse rice to eat, with only water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I am happy." p359

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date: May 8th, 2006

"City of Truth," by James Morrow, c. 1990

This book is from booksfree.com and is next after The Bachelor by Carly Phillips, c. 2002

Fun passages:
A door opened. A short, round, onion-eyed man in a white lab coat came out, accompanied by a fiftyish couple - a blobby woman in a shabby beige dress and her equally fat, equally disheveled husband: rumpled golf cap, oversized polyester polo shirt, baggy corduroy pants; they looked like a pair of bookends they'd failed to unload at their own garage sale. p41



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date: May 14th, 2006

"Killer Takes All," by Erica Spindler, c. 2005

Penne from across the road gave me this to read. I think she sees me reading outside all the time and thought it would be fun to share the fun. What a neat gesture.

I'm going to read it after my current read:
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, c. 2005

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date: May 31st, 2006

"Lie by Moonlight," by Amanda Quick, c. 2005

This was also given to me by Penne. It will be next after Fool's Gold by Jennifer Skully, c. 2005

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date: June 4, 2006

List of recent reads

The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews, c. 2002
Children of the Lion by Peter Danielson, c. 1980
Small Island by Andrea Levy, c. 2004
Killer Takes All by Erica Spindler, c. 2005
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, c. 2005
Full Circle by Kay Thorpe, c. 1978
Chasing the Dime by Michael Connelly, c. 2002
Shadows at Sunset by Anne Stuart, c. 2000
The Town by Bentley Little, c. 2000
Can You Keep A Secret by Sophie Kinsella, c. 2004
Jared's Love-child by Sandra Field, c. 1999
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, c. 1985
A Delicate Finish by Jeanette Baker, c. 2005
Fantasy Wife by Julie Kistler, c. 1995
Moon Shadows anthology, c. 2004
Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson, c. 2004
Deep Cover by Brian Garfield, c. 1971
Make-believe Marriage by Renee Roszel, c. 1995
Montana Man by Barbara Delinsky, c. 1989
Brazen by Carly Phillips, c. 1999
Burning Dreams by Peggy Nicholson, c. 1991
Ella In Europe by Michael Konik, c. 2005
Once a Dreamer by Candice Hern, c. 2003
Where or When by Anita Shreve, c. 1993
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, c. 2004


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date: June 4th, 2006

"A Match Made in Heaven," by Susan Wales & Ann Platz, c.1999

Randomly chosen from my pile of books from booksfree.com. It's next after Spring Fancy an anthology, c. 1993

ah -- a bookring has emerged and it will now be after By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz, c. 2002

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date: Jun 11th, 2006

This is what my profile at BC looks as of today.

Welcome!!

Pammykn introduced me to bookcrossing by sending me Cold Tree on a Hot Day through the mail. The idea intrigued me and I responded by sending The Hours out into the wild. My first "catch" was in December, 2004. I left a book at MacDonalds (exit 33, I77) I'm so happy :)) It was Scarlatti Inheritance. My second catch was this one. It was journaled 8 months later! Here is one I left at a OBCZ St Cinnamons. This one has traveled a bit.

Most of the books here have not been read. Pls feel free to message me if you see a book that tickles your fancy. I will then most likely bump it up my TBR list.

Why the kiwifruit? I am an expat kiwi.

Currently reading:
Fool's Gold by Jennifer Skully, c. 2005

Just Finished:
Silence in October by Jens Christian Grondahl, c. 1996
False Light by Caroline Llewllyn, c. 1997
City of Truth by James Morrow, c. 1990
The Bachelor by Carly Phillips, c. 2002
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, c. 2000


see this link for Books read from 1997 to June 29th, 2005 xx from June 29th, 2005 to October 6th, 2005. xx from October 7th, 2005 to April 7th, 2006 xx Books read April, May, 2006 xx.

I collect quotes as I read. These ones are fun, poetical, or even philosophical. Take what you like, and leave the rest. Note that these aren't necessarily the "best" in the book. These happen to be close to the spot where I stopped reading each night.

Monday, June 13th, 2006 --
I mused that time is not only a river, but a river that constantly breaks its banks so you must flee from it as it covers everything behind your back, flee into the future, empty-handed and dispossessed, as the river obliterates your footprints with every step you take, your every passage from one moment to the next. It is only our own helpless lack of synchronicity, the inertia of our senses, the illusory power of memory and habit, that shields us from facing the unknown when we open our eyes in the morning, washed up on the shore of yet another alien day. Every morning we tread an unknown path, and we only have faint and falling memories to tell us who we might be. Disconnected, frayed memories, that no longer distinguish between the world we passed and the shadows it cast in our hollow, clean-swept head as we fled onward, on and on. Now and then we overcoe our fear of stumbling and turn around to look back one last time, and again one very last time, because we do not understand the strangeness that approaches, and the words we have to name it will be hopelessly inadequate , and so we flee from the havoc of time, backward, until we are nothing other than the story there is to tell of all we have lost. p292
Silence in October by Jens Christian Grondahl, c. 1996

Saturday, June 11, 2006 --
In a short while, when I had taken a bath and changed my shirt, I would go down in the elevator and mix with the crowd at the bottom of the shaft among the columns of shining glass. I would reduce myself to a particle among particles fluctuating beneath me, each with its own direction and yet swallowed up in the same stream of continual, unstoppable, directionless movement. p101
Silence in October by Jens Christian Grondahl, c. 1996

Sunday, June 4th, 2006 --
A door opened. A short, round, onion-eyed man in a white lab coat came out, accompanied by a fiftyish couple - a blobby woman in a shabby beige dress and her equally fat, equally disheveled husband: rumpled golf cap, oversized polyester polo shirt, baggy corduroy pants; they looked like a pair of bookends they'd failed to unload at their own garage sale. p41
City of Truth by James Morrow, c. 1990

Sunday, May 28th, 2006 --
Today I will choose to be happy. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit.
In the past, I have found discouragement in particular situations until I compared the condition of my life to others less fortunate. Just as fresh breeze cleans smoke from the air, so a grateful spirit removes the cloud of despair. It is impossible for the seeds of depression to take root in a thankful heart.
My God has bestowed upon me many gifts, and for these I will remember to be grateful. Too many times I have offered up the prayers of a beggar, always asking for more and forgetting to give thanks. I do not wish to be seen as a greedy child, unappreciative and disrespectful. I am grateful for sight and sound and breath. If ever in my life there is a pouring out of blessings beyond that, then I will be grateful for the miracle of abundance.
I will greet each day with laughter. I will smile at every person I meet. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit.
Today I will choose to be happy. p110
The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews, c. 2002

Monday, May 22nd, 2006 --
Early Bird, my teacher at Bolsbrooke Elementary School, taught us all in English grammar that an apostrophe is a mark to show where something is missing. And that was how I'd always seen Bernard's father, Arthur: a human spostrophe. He was there but only to show that something precious had gone astray. When Bernard said he was being posted overseas I asked him who was going to look after his father now. A bewildered expression was all I got tell that I was. p288
Small Island by Andrea Levy, c. 2004

Monday, May 15th, 2006 --
"I've been happy here," XX said, and it was true. FF felt congestion had ruined Paris, but for XX the charm was infinite, the boulangeries and the patisseries, the crepes sold from street stands, the spires of ancient buildings, the bells. The sounds, too, of the language flowing like a stream, a word here and there emerging like a pebble. p333
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, c. 2005

Sunday, May 14th, 2006 --
He scanned the room for her again and did not see her, and the first threads of panic began, tiny, pervasive, like the filaments of mushrooms hidden in a log. p256
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, c. 2005

Some (perhaps) interesting updates:

From Nov 11, 2003 - Dec 11, 2003, I had a much needed moratorium on buying books from charity stores etc. It was an exercise in self-control which on the whole I managed to achieve! I have a love/hate relationship with Ebay. The boxes of books are wonderful but I have bought much more than I can chew.

Update March 1st, 2004 --
I'm so excited!! Dusties left one of my books, First Counsel, in the wild last month and it's in now in Asia!

Update March 19th 2004 --

I am releasing some books at Caribou Coffee on Park Rd in Charlotte this afternoon. AdventureTom is trying to set up an Official Bookcrossing Zone there so I thought I would go along and have a look. These are the books I'm taking with me...

The Shape of the Snakes by Minette Walters -- picked up March 19th, 2004.
Almost Innocent by Jane Feather
22 Indigo Place by Sandra Brown -- picked up March 20th, 2004.
The Incumbent by Brian McGrory -- picked up April 4th, 2004.
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian -- no longer there -- I brought it home again to release locally.

December 2004 --

HOLIDAY CLEAR-OFF -- BOOKRINGS GALORE ...
There are 19 days left til Christmas and I have so many books lingering, relaxing, reposing on my shelves. I want to offer up some bookrings. Just PM me.

1. Zen and the Art of Fatherhood by Steven Lewis
2. A Scandalous Proposal by Julia Justiss
3. Tender Malice by Catherine Lanigan
4. Wild West Wife by Susan Mallery
5. Meant for Trent & Leigh's for Me by Liz Jarrett

6. Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend by Robert James Weller
7. A Painted House by John Grisham
8. Guardian Angel by Sara Paretsky
9. Temporary Santa by Cathy Thacker & Leigh Michaels
10. The Bachelor by Carly Phillips
11. Name Dropping by Jane Heller
12. 7B by Stella Cameron
13. Blue Skies by Catherine Anderson
14. Southern Gentemen by Jennifer Blake and Emilie Richards
15. The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown by Julia Quinn and others
16. After the Music by Diana Palmer
17. The Other Twin by Katherine Stone
18. Undressed by Stef Ann Holm
19. The Leopard's Women & White Wolf by Linda Lael Miller & Lindsay McKenna

These are the bookrays I have intitiated 2003/2004:

Satellite Sisters Uncommon Senses
The Pleasure Principle
Inner Gardening
The Five People You Meet In Heaven

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June 27th, 2006

"The Jury," by Fern Michaels, c. 2006

Copy is from Penne across the road.

Chosen to be next after Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie, c. 2005

Enjoyable escape :)

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June 28th, 2006

"The Rescue," by Nicholas Sparks, c. 2000

This is from booksfree.com.

Chosen to be next after "The Jury", see above.

Ah, this was a great book. It's not often that I cry when reading but this one made me weep.