book nerd Archives - Food, Booze, & Baggage

Show Us Your Books: January/February 2016

March 8, 2016 by Mariah 24 Comments

Hello All! I made it back to the blog for Show Us Your Books! I’m combining two months for this post, and really most of these were read in January. Much like blogging, reading has also gotten a bit of a bump when it comes to prioritizing time. However, reading is one of the few activities that really relaxes me (ie I can focus on it and only it), so I do try to get some reading time in at night or in the morning. This is what I’ve been reading lately…

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

It was a good read. I sort of figured out what was probably going on midway through, but it was a well written, well developed story. I feel like it’s a good pass the time read, but not too fluffy either.

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

I have so enjoyed both her book. I find them laugh out loud funny, like I was reading this one at the airport laughing out loud. I can’t say I like one over the other one, I enjoyed them both. I did like how this one really got into her career and how she got The Mindy Show. Here were a few of my favorite quotes:

“We will never come home to each other again and we will never again have each other’s undivided attention. That version of our friendship is over forever.”

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you don’t got if? Flaunt it. ‘Cause what are we even doing here if we’re not flaunting it?”

“People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you’re succeeding. People do not get scared when you’re failing. It calms them.”

FanGirl by Rainbow Rowell

Loved, loved this book! I love all of her books 🙂 Her character development is what makes her books. I’m always so surprised at how much I enjoy her books, most of the time reading the summary, I think, nope not for me and then I get sucked right in and LOVE it. I didn’t even mind the fan fiction. I have to say I’m not hugely drawn to the concept of Carry On, but I’m totally going to read it, because well I’ve learned my lesson. Just for fun I decided to rank her books: 1. Eleanor & Park 2. FanGirl 3. Attachments 4. LandLine. It was a bit a toss up between 2 and 3. What has been your favorite?

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

I was not a fan. I kept thinking that it would kind of come together, and was disappointed. I could not get into the story, the writing rhythm totally threw me off. I like books where I can get lost in the story and this was not it. It is interesting that it started as a podcast though. One day I will learn just to put books down that I don’t really like, but it doesn’t seem like that will be anytime soon 🙂

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

This book was one of those that got you hooked immediately, and I stayed up way too late reading. This book was all kinds of crazy, and twists and turns (though lots that you saw coming). It is a bit on the long side, but I would rather get more closure than less.

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

Meh. I don’t have anything much to say with this one. I just felt very blah about it overall, not the worst book, but didn’t really love the characters, the plot, or how it was presented. I wasn’t a fan of the jumping back and forth in time either. Also, the side story on the mom and detective was more annoying than sweet to me.

Thank you to Steph & Jana for always keeping us well stocked in the reading department!!

What have you been reading lately?

Show Us Your Books: December 2015

January 11, 2016 by Mariah 28 Comments

Had a great reading month in December!

The first thing I must share is that, Miriam (Farm Girl), finished and published her very first book!!

How To Be You

I am SO proud of Miriam for following through on a dream and putting herself out there. I was beyond thrilled to get to push buy on Amazon and read her book. I was smiling ear to ear reading it, and crying a little too. Nothing I can write here will do her justice. I don’t push you guys much here to do anything, but I demand you go buy this book 🙂 GO NOW, PRESS BUY!! Seriously, it’s your lose if you don’t listen to me.

In other December reading news, I had several books that really got me thinking and are changing my daily actions, which I love. As always when we talk about books it’s with Jana & Steph 🙂

A Good Marriage by Stephen King

I just randomly picked this up between books. It’s more of a short story than a novel, and this edition contained the story 1922, which was actually longer than A Good Marriage. Both were ok, but not my favorite King writing. A bit more old school thriller/mystery as in the lines of Hitchcock. Apparently they made a movie of A Good Marriage, I’m going to have to look it up. That is what drew me in to choose this book, as I was waiting on holds 🙂

Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon

LOVED this book. Very quick read, but so many good tidbits. Sometimes you need to hear out loud (read out loud) things that are common sense, but click when you see them on paper. I felt like there was so much good advice in this book. I get really overwhelmed with the idea of originality especially with spending so much time online, so this resonated with me to get out of my own head. I pulled a few of the passages that I really felt rang a bell with me…

“What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.”

“If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.”

“You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”

“…if you try to devour the history of your discipline all at once, you’ll choke. Instead, chew on one thinker–writer, artist, activist, role model–you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Then find three people that thinker loved, and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can. Climb up the tree as far as you can go.”

Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

Loved, loved. This is a book that I can say 100% changed actions and something I’m still working on applying today. I took like five pages of notes and it really got me thinking about how I set goals, and daily routines. This is one of my top books for getting me thinking and putting things in a different mindset for myself. Very thought provoking, but also very actionable. Prior to this book, I had not read The Happiness Project. Embarrassingly enough I didn’t even realize she wrote The Happiness Project, though she referred it often in Better Than Before (however she never said “my” book). She breaks down personality into four types when it comes to building habits and approaching goals: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. She then goes through different approaches to building habits and how the different types can best use these approaches. I just loved this book, and had so many good ideas while reading it. I’ve been struggling with getting a daily routine together, and this book was wonderful for me.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Of course after reading Better Than Before, I checked this out immediately. The books certainly flow into one another, though I think I might have looked at Better Than Before with a more fresh view of the author than if I had read The Happiness Project first. I really liked this one too, though it felt less actionable than Better Than Before. Honestly, it’s hard to separate the two completely in my mind, once I finished this one. The Happiness Project reads to me much more of a personal story, where Better Than Before is a bit more scientific based. I liked The Happiness Project too and it had some great lessons about being more mindful. I love the idea of building your personal commandments and really evaluating what do you enjoy, versus what you “wish” you enjoyed. This is an exercise that I am absolutely working on and bringing into my life.

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

Nice fast-paced plot that draws you in quickly. I think the “love” story was so superfluous to the story, it could have so easily been left out. It seemed so silly to add that in and not tie it better to the plot or emotions of the character…other than hook-up scenes and a splash of jealousy here and there. I felt like the ending was presented in a clunky manner, and super rushed. Honestly they could have cut out some of the “love story” and added to the end instead of cramming it all into the Epilogue. Good entertainment value but overall the characters and plot could have used some refinement as you got further into the story.

The Expats by Chris Pavone

I hated the back and forth jumping in time of this book. Often times jumping around does not really bother me, but in this book it did. I considered giving up on it half way through, because I was so annoyed. To me it was hard to really get into the plot. Of course right about when I thought about giving in, they stopped jumping around quite so much. The plot is interesting but I was not blown away with this one.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

What an interesting read! I really enjoyed how he organized the book and found it very intriguing and engaging. I enjoyed this book much more than I expected. I thought the topic was interesting so I thought I would give it a try, and found the author very witty and engaging. Not a dry book, so if you have an interest in psychology at all, I think you would enjoy it.

ReWork by Jason Fried

I like how straightforward this book was. I think there was some good advice there for anyone in business. I would have loved to share some that knowledge, but my kindle did not save my highlights 🙁 I’m so sad.

What books are on your 2016 reading list?

P.S. As a total side note, I’m really focusing on building my business this month. January has started off great. Anyway that is why I’ve been quiet over here, I just need to put all my attention and energy to get BHG off the ground 🙂 So sorry for the lack of interaction lately….don’t worry I’ll be back when things get smoother.

Show Us Your Books: October

November 10, 2015 by Mariah 20 Comments

This month was a bit of a flop reading wise. I’m actually quite proud of myself with doing at least one nonfiction a month lately, and this month even two!! I’m really getting into the self-help genre…who would have thunk it 🙂

As always, thanks to Jana and Steph for hosting the linkup that brings all us book nerds together 🙂

The title is linked to Goodreads and the cover is linked to Amazon. The Amazon link is an affiliated link*.

The Devil You Know by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

First of all, I mixed this book up with another one by the same name…FAIL. I have the other one on hold, but did not realize my mistake until I read this one. Huge palm plant. I considered putting it down about 20% in. The writing is not good, I hated how it was written/presented. It was like reading a story told by someone who mind keeps wondering. It could have been a much better book with better editing. The storyline did pull me in, but even by the end I was meh with the whole thing. This was not a good use of time.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

I’m a bit torn on this one. I liked it, but felt like it was drawn out. The plot was good enough, and the writing was good, but it wasn’t all that compelling. I don’t know, I just wasn’t pulled into the story like I would have liked. I feel like it could have been shorter and not lost anything. I’m glad I tried out one Hill’s books, and would give him another shot. I could certainly feel some similarities in his writing and King’s. I think I might have thought that even if I didn’t know prior that he is Stephen King’s son.

The Girl With A Clock For a Heart by Peter Swanson

I felt the story pulled me in immediately but didn’t go anywhere. I seriously, seriously hated the end. I thought maybe the book had a cliche and it didn’t load fully. I’m wondering if I should bother with the The Kind Worth Killing. For me, a huge part of the story is to find out what happened.

Life and Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan

This was an Amazon free book. I didn’t care for it, but pushed through to the end. One of these days I might learn to just put a book down that I’m just not that into. I didn’t like the way it was narrated and found the main character annoying/boring/unrealistic…all of these at different points while reading.

The Time Chamber by Daria Song: A Magical Story and Coloring Book

This was a Blogging For Books** order. It has a beautiful cover, and I love the copper colored accents. Very light on story and plenty of illustrations. The “story” as it is, is really maybe a totally of 10-12 sentences spread throughout the book. As far as a coloring book goes, it certainly has some beautiful illustrations and pages. Some pages/elements I don’t think were well designed for coloring. I think the detail and artistic illustrations makes it a good addition to the adult coloring market. However the story is very child like, but many of the illustrations have such small details, it may not be that successful as a child’s coloring book. I’ve included a few sample picture pages below.

Example of a page that does not seemed designed for coloring

Esther (Local Adventurer) did a whole post on adult coloring books if you want to see more options. Also if you live in San Diego, Pigment had a TON on my last visit at the end of October. **I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.

I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam

I surprisingly felt like I got a lot out of this book. This book is centered around working moms and how they use their time. There were parts that I very briefly skimmed or skipped since they don’t apply at all to my life, like how to make “quality” time with your kid (tips on activities not how to “make” the time). Even though it wasn’t geared towards me as a reader I did find it to offer good advice, and more importantly, it was thought provoking. My personal take-aways included:

Be more mindful with my time. I know I 100% am not that intention or mindful of how I spend my time. I would like to work on this and in fact you can see a little of this reflected in my November goals post.
Find and plan activities I (or me & P) will enjoy and schedule them. Not rocket-science with this one and we certainly do a lot, but we also fall into ruts or the “what do you want to do, I don’t know what do you want to do”. Make better use of weekday evenings, we really have fallen into a bit of a rut here. Prior to a few months ago we would at least schedule one dinner out a week, but we totally let that go. We picked it back up a few weeks here at the end of the month, but I want us to be more mindful.
Similar to the above, but more me oriented, keep a list of things I “want” to work on, instead of things I feel like I “should” work on.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Mixed feelings on this book. I thought she had some excellent points/suggestions, and I could really get a sense of her passion. However the beginning and the end of the book seemed very repetitive, and felt like filler. The meat of the book is in the middle. In the beginning I was thinking ok where is this going, as she talks over and over about what she use to do when she came home from school. I can appreciate some of her theories. Personally, I’ve been trying to buy and keeping clothes that I only love, and feel good in. As I wear items and they annoy me or I just don’t feel good in them, I’ve been discarding them. I really question how well this could be applied to families or men in general. She only mentions one client specifically that was male, and only one couple, the rest seemed primarily to be women. I think this is a good book to read, especially if you struggle with overflowing clothes or other areas, it could help you change your mindset a little. Of course some parts of the book I just can’t, but I’m not going to be judgemental on them here as it may really make a connection with others 🙂 Some advice really hit home, like not downgrading items to loungewear (totally something I do and either don’t wear or don’t feel comfortable in), and feeling guilty about items I’ve hardly used. I think this book was a worthwhile read for me.

What is one “self-help” you have read that really got you thinking or changed your lifestyle/habits?

Have you joined the latest trend and tried out an adult coloring book?

Show Us Your Books: August

September 8, 2015 by Mariah 18 Comments

August was a slow reading month. I was working on other things, and found it hard to make time to read. Additionally, the first book on my list took me FOREVER to finish. Though I’m always growing my list from this link-up so my excuse can never be I don’t know what to read. If you need a good book recommendation make sure to check out the other bloggers linking up for:

The title is linked to Goodreads and the cover is linked to Amazon. The Amazon link is an affiliated link*. I’ve pulled the description from Goodreads.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).–Goodreads

I can see why this book is getting so much buzz, the writing is so descriptive. I’m not a huge of fan of the way it skipped around, but it was a really well crafted story. I love the descriptions used for Marie-Laure experiences and what she “sees”. I liked that it followed the characters through their lives after the war a bit, though I did feel the story was a bit unresolved. There were definitely some parts of the story I would have liked wrapped up.

Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

Told from the perspectives of Molly, Barbara, and Sandy, Kimberly McCreight’s taut and profoundly moving novel unwinds the tangled truth about the baby’s death revealing that these three women have far more in common than they realized. And that their lives are more intertwined with what happened to the baby than they ever could have imagined.–Goodreads

I really did not see the twist coming in this one. A fairly fast-paced read, but felt a bit drawn out. I like these kinds of books to have a little more action. I felt like the story just scratched the surface of the characters. An ok read, but not great.

Breath of Scandal by Sandra Brown

On a rainy Southern night, Jade Sperry endured a young woman’s worst nightmare at the hands of three local hell-raisers. Robbed of her youthful ideals and at the center of scandal and tragedy, Jade ran as far and as fast as she could. But she never forgot the sleepy “company town” where every man, woman, and child was dependent on one wealthy family. And she never forgot their spoiled son, who, with his two friends, changed her life forever. Someday, somehow, she’d return, exact a just revenge — and free herself from fear, and the powerful family that could destroy her.–Goodreads

This one was ok. I really don’t have too much to say on it. It was a quick read that drew you in. Some parts I liked more than others, but not a book I would per se highly recommend. It was a good pass the time book. I think it could have done without some of the more detailed sex scenes, just not my type of read.

The Wicked Will Rise (Dorothy Must Die Book 2)

In this dark, high-octane sequel to the New York Times bestsellingDorothy Must Die, Amy Gumm must do everything in her power to kill Dorothy and free Oz.
To make Oz a free land again, Amy Gumm was given a mission: remove the Tin Woodman’s heart, steal the Scarecrow’s brain, take the Lion’s courage, and then Dorothy must die…
But Dorothy still lives. Now the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked has vanished, and mysterious Princess Ozma might be Amy’s only ally. As Amy learns the truth about her mission, she realizes that she’s only just scratched the surface of Oz’s past—and that Kansas, the home she couldn’t wait to leave behind, may also be in danger. In a place where the line between good and evil shifts with just a strong gust of wind, who can Amy trust—and who is really Wicked?–Goodreads

It’s a fun series. I like the imagination that goes into describing OZ, probably more so than the characters. It’s a good book for a mindless read. I felt like the story did not progress all that much from book one of the series.

What good books have you read lately?

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the book covers and buy the book, I’ll receive a percentage of the sale.