Monday List!

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This week-- 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
4. Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie
5. An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones
6. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
7. Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles
8. Wild Swans by Jung Chang
9. The Stephanie Plum series (starts with One for the Money) by Janet Evanovich
10. The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle

Monday Recommendations

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This week-- 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. Look Again by Lisa Scottoline
2. Love Your Life by Victoria Osteen
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4. Wild Swans  by Jung Chang
5. Wherever You Go, There You Are  by Jon Kabat-Zinn
6. Day After Night by Anita Diamant
7. Say You Love Me by Johanna Lindsey
8. The Quickie by James Patterson
9. War by Sebastian Junger
10. Tao Te Ching  by Lao Tzu

Monday Recommendation List

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This weeks 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. Huge book of facts: The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge by John Leonard
2. A favorite classic: To Kill a Mockingbird  by Harper Lee
3. Simple & spiritual: The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
4. Beautiful memoir: Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
5. Suspenseful:  The Informant by James Grippando
6. Thoughtful parenting: Raising Freethinkers by Dale McGowan
7. Healthy ideas: Are You Ready by Bob Harper
8. Historical Chinese memoir: Wild Swans by Jung Chang
9. Light, humorous suspense: Stephanie Plum Series (begins with One for the Money) by Janet Evanovich
10. For the romance lover: Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Description from Amazon.com: "Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.

Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history."

My thoughts: I enjoy reading memoirs by people vastly different than myself. This book was lengthy, but worth the read. A lot of Chinese history is included, woven with Chang's personal family history. I have read superficially of the Cultural Revolution in China. Chang provided me with more details and put human faces on this historical period. I recommend this to all readers that enjoy memoirs or history. The one complaint I would express is that the book, to me, is long on detail and short on emotion.