This year I am going to add (and remove) a few changes to this blog.
One of them will be adding a monthly wrap up post to re-cap and highlight my blog, books and purses and whatever is on my mind. As well, I will also add a few memes here and there too! I like to mix things up. Give my blog a shake up. You know what I mean. LOL!
This month I bought
1 book. (A total of 1 book so far this year)
Guess what I got for Valentines Day ya'll!!!!
This month I bought
1 book. (A total of 1 book so far this year)
Guess what I got for Valentines Day ya'll!!!!
GUESSS!!!!
Nope!
Guess again!!
OK! Ok! I will tell you.
AN IPAD!!!!
Yes! Can you believe it?! I am so happy! It's like a dream come true! *happy dance* And of course I named her BABY! That's my baby! LOL! And yes I take my BABY everywhere. I just love her so much!!!!!!
Ok on to the other monthly wrap up news....
Purchased Audiobooks from Audible.com
Nope!
Guess again!!
OK! Ok! I will tell you.
AN IPAD!!!!
Yes! Can you believe it?! I am so happy! It's like a dream come true! *happy dance* And of course I named her BABY! That's my baby! LOL! And yes I take my BABY everywhere. I just love her so much!!!!!!
Ok on to the other monthly wrap up news....
Purchased Audiobooks from Audible.com
Here is the story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the refuge a little girl took from the turmoil at home with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother. But it was when she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that the precocious Sonia recognized she must ultimately depend on herself. She would learn to give herself the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a different life. With only television characters for her professional role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County District Attorney’s office, private practice, and appointment to the Federal District Court before the age of forty. Along the way we see how she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children. Through her still-astonished eyes, America’s infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.
I got this one since it is the book club pick for the month of March.
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.
This has been on my TBR pile for awhile. And since Audible.com was having a BOGO I got it and the next one.
The Fault In Our Stars by John Greene
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
I just want all the book bloggers to know that I added this to my TBR Pile because of all the hype you all have given it. I purchased it from Audible.com during their BOGO sale.
I got this one since it is the book club pick for the month of March.
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.
This has been on my TBR pile for awhile. And since Audible.com was having a BOGO I got it and the next one.
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
I just want all the book bloggers to know that I added this to my TBR Pile because of all the hype you all have given it. I purchased it from Audible.com during their BOGO sale.
From an exciting new voice in African-American contemporary fiction comes a novel Ebony praised for its "unforgettable images, unique characters, and moving story that keeps the pages turning until the end." The Chicago Defender calls Sugar "a literary explosion...McFadden reveals amazing talent." The novel opens when a young prostitute comes to Bigelow, Arkansas, to start over, far from her haunting past. Sugar moves next door to Pearl, who is still grieving for the daughter who was murdered fifteen years before. Over sweet-potato pie, an unlikely friendship begins, transforming both women's lives--and the life of an entire town.
Sugar brings a Southern African-American town vividly to life, with its flowering magnolia trees, lingering scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, and white picket fences that keep strangers out--but ignorance and superstition in. To read this novel is to take a journey through loss and suffering to a place of forgiveness, understanding, and grace. McFadden is the author of the novels Gathering of Waters, Glorious, and This Bitter Earth.
From the Author for Review
Know who you are and whose you are - for it determines the course of your destiny.
Good storytelling is timeless. Author Monda Raquel Webb packs her goodie bag of stories with unabashed honesty, American history and essential life lessons.
From the red clay of Georgia to the majestic mountains of West Virginia to the Federal Enclave of Washington, DC, four short stories poignantly demonstrate the resilience of the human spirit over adversity.
Dawson, Georgia 1939: A dangerous run-in with the Ku Klux Klan teaches a lesson of self-worth.
Albany, Georgia 1961: In the midst of the Civil Rights Albany Movement, a teacher is blackballed in her home state of Georgia for trying to get African Americans to register to vote and is sent to teach on an Indian reservation.
Beckley, West Virginia 1948: A coal miner's family tries to survive when the sole provider's foot is severed.
Washington, DC 2012: A young woman fights the power structure in a David vs. Goliath story against the backdrop of the most political city in America, the Nation's Capital.
Review Recap
Places I Visited
Illinois
Illinois
Vermont
Paul Revere High School
Bigelow, Arkansas
Number of Books Completed
4
Blog Events
This month I hosted a giveaway hop with Alexis @ Reflections of a Bookaholic. I was shocked no more people signed up to join the hop. But I enjoyed it anyways. I hope next year will be bigger and better.
I also participated in two A-Thons this month. One was a read-a-thon and I finished most of my goals for that events. Here is my wrap post.
The other was a Love-A-Thon. Just spreading the love from book blogger to book blogger. That was fun! I will be doing both of these events next year for sure!!
The other was a Love-A-Thon. Just spreading the love from book blogger to book blogger. That was fun! I will be doing both of these events next year for sure!!
Challenge Update
Here is a February Wrap Up of the number of books read and reviewed for the 11 Reading Challenges I signed up for.
Off The Shelves Reading Challenge - 2 books
Audiobook Reading Challenge - 4 audiobooks
Anne Rice Reading Challenge - 0 books
Books by Women Reading Challenge - 3 books
TBR Pile Reading Challenge - 3 books
2013 Resolutions Reading Challenge - 0 resolutions
Dusty Bookshelf Reading Challenge - 0 books
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - 1 book
Genre Variety Reading Challenge - 1 books
Good Reads Reading Challenge - 4 books
Reading Challenge Addict - 0 challenges
Good Reads Reading Challenge - 4 books
Reading Challenge Addict - 0 challenges
What Am I Reading Now
With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters—the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle—she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another’s lives.
At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers—think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye—Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women, just not as their mothers.
Winners! Winners! Winners!
At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers—think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye—Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women, just not as their mothers.
Winners! Winners! Winners!
This Blog is Cleaning House Again 2013
Winner is #23 Mandy B.
The books are on their way to you.
The books are on their way to you.
Black History Month Giveaway Hop
Winners are #9 Vitcoria Z and #34 Kirsten W.
Your books are on the way to you.
Your books are on the way to you.
5pm Book Blogger Love-A-Thon: The Casting Couch
Winner is #6 Jasmine R.
Your gift card is in your inbox right now
Blogger winner for the Black History Month Giveaway Hop is
Eugenia @Eugenia Writes
Your gift card is in your inbox right now
Blogger winner for the Black History Month Giveaway Hop is
Eugenia @Eugenia Writes
If you didn't win a giveaway here don't worry I have another giveaway coming up on the 5th of March.
This month went by so fast! I had huge plans of re-organizing my book shelf (which I might do today) and getting a ton of reading done. But I got reader's burn out and I'm slowly getting back to my books. Slowly! I hate burn out! I just hope my next reads pull me in so much I don't want to do anything but read them.
My personal goal of not buying a book (excluding the book club's selection) is going well. Now I just need to figure out what to do with all my magazines. Maybe I will do a giveaway of all magazines?
I also purchased my plane ticket to BEA 2013 in New York. *happy dance* Now I need to figure out the hotel situation. If anyone is going let me know Alexis and I are looking for more roommates to cut down the cost of the $250 a night room. Lord! That is crazy! Anywhooo...
I am trying to get the video (vlog) of this post together. I would love to video this instead of typing it all out. Part lazy. Part want to try something new. So if you have any helpful hits on getting a video together, like program to use, editing hints, let a sista know.
How did you do on your reading challenges this month? What books did you get this month? Did you participate in any cool reading, blogging events this month? How did you celebrate black history month?
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