CutestLilBookworm's Books Off the Shelf Challenge

Shopping for books is just as satisfying for me as shopping for shoes. Difference is, I don't have a huge stack of To Be Worn shoes. My books....well, I buy way more than I can read and really have a hard time letting them go. If I do give them away, it's usually because I have swapped with someone and another book is on the way in the mail to take the old one's place. My goal is not to be a book collector, I want my shelves filled with books that have some meaning to me. The rest need to go in the Moochpile. My goal is to read at least 25 of the 150 books from my TBR this year. Funny thing is by the end of the year I know I will still have 150 books in my TBR because I'm constantly adding to my library.

The TO READ category in my collections lists the first 13 books I selected for this challenge so far.


2010 Challenge

1. Nervous by Zane
2. The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman
3. White Lines by Tracy Brown
4. Simply Salads by Jennifer Chandler
5. Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
6. Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris
7. Come Back, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
8. Shadow of Power by Steve Martini
9. Someone Knows my Name by Lawrence Hill
10. Pandora's Box by Allison Hobbs
11. Mary, Mary by James Patterson
12. Double Cross by James Patterson
13. Mexican Cooking by Wei Chaun Publishing

2010 WRAP-UP: MADE IT HALFWAY TO MY GOAL...NOT TOO TOO BAD!!
SCROLL DOWN A BIT FOR 2011 CHALLENGE!!

Welcome to the group. I have the feeling this will be a perpetually renewing challenge, so books added to the TBR pile in 2010 will just be fodder for the 2011 BOTSC next year.

"Difference is, I don't have a huge stack of To Be Worn shoes."

Ha! Now that you mention it, I do.

I just couldn't drive past the library and not stop. Sooooo, here are a few more books added to my TBR, a few which I plan to read for the Reading Globally challenge.

One Man's Bible by Xingjian Gao
Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Xingjian Gao
The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman

I also bought the hardcover of Couldn't Keep it to Myself by Wally Lamb to replace my paperback which I will go on and post on Bookmooch.

I guess the obvious question is whether you have any books about shoes? I saw one just before Christmas, and was tempted to buy it for my assistant who seems to have a new pair of shoes every week or two!

1. The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Henry Thurman

Poor Emma Lou, so naive and self centered....this woman's got issues! Thurman paints a complex portrayal of a dark skinned African American woman who is so caught up in anxieties surrounding the color of her skin that she attributes everything that goes wrong in her life to just that. Granted, her mother planted these seeds of self doubt as she lamented her daughters skin tone and expressed pure resentment of Emma Lou's also dark father, but she really goes to the extreme and blames every negative encounter with others as a consequence of not being fair skinned enough. Is Emma Lou totally at fault for feeling the way she does? Not entirely, because there is definite validity to her thought process because unfortunately dark skinned African American's were/are often mocked and ridiculed not only by whites but by other African American's. Thurman does a great job at allowing the reader to see the world through shifting realities...sometime what Emma Lou imagines to be true is true, but other times, she mistakenly attributes actions towards her due to her color when it's really just due to her naivety and her own prejudices.

Thurman tells the story of Emma Lou's journey for acceptance which leads her from Boise, Idaho to Southern California and then on to a hustling and bustling Harlem in New York City in the 1920's. Not only are you able to see a clear picture of the various characters and the different settings, but Thurman is superb at revealing the inner thoughts and the 'why' behind each characters behavior. This was a really good read!!

There are no reviews for this book. What did you think of it?

I edited my previous message to include a review. Overall, it was a really good book!

Thanks! It does sound good.

Nervous by Zane
Talk about HOT, FIRE, FIERCE...this book was sizzling! Zane successfully combines a decent storyline and an erotic tale. While there's plenty of steamy and downright freaky scenes she still manages to weave an intricate plot that is not typical or predictable. As an administrator in the mental health field, I especially got a kick out of the main character having multiple personality disorder (MPD)...but trust me, I've never met a patient with a problem anything like Johnquinette's.

So here it is...Johnquinette is a rather introverted, single, attractive young woman who has never had sex or even dated because men make her nervous BUT she sometimes wakes up with the smell of sex on her body and rather sore privates. Dr. Marcella from Addicted returns as Johnquinette's therapist who delves into her psyche to help her get at the root of her alter ego Jude's antics. Let me tell you, Jude is something else! Anytime a woman can walk up to a man waiting in a line and can take him to an isolated area, sex him up and than tell him to get lost is a serious freak. This is definitely a book I would recommend, especially to those who enjoy erotica!

2011 CHALLENGE



Goal: To read 25 books of my shelves this year. I'm compiling my list partly from books I plan to read for a TBR challenge I'm participating in in the blogosphere. This list is subject to change, but these are books that have been hanging around on my TBR for quite a while.

1. Who Will Cry for the Little Boy by Antwone Fisher
2. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
3. American Indian Myths and Legends by Richard Erdoes
4. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Dandicat
5. Cane River by Lalita Tademy
6. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
7. Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
8. Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Xingjian Gao
9. The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory
10. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11. Grandmother's Secrets by Rosina-Fawzia B. Al-Rawi
12. Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie by Maya Angelou
13. Player Haters by Carl Weber
14. What Looks Like Crazy by Pearl Cleage
15. Cross Country by James Patterson
16. I, Alex by James Patterson
17. Say You're One of Them by Uwem Apkan
18. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
19. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
20. The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og mandino

Yay! I finished my first book of the year. As previously mentioned, I don't read poetry very often. In fact looking at my reading history for the past 3 years you won't find any. Who Will Cry for the Little Boy was a welcome change from the usual for me, not to mention I finished it in less than an hour. If you've seen the movie based on his life you'll know that he had a rough childhood and experienced abandonment. Isolation is a common theme in his poems, however many also are about love; lost love, unrequited love, wondering if he'll ever find love and a wonderfully written love poem dedicated to his wife. I appreciate that poems came straight from his heart, but some of them were very simplistic, amateurish (?). He does preface in his introduction that his "poems are usually not what I hope to convey to others, but rather, they are my way of speaking to myself. The words are my cadence combined with my spirit." Overall, it was a decent read.