Book 59 - Walking Dead Vol. 9 Here we remain by Robert Kirkman

The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain

941 books to go!

I know the books I've mostly reviewed lately and finished are walking dead ones. They read pretty quickly, and I have a few different books I'm working through, but haven't finished. I have books at work, books at Shawn's house, and books on my kindle and kobo that I read while I travel, so I always end up taking a bit sometimes to finish just one, these comics I can read through pretty quickly though.

In this installment the surviving members of the prison invasion end up reunited at Herschel's farm. This read is pretty damn emotional, very sad and also critical of today's society. Kirkman leaves the readers of this series pretty good cliffhangers, I find myself wondering what will happen in Volume 10. Perhaps this weekend Shawn and I will fly through Volumes 10 to 13, but we're going to be a little busy so I really don't know if we will or not.

Book 58 Phantom murder by Sadie Montgomery

Phantom Murder
942 books to go!

This review is in my phantom of the opera blog

Book 57 - Walking Dead 8: Made to Suffer by Robert Kirkman

The Walking Dead, Vol. 8: Made to Suffer

943 books to go!

I'm going through a period where I've started a lot of books but haven't really finished any. I'm still reading just haven't finished. Last night I grabbed number 8 in the Walking Dead series to finish, Shawn had just finished it and I wanted to bring it back to work so I figured it'd be an easy quick read and would be over with in one to two short sittings.

This had to be the saddest walking dead issue I've read yet. The prison is attacked and finally invaded by members of that horribly crazy, f*cked up town Rick and his crew came across a few issues ago. What happens as a result of this invasion will leave you in an unbelievable shock. This is the most gripping, action packed, saddest volume yet. I'm left wondering how number 9 is going to be.

Book 56 - The walking Dead book 7: The calm before by Robert Kirkman

The Walking Dead, Vol. 7: The Calm Before

944 books to go!

Shawn and I have started to read the walking dead where we left off. He purchased 1 to 6, and before my vacation I checked out 7 through 12 from the library. I also requested # 13 which should hopefully come in by tomorrow or next week.

#7 of this series takes place when Rick and the gang he's protecting settle and start to form a hopefully permanent community inside of a prison they have taken refuge in. Lori and Rick also have their baby, Carol does something very sad and possibly unexpected and the end leaves off on a pretty intense cliff hanger.

This series is terrific I can't wait to plow through the rest of them when I have a chance.

Book 55 - Caught by Harlan Coben

Caught

945 books to go!

I decided to read this book because I was experimenting with the use of the used kobo e-reader I purchased off of e-bay. Pretty soon my kindle will be able to get e-books for free check out from the library as well, but in the meantime I wanted to check out the first book from the library that I'd actually put on an e-reader to read. I chose Caught by Harlan Coben because I was interested to read something by him.

Caught weaves a pretty decent tale of suspense and lies.Wendy Tynes, a reporter in New Jersey is determined to find out whether Dan Mercer a supposed pedophile was really a pedophile or if he was set up for some reason and by who. While researching she stumbles across another minor mystery to solve involving Dan and his suite mates from Princeton University. By the book's end Wendy has found answers to all of these questions, the very end is extremely unexpected.

The book was decent, a good enough read, I wouldn't say you absolutely had to read it though.

Book 54 - Marley & Me by John Grogan

Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog

946 books to go!

I was hoping to finish more books over my vacation off from work, but I only managed to finish four. Oh well :/ I put together an entry for one of the four I finished already but now I'm going to do entries for the other three books.

Marley & Me written by John Grogan is a pet memoir about the writer's life with his dog Marley and his family. I had seen the movie a few years ago and was interested to read the book. The one bad thing about watching the movie first is that sometimes the movie cast members mess with my vision of how the characters will look in my imagination. Every time I read about Jenny (the writer's wife) I kept picturing Jennifer Aniston who played her in the movie rather than the real Jenny. The writer and his wife bought Marley when he was a puppy before they chose to have any children. Marley turns out to be full of antics and trouble keeping the writer and his wife on their toes.

I've read pet memoirs before, I absolutely love them, except for the end of the story which usually finishes up the memoir with the death of the pet. At that point I have to break out the tissues because I start to cry a little. Marley & Me was no different. I enjoyed it very much and it's worth a read.

If you love animals, comedy and memoirs and can deal with a sad ending this book should be a good pick for you.

Book 53-The Collected Plays of Edward Albee Vol. 1 1958-1965

Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1958-1965

947 books to go!

YES! This is my first book finished over my staycation! Kind of sad I didn't manage to finish it up yet and I've been off for two days. It's okay I've been doing other stuff, and I have some anticipated down time this week, hopefully I'll get through at least 5 more books.

After reading this first volume of collected plays by Edward Albee I have to say I think I've found my favorite play wright. He's a weird writer, and his work has much more behind it than a simple story, and I have so much to understand yet about his works. But I can say without a doubt I love most of it and I'm going to eagerly read Volumes 2 and 3 of his collected works, I am pretty sure at some point I'll purchase them as well (this is one of the books I rented from work).

This first volume has 8 plays in it. The zoo story, the death of bessie smith, the Sandbox, the american dream, who's afraid of virginia woolf?, the ballad of the sad cafe, tiny alice and malcom. I was most impressed with the ballad of the sad cafe which before Edward Albee turned it into a play was a novel by Carson McCullers (I have a feeling that's going to the first thing I'm going to read by McCullers since I haven't touched her work yet). It was actually pretty sad but it also blew me away. I read the sandbox and zoo story before but chose to read them again in going through this collection, I got much more from the zoo story than I did from the first read through. Tiny Alice and Malcolm were kind of curious, Tiny Alice more than Malcolm.

In short if you like reading plays and don't mind writing that's more than a story this is a great book to pick up and read.

Book 52 - Murder most frothy by Cleo Coyle

Murder Most Frothy (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 4)

948 books to go!

I've been breezing through these coffeehouse mysteries on my kindle. I've taken a slight hiatus to read one of my phan phiction books that I bought for the kindle.

In Murder Most Frothy my new hero Clare Cosi gets herself wrapped up in finding out who is trying to kill her summer boss David Mintzer. While staying in his Hamptons mansion for the summer to be a coffee steward and help to his new restaurant Cuppa J, Clare discovers the body of a part time barista while cleaning up after a fourth of July party. From then on Clare goes about trying to solve the murder and to figure out who wants David Mintzer dead.

As always I love this book as I have loved every book I read in the series so far. Cleo Coyle provides a delightful work of fiction, along with some great coffee facts and in this series a pretty nifty art fact as well. These are a treat to read and a quick series to swig down fast, just like I do with my coffee.

Book 51 - TheAlmost Moon by Alice Sebold

The Almost Moon: A Novel

949 books to go!

49 more books and I will have read my first 100 books for this blog! After that little side note, let's get to the subject of this entry. I picked up this book to check out from work the same time that I came across the lovely bones for a re-reading. It seemed sort of interesting and slightly bizarre so I decided to give it a go as well.

The book was curious, Helen who makes a living as a nude model kills her mother at the very start of the novel. During the course of the novel the reader follows Helen after she has killed her mother, we follow her thoughts and her actions. This is  somewhat similar to lovely bones in the fact that a murder has taken place, and the reader follows the psychological journey of those affected by the murder. However I didn't think this novel was as good as the lovely bones. It wasn't terrible but overall I'd say it was just okay. The lovely bones is better by far.

Book 50 - The art and craft of coffee by Kevin Sinnott

The Art and Craft of Coffee: An Enthusiast's Guide to Selecting, Roasting, and Brewing Exquisite Coffee

950 books to go!

This is one of four books about coffee that I borrowed from the library. Next week I start my vacation, so I'm trying to finish off the books checked out on my card before I leave the library for 11 days off! So hopefully I'll have two more books about coffee coming up in this blog soon.

I loved this book, I think it's an extremely valuable resource for coffee drinkers, and it's pretty up to date as it's recently published. I'm definitely going to buy this book for my home collection, it contains a smattering of everything you will need to know from roasting your own beans, to various brewing methods, as well as containing detailed step by step tutorials and great photographs to make sure you are doing things right. There's also some recipes at the end which I'm anxious to try.

This book gets a great recommendation from me, if you're interested in learning about coffee this is a pretty handy book to pick up.

Book 49 - Sweet Valley High # 1 Double Love by Francine Pascal

Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love

951 books to go!

Even though Sweet Valley Confidential sucked ass I still decided to pick up the Sweet Valley series again. I read some when I was a teenager but I kind of want to re read them now even though I'm almost 30. I was going to be overly ambitious and pick up sweet valley kids and Sweet Valley Twins, but I might just go through Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley University, so expect an occasional blog entry for this series.

This is the first sweet valley high book in the SVH series. I think it's pretty safe to say that they've re vamped the books a little bit to include modern technology updates, when I read these books as a teenager I'm pretty sure Jessica and Elizabeth did not have cell phones or the internet. The drama in this book is between Elizabeth and Jessica they are vying for the affection of Todd Wilkins....Todd always seems to come between these two. Bonus drama is that the twins are wondering if their dad is having an affair, and they are trying to find out why Steven keeps coming home from Sweet Valley University every weekend, throw in a little trouble with Jessica and Rick Andover and we have a drama packed first novel of the series full of light fluff that's perfect to read for an escape.

Even though this is shallow reading or what some of my friends would call brain candy it's good to pick up if you want to read something extremely light, also much better then people magazine, at least it's drama among fictional characters and not celebrity stories. All in all a pretty nice light quick read, much better then Sweet Valley Confidential, I wouldn't pick that up again if you paid me....okay maybe I would for a large amount of money.