Book 118 The Writing Workshop NOTE BOOK by Alan Ziegler

The Writing Workshop Note Book: Notes on Creating and Workshopping

882 books to go!

Finished my first writing book! Since I started freelancing for the local paper I've gotten a kick start to make sure I read some writing and grammar books. Now my current reading plan is the few wedding books I have left, many writing and grammar books, and the books I pick up for leisure or pleasure.

Alan Ziegler writes this books as a series of notes regarding the writer's workshop. It feels like reading a lecture  chock full of great information and tidbits about writing. It's intellectual and helpful as well, lots of informational treasures. There's a series of writing exercises that seem like they will be interesting.

This book was so great to me that I purchased it without even finishing the whole book yet. I can't wait to start on the exercises and have the valuable information always at my fingertips.

Book 117 Beautiful Wedding Flowers by Diane Wagner

Beautiful Wedding Flowers: More than 300 Corsages, Bouquets, and Centerpieces

 883 books to go!

On a whim I decided to check this book out from work to investigate it. I wasn't going to originally because I have a few more wedding books to still read that I bought and I'd like to read those and put a cap on the wedding planning books because if I don't I'll be reading books up until the wedding.

This book is impressive. The book contains five chapters, four are brief ideas and photographs of floral arrangements, chapter five has brief tutorials on creating your own floral arrangements. The photography is absolutely stunning, the information is brief and concise, it's also broken down and presented quite nicely.

Even though I really like this book I wouldn't say it's a necessary wedding planning purchase. It's more for some ideas to get your creative juices flowing when thinking about your wedding flowers. I would just check it out of the library once and if you are interested in creating your own arrangements the last chapter is short enough to make some photocopies.

Book 116 - The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help Deluxe Edition

884 books to go!

I wasn't going to bother with this book, but the movie came out, and then I got curious because I want to eventually view the movie. So I borrowed the book from work and tore through it as fast as I possibly could once I got into it. Needless to say I'm one the many who enjoyed reading it, it's one of the best sellers available with lots of substance and intelligence to it. 

The novel semi-parallels the creation of a novel, within the novel. Set in Jackson, Mississippi during the early start of the civil rights movements, colored people are treated like they are diseased. The book chronicles a brief time period of a few colored maids and one white woman daring to change the situation and fight for their rights in their own way. Skeeter Phelan wants more than anything to be a writer, she believes that the colored help should be treated better and that things should change. Eventually she's able to land an interview with Abileen, followed by interviews with other maids (who were at first reluctant). The interviews eventually turn into a published novel that causes all sorts of happiness and trouble too. 

Book 115 - Plan the perfect wedding on a small budget by Elizabeth & Alex Lluch

Plan the Perfect Wedding on a Small Budget: Featuring Real Couples' Weddings on $2,000 to 0,000 Budgets 885 books to go!

Okay so my dream budget of $10,000 for the whole wedding has been nixed. That still doesn't mean that I can't read bridal budget books to see how we can cut corners on certain parts of the wedding without looking distastefully cheap. What you'll find inside this book wedding planning wise is a lot of work sheets to photocopy (if you don't decide to purchase the book), small tidbits of information regarding almost any category of wedding planning aspects and needs, money saving ideas, small blurbs of advice from couples who have went through the ceremony and reception, as well as wedding summaries for couples on a small budget and how they accomplished a wedding for less money. Disturbingly only one couple was from New York, so I'm starting to really get the sense that living in NY and hosting a wedding here automatically comes with a higher price tag than most other states.

If you buy this book don't buy the double bride and groom book sets written by the same couple, vice versa if you purchased the bride and groom double set do not buy this book. The reason I say this is because most of the text in both books is practically the same word for word. If you want the book with more substance and examples than get this one. If you are longing for a smaller book without examples and just information than buy the bride and groom package.

Book 114 Not my daughter by Barbara Delinsky

Name Your Link 886 books to go!

Four teenage girls who are friends get together and form a pregnancy pact. Their mothers are questioned and brought onto the carpet in their small town for "letting" this happen to their daughters, one mother in particular the main character, Susan Tate who is also the principal of the high school bears the ridicule and brunt much more than the other mothers do.

The story was part campy, part political, and part moral based with a nicely tied up happy ending. Overall it was just alright, glad for the happy ending, not sure I'd rave over Delinsky as an author though. Perhaps if I get to pick up another work by her in the distant future it might be better.

Book 113 - The Ultra Simple Bride & Groom's wedding planning guide by Elizabeth & Alex Lluch

Ultra Simple Bride & Groom Wedding Planning Guide 887 books to go! I still have a few more wedding books to read, and we have started planning so I probably should get through them as quickly as possible, right now time is of the essence. I first found out about this double set of books one for the bride and one for the groom when I borrowed them from work. I was extremely impressed at first glance, Shawn seemed to be too so I purchased them for us. This mini-review will contain my perspective from the bride's view since the groom's perspective and book belongs to Shawn. The bride's book is quite nice. It's on the small and light side which is a bonus because you can also use this book to double as a wedding planner, there's some space for notes as well as a checklist/timeline in the beginning of the book. For a smaller book it's actually chock full of information provided to you in simple easy to read terms. There's also small money saving tips in each category for the bargain hunting bride. Included in 188 pages are some samples, space for notes, a checklist, tips to save money, and advice in any wedding planning category you need. This book is purchase worthy and also very simple for your groom to read as well if he's involved in the planning process.

Book 112-Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

Keeping Faith (P.S.) 888 books to go! This is the first library book I checked out for my kindle. As a side note, in my opinion it's much easier to check out library books for the kindle vs. for other e-readers. I definitely plan to sell my kobo when I have a chance, I only bought it from e-bay to play with it and be able to check out library e-books, but now that my kindle can do it, and I don't really like using the kobo too much I'm definitely going to resell it. I did enjoy this book but truthfully I didn't understand the ending. I re-read the last paragraph three or four times and still found myself confused. I plan to do some research to hopefully comprehend what happened at the end, right now all I can do is think about my own ideas regarding the book's conclusion, and maybe that's how Jodi Picoult intended the book to be for her readers. The story is about seven year old Faith White. Her and her mom, Mariah walk in on her dad cheating with another woman. Mariah, who has broken down before and ended up in an institution after Colin cheated the first time, almost breaks down again, but with the help of her mother she pulls herself together for Faith. Than Faith begins to see an imaginary friend who shes calls her guard, after Faith visits the psychologist, the adults assume she may actually be seeing God and not an imaginary friend. Pretty soon Faith starts performing a few miracles. Along comes Ian Fletcher a tele-atheist hell bent on exposing Faith as a hoax, than comes Picoult's court case for this novel when Colin fights Mariah for custody of Faith. I love reading Jodi Picoult, but I've noticed every novel I've read so far by her has had a court case involved. Truthfully I don't mind this court case formula she's an intelligent writer and her novels have some meat to them. James Patterson's formulaic writing on the other hand is sickening to the point that I declared myself done with his books all together. If you chose to pick up this book, hopefully you will understand the ending that I'm going to to go on a mission to research.