Books for Babies Under 1 - October Library Book Haul

Finding books for babies under 1 seems like an easy task, but when you want to be intentional about the things you're reading to them while also holding their attention, you often find some books just don't engage babies very well - or mom and dad for that matter. 

The result? You find yourself knee deep in baby books that no one wants to read. 

The library has been a godsend in terms of exploring new titles before we make a financial commitment. It's no secret that I'm a book lover raising my daughter to love books too, and I really want to work on building her a permanent collection of children's books that are not only appropriate for the current stage she is in, but also remain engaging as she gets older. 

One of the things I enjoy doing with her is visiting the library weekly. The children's section of our local library has a shelf dedicated to baby board books. Anna loves crawling over to the shelf to practice standing while I select some I hope she'll enjoy. 

Last week we checked out seven baby board books, and below, I'm sharing why I picked these books, along with Anna's reaction (or as much as a reaction a 10 month old can have), and my final thoughts on these books which will reflect if I found the book worth adding to our permanent collection.

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Read with Me: A Year of Books - Weekly Recap

A lot of you really enjoyed my blog post about my reading goals for the year, so I thought I would take the time to update you all on my progress in my Friday posts. So far, I've read three books in my attempt to read 14 books this year. I have a feeling I may read far more than this if I keep going at this rate, but I've been known to get a bit ahead of myself with things like this, so no promises yet!

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases through some of the links in this post. Thank you so much for supporting me!

Below you'll find three mini reviews for the following books I've crossed off my 14-in-2014 book list:
 

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

FIRST IMPRESSION

This book had so much potential for awesome, and it kind of was if you're into using your imagination to give detail to every non-chalant mention of something quite fantastic.

Neil Gaiman's style is reminiscent of those old tales that you hear as a child in which things are rarely described in detail because it's the what and how that's the point, not the why.

Stardust is a fairytale. Nothing more, nothing less which is fine if this were something told word of mouth. As a novel, it was really lacking in interest for me.

What's It About?

The synopsis is enchanting: a young man vows to travel into a magical land and bring back a fallen star for the woman he loves. Enter pirates who sail ships in the clouds, a witch hell bent on restoring her power and beauty, and a few power-hungry brothers competing for their father's land and you have the inkling that this will be one epic novel.

But it's not. In fact, by the end, it's so anti-climatic, you find yourself wondering...well, what was the point in writing this in the first place? There are interesting themes of compassion and heartache, and grace, but they're just sort of flopped on the table as if to say, "I could have put more effort into this, but I'm not going to waste my time."

Final Thoughts

I may have missed the point completely with this book, because don't get me wrong, it was enjoyable to read. There are tons of places in the book where you find yourself saying, "Oh my gosh, what's going to happen here? Are they going to find out that one important detail before it's too late? Will they survive? Will they get captured? How will they know what to do?" And then that hanging-on-the-edge-of-your-seat moment that comes because you, the reader, have backstory and important information the protagonists don't, becomes really insignificant and turns out to not matter at all.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (and other concerns) by Mindy Kaling

First Impression

I've always been interested in Mindy Kaling and so I picked up this book mainly because 

1. I Adore her
2. It had a floral print cover
3. I wanted to read something light and funny

I didn't read any reviews or really even the synopsis on Amazon. I just bought the kindle version and dove right in. 

What's It About?

What I found in Kaling's book were really little essays rather than chapters that create one chronological story. Some "chapters" are little anecdotes about her personal views, some provide insight into how she got on The Office, and some are just silly little lists about being a best friend, or a collection of phone selfies that she finds embarrassing yet felt the need to share. This could also be evidence for the chapter in which she talks about hho

Final Thoughts

It was fun and cute and great for those in-between moments of busy. You can read one chapter and put the book down to go do something else. There were moments in this book where I greatly identified with some of her insecurities and fears. I'm glad there was some seriousness in there. This is a fun little book to go back to and pick out excerpts to read to friends for a good laugh and to delight in just how FUN Mindy is, but that's it really.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

First Impression

Now that Downton Abbey is back, I need something to fuel the wait between episodes. This book takes place during that intriguing Interwar period where the characters are rebuilding their lives after WWI and have yet to suspect another world war is just around the corner. 

What's It About

The book opens with Maisie Dobbs setting up shop in her new office as a private investigator. It's implied that this is her first time working on her own as she was accustomed to being the protégé of another. Through working out her first case, the book travels to times before the war and during the war, unearthing Maisie's life as a maid, her time as a nurse in the war, and the people that have supported her throughout it all. 

Final Thoughts

I LOVED THIS BOOK. It's so much more than a mystery novel. It really gives you a ton of backstory into how Maisie is so good at solving cases, how her mind works, and why. I really enjoyed the upstairs/downstairs flashbacks, the signs of change in the English class system, and the conflict in emotions between characters. There's danger, love, intrigue, and it's all done with taste. I was even more pleased to find out that there's (gasp!) 11 books to this series. I can't even handle it. I may not even get to the rest of my books on the list if the rest of the Maisie Dobbs books are as fun as this one.

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Read with Me: A Year of Books + My reading goals for 2014

Last year, I presented myself with a reading challenge. After having so much mandatory reading assignments in college, I lost that natural desire to devour books that caught my eye at my own pace on my own time. For a while, I was reading maybe one or two books a year and well, that's pretty lame when you're always saying that you love to read.

A lot of people like to give themselves heavy challenges like 100 books in a year, and I thought, hey, I can do that!

But I couldn't. So I said, well, it's 2013. Why don't I just try to read 13 books and see what happens? I wasn't proud of every selection like the City of Bones YA fiction...or Outcast for that matter, but I have a weakness for YA novels and don'tjudgemeok?! Here's the accomplished list:

Disclosure:As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases through some of the links in this post. Thank you so much for supporting me!

    

    

    
    

  My absolute favorite reads  from 2013 were:

• The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton, 
• Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Raye,
• The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson.*

My not-so-favorites from 2013 were:

• The Thirteenth Tale - I'm not a fan of gothic style literature. This book had so many references to Jane Eyre (which I pretty much loathe --- I know, hate me all you want), that it made me nauseous...nothing makes me more squeamish than a novel name-dropping another famous work to make their character look well-read. Especially when the name-dropping is over a book I could care less about.
• Mortal Instruments Series (City of Bones) - Hey, they were fun and fast, but then I read an article about how the author is a cyber bully and plagiarist, and I thought...geez lady, your books aren't really of any literary merit and now you have a movie deal? This is wrong on so many levels. I ended up returning the books.

With successfully completing my original goal of reading 13 books in 2013, I decided to make this year's goal 14 books in 2014. You were super surprised by that one, right?

I decided to pre-pick a few, and then slowly add to the list as I find or hear about books I might enjoy. A lot of times, I mourn the end of a really good book and when I go back to look at my list of what's next, I get really depressed/angry/irrational because there's no way any of those books will EVER top the experience I just went through, so I'll hunt and hunt for something similar to fill the void. I'm a total book rebounder.

So far, I've picked 8 books to give me a head start.

I've already finished Mindy Kaling's book and I'm halfway through Stardust. You'll see there's my predictable interwar novels on the list, along with some mysteries - I kind of have a thing for mystery novels ever since I read my first Agatha Christie book. Agatha has a way of doing that to people.

A lot of people who know me will be surprised about Logan's Run, but the people who REALLY know me... like my mom, will totally get it, but I'll save that explanation for another day.


*I listened to a free audio recording of The House of a Thousand Candles at Librivox. There's two recordings -- make sure you listen to Eric Leach's. His voice fits the personality of the protagonist in this book. My mother, upon my recommendation, downloaded the recording done by the woman and said it was boring.  You can also download a free kindle version of this book at Amazon. 

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