Redeeming Love

This is my 126th read on the Goodreads Reading Challenge this year.

One of the best I’ve read so far and I am giving it ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I am in a quandary to review this book though because it could be classified as inspirational religious fiction or a romantic adventure. There are so many biblical quotes in every chapter. They are not preachy though.

REDEEMING LOVE by Francine Rivers. A long time ago, I read two of her books, I could not even remember their titles now. Those horrible and gut-wrenching scenes that make you stop for a while, wipe a tear or two then turn the pages. I’ve read it overnight.

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Almost In The Middle Of March

AND it’s been a week since I wrote anything here. When you start not writing everyday, sometimes you just get lazy even visiting your blog. And it holds true for me. Did I miss blogging? I did of course but not as much as before. I think I have exhausted every subject that I could think of blogging about.

IF I were to collate all the blog entries I wrote on my five existing blogs, it would probably reach more than 4,000 posts. I seldom get to update the other four, my blog about Nate’s growing up years, my photo blog, blog about my garden and another one I started three years ago just in case I get to use up my remaining free usage. Yes, I am still on the free format.

MAYBE, I need to take a break for a while and blog again when I find a nice subject to blog about.

I am on my 36th book at Goodreads’ 2021 reading challenge. Talk about ghosts and hauntings, that’s what I am reading now. We’ll be celebrating 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines and Pope Francis will celebrate a mass intended for the Philippine Catholic Church.

May your weekdays be blessed and fruitful.

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Excited

I was looking at Goodreads’ Best Book 2019 nomination and I was thrilled to find two books in my shelf, one is When All Is Said by Anne Griffin which is nominated in Best Fiction and Best Debut Novel for 2019 and The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides which is nominated as Best Mystery and Thriller and Best Debut Novel. I’ve read both but I love the first one better.

Would you believe, sometimes I base the books I read from the list of nominees awarded every year if I am lucky to find them. Most of the time, I find one or two and I am happy. Isn’t it nice when the books you have read before are favorites of other readers too?

I love Goodreads, they have sizable book reviews of different genre of books and I love reading them too. I make it a point to write a line or two every time I finish one. Lately, I have this on my profile from Goodreads:

#31 best reviewers
#27 top reviewers

It’s nice when they notice what you write about those lovely books and gifted authors in their thousands of books.  It’s nice when you are also recognized in your effort to review some of them. I don’t always review the books I read except when they are really good. Goodreads is owned by Amazon so you can just imagine the number of books they have. “Goodreads is a social cataloging website that allows individuals to freely search its database of books, annotations, and reviews.”

Do you use Goodreads in your book search?

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Some Books On My TBR List

There is really something exciting about discovering new books and authors. They become part of your reading life. Damyanti, an author and a friend here at WordPress said she is curious about my “to be read” list  of books. I guess, they’ll get me through next year’s book challenge at Goodreads. I  will only list those which I am excited to read until the end of the year.

1. Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales – excited to start reading this. There is a story behind every tale that he tells.
2. Ken Follet: Night Over Water – I’ve always been a fan of this great  writer. I have a complete set of his Kingsbridge series and I love Pillars of the Earth best. I have his other books as well.
3. The Bone Collector: Who would not be thrilled to find another book by Jeffrey Deaver? Accordingly, it is one of his best.
4. Down Where My Love Lives by Charles Martin. I discovered him two years ago I think and read most of his books. According to Goodreads, “it  is a bittersweet yet triumphant love story—a tale of one man’s spiritual journey through the darkness of despair into the light of hope”.  Most of his books deal on triumphs, faith and they are spiritual too.
5. Anthony Doerr’s About Grace. First encountered him in All The Light We Cannot See,  a Goodreads Choice 2014 Winner.
6. The Throwaway Children by Diney Costeloe. – My first book of Diney Costeloe, the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War 2.
7. Matilda by Roald Dahl – Most of you have probably read this already. Matilda is a child who is a book lover.
8. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan – been curious about this since it was published.
9. Promise Me by Richard Paul Evans. RPE is my favorite author. This is one book that I didn’t have before.
10. I  Am David by Anne Holm – This has been on my wishlist for so long. David’s entire twelve-year life has been spent in a grisly prison camp in Eastern Europe. He knows nothing of the outside world.

I also have two classic books by Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bells Tolls and A Farewell To Arms. 

Some  books on this list are e-books.  Have you read any on this list?

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My Goodreads Journey

I’ve missed my usual beginning of the month blog post  here.  Posted about my tagline instead. Well, anyway,  today is just September 2 and this post counts as one.

I  recently checked my profile  at Goodreads. It’s nice to know that among all the millions of readers and books at Goodreads, I found this stats. It is for the Philippines’ top 100  readers only.

#86  Best Reviewers

#62  Top Reviewers

I think the best reviewer option is practically new. It  wasn’t there a few months ago. There is a slide down from #59 to #62 for top reviewers. I don’t know how they  usually arrive at this since some followers are from other countries. Come to think of it, I only have  59 friends mostly from Facebook and about 1,157 books in my virtual library with 94 reviews in the last twelve months. I don’t always review the books I  read.  I don’t even like to summarize a story of the whole book but write about how it touched me and how I enjoyed it.

I love Goodreads. I am able to read some reviews before I buy and read a book.  Been a member here since  October 2011 before shelfari.com closed for good.  I haven’t even explored all the features of this site. I haven’t joined their community – no group discussions, no trivia, quotes and the likes. They have several tags and writing genre. You just have to choose and read a short synopsis of the books you want to read.

When I am not on WordPress, I visit Goodreads for new releases and when I am not on Goodreads, I write some memes and shout outs on my wall at Facebook.  Goodreads is always updated with new publications and  the release dates.

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley

How nice that the BER months are finally here. Oh yes, I didn’t forget, the  Christmas countdown has just begun. Happy September friends.

 

 

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My Last 2017 Read.

This would probably be my last post for 2017. And you guess it right. It is about books.

Last January, I joined Goodreads’ 2017 Reading Challenge and I committed to read 150 books till the end of this year which is today. I finished the challenge though sometime last October and went on to continue reading. It was an eclectic mix of reading genre – from YA books to fiction, memoirs, classics, Psychology and a couple of self-help books.  Goodreads has this to say:

Congrats!

You have read 207 books of your goal of 150!  207/150 (138%) 

I found lots of new authors  too.  Discovering their works  is such a thrill and reading them are so inspiring.  A few days ago, I  found a new author  named Julie Cantrell.  Julie Cantrell is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, teacher, and speaker. She is into fiction, contemporary and spirituality. Her first book which I was lucky to find was Into The Free. It was set  in  depression-era Mississippi in the middle of the 1930’s.  It is a beautiful story of survival, family relationships and redemption. The book was full of  inspiring Biblical quotes.  There is book number two entitled When Mountains Move.  It is just as good if not better than the first book. I am still in the middle of it. Maybe it would be a continuation  to my reading list come 2018. I intend to join the 2018 challenge in a few days. Maybe I would lessen my goal and concentrate more on classic books that I haven’t  read yet if I can find them at a lower price in bookstores.

I can’t give up reading. There will always be a room in my life for it.

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Finally…..Bow

Last night, I received this precious badge from Goodreads together with this lovely message:

“Congrats!
You have read 150 books of your goal of 150!”

Almost nine months and I am done. It was nice to discover new authors whose  books were just as lovely as those I have read before. It was nice to discover new places.  It was just lovely to add more books on my shelves and on my tab.  I was even on a quandary what book to read last but I finally settled on Palladian.  I was reminded of the book Jane Eyre at the outset.  Palladian was first published in 1946, more than ten years before I was born.  Much as there are negative reviews on the book, the positive ones far outweigh them. Such poetic prose,  a string of words that warms the heart.  Summaries and various reviews are posted on Goodreads,  that is, if you have time to visit the site.

Hoping I could find more lovely books to read, reread those books that inspired me over the years, discover more memoirs, poems and fiction in the process.

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Hello August

Trite  at it may sound, I am  greeting you again with this old familiar greeting, “hello August, welcome”.

I really can’t believe July is gone and August is here again. Happy new month everyone. I used to blog about month endings and beginnings but for so long now, I haven’t done it. Sometimes I forget when I am busy.

Apart from some friends  who visited me early in July and  the monthly visit from my daughter’s family, July has been a little too uneventful. The quiet days spent in the garden, moments of reflection and the endless tasks of  everyday things at home that make life a little comfortable. I had a lot of time to read though, some from e-books that I have on my tab and older copies of books I bought a few years ago.  My Goodreads book challenge for 2017  is almost done. From the 150 books I committed myself to read this year, I have finished reading  a total of  139 books, a mix of memoirs, fiction, psychology and YA books. I have found several classic books in between like The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Zafon,  Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco  and The Godfather by Mario Puzo to name  a few. I also discovered several authors, new ones who are really good at their craft. Nadia Hashimi comes close to one of my fave authors Khaled Hosseini when it comes to Asian literature.  They wrote about life in Afghanistan and I was mesmerized by  their words. Imagine life in a war-torn country with all the problems it entails.

My garden is doing just fine but maybe in a week’s time, I have to trim the carabao grass again. They have grown in the last two weeks since I did the trimming. I am thinking of replanting some bulbs while the sun is shining.

Hello  August, be kind!

 

 

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Some Songs Of Old

Oh gosh, my carabao grass needs trimming again.

This is what happens when it rains almost every day  and the grass grows like crazy. Maybe I have to postpone trimming it for a week more until after I’m done visiting my doctor for another monthly check-up. I am scheduled for lab tests on the 20th of this month. Growing older, getting old, every which way you look at it, time is inching its way too fast.

Didn’t I say I am excited to see my friends tomorrow?  It’s been a while since we have seen each other last.  I just cooked  a kilo of chicken pork adobo today  which we’ll have tomorrow for lunch along with fresh veggies from the garden.  Adobo tastes so much better a day or two after when the sauce has seeped through.  It’s a Pilipino recipe that is so easy to prepare but tastes so good. I like dry adobo.  We sometimes serve it with quail eggs.

Presently listening to some old songs on YouTube. Pete’s blog post  triggered it actually.

It’s nice to go back sometimes to the 60’s music  and dream of those days when life was simple and you were younger.  Procol Harum is good in A Whiter Shade of Pale. Just finished watching some of the greatest golden hits of the 60’s. I love the Motown sounds too. There was a time when I was still working when I would bring a small cassette player with an ear phone  and listen to some music on cassette. Music One was a favorite place  to go to during lunch break.  Back home, the CD player  was of constant use.  I have compiled those sounds during the British Invasion. Nowadays though, I just rely on my small radio which I take outside when I am gardening. I could listen to the latest news and some music in between.  Music soothes the soul.  It also makes me smile.

I found these four books (they’re actually in a series) by Nora  Roberts. It’s a story of four brothers who were adopted in their younger  years. I’m in book 3  and enjoying it.  I am done with 85% of my reading challenge at Goodreads.

How was your day?

 

 

 

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Happy Tuesday

Hello!

I went back to my internist after a month of taking medications for high BP and elevated sugar. Although my sugar level has gone back to normal, he prescribed same medicines for at least two months more. I have to go back there in a week or two  because he is monitoring my blood pressure which always has a tendency to go up. I am not stressed but I wonder why my BP is always on the rise. I relax by reading, gardening and yes updating this blog and reading other blog posts. I discovered new ones which I recently followed. They have nice  and lovely photography blogs.

For the past week, I’ve been reading e-books. I recently discovered this author Elizabeth Cox. She has written several books but this is my first time to read one of them. A Question of Mercy really made me cry. It’s a story of a  mentally disabled young man and his teenage step-sister. His family love him but he was misunderstood by many of their neighbors until the former decided that he undergo sterilization and lobotomy in a state-supported asylum. The day before he was due for the operation, he was found dead in a river near their place. The cover made me decide to try this one. The lush landscape of North Carolina was vividly described in the story.  You can’t put a price in the love  of family. It should always come first, shouldn’t it?

It’s nice to be back reading e-books again. It took me a long time to appreciate e-books because there is nothing like holding a real book in your hands. I got used to it eventually.  Lately, I’ve been reading books by Australian authors.  Done with 56 books, 31 % of my reading challenge.

How was your weekend? Have a nice and beautiful Tuesday everyone.

 

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