What's On Your Nightstand? August 2013

I didn't get as much accomplished as I had previously thought I would be able to over this month. Not sure how much I will get accomplished on my to do list for the Classic Club, but looking forward to some of the books I will get from publishers. Classes started last week and I will be reading as a stress reliever for sure!

Reviews of Books that I Read:

Forever Friday -This advanced reader's copy is being given away, check out the link in order to sign up for it. End's today!!!!

A Bride For All Seasons

The Winnowing Season

Currently Reading:

Emma-really enjoying it so far

Need to start for the Classic Club from last month:

Sense and Sensibility
The Railway Children
Heart of Darkness
Jane Eyre for this month's Spin book

Read and Review for Booksneeze:


 I will be reading Hopelifter


Read and Review for Blogging For Books:

I will be reading For Every Season

Read and Review for Tyndale:

I will be reading Born of Persuasion

Do you want to review free books too?

Here are a few links to apply to review books from publishers. Some of these I currently participate in and others I have put in an application to participate. Make sure you read each publishers qualifications and guidelines first.

Tyndale
Bethany
Booksneeze
WaterBrook Multonomah - Blogging For Books

Forever Friday Review...

 I received this Advanced Reader's Copy from the publisher through blogging for books, for my free copy I am not obligated to give a positive review. I have never read anything previously from Timothy Lewis before. This Christian novel is all about love and postcards. It tells the story of Gabe and Pearl, otherwise known as Huck, and their love for each other throughout the years. Adam Colby finds the postcards and in reading them thinks he can determine what their secret is to love. The novel goes back and forth between the past to present, while sometimes repeating a few details about Adam learning Gabe's and Huck's story, but overall it tells us the story from Huck. Throughout the novel, there is a Mister Jack, who both Gabe and Huck sometimes have different viewpoints as to what role he plays or doesn't play in their lives. In the end you will have to determine for yourself, did he exist or didn't he? I had a little bit of a different view into the Long Division, compared to Gabe and Huck's, but of course this all goes back into why do you think some couples love last? Then again, I don't know if this question will ever be able to be answered, after all I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, as since people are different what works for one couple won't work for all. It does though make you think about couples and how some last, along with what their stories hold. I do have one complain though is that during the beginning of the novel, it seemed to be more detailed compared to later on, as it then would jump sometimes 10 or more years into the future of Gabe and Huck's story. I rank this one a 5 out of 5. I will be having a giveaway for this book! This book won't be released for the public until September 3rd.

For more information on the book itself, you can read an excerpt here.

Giveaway information:
Must be a USA resident
Enter through rafflecopter below

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d3bdbf1/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway

My finds in Iowa...

I recently went back to Iowa for a short trip. I love antiques and we went to several shops. Here are the items I found, most of these items were found at West End Architectural Salvage and Porchlight in Des Moines. Although a few were not found at antique shops. Later on I plan on sharing pictures and videos from my day at the Iowa State Fair. Enjoy!

 

 

Cleaned my bookcases!

I went through my books and cleaned out the bookcases. I didn't take photos of all of the three bookcases that I went through. I took before and after photos of one bookcase. I am going to get another bookcase of similar size to the one below. The  books I am not keeping (there are about 23 grocery bags full) are going to be donated to my church, used book store, and to a charity betterworldbooks.com. Has anyone gone through there own collection of books lately? Previously, it had been more than three years for me to go through all of mine.

The Spin Book pick....

The winner for this Spin challenge for me is number four, so I will be reading Jane Eyre. I hope that I like it, but once I came across the most recent movie and watched a few minutes of it, and didn't care for it. So this was one book on my Classics Club blog where I was not looking forward to reading this book right now. I hope that I end up enjoying it though, and plan on starting it later on this week. 

Another Spin!

The Classics Club is having another spin event. I never did finish my last spin book, The Railway Children, so I will be listing it. Last week I was out of the area and not able to post my list for the spin, so I am doing that now. I know that the spin number has already been listed but haven't looked to see what the number is. I am going to have every other book be one that I want to read and then one that I don't necessarily want to right now. Without further ado, here is my spin list:

1. The Railway Children-previously started
2. Heart of Darkness -previously started
3. Treasure Island
4. Jane Eyre
5. Walden and Civil Disobedience
6. Othello
7. Kidnapped
8. Lord Jim
9. The Outsiders
10. The Republic
11. Little Women
12. Rights of Man
13. The Magican's Nephew
14. Eight Cousins
15. The Death of Ivan Illych
16. Wives and Daughters
17. Mere Christianity
18. The Grapes of Wrath
19. Child of the Dark
20. Larkrise to Candleford

A Bride for All Seasons Review

 

 

 

I received a free ebook from booksneeze in exchange for my honest review. The book that I recently read was A Bride for All Seasons. There are four stories in this book by various authors. The brides are all mail order brides and the stories take place in the 1800's. I enjoyed each of the stories, although I liked "And Then Came Spring" by Margaret Brownley the least. The women character Mary-Jo had a hard time making decisions and then kept on changing her mind. But overall I did like the story. The other stories in this book; "An Ever After Summer" by Debra Clopton, "Autumns Angel" by Robin Lee Hatcher, and "Winter Weather Wedding Bells" by Mary Conneally were all good. Each man and woman had their own reasons for being or choosing a mail order bride. Marriage for a women was more much needed for security during the 1800's, and most people today would want to know the person they will marry beforehand. There was always one type of hitch in each story though, that the owner of the mail order company would tweek a few details in order to get the couples to choose each other. I do wish some of these stories were longer though, but it is to be expected that a book with multiple authors stories are shorter. I rank this book a 4.0

Receiving items in the mail....

who doesn't enjoy getting things in the mail? This excludes junk mail of course. A couple of years ago I found out about swap-bot.com, but lately I have gotten back into sending out swaps. In case your wondering what on earth I am talking about, you send various different items to people, and in return you get items as well. Some swaps are international and others aren't it all depends on what the person who created the swap decided. You pick which swaps you want to participate in, if mailing actual items isn't your thing there are also swaps for email. There are lots of swaps for a wide variety of things, I have done fabric and craft swaps, letter swaps, tea swaps, recipe swaps, book swaps, etc. Lately, I have gotten several lovely letters and books, including some nice Doctor Who bookmarks. I know most people haven't heard about swap-bot.com so I thought I should let others know about it.