Racketeer ~ John Grisham

Stephen King - 11/22/63

I'm with you.
Every night I stare longingly at my growing pile of books and then turn away and stick my nose in my text books.


I was assigned a neat little book for one of my classes called [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Weetzie-Bat-ebook/dp/B00181YD2G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352550894&sr=1-1&keywords=weetzie+bat"]Weetzie Bat[/ame]. It's a novel for teen girls about a young woman who lives in LA with her two gay roommates. It's quirky, for sure, but I like that it explores alternative family situations.

If the post would hurry up... I have just one book left in the 50 Shades series...

i'm reading The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger's Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to be a Better Husband by David Finch.

Five years into his crumbling marriage, David Finch learns that he's got Asperger's syndrome... and along with it comes a great big "AHA!" moment. He drops the guilt and anger that comes with the fear of "not being a good enough husband," and instead concentrates on learning specific behaviors to fill in some of the gaps in his blind spots.

In true Asperger's fashion, he throws himself into identifying and categorizing these "normal" behaviors with the zeal of a Trekie at a sci-fi convention, and comes up with a list of social protocols that should, as the "Best Practices" part of the title suggests, be a part of any relationship's quality management system.

But don't let the QC reference throw you off. This book is anything but dry. It's funny and engaging, and, okay, I admit it...it's enlightening. More than a few friends and exes have described me as "Asperger's lite," and this book pretty much confirms it. As Finch spells out the Dos and Don'ts of social interaction, I keep bursting out laughing with self-recognition ("It's not okay to walk away from a conversation just because you're bored", "It's better to fold and put away than to take only what you need from the dryer").

Even for more intricate social situations, his advice goes straight to the core: "Just listen", "When necessary, redefine perfection", "Get inside her girl world and look around." Seems to me that it's not just the Aspies that might benefit from this book. :)

I seem to be stuck on The Unexpected George Washington ~ Harlow Giles Unger
Hard to pick back up as of late
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Fifty Shades Darker.

I loved your review. I'd read some about this book and was curious. I can also id with certain traits of Asperger's: e.g. walking away when I'm bored in a conversation :D. Perhaps that's my adhd and introversion at play too. When BB and I go out anywhere, I always remind BB to "bring reading" - luckily BB likes reading enough to be ok with my quirky ways. I know it's socially off, though, like I was at a big dance party after a bar mitzvah, and I was engrossed in a book. Someone said disdainfully, "Why are you reading now?" Story of my life! :D

Year's back I tried reading Augusten Burrough's brother's memoir about living with Asperger's:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Look-Me-Eye-Life-Aspergers/dp/0307396185/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352594310&sr=1-1&keywords=Aspergers+john"]Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's: John Elder Robison: 9780307396181: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

"Look Me in the Eye" by John Elder Robison

It was enjoyable but I guess it didn't completely hold my attention because I only read half of it.

Not a book but on the topic of Asperger's I really enjoyed the movie:

OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger's Movie

It's a doc a man made about his own experience living with Asperger's (ETC) and has a wry humor to it. I knew I'd like it the first time I heard the title, and I was right :D

I'm greatly looking forward to starting The Woods in Winter by Bernd Heinrich. he is an amazing naturalist who learned at his father's knee...then went on to get advanced degrees in botany and zoology. He teaches at the University of Vermont. He has the ability to put scientific things into layman's terms without dumbing it down....
The first book I read of his was A Year in the Maine Woods...he does a Thoreau basically....and writes about it...

I really must start posting in this thread ...
 

isn't this picture gorgeous? :) from: https://www.facebook.com/TitleWaveforBooks

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...98888786_n.jpg

Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind

Currently the weekly flyers, because I haven't found a new book to focus on.

I am reading ..always..more than one book at a time...
and life will end before I get to read all I would have liked...

currently...
1. the Hobbit...love it...and soon the movie will be out

2. Burn Unit... about nursing care for burn victims... not for everyone..but I am a nurse and it is very interesting to me.

3. Emotional Sobriety... about not following old patterns I grew up with... how to outgrow them...

4. Mammarazzi... (lol ) ... a book on tips for photographing children...

plenty of reading for a while...

LOL ..sb...

reg the flyers...

ur a riot...

A Dangerous Inheritance, by Alison Weir. This is pure historical trash, although I enjoy her biographies.

It's parallel stories of Katherine Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of Richard, Duke of Gloucester (and soon to be King), and Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey. Both were real people, though I'm sure much license has been taken as to their personalities and characters.

Katherine Plantagenet is more a convenient character narrating the unfolding story of Richard, his sister-in-law the Queen, and his nephews. He of course has gone down as the wickedest uncle in history, killing his nephews and allegedly several other kin to snatch the throne for himself. Or was he??

The image of the hunchbacked homicidal power-mad Richard came out of the Tudors and Shakespeare. Henry Tudor, with only a flimsy claim to the throne, won the Battle of Bosworth and became Henry VII. That tenuosity would have ramifications throughout all the Tudor reigns and afterwards. Richard's much more sympathetic in the book. Others, including Henry, also had motive to brush aside the boy-king and his brother like mosquitos.

Katherine Grey was caught up in a plot by a powerful duke to prevent the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor (Henry VIII's daughter) from becoming Queen, after the Protestant Edward VI died. Part of this was marrying her to the son of one of his cronies, and there are teasing scenes of almost-consummation, but in reality the marriage was never consummated and ultimately annulled. Later, she brought down the rage of her cousin Elizabeth when she clandestinely married without the Queen's consent and had two sons, to boot. She died under house arrest. Her role in the book is to discover her distant relative Katherine Plantagenet and what happened to the nephews.

Books like this usually just make me mad, as they are almost like fanfiction instead of reality. But, once in a while, a little trash is a good thing.

Reading is one of my favorite past times. I have been disappointed lately that schools are not using paper books anymore. There is so much value in turning the page of a book and the smell of it. Like in old bookstores.
I continuously read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and keep it in my nightstand. It is a book for ones life.