Recent Reads

There's been a lot of reading going on at the Goodman household. Here's a listing of our recent reads:

Lilly reads:

There's A Wocket in My Pocket by Dr. Seuss

The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed

a wide assortment of Sandra Boynton board books

and

a wide assortment of Kevin Henkes books featuring Lilly the Mouse! (thank you Auntie Sommer!)

Chilly reads:

Besides Eclipse and Breaking Dawn of the Twilight Saga, I've also read:

CrossCountry by James Patterson

This was a great book. Brian has always been a fan of James Patterson and one night when I was laying in bed with Lilly, I picked this book off of Brian's nightstand and finished it in 2 hours. It was a very quick read and follows Patterson's hero, Alex Cross, around D.C., Virginia and the Ivory Coast of Africa as he tries to solve a brutal murder that happened in Georgetown but is linked to the African underworld of violence and gangs in D.C. I enjoyed the familiarity of places mentioned in the Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. area as well as the descriptions of Africa. You might recognize hero Alex Cross from other Patterson novels and novels turned movies; Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls.

Honolulu by Alan Brennert

This was also an EXCELLENT book. I picked it up at the Honolulu airport as we were departing, since we had just spent the past week in Oahu. I read it the entire 8 hour flight home. Not once did I put it down or sleep on that flight. It's a follow up to the author's first book, Moloka'i. It follows the story of a Korean woman, Regret (later re-named Jin), who immigrates to Oahu during the turn of the century as a mail-order bride. It chronicles Jin's life as a bride on a plantation, the cannery, the political and social changes in Hawaii, the U.S. military in Hawaii and race relations in the territory.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This was a predictable book - if you follow soap operas like I do. It's a #1 NY Times Best-seller, so I purchased this book on the way to Hawaii. The story is based in 1907 Wisconsin and starts out slow. But like most soap-operas, it's a slow start to build the story. Another mail-order bride is sent to the cold and wintry mid-west. I appreciated the Mid-West setting, as I was boarding a plane for warmer climates at the time and I also appreciated how the bride felt alone and bored in such a desolate location. Basically the bride, Catherine Land, replies to a newspaper ad searching for a reliable wife so that she can marry the wealthy man out in Wisconsin, kill him and take his fortune. BUT - there's a pretty good twist (which all soap operas have -and no, it's not an evil twin.... but pretty close!) that amps up the storyline.

The next two books are by Phillipa Gregory who I first started reading when I read, The Other Boleyn Girl. I've read most of her books that follow the Tudor Dynasty of England. (Before the Tudor dynasty became so popular in the media with the movie "The Other Boleyn Girl" -which is HORRIBLE and the Showtime Show "The Tudors"). The Other Boleyn Girl is about Anne Boleyn's sister Mary and her affair with Henry VIII and The Constant Princess is about Katherine of Aragon's beginning in England when she was married to Prince Arthur before she married Henry VIII. Another Phillipa Gregory book that I've read is The Other Queen, which is the story of Mary Queen of Scots, who Queen Elizabeth held captive to make sure she wasn't a threat to the English Crown.

I highly recommend reading Phillipa Gregory books if you enjoy historical fiction. And then you can watch The Tudors on Showtime - a FABULOUS show!

My two recent Phillipa Gregory novels:

The Virgin's Lover by Phillipa Gregory

Set during the time that Queen Elizabeth comes to power in England, it tells the tale of the Virgin Queen's lover, who had a claim to the throne and a devoted wife. Queen Elizabeth is portrayed as a home-wrecker, but her lover is just as greedy thinking that he can become King. Eventually, Elizabeth realizes that she'd rather have power over love and things come to a bitter end.

The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory

Phillipa Gregory has probably run out of material for more books about the Tudor dynasty so in The White Queen, she goes further back a hundred years and writes about the Plantagenets, the Lancasters and the House of York and the War of the Roses. The White Queen is the first in this series that will follow the dynasty that came before the Tudors. (Although the Tudors are mentioned!) It's told from the perspective of Elizabeth Woodville, the first queen. She and the women in her family are thought to be witches and she is the mother of the famous unsolved mystery of the two princes locked in the Tower of London who disappeared. The novel is subtitled as "The Cousins' War" because everyone was related and fighting for power. Elizabeth's husband had to constantly fight his own brothers who would turn against him if they thought the could seize the throne. I'm looking forward to reading Gregory's following novels in this series. The Red Queen will be released in August!

I'm supposed to be reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold for a book club, but every copy at the library is currently checked out. So that's next on my reading list and I'm trying to make my way through The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace. This book traces the history of a bottle of wine believed to belong to Thomas Jefferson.

Happy reading!