Today in My History

Personal Home Page

My family

Books Read in 2019
Books Read in 2018
Books Read in 2017
Books Read in 2016
Books Read in 2015
Books Read in 2014
Books Read in 2013
Books Read in 2012
Books Read in 2011
Books Read in 2010

Blogroll
updated 9/15

Cast
updated 7/16

Email
(you know how to fix it)

Some Background Links:
The Philosophy of Juice & Crackers
The story of Delicate Pooh
The story of the Pinata Group
Pumpkin pies
Who IS this Gilbert person anyway?
Sold!

Swap Bot: 
My Day
My Day 5/7/18
Favorite Travel Photos
Things in My Life
Pocket Letters
7 Days of Meals
Favorite Photos 4/18
Show Us Your Town

mail to Walt / mail to Bev  

26 May 2019

Hi! Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. (Past hosts include: Our first - Judd Corizan, Mr. L, Kwizgiver and Bud) Cheers to all of us thieves!

Since I'm spending this month sorting through books, this seems a good time to do book questions.  These are from BookTraveler.

Authors you never get tired of reading

Diana Gabaldon, Harlan Coben, Bill Bryson, John Steinbeck

A book you bought for the cover, and discovered it was better than you thought

Since most of the books I read these days are on the Kindle, I rarely see book covers any more.

A book that made you laugh and cry, and made you depressed

The nice thing about Gabaldon books is that when you have a well-written book over 1000 pages, it's bound to make you laugh, cry, and make you depressed.  I would say "Outlander" did all three things, as did "Voyager" and probably all of the Outlander series.

Any well written dog book will do that to me too, like "Where the Red Fern Grows" or "The Further Adventures of Lad" (my favorite of the Lad books)

A book that was a pleasant surprise

"Stories I only tell my friends."  I like Hollywood biographies but I'm not sure why I read this one since I was never a Rob Lowe fan, except maybe I saw Lowe interviewed somewhere about the book and I was curious.  I was amazed at what a well written, enjoyable book it was.

Another was "Forever Restless," an autobiography by Joseph O'Looney, CSP, who was a Paulist priest I met when I was about 8 years old and my mother was taking instructions from him to become a Catholic.  He became part of our family from then until his death several years ago. 

He loved my younger sister, but he and I were always oil and water. I had such bad feelings about him, I refused to read his book, even though my mother typed it.  But in our Big Book clean out, I picked it up and started reading it.  He had a fascinating life from Irish kid in San Francisco, to priest, to Navy chaplain, to university chaplain where he began a mission to central and south American countries, starting an organization which is still active these many years after his death.

He was a good writer and I'm glad that I finally read the book (but glad he's dead an I don't have to admit that to him!!)

A book everyone loves that you don’t

Oh Lord.  "Fifty Shades of Grey," which I read out of curiosity because of all the hoopla  I read the first book of the three and had zero interest in reading the rest.  What a waste of time, what unlikeable characters.

A book with a great sidekick that you like more than the hero

Well the hero of the Black Stallion books was Alec Ramsey and I sure liked the Black better! In fact, in any animal book, the animal was my favorite. 

A book that helped you through a difficult time

"How to survive the loss of a love" by Peter McWilliams.  After my friend Gilbert died I was working at a new job and didn't really know my co-workers well, but I was terribly depressed by his death and one day one of the women went out to lunch and came back to hand me this little book.  I don't know how many times I read it but my gauge of how far through grief I was was how far into the book I could get before crying.  The gift was a godsend.

A book that taught you something valuable

Eric Weiner's "The Geography of Bliss" taught me that I never want to visit Moldova.  I always learn interesting things from Bill Bryson's books.  And Sally Henderson's "Silent Footsteps" was a fascinating (though I'm not sure how "valuable" it was) look at elephant societies.

A book or series that it took you awhile to get into.

Believe it or not, the Outlander series.  It took several years before I became a fan.  It also took me three or four tries before I finally got past the beginning and into the main story of "Gone with the Wind."

A fictional character you’d love to have to dinner.

Myron Bolitar, the hero of Harlan Coben's books, or Kay Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell's heroine....but only the Scarpetta from the earlier books.  I don't like how she evolved.

I would also love to spend time chatting with Jo March from "Little Women."

 

PHOTO OF THE DAY

an old picture

I'd love it if you'd leave a comment!
Remember to sign your name in the "Name" box or else you will show up as "anonymous"
(unless you want to be anonymous, that is!)