For the love of reading...

My family saw Avatar in 3D on Christmas Eve, The Blind Side the day after Christmas and Young Victoria over the weekend. All solid choices but I have to say Young Victoria was my personal favorite. After watching a preview for The Last Song (written by Nicholas Sparks) at the Young Victoria movie I leaned over to my family and said “let’s stop at Barnes and Noble after the movie, I need to buy some books”. I didn’t even know the Sparks novel was being made into a movie, it looks touching and beautiful. I can’t wait to see it but first I need to read the book (which I started last night).

Camel Book Drive: I need to get to HPB to sell about 50 books sitting in my office, this is my only ‘to-do’ this week. If you are not familiar with this fundraiser, BWAV and the Omaha Bookworm’s are raising money to buy a camel for a travelling library in Kenya. Click here for details – If you are interested in donating, feel free to join us! This is a way to pay it forward – I have received so many wonderful books this year, buying a Camel (just over $400) is a great way to help and show gratitude for a rewarding year.

This week: I am working TWO fulltime jobs – did you know that? My company asked me to take this on a year ago while we requested additional headcount (a temporary situation). We keep getting denied the request to add someone to our team and this decision can play with my personal sanity from time to time.

I am on vacation this week – a respite. This is probably my last post until the weekend but you will see me clicking around for entertainment and to keep up with everyone.

I have been reading! Last night I finished Emily St. John Mandel’s new novel The Singer’s Gun and started The Last Song (by Nicholas Sparks). I hope to finish this one this week and start Alice Munro’s collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Books purchased this week (all synopsis write ups below were provided by BN.COM):

La's Orchestra Saves the World: Is another delightful story celebrating friendship and the healing power of music, told with the warmth and charm we've come to love from this favourite storyteller.

It's 1939 and the war in Europe casts a long, all-encompassing shadow. In a sleepy town in Suffolk, La, the generous and determined widow, forms an amateur orchestra to entertain the locals and soothe her own broken heart. She recruits Feliks, a refugee from Poland, to play the flute, and a touching friendship emerges. When the war is over and the orchestra disbands, La is left pondering her next move. What role can she play in her community now that the war is over? And can she let herself love again?

Too Much Happiness: Ten superb new stories by one of our most beloved and admired writers—the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

With clarity and ease, Alice Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives.

Too Much Happiness is a compelling, provocative—even daring—collection.

Those who save us: For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

The Last Song: A compelling family drama and a heartrending tale of young love.Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.