My 2014 Reading List

Happy New Year's!

As we reach the end of 2014, I wanted to share with you all the books I've read this past year. 52 books! I have to say I'm actually really impressed with myself, I didn't have a goal when I started this list,  I just wanted to keep a list and see what happened.

 For a while I was reading 5 books a month, and then adventures began and that number slowed down a lot as life began to take precedence.

Looking back now I see how many fantasy novels I read and audiobooks I listened to at the beginning of the year, when we still lived in sticks and bricks as we were packing up the house. I kind of wish I had more classics and other "important" sounding books on that list to be perfectly honest. Though a lot of those (books by Michael Scott, John Flanagan, and John Grisham) I read together with my brother, Thane, inspiring lots of bookclubing and fun, which was most definitely worth it.

The works of the incredible Tamora Pierce kept me moving, relaxed and happy while packing, cleaning, organizing, and everything that goes into redecorating a new home and moving out of an old one (second-or-third time through her Tortall books.)
I have discovered some of my new favorite books this year; Traveling With Pomegranates, The Secret Life of Bees, Little Women, A Year in Provence, The Tenth Gift, Louisiana Longshot, Northanger Abbey,  Chocolat, and Eat, Pray, Love. I HIGHLY recommend all of them. The last one was a particular favorite, it was so inspiring and gave me so much to think about; about self-love, love for others, discovering yourself, so much love! It was incredible!

Cold Sassy Tree introduced me to the wonders of literature and the range of emotions a story can make you feel for the first time. It's got me eager to read more classic lit, and we've got a brand new pile of classics to get through.

So with that said, Here's my 2014 book list:

1. The Wedding Cake Girl by Anne Pfeffer                   (January) (Fiction)

2. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb                       (January) (Audiobook)

3. The Alchemyst by Michael Scott                                (January) (Fantasy)

4. Traveling with Pomegranates  by Sun Monk Kidd     (January) (Non-Fiction)

5. The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd               (January) (Fiction)

6. The Magician by Michael Scott                                  (February) (Fantasy)

7. Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb                                   (February) (Audiobook)

8. The Sorceress by Michael Scott                                 (February) (Fantasy)

9. The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan                      (February) (Fantasy)

10.The Camerons by Robert Crichton                            (February) (Classic)

11. Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen                             (March) (Fiction)

12. The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan                      (March) (Fantasy)

13. The Necromancer by Michael Scott                           (March) (Fantasy)

14. The Warlock by Michael Scott                                    (March) (Fantasy)

15. Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham         (March) (Fiction)

16. Theodore Boone: Abduction by John Grisham           (March) (Fiction)

17. Little Women by Louisa May Alcot                              (March) (Classic)

18. Theodore Boone: The Accused by John Grisham      (March) (Fiction)

19. Theodore Boon: The Activist by John Grisham           (March) (Fiction)

20. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle                             (April) (Non-Fiction)

21. Alanna the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce             (April) (Audiobook)

22. In The Hand of Goddess by Tamora Pierce                 (April) (Audiobook)

23. The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson                                  (April) (Fiction)

24. The Woman Who Rides Like Man by Tamora Pierce    (May) (Audiobook)

25. The Shattered Chain by Marion Zimmer Bradley         (May) (Fantasy)

26. Lioness Rampart by Tamora Pierce                            (May) (Audiobook)

27. The First Test by Tamora Pierce                                 (May) (Audiobook)

28. Thendara House by Marion Zimmer Bradley               (May) (Fantasy)

29. Page by Tamora Pierce                                                (May) Audiobook)

30. City of Sorcery by Marion Zimmer Bradley                  (May) (Fantasy)

31. Squire by Tamora Pierce                                             (May) (Audiobook)

32. Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon                            (May) (Cozy Mystery)

33. Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce                                     (May) (Audiobook)  

34. Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce                           (June) (Audiobook)

35. Trouble in Mudbug by Jana Delon                               (June) (Cozy Mystery)

36. Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce                           (June) (Audiobook)

37. Death comes to Pemberly by P.D. James                   (June) (Fiction)

38. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen                             (July) (Classic)

39. Terrier by Tamora Pierce                                           (August) (Audiobook)

40. Chocolat by Joanne                                                    (August) (Fiction)

41. Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn                                (September) (Fantasty)

42. Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce                                  (September) (Audiobook)

43. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins                                 (September) (Fiction)

44. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett                                  (October) (Fantasy)

45. Helen of Troy by Margaret George                            (November) (Fiction)

46. The House on Tradd Street by Karen White              (November) (Fiction)

47. The Girl on Legare Street by Karen White                 (December ) (Fiction)

48. The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini                          (December) (Historical Fiction)

49. The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan                      (December) (Fantasy)


50. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Bums                        (December) (Classic)

51. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert                         (December) (Non-Fiction)

* 51-1/2. Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and her World by Alison Weir (Historical Non-Fiction)

* 52. Botany of Desire by Michel Pollen (Non-Fiction)

**I'm about half way through these two books. I've been reading them since around July-ish. They've taken me months to get through as they are very dense. In the best way possible, they're both absolutely FASCINATING. So I thought putting two halves together, especially with them not being beach reads, that they can count as one whole.


This next year I doubt I'll reach 50 books again, since we're full time travelers now, but who knows? Maybe! We've got a lot of month-long stays planned, lots of reading to be done!

I don't make New Year's resolutions, it's just not my time to create goals. If I make resolutions it's either on my birthday (which is like my personal new year) or in the middle of the night when I have all those deep, life- changing thoughts. Bit IF I DID, it would be to add more classics into my life. I've also just discovered sonnets soooo. . .


I wish you all happy readings this new year, along with plenty of love, happiness, surprises, and all of your favorite things.

Here Comes the Bride. . .

So the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning (besides feeding the cats) is get half-way dressed (because, really, who expects ANYONE to be completely out of their PJs first thing?) and go on a walk with Dad and the dog. It gives you a good feel of the place, and we've seen some fun stuff wandering around. And we get to talk about all sorts of crazy stuff, from last night's Star Trek episode to life's dramas to the details of Eat, Pray, Love. The topics are endless.

The illusive gator got away 

In Charleston SC we walked to a pond that had a "Beware of Alligator" sign posted in the water. We walked there every morning with hopes of seeing an alligator (sadly it was too cold for those cold-blooded critters). We did see a whole lot of herons, pelicans, storks, ibises and many other kinds of birds.

In Tennessee we annoyed a very large blue heron every morning as it sat in front of some rapids waiting for disoriented fish to flop out (It turned out that the symbolism for seeing a blue heron was an important message for me that week.)

We've walked passed another lake in Minnesota that seriously radiated gloom and doom (Those waves were hungrily lapping up against the rocks, waiting for a victim to eat.) 

But enough with creepy lakes. It hasn't all been strange bodies in water- err strange bodies OF water. 

We're in Savannah GA for a few weeks. The first day we got here Dad and I went out and wandered around the farm they have here, and then we decided to go down this dirt road and see what was at the end. This road is ridiculously long. It just kept going and going, passed strange black-water swampy ponds, over a bridge and around a bend when this beauty suddenly appears! Introducing The Mackey House, in all its Christmas decor. We walked by it, around the lovely lake in front, passed all the parking spaces and then back down the long dirt road back home. Yesterday as we took our walk, we were passed by two cars on their way to the house. We were passed by a few more cars on our way back, all very nice cars, the occupants very nicely dressed. Yep, you guessed it, you can get married here! And there's a wedding about to happen! The last few mornings have been so much fun, guessing who's who in which car and what their part in the wedding might be. 

 Mother with the big smile and excited wave. Wedding Planner with the determined look and coffee in a mason jar mug with straw. Father, lost and asking for directions ("just down that dirt road sir!"). Best Men in their fine suits all packed into a small car.  We thought it might be fun to set up chairs and have a bag of rice to throw for when the bride and groom drive by. 

The Mackey House, Savannah GA

So today was definitely the day. You could tell by the big white limo that drove back and forth a couple times. I felt like Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched, eagerly watching all the cars drive by ("Abner! Abner!") We have a perfect view being parked right next to the highway and the entrance of the place. Cars have been going back and forth all day. The limo was particularly fun to watch. I hope that they all had a wonderful day and the couple are happy and enjoying the Southern Holiday wedding (can you be more romantic? Honestly!) 

All this has inspired me though. I really love seeing the insides of these houses (the few I've seen) and I think I've come up with a pretty great idea on how to get inside for free tours. 

I need to get married! 

Or at least say I am. I can play the part of a young bride, touring venues for her dream wedding, right?  I just got a new sparkly ring, so I can even put on my ring finger. All I have to do is giggle a bit, nod giddily, listen to the wedding package plan without gasping at the high prices and then give them my wrong phone number ("No, I'll call YOU!")  and ta da! I'm in! It's perfect. Though when I tried out my southern drawl on Dad, his reaction was less than encouraging, lets say. Maybe that needs a little bit of work.

Can I write a post about smells without using word "smells" once?

I've been reading The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett out loud to my family. This is probably my favorite Terry Pratchett series; it's absolutely hilarious to read out loud since half of it is written to be read in a thick Scottish accent.
In the book, Tiffany Aching, our heroine, has olfactory connotations between her grandmother and Jolly Sailor Tobacco. And it got me thinking about how important scents can be in triggering memories of people or places.

Recently I thought that it would be pretty cool if I had a signature scent, like a perfume that I always wore, until it became apart of who I am. Part of my style. So one day my grandchildren will remember me whenever they get a whiff of my perfume. But what should  it be?

I don't want to use some super fake flowery perfume, like the aroma of a mall. Blah. What about something to do with baking? Oh yes! But what kind of dessert? Almond extract is divine. Maple extract seems too sticky. What about chocolate? Like, dark, unsweetened chocolate. There's a delicious lotion we have from Oyin Handmade that basically smells like chocolate vanilla marshmallow fudge, but without being overly sweet. It's incredible. Of course chocolate should be my perfume. It's ridiculously perfect. Everywhere I go I bring a delicious cloud of chocolate and vanilla. My grandchildren will think of me when they make brownies and fudge!

So I've ordered some samples of some very interesting cocoa fragrance oils from Etsy and I can't wait until they get here, to try them out. Soon I shall have my own eau du Rhanna!

This Is Not A Book Review, part 2

I've been keeping a list of all the books I've read this year, to see how many I could read, and remember what I've accomplished. It's a wonderful motivator, and so I'm currently up to 49. I'm in the middle of several books now in an attempt to reach 50 or more in a year. I'm going to post my list here on New Years, to share with the world!

The latest book I finished is The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverinim. It's about a spinster named Elizabeth Van Lew, in Richmond Virginia, who lives with her widowed mother, her brother and his wife and children. It starts at the beginning on the Civil War. She's a loyal Unionist, who's very upset about the split in her beloved country. When Union prisoners start flooding into the prisons near her, she finds ways to bring them food, medicine and books, and very carefully she becomes an in between for secret messages and letters. She helps prisoners escape and she has secret rooms built in her house to hide escapees. She finds and organizes other Richmond unionists into a network of spies, including a freed slave working as a maid in Jefferson Davis's office and the warden of one of the prisons.

 When I started reading it, I thought that it was a historical fiction, and Elizabeth was just a made-up character. And when you're reading like that, thinking that the main characters are made up it's not the easiest read. It's very factual, it's nearly a text book with a bit of dialogue and a few personal scenes to make everything read a bit smoother. Imagine my surprise when I finished it and read the credits pages and learned that Elizabeth Van Lew (great article about her!) was a real woman, and everything in the book was true! She was a real spy, and played a very important role in helping the Union win the war. She sent letters, written in invisible ink to General Grant, that you could only read after the paper had been washed in milk! She was a seriously amazing woman. She was hated by all her neighbors and had almost constant death threats and threats of her house being burned down. But she never gave up. After the war she was practically out of money, as she had spent all her personal money on buying food and supplies for the Union prisoners. When Grant became president he  remembered all she had done and to pay her back he made her the Postmaster in Richmond and she held that job the entire time he was in office. Sadly, she died poor and an outcast in 1900 in her 70s.

I was so excited when I learned she was real. I wasn't a huge fan of the book at first, but it becomes about ten times better once you know the truth. And it was even more exciting to realize how much I just learned about a time period I'm working hard to learn about, without knowing it! Women in history is pretty much my favorite thing, especially lady spies. And to make it even cooler, she started her network of spies as her own idea, with her own money, in her own home. She wasn't working for someone, or hired to do it. She was inspired to take as much action as a woman at this time in history could, just for her love of her country. I think that's really really cool.

This Is Not A Review. Maybe.

So I just finished reading Helen Of Troy by Margret George, which, unsurprisingly, is about Helen of Troy. 

It's the story of the Trojan War from Helen's point of view, from her childhood to her return to Troy years after the war, and it gives you so much to think about, like how Helen is in big trouble and a long list of nasty names for doing it with another man, but none of the named and nameless Greek warriors get in trouble for all the women they slept with while they're away from their wives. The irony is ridiculous.

I was never a huge fan of the Iliad (I'm an Odyssey girl); I mean the Greeks are all a bunch of whiny, unfaithful brats who sit around for 10 years, kidnap women, sulk, then sneak in and smash a whole bunch of stuff. B O R I N G. The Odyssey is way more fun; magical creatures, transformation, riddles, underworld adventures, disguises, wit. 

Reading the story from Helen's point of view was WAY more interesting. You got to know all the characters more and you got to know the Trojans and their side of the story, which isn't usually told. The Greeks are the bad guys, from this side of the Trojan walls. 

 I spent all of yesterday reading the end. I haven't gotten so involved in a book like that in what feels like a long time, where I couldn't stop reading.  It was wonderful! Though  (spoiler alert!) a very sad ending, since most of the characters you get to know are Trojans and well . . . Also Greek Gods are jerks. We all already know this but I mean what could be worse than to be desperately in love with a teenage boy who you're like 10 years older than? Poor Helen. 

 I read Margret George's book about Mary, Queen of Scots a few months ago and really loved it.  It was super long but one of the better historical fictions I've read, I felt so much better acquainted with that time in history. I'm dying to read her book about Cleopatra, which I know is going to be wonderful! Reading about famous women in history from their point of view is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world.  I'm thinking of starting a book about the Civil War that Mom has started, since we're in the heart of the civil war area this month. Now that we're settled in one place for the winter all I want to do is read books all day. Which is all I intend to do, to be honest. 

The Inside Scoop from A Freed Californian.

quote by Mark Twain 

I have recently made a fascinating discovery about myself and my west coast upbringing, and it's all thanks to traveling.

 We've been making our way into the south (We're in Tennessee!) and the people we've met here have been so incredibly nice! We stopped at this little co-op when we arrived in Kentucky and when we told the owners there about our travels, they gave us the nicest welcome ever: "Welcome to Kentucky! You should move here, we would love to have you, we're really nice here, welcome!" And we've gotten that kind of welcome multiple times. Dad has had constant conversations when he's working outside on the RV; someone always comes over to chat.

And besides the wonderful people, the landscape is just stunning, especially now that we're in the Appalachians in Autumn. I can't tell you how much I love it here already, moreso than almost any other place I've lived, including my home state of California. I've said countless times as we drive around "I could totally live here" (I was practically yelling the exact opposite the entire time through Idaho, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa - SO FLAT. I'm sorry middle states, I personally need trees and mountains and less corn.)

Now what I've recently realized is how. . . snobby the west coast culture is. (I am totally guilty of this.) "West Coast Swagger" as I just overheard Mom say.  When you live in the west coast states (California, Oregon, and Washington) you know that you are in the best place in the whole world and there is no reason to ever leave or go anywhere because you know it just won't compare to the redwoods or beaches or mountains or great cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
"You're going to Kentucky? Why would you ever go there? There's nothing to do there! Geesh just come back to Mother California where all is perfect and the best. ((*hums Mother Knows Best*))"
When a visitor says this is their first time in California, you don't get "Welcome! We would love to have you, we're really nice here!" You actually get some sort of "Glad-you're-visiting-but-please-go-home-soon" message mixed with something like, "You're from where? I could never live there!"

I think that this comes from the fact that, throughout history, Californians have had to work really hard to get there. We had to cross hundreds of miles of flat nothingness, climbed Sierras, struggled across Death Valleys and many more troubles to reach the ultimate destination. We came for gold, with unfilled dreams, placing all our hopes into striking rich and living the good life. Why, after your ancestors worked so hard to get there, putting everything at risk for a sliver of hope, a bundle of ideals and dreams, would you ever want to go BACK, and undo all their work? I mean, you're already here right? I think that that mindset is a subconscious one that we're born with, having them passed down to us through our genes.

I have instantly judged the rest of the country for years with no basis for doing so. It's the west coast mother culture and I've finally started to see through it, and it is interestingly super-freeing, to be released from subconscious biases. When you suddenly realize that something you never questioned isn't true, you can love and accept everything more fully and quickly, which is a blessing for someone like me who loves to love.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my home side of the country as much as I love everything else in life and California really is a magnificent place with great wonders and amazing sites. But I am loving this side of the country just as much, if not more to be completely honest, and I'm not even finished exploring! It's so thrilling! Suddenly the Mark Twain quote makes so much sense. And I urge you to travel as much as you can, it is a freeing and mind-blowing experience, and I am so lucky to be able to learn this at this point in my life.

West Coast, I will be back, but not before I finished exploring the wonders of the rest of this continent, so that I can truly love it all.

So I've been Thinking. . .

I have been thinking a lot lately. 

Karma and the fates.

Who I am.
Who I want to be.
How I can be more Hufflepuff about life.

Do-I-actually-have-my-own-style-or-do-I-really-look-like-a-dork-in-a-scarf?

The Lighthouse Theory. 

The-someday-when-I'll-get-real-food-back-and-I'll-be-able-to-make-pretty-dishes-again-that-don't-all-look-like-stewed-veggies. 

Love.

The-belly-dance-classes-I've-found-in-the-next-two-towns-we're-going-to-be-staying-in-cha-cha-cha

Driving.

How-badly-I-want-to-wear-a-corset-and-hoop-skirt-at-least-once-in-my-lifetime.

Other kinds of dance?

Zodiac signs. 

I-know-I'm-learning-constantly-but-since-it's-not-the-conventional-mainstream-way-I-get-annoying-doubts-about-my-entire-existence-as-a-know-it-all. 

Christmas presents.

Am-I-being-as-good-of-a-big-sister-as-I-can-be. 

Cooking in small kitchen spaces.

Making Money??

LIFE?!? 

Why-is-Shawn-Spencer-so-goshdarned-attractive? 

Man Buns????!??!?!?

Hyphens. . .

Lists. . . 

And now I've listed too many things to choose one to write about! What do you think I should write about next?