I feel this way often...

There are lots of different places around the house that I like to read. However, I don't have one dedicated reading chair. Surprising, eh?

This weekend we had a home improvement job done which required the movement of much of our furniture. As we were putting things back, I realized that if I don't create a reading area for myself, no one else is gonna do it for me.

And so I rearranged our family room so that there is a chair by the window with a table for books and another table for a lamp and a cup of tea. It is really beautiful and inviting. So beautiful and inviting that the cats are clamoring for the space as well.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

We are in the Summer of the Re-Read! I read this book back when I was eight or nine and LOVED it.

Claudia decides to run away in order to show her parents what life without her is like. She plans strategically, taking her little brother, Jamie to go with her because he's saved up a lot of money. They run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A statue of an angel is on display and the sculptor of the statue is in question. Claudia is determined to find out who the real sculptor is. That's where the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler come in....and what Claudia discovers allows her to go back home to her family.

I was afraid that if I re-read this book, I wouldn't like it as much as I did when I was a little person. However, it was maybe even more charming, clever, and sweet than I had understood back then. I still love this book!

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

I love books by Sarah Dessen. They're young adult books with female leads finding their own way. Her last couple of books were disappointing because they were all falling into a Dessen formula of girl experiencing some kind of family problem and unique boy shows up who shows her something about her true self.

I complained about this in my post about her last book, and maybe Sarah Dessen read my blog (do you read my blog, Sarah Dessen??), because her newest book does not follow this formula. There are still some problems with it (unresolved plot lines, etc.), but still, it was a nice turn of events even though it wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

Emaline has been dating Luke all through high school and they both grew up in the same small beach town. The summer before they leave for college, Theo, an ambitious filmmaker from New York City, enters the picture. What kind of life does Emaline want to lead?

Even with some minor problems, I did like this story and read it slowly because who knows when the next Sarah Dessen book will come out? (Sarah Dessen, if in fact you do come across my blog, maybe you can answer that question??)

The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future by Fawzia Koofi

I am joining a neighborhood book club. However, in the last email, the leader wrote that the reading was optional. =D From what I've heard, it's more of a social club. It'll be nice to know more people in my neighborhood.

This is the book assigned to the first meeting that I will attend. It was very s....l.....o.....w going, and I even thought about not finishing it and just going to the meeting anyway. That went against all of who I am. I read every single assigned page in graduate school. Every single page. I am a reader, and I am an excellent student. So I plugged away, and I did finish the book. It picked up, but it took quite awhile for it to do so.

Fawzia Koofi was born and raised in Afghanistan, and she's considered one of the future Afghan presidential hopefuls. Her story gave me an inside look into life under Taliban rule and what everyday life looks like there. It's eye-opening to say the least. Some parts made me cringe. This is an uncomfortable book to read, but informative.

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

I recently watched Silver Linings Playbook, and I was very interested in learning more about bipolar disorder from which the main character suffers.

This is the first memoir I've read about someone with bipolar disorder, and it gave me a better understanding of what a manic episode looks and feels like and what the following (or preceding) depression is like as well.

Well-written with a nice balance of memoir, medicine, and life happenings.

Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) by Jill Smokler

I read Confessions of a Scary Mommy by the same author and it was very funny.

She's back again confronting "lies" that we all hear about motherhood such as:
Lie #5 Having Kids Keeps You Young
Lie #9 You'll Get More Sleep When They Are Older
Lie #12 Going from Two to Three Kids is a Breeze
Lie #17 A House Without Children Is An Empty One

A very funny book that I read quite quickly. It seems like some of what she writes is pretty extreme, but then she includes comments that anonymous readers have left on her website confessing to their own "scary mommy" thoughts, and it makes me wonder how true it all is.

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

I have books that I like to buy friends for wedding showers, and now that those friends are having kids, I have a set list of books that I buy for baby showers.

One book that I like to buy for couples about to marry is Taking Charge of Your Fertility. It's a wonderfully informative book about reproduction and includes everything you need to know in order to get pregnant or NOT get pregnant. It's amusing when I give this book as a wedding shower present because usually the gifts consist of Tupperware, baking pans, lingerie....and then this book gets unwrapped and there is nervous giggling all around by grown women. Hhehehe....fertility??? Hehhehehe. We can giggle about lingerie, but fertility??? Now that's just uncomfortable.

Anyway, one woman said to me, "It's funny that you've read a book about fertility, especially since you're not sure if you want children." Heavens to Betsy! Isn't that the BEST time to know about fertility??? Knowing how to NOT get pregnant can be just as important as knowing how to get pregnant depending on what you want.

Couples who I've given or recommended this book to have actually thanked me later on. One friend pulled me aside to tell me that she was expecting. She added, "And thanks for that book recommendation....it really helped." I said, "Uh...you're welcome!" Glad I could be of reproductive help!

Okay, so now I am invited to baby showers. And I'm gonna start giving this book along with the bundle of kid board books that I usually give.

It's about the brain. It's about how a child's brain develops, and how to help your child where their brain is at. It clearly and simply explains how different parts of the brain work and how to help a child use both sides (their emotional and logical brains) in order to make more sense of their world and relationships. It also includes a section at the end of each chapter that you can read to your child to help them understand more about what's going on in their brains. (It's drawn like a comic.)

Highly, highly recommended if you have kids, are thinking about having kids, work with kids, or just want an easy-to-read book to understand more about the brain.