King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: The Tales of Beedle the Bard

author: J.K. Rowling

genre: childrens/fantasy

published: 2007

pages: 111

rated: 4 out of 5








The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of 5 fairy tales, each of them teaching a lesson to the reader.
The commentary and footnotes are by none other than Professor Dumbledore.


The tales included are:

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot, The Fountain of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump and The Tale of the Three Brothers.


I think my favorite of the stories was The Warlock's Hairy Heart. As creepy as it was, it grabbed my attention the most. Having said that, that story is the one I would not recommend for young children.




I enjoyed reading this collection and I think most Harry Potter fans would enjoy it too. And very cool that J.K. Rowling is donating proceeds of the book sales to charity. I found the commentaries and footnotes by Dumbledore to be especially charming. If I remember correctly, The Tales of Beedle the Bard was mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Fredrick Burton

Teaser Tuesdays asks:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

Will kept at a low crouch as he made his way toward the hole. Aware that he was again offering his head as a target, he quickly glanced inside, trying to see what they were dealing with. He couldn't see the bottom. What he did discover was a ladder resting a few feet down from the top, a homeade deal with the rungs nailed crookedly to a pair of rotting two-by-fours.

Lightning cracked in the sky, showing the tableau in full glory. It was like a cartoon: the ladder to hell.

title: Undone

Mailbox Mondays



Happy Monday everyone. It's Monday at that means, time to get back to the grind...oh well. I've been devouring a book called Undone by Karen Slaughter. This book is wonderful so far, a fast paced crime thriller. At over 400 pages, I am breezing through it. I have about 120 pages to go.










In the mail this week: A Circle of Souls by Preetham Grandhi

The sleepy town of Newbury, Connecticut, is shocked when a little girl is found brutally murdered. With the murderer on the loose, the police desperately look for any clues to lead to his identy. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist in a nearby hospital is also in a desperate search to find the cause of seven-year-old Naya Hastings s devastating nightmares. Afraid that she might hurt herself in the midst of a torturous episode, Naya s parents have turned to the bright young doctor as their only hope. When these two situations converge, they set off an alarming chain of events. In this stunning psychological thriller, innocence gives way to evil, and trust lies forgotten in a web of deceit, fear, and murder.

As I posted recently, we took the kids to the Museum of Natural History in New York. We really enjoyed the visit, there was so much to see and it's really amazing when you stop to look at all the displays and artifacts, the history behind it all.


Here's a few photos:


I took these from the car, as we crossed the George Washington Bridge.










Outside the museum:





The displays were so realistic, these animals looked like they were going to walk right out.










The African displays were my favorite.





These are some of the different costumes that the tribes wear.






A few headdresses:






I found this absolutly fascinating, relics from the Holy War in North Africa during the 7th Century:










As I said, there was so much to see...heres a few more...





This was creepy, this is an actual head! From a culture called the 'Paracas'. Yikes!








Another favorite...the dinosaurs...












A Mammonth...we got to see Mammoth fur that was over 10,000 years old, which I thought was very cool, but my kids were just like 'yeah whatever mom' lol.



So, that's all. Thanks for sticking around and checking out the photos. Have a great day. What are you reading?

He touched me, so I live to know

That such a day, permitted so,

I groped upon his breast.

It was a boundless place to me,

And silenced, as the awful sea

Puts minor streams to rest.



And now, I ’m different from before,

As if I breathed superior air,

Or brushed a royal gown;

My feet, too, that had wandered so,

My gypsy face transfigured now

To tenderer renown

-Emily Dickinson



art by Waterhouse

title: Best Intentions

author: Emily Listfield

genre: fiction

pages: 338

published: 2009

first line: I lie in bed watching the numbers on the digital alarm click in slow motion to 6:00am, 6:01.




rated: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars







Lisa, in her late thirties, is a working mom of two daughters in Manhattan. She and Sam, her husband of 15 years are able to send thier children to elite Upper East Side private schools. As Lisa is getting the kids ready for the first day of school, she thinks about how distant her husband has been lately. She checks her husbands voicemail and hears a woman telling him to meet her 'same time, same place'. And later on she awakens past midnight to find her husband whispering on his cell phone to someone. She confonts him and he makes an excuse about it being a coworker he needed to talk to.


As the story unfolds, there are just too many suspicious incidents for Lisa to be able to trust Sam. She talks to her best friend Dierdra about her suspicions, but Dierdra tells Lisa she's over reacting.

Without giving away too much, Dierdra herself has a lot going on in her life and the book centers around that as well.




I could relate to Lisa and how she describes her children and motherhood. She mentions how her children are growing up now and want to wear designer clothes and hang out with the in crowd.

"You have to get up sweetie," I whisper as I run my fingers under the blanket and tickle her, her body at least nominally still mine. The softness of her neck, her arms makes the walls of my heart constrict. No one really tells you how much it is like falling in love over and over, how physical and encompassing it will be. Or that you will never feel completely safe and relaxed again.

I really enjoyed reading Best Intentions. Once the story took off, I could not put this book down. I liked that the plot came undone layer by layer. Just when I thought one thing about a character, something else would happen and I found myself with a totally different opinion about them. There were several characters introduced into the storyline, and it all read smoothly. As the plot unfolded it just kept getting better.


The writing was excellent. I found myself drawn into this book, I lived inside it for a little bit. It's a book about marriage, friendship, motherhood and betrayal with a bit of a mystery as well.

Here's a few passages that really stood out:

There is a dividing line, a moment when you realize that you cannot make everything better, kiss every hurt away. I don't know who that realization leaves more bereft, parent or child. Once passed though, it is impossible to return to the time before love's limitations have been rendered so painfully blatant, no matter how much you might long to.

This is what you do: You pretend that things are normal. Long past the point of rationality, you keep on pretending. It is the only way to keep moving, to get through the day with any shred of sanity. You pretend there is not a black hole in the center of your existence. But you know all the while there will come a time when that is no longer possible.

Suspicion crackles and pulls, nags and infiltrates, it coils around your brain, distorting your perceptions, it is the smoke you see everything through that refuses to lift. But a lie, hard and indisputable, freezes in your lungs, its ince spreading through your pores, chilling every synapse; a lie once discovered paralyzes you.

The past is never really over. Our interpretation of it may shift like a kaleidescope, it may inform us or lead us astray, it may bring comfort or delusion, an excuse to hate or a reason to love. Some of us race too quickly to try to escape it, some of us cling so tightly it blinds us to the present. But one way or another, it is always with us.

visit the authors website here: http://emilylistfield.com/

I hope you're enjoying your Friday everyone. This marks the end of my vacation :( Back to work on Monday *sigh* But I did enjoy my two weeks off. I took the kiddies to the Museum of Natural History in New York (i'll post some pics soon), We spent three days in Atlantic City, a few days at the beach and and I took the kids to a kiddie waterpark as well. Not to mention I painted my computer room. I have to post pics, in my computer room is where I have my bookshelves. I had to take ALL my books down in order to paint....it wasn't easy and my hubby was in awe at the piles of books I had around the house...lol.




These are the three books I read while on vacation:





Best Intentions (review coming soon)





Still Running (e-book, review coming soon)








The Almost Moon : my review is here


I'll leave you with some Lenny Kravitz...sing it Lenny :)

Booking Through Thursday:




Reading something frivolous? Or something serious? both actually

Paperbacks? Or hardcovers? paperbacks when i'm on the go, hardcovers for collecting

Fiction? Or Nonfiction? fiction, but I do enjoy non fiction too

Poetry? Or Prose? poetry

Biographies? Or Autobiographies? either

History? Or Historical Fiction? historical fiction

Series? Or Stand-alones? stand alones mostly, I have a short attention span

Classics? Or best-sellers? depends on my mood

Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose? straight forward, basic

Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? plots

Long books? Or Short? depends on my mood

Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated? non

Borrowed? Or Owned? I'd rather own

New? Or Used? I'd rather a new book, but used is fine as long as it's not dirty.