I finished Shadow Warriors of World War II. It was okay, I hoping for a more balanced book (it was heavy on the SOE) and the first half was just the setting up the SOE and OSS. The story felt very choppy.

Since my last post I have read Irish Meadows by Susan Anne Mason, Dead Reckoning by Ronie Kendig, Always Watching by Lynette Eason, Fatal Mistake by Susan Sleeman, Swept Away, Fired Up, and Stuck Together by Mary Connealy. I didn't care for Irish Meadows, I loved Dead Reckoning (but that's not surprising since I have yet to read a Ronie Kendig book and not love it), I enjoyed Always Watching (I will read more of the series and Lynette Eason's books), and Fatal Mistake by Susan Sleeman was a pretty good suspense read too. My recent reading has been heavy on the romantic suspense fiction with a dash of western romance. Although I squeeze the audiobook for Company Commander by Charles B. MacDonald into my work week, so I haven't been completely without non-fiction.

I started A Passionate Hope by Jill Eileen Smith (review copy) and Oath of Honor by Lynette Eason (library book). Slow going getting into A Passionate Hope, I am not a big fan of Biblical fiction, but I enjoyed the previous book in the series so I decided to give this one a try as well.

I have holds on a bunch of new Christian fiction at the library, but they have been slow coming in. I am most excited about The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin, I have requested my library purchase it although it has not appeared in the catalog yet.

A few weeks ago I went book shopping and got Cowboy Christmas by Mary Connealy, Taming Rafe by Susan May Warren, and A Distant Melody by Sarah Sundin. I was thrilled to find A Distant Melody, I have been looking for all of Sarah Sundin's book that I don't own, so I now have three of her books.

SnowAngel

SA, thanks for the explanation on The Vanishing American Adult; did you get a chance to finish it? Too bad to hear Shadow Warriors was choppy!

I finished Women Warriors and my initial thoughts held true. Overall, it was an informative read and covered a wide range of time and geographical locations. I did notice there was no information about Pacific countries, so I'm guessing that was a black hole in research overall; hopefully in the 20 or so years since the book was published this has been addressed.
February wasn't a great month for reading, but I did manage a few books:

Wings, Women, & War by Reina Pennington; this book was about Soviet airwomen during WWII and had been recommended to me by malkah years back. It was nice to read a book about a subject I don't know too much about, though it was more of an analysis than I was expecting (I wonder if it was the author's doctoral dissertation, as read very academically).

Drawing the Line by Edward Dawson; I was pretty excited to find a book about the drawing of the Mason-Dixon Line, but I was a bit disappointed by the book. It felt disjointed and meandering, as half the book passes before the surveying for the line even began and then a good quarter of it seems focused on the Royal Society drama and history instead of on the line and the surveyors themselves. The author also gave a kind of half-explanation of surveying but not enough for someone without any surveying experience to understand at all what he meant. However, I did learn some interesting facts (such as the original reason for the line was to put an end to an 80-year contentious - and often violent - dispute as to the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania), which I enjoyed.

The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond by G. K. Chesterton; this was a reread for me, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I wanted to throw things at Mr. Pond slightly less than I did on the first read, and I appreciated Captain Galahan's more deeply, I think.

I am currently reading The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton and it doesn't hold up all that well in comparison to Paradoxes. As frustrating as I found some of the stories in the latter, they were far more satisfactory than those in the former, at least so far - there's a lack of justice in their conclusions.

I'm currently following Valia down the G. K. Chesterton path. I just finished The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond myself. It's classic Chesterton: several vivid images splashed on the page and then a few brain-bending twists to make it all come out. There were a couple of stand-out stories in the collection. The Unmentionable Man may appeal to those fond of the Ruritanian genre, and The Ring of Lovers is quite brilliant.

The Man Who Knew Too Much is also a collection of mysteries and follows a slightly more conventional early British detective fiction style. (The detective character has some things in common with Sayers' Lord Peter Whimsey but lacks Lord Peter's gift of gab.)

I also just started Arcanum Unbound by Brandon Sanderson after having a couple of friends enthusiastically recommend The Emperor's Soul which, conveniently enough, was the first story in the collection.

I finished The Women Who Wrote the War; it was quite good but I needed to take it at chapter a time just because of the scale and scope. It gave an interesting view of WWII, especially for one who tends to focus on certain areas to the exclusion of others. I left this book wanting to read more about certain areas and figures.

For my next non-fiction read I dove into Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death which talks about how a culture is influenced by its primary form of communication.

...I feel like there's at least one other book in my recent leapfrogging from volume to volume that I wanted to comment on but now I can't think of what it is.

Glad you enjoyed The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond, Mel!
It's interesting that your friends recommended The Emperor's Soul, because that was one of the stories I was told to skip when reading Arcanum Unbounded. But perhaps you've read the connected novel(s)?

I finished The Man Who Knew Too Much and also read Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross. I wasn't a fan of either, but the latter was even harder to make it through than the former. Both had some jarring racism, which - while not entirely surprising due to being written about 100 years ago - made me cringe and left a bad taste.
I feel like the concluding story of TMWKTM was supposed to be Important, but without the context for the strange setting (and the weight of the ending), it just feel kind of flat.
On the other hand, TBatC opens with a weird chapter but then gets down to being a slightly more reasonable story - and then makes a sudden drop into very weird and nightmarish ground. It also spends a good part of the book being an allegorical story and then suddenly changes its mind. It probably didn't help either that I didn't have lots of sympathy with the Catholic character, while the atheist seemed more understandable lots of the time. Also,

On a tangential note, Mel is having her revenge for my dragging her down the Chesterton path - she has me reading another Chesterton, The Trees of Pride. Once I'm done with that, though, I'm going to sit on the last Chesterton I checked out for a while - I need a break.

I was able to recently discover Ray Bradbury. I can't say how much I enjoyed Fahrenheit 451. My brother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas though I only got around to it recently because I had other books to read. I'm sorry now that I put it off for so long. It's really an amazing book. I'm now looking to find some more of Ray Bradbury's books.

Any that you would recommend?

Did someone mention Bradbury?

If you enjoyed Fahrenheit 451, wrose, I recommend picking up one of these:

Something Wicked This Way Comes: a coming-of-age story set in a small town, with lots of strange doings connected to a carnival that's recently arrived. It features Bradbury's classic lyrical style while demonstrating his skill for the eerie.

The Illustrated Man: One of his earliest story collections, this shows the range of Bradbury's imagination and features one of my favorite stories of his, "The Fire Balloons." This *might* be the closest to F451 of the three as far as tone and style (despite it being short stories vs. a novel).

The Martian Chronicles: A "fix-up" novel (essentially a story collection that's been padded with interstitial material to make it sellable as a novel; read it as a collection for the best effect) featuring Bradbury's favorite celestial obsession: Mars. Chronicling the future history of man's colonization of Mars, this collection is another showcase of Bradbury's range as a writer. Depending on which edition you get, it may include "The Fire Balloons," but most do not (sadly). This also has a favorite story of mine: "There will Come Soft Rains."

Hope that helps!

I can definitely echo shastastwin's recommendations about Bradbury. He was one of the authors I read a lot of growing up.

I still remember reading "There Will Come Soft Rains."

Another Bradbury I read way back when was Dandelion Wine. It made less of an impression, perhaps because I expected it to be more like his space stories, but instead had a much more nostalgic tone. Maybe I should pick it up again now that I'm ancient and perhaps better able to appreciate its nuance.

Thanks so much for the recommendations. I promised my flatmate I would not buy anymore books (all because I am flying to Zambia in four months and it's extra weight), but I think I'll break and get at least one of those.

English books aren't easy to find and are usually overpriced, though I did find a Russian publishing house that prints books in English and the prices are much more reasonable. I'll hunt around this week, as I'm desperate for a new books. I've read everything I have so far. I know I should probably switch to ebooks, but somehow I just can't. I can't even focus on the book when I'm looking at a screen, I need the feel and smell of paper. It's a 'heavy' addiction. (if you get the pun )

stargazer, I came across Dandelion Wine a week ago when I came across it in the bookshop. I agree that it has a completely different feel than Fahrenheit 451. I got the feeling that it's more of a slow moving book, though I just started. I'll write what I thought about it when I'm done.

I was able to find The Book Thief and bought it. What made me really excited is it happened to be an anniversary edition ith notes from the author in the back, pictures of original manuscripts and handwritten notes. It was really interesting as it gave me a look at the writing process.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Book Thief and enjoyed it much more than the movie. (Though I have to say the movie is awesome as well.) It's just the book had so much more detail. I loved the writing style Markus Zusak used and it was interesting the way he made Death.

I think of all the characters I loved Hans Hubermann best, and Rudy second.

I read The Illustrated Man a couple of years ago and loved it, so I picked up Fahrenheit 451 but only got a couple of chapters in. I think it's likely I became distracted by another book, but it didn't grab me immediately the way Bradbury's short stories had. I need to give it another go. And it's not the only book I'm "currently reading" ... I need to clear my reading pile!

The Last of the Lost Boys book 3 in The Outlaws of Time by N.D. Wilson comes out in less than three weeks and I just found out about it. I am going to keep a close eye on the library catalog for it.

I haven't been reading much the last couple weeks, family stuff going on. I'm still working on The Vanishing American Adult, I switched to the audiobook and I am almost done with it. I am currently reading A Refuge Assured by Jocelyn Green, so far I am enjoying it.

SnowAngel

Has anybody read 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon?' I've been seeing it advertised all over the place with lots of awards. And the storyline sounds intriguing. I looked it up at our library and it looks like they got several copies, but they're so new they're not available to check out yet.

A different sort of post

My husband and I decided to jump on the homeschooling bandwagon, and so we will be teaching our son at home next year. I found the perfect curriculum (for me) in Sonlight as it includes a TON of books. I've read a few of them, but most I haven't, and I'm really excited to share my love of reading with my kids this next year (I say kids because the younger two can't escape bwahahahaha).

I know there aren't many moms on this board that actively post, but there are quite a few older siblings, so I'm going to go ahead and ask this question. Did you or anyone you know have a hard time listening to a bigger chapter book, and do you know of ways to overcome that? This will be my first time reading chapter books to my son. I've tried in the past (Narnia!) and he just wasn't ready for it. I thought maybe if I provided some kind of art project, like coloring pages, that might help him have something to do while listening to the story. Thoughts?

Oh, and for the record, the first chapter book we start with is 'The Boxcar Children', which I might still have at my parents house. I'll have to call and ask hehehe.

My kids (especially our boys) really liked The Boxcar Children series. And it helped there were tons of stories to keep them reading for a long time.

All the best with the chapter books! When we sat down to read these longer books when they were young, they had the option of, yes, an activity to do while we read to them: stickers, colouring, (quiet) Lego/Duplo. That worked really well. And many times, they would become so enthralled with the story, I would notice they'd just be staring at me, captivated as I read, having forgotten for a time about their activity.

On another note, I have been reading some great books lately (mostly bios), but will have to save that post for another time.

At Jo's request, here's the full list of books for the year. Doesn't include encyclopedia-type books or textbooks.

The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose
James Herriot's Treasury for Children
Egermeier's Bible Story Book
No Children, No Pets
Adventures in Ancient Greece
Out of Darkness
Capyboppy
The Good News Must Go Out
Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend
The Llama Who Had No Pajama
Return of the White Book
The Apple & the Arrow
The Light at Tern Rock
The Hundred Dresses
My Father's Dragon
Twenty and Ten
Adventures with Waffles
Here's a Penny
In Grandma's Attic
The Boxcar Children
Least of All (this is one of my mom's favorites hehe)
Mary on Horseback
Winnie the Pooh
The Story of Dr. Dolittle
A Grain of Rice
The Family Under the Bridge
Dolphin Adventure
Dolphin Treasure
Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book

Oh, I love "My Father's Dragon". I must have read it when my sister had it from the library, and found it years later as an adult. I have even written a script of it - but it wasn't performed.

I hope that is the AA Milne book, Winnie the Pooh. It has such a lovely feel to it which the Disney treatment lost.

Those are the only two I actually know, but the rest sound lovely.

I myself am ready for my annual read of Lord of the Rings, and this morning I found a one-volume copy in a charity shop, for £2.50 (maybe about $4 US?). This is much cheaper than buying individual ones at £8.99 each new.
I am far from home and my books are on the other side of the world.