Born to Run

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

All I am going to say about this book is that if you already love running, it will make you love it more. If you don't love running, but want to, this book can still make you gain a passion for running. And if you don't love running and don't even want to, I still recommend this book because I think you would still like it.

I listened to it on tape (while running sometimes) and the reader was good (it may actually have been the author, I forget) BUT the one thing I will say is that he does a lot of direct quotes from people and some of them swear and I don't know why but listening to it is worse than reading it for me. So, take that into consideration. But this is a definite must read.

The Book Thief

So I actually have a blog for reviews of the books I read. But I thought maybe I couldt post little blurbs about the books I read, and if you want to read more about it you can visit my book review blog.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5 out of 5 stars (8 out of 5 stars?)

I LOVE THIS BOOK! It was a huge surprise to me - I had no idea what to expect from it, except that it was narrated by Death (and that doesn't exactly tell you anything - it is just confusing until you read the book). If you want a more detailed summary and rantings and ravings go here. But for now, I will just tell you all to read this book. Make it next on your list. It's a winner.

The Help

I LOVED this book. Some books take me a few pages or chapters to get into, and that was not the case with The Help. I was totally invested from beginning to end. The characters felt so real and wonderful to me.

The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. I've read books before from that era, but this is a different perspective of the Civil Rights movement. Some of the chapters are from the perspective of "the help," two different black ladies, Minny and Aibileen, who are maids/cooks/baby-sitters in white ladies' houses, and some are from the perspective of a white girl, Skeeter, who just graduated from college and has come back home.

Skeeter decides to start a project collecting stories from the help in their town, to find out what it's REALLY like to be employed in a white person's house. So Minny and Aibileen get the ladies in town to tell Skeeter their stories.

If you haven't read this already, please do. I can't imagine anyone not loving it.

Ladies who have read it--what do you have to add? What did you love the most about this book?