"The Bond" by Wayne Pacelle

Gerard and Abby

The Bond by Wayne Pacelle is an excellent non-fiction book about our bond with animals. Here are some things I discovered from reading this book that I think are amazing: (1) Indians had dogs as pets; (2) Chimps have better memories than humans; (3) Four dolphins developed their own act with no help from humans. I particularly liked the chapters on Michael Vick and Hurricane Katrina. This is a really good read,pick it up and enjoy!

Have you read this one? What did you think of it?  

You can help our charity of the month just by leaving a comment on any of our blogs! We will donate 50 cents per comment at the end of the month. The charity for this month is at the top of our blog.

Tuesday Teaser: "The Bond"-"Bottom of the 33rd"-"Crossing Lines"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should  Be Reading. Anyone can play along, so I thought  I  would play for fun! Just do the following

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on  that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away!   You don’t  want  to  ruin the  book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can  add the book to their TBR  Lists  if they  like your teaser.   

Gerard's:
A mother gorilla, Binti Jua, with a baby on her back, was the first to reach the boy.  She seemed to have a purpose in mind.

From page 56 of The Bond--our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them by Wayne Pacelle

"Give Howie a call down there and we'll count you when you call in.  See how many people we have still with us on this Easter Sunday morning, listening to Rochester Red Wing baseball here on XPXN."

In other words:  Is anyone out there?

From page 154 of  The Bottom of the 33rd:  Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry


Karen's:

"It's just a personal decision. Accept it and move on." All I could think in my head was, Leave it to a hippie with a ponytail to stick up for a homo wearing lipstick.

From pg. 103 of Crossing Lines by Paul Volponi

Our reviews of these will be posted starting tomorrow. Have you read any of these? What did you think of it?

You can help our charity of the month just by leaving a comment on any of our blogs! We will donate 50 cents per comment at the end of the month. The charity for this month is at the top of our blog.

Aww Mondays

Just thinking about reading all these books tires me out!

Gerard has a lot of books on order at the library, and it always seems that a ton comes in all at once.  This group some he didn't finish yet that he got before plus a new slew of 14 that filled a whole library shelf just for his!  

Do you order books from your library too?

Unfortunately, we just won't be able to read all these in three weeks and they are not renewable because others are waiting.  We went through them and decided to forego reading these at this time:  

The Speaker For The Dead by James Dashner is the sequel to Ender's Game which we both loved; however, I read a little of the introduction and it said that it was really written to stand alone and wasn't necessary to read the first book to enjoy which led me to believe that it really doesn't have that much to do with the first book.  Furthermore, there are a lot of unusual names in it which is a distraction to me so we decided not to read this one after all. 

Karen read the first 50 pages of Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman and just couldn't get interested in it.  We aren't listing it as a "dud" because it's not terrible.  It's about two different families and the wedding of their children. 

The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen
The Man In The Rockefeller Suit--The astonishing rise and spectacular fall of a serial imposter by Mark Seal
Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen
Disturbance by Jan Rorke
From This Moment by Shania Twain

If you read and think we would like any of these on this list, please let us know in a comment and maybe we will reconsider. If you have a cute picture that makes you say "Aww," or to find more "Aww" pictures, check out the "Aww Mondays" linkup over at Comedy Plus.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? You can help our charity of the month just by leaving a comment on any of our blogs! We will donate 50 cents per comment at the end of the month. The charity for this month is at the top of our blog.

"Lost In Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff is an Amazing Adventure!

Here are my five reasons why I loved Lost In Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff: (1) It's a true story; (2) I was not up to speed on this at all so it was very interesting to me; (3) superb writing; (4) great story; and (5) has a double “WOW” factor!

This book tells the story about 24 servicemen during World War II who on a Sunday afternoon flew to a remote island in New Guinea. The plane crashed, killing 21 out of 24 people. Only two men and one woman survived. They were on a remote island filled with native tribesmen without any provisions at all and little hope of a rescue mission anytime soon. This is an incredible story that is told very well. I loved it! I highly recommend it if you like novels about real events and adventure.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it?

You can help our charity of the month just by leaving a comment on any of our blogs! We will donate 50 cents per comment at the end of the month. The charity for this month is at the top of our blog.

"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin

I received The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin from Ann at Up North in a book giveaway and have enjoyed reading it. Basically, Gretchen decided to make an effort at becoming a happier person and focus on that mission for a year. She set some goals each month that she felt would increase her level of happiness if she met them and wrote a book about her project as well as starting a blog about it (www.happiness-project.com). She makes the point over and over that anyone could do their own happiness project and it would be unique to them.


I really found some of her research about happiness very interesting and she gives a lot of good suggestions. On the other hand, there was a good chunk of the book that really didn't interest me because some of her goals just didn't appeal to me. Those parts I just skimmed. Overall though, I think the basic concept is intriguing and found myself marking quite a few things in it that interested me. I loved how she lists her goals each month at the beginning of the chapters and in the back has summary pages of tips for attaining certain common goals such as "Tips to stick to a regular schedule of exercise," "Tips on getting your sweetheart to do chores without nagging," "Tips for coping with the fact that you don't remember a person's name," "Tips for getting an energy boost in the next ten minutes," to name a few.

There are actually Happiness Project Groups started across the country that you can join or you can get a kit and start one of your own. I found this out when I went on the Facebook page. The Happiness Project is a thought provoking book that is worth keeping.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? You can help our charity of the month just by leaving a comment on any of our blogs! We will donate 50 cents per comment at the end of the month. The charity for this month is at the top of our blog.