The Content Reader

Rose City Reader , is hosting Book beginnings on Fridays. Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name. Freda’s voice is hosting Friday 56 and the rules are: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that's ok.)  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) *Post it. *Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. *It's that simple. My book this week is One Hundred Years of Solitude  by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think it is a great beginning. Book beginning: " Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice ." Page 56: ...

Lizzie Borden took an ax, Gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. This is a song that was created around this famous murder case and it seems that it is quite well known in the US. However, it does not give us the whole extent of this extraordinary murder mystery. Behind it, is a real life murder mystery, to which there is no answer to 'who dunnit'! Sarah Miller has done a thorough research into these gruesome murders which took place on 4 Augusti, 1892 in Fall River, Mass. The police was called to the house on 92 Second Street and found Mr and Mrs Borden murdered in the house. Mrs Borden upstairs in her bedroom and Mr Borden on the sofa in the living room. The only persons in the house was the youngest daughter Lizzie and the maid Bridget. The police did not do a very good first investigation of the murder scene and this was later an obstacle in the trial. However, after a few days the police decided to arrest t...

I am joining Guiltless Reading for the Bookmark Monday meme. I was recently travelling around Normandie and in the castle in Falaise, the birthplace of William the Conquerer, I found these lovely bookmarks. They really fit the Norman times.

I have a pile of five books that I read lately and have not yet reviewed. Here are mini reviews of the books, although some of them really deserves a 'real' review. The Last Girls by Lee Smith A wonderful book about a group of young girls who, while in college, decides to go in the footsteps of Huckleberry Finn, and go down the Mississippi on a raft. Thirty-five years later four of them meets to make a different trip down the Mississippi. "Baby", who was the 'wild one' during their college years, has died and her husband has asked her friends to take her ashes down the river to commemorate their earlier trip. Harriet, a teacher, unmarried, careful, not taking any risks. Courtney, married rich and have to deal with her husbands infidelity and her mother-in-law's dominance. Anna, comes från poor circumstances, got a scholarship to college and is now a successful bestseller author. Catherine, the southern beauty who went against her upbringing to bec...

Long time no see! I have been on a trip to Normandie, Guernsey and Jersey. It was a nine day trip on the road from morning to evening, so I had not so much time to blog. There will be some reports from our trip which was very nice and interesting, as well as a few short reviews of books read lately. During the trip I was exhausted in the evenings and I just read a few very easygoing historical fiction books. Now at home again I will go back to One Hundred Years of Solitude  by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is a little bit more demanding to read. Today I went to a "Book Festival" and though I was very restricted and disciplined (at least I thought so myself!) I came back with 16 books! Yes, I know. As if I don't have several TBR shelves already full of books. But when the books cost 2-5 € each, it is difficult to resist. Of the 16 books I have divided them into four piles; five books with favourite authors, six books with authors I wanted to read, three with biographica...

Bev at My Reader's Block is hosting the Mount My TBR challenge. She has called for the first check point and here is mine. As of 31 March I have read 15 books from my TBR pile and that has taken me to the top of Pike's Peak (4.302 m or 14,155 ft or 12 books) and 1.202 m or 3,943 ft or 3 books) up the Mont Blanc. I am steady on my way. 9 more books to reach the peak on 4.808 m (15,774 ft). I hope to read at least 100 books this year, but all of them will not be from my TBR pile, so the end of the year will tell which mountain I will climb. Here are a few things Bev asks us to consider.

April and we are to consider another book chain in the meme 6 Degrees of Separation , hosted   Books Are My Favourite And Best . This month we start with the book Room  by Emma Donoghue. I have not read the book, but heard about it, or at least the movie, which I have not seen either. I make it easy for myself and start with Emma , which leads me into the book Emma by Jane Austen. A book I tried to read for ages and just could not get into it. Finally, I decided "just to read it" and, although it is not my favourite Austen read by far, (I just can't stand Emma) it does improve after about half the book. The latter part is a relatively pleasant read. From Austen I go to Austen ! Or almost at least. Recently I read All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith, about her trip to six South American countries in a quest to find out how Austen is interpreted by modern South Americans. A pleasant read.