40 over 40 by Brenda Kinsel

Non-Fiction. Paperback from Wildcat Canyon Press;. Published in 1999. Purchased at the Cascade Public Library from their used book shelf.

The subtitle of this book is 40 Things Every Woman Over 40 Needs to Know About Getting Dressed I'm not really sure why I picked it up. Maybe just the fact that it was only $2. But, then maybe that should have told me not to buy it. Truthfully though, it's not a bad little book. I think I even learned a thing or two. One of my favorite tidbits was the exhortation not to feel bad about your body when you can't find clothes that fit you right. She says it's the clothes that aren't right, not you. I liked that. I think it was a well spent $2.00 and I will be giving some thought to the advice offered within.

Publisher's summary:
Attention women over Forty! Don't buy another outfit without reading this book!

Do you struggle every day with decisions about what to wear? Is your personal style whatever you can grab and don quickly? Do you gaze into your closet and think: "I have nothing to wear," even though it is packed full of clothes?

Well, fret no more, because help has arrived! In 40 over 40, professional image consultant Brenda Kinsel helps you select clothes and accessories that are perfect for you -- not your mother or daughter. Fun, informative, and inspirational, 40 over 40 is bursting with tips and practical advice that will help you appear every bit as successful and accomplished on the outside as you are on the inside.

Every woman in her forties can have a glorious relationship with her clothes -- 40 over 40 shows you how to love what you wear and wear what you love!

To buy from amazon.com, click here: 40 Over 40: 40 Things Every Women over 40 Needs to Know About Getting Dressed
To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here:40 Over 40: Forty Things Women Over Forty Need to Know About Getting Dressed

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Fiction. Audiobook from Time Warner Audio Books. Originally published in 1992, recorded in 2001. Purchased at Audible.com.

Snow Crash is not a book for someone who gets offended if the bible is used as a plot device - especially if it is twisted around a bit (okay, quite a bit). I don't for one minute believe that the premise of the story is true, so it does not bother me. This was my third time through this book. I think most fans for Science Fiction would agree this is a great read. As an aside, the narrator of the audio book, Jonathan Davis, does an excellent job.

Publisher's summary:
Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison - a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about Infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous...you'll recognize it immediately

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: Snow Crash
from amazon.com, click here: Snow Crash

The Quill Awards

I got this notice today via e-mail. I've voted for my favorites. Click below to vote for yours!

The Quill Awards are a celebration of the written word created to inspire reading while promoting literacy. The Quills is the first national book awards program in which the people, not the critics, decide who’s the best of the best.

Learn more about the Quill Awards.

Watch for the Quill Awards on NBC in October 2005!

From the Bookshelf: Frozen Assets: Lite & Easy by Deborah Taylor-Hough

Non-Fiction. Paperback from Champion Press. Published in 2001. Purchased at Waldenbooks at the Crossroads Shopping Center, Kentwood, MI

This method of cooking - making large batches of entrees and freezing them - has been very beneficial to our family meal times. Some people do not mind cooking every day. I am not one of those people. But, I do enjoy cooking sometimes. So, by cooking ahead I am able to have a meal for the table even on days when I can't bear the thought of cooking another meal. On the days when I feel up to it, I can add things like homemade breads and desserts to the already prepared entree.

Publisher's summary:
The best-selling author of "Frozen Assets: How To Cook For A Day And Eat For A Month" is back with a book designed specifically for anyone looking for low-fat meal plans (including vegetarian options). It utilizes an even simpler design for once-a-month cooking through weekly "mini sessions". This great technique allows you to customize your menu quickly and easily and cook in advance for a week, two weeks, three weeks or more! Deborah Taylor-Hough, the quintessential "once-a-month cooking" expert, once again shows how to increase time at the family table, while decreasing time in the kitchen. Imaging being able to pull homemade Turkey Tortilla Casserole, Marinated Lime Chicken, Linguini with Vegetables, or Broccoli Tofu Quiche out of the freezer and into your oven. Beside the culinary magic Taylor-Hough pulls off, she also saved $24,000 in five years with this method and shares her secrets here!

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: Frozen Assets Lite & Easy: How to Cook for a Day and Eat for a Month
from amazon.com, click here: Frozen Assets Lite and Easy: How to Cook for a Day and Eat for a Month

I like this freezer cookbook because it includes many vegetarian recipes. However, there are many other excellent freezer cookbooks available, including:

• Frozen Assets: How to Cook for a Day and Eat for a Month


• The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet : A Month of Meals Made Easy


• The Best Freezer Cookbook: Freezer Friendly Recipes, Tips and Techniques


• Don't panic-- it's in the freezer!: A cookbook full of great-tasting meals you can make ahead

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

Fiction. Hardback from Scholastic Books. Published in 2005. Purchased at Meijer (who had the lowest price).

Book six in the series.

I had to let my daughter read this one first, since she was chomping at the bit to get to it. She finished it in one day, and I finished it the next day. (We didn't get much done those two days, but we had a good time!) My son just finished listening to the audio version on loan from the library. (Shame on J. K. Rowling, she won't let Audible sell the audio versions of Harry Potter, so we have to revert to getting it from the library.)

This series continues to get darker, the reading level growing with the age characters portrayed. My daughter went ahead and told me who the main character was who is killed, so I was prepared for it. Well, as prepared as one can be so see a favorite character dead and especially at the hands of the person who did the killing. (I'm trying not to spoil it in case someone hasn't read it yet, but it's not easy!)

Great book. Am looking forward to the final installment of this series and to anything else J. K. Rowling may write in the future.

Publisher's summary:
The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.

And yet...

As in all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate -- and lose a few eyebrows in the process. The Weasley twins expand their business. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.

So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered six installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort -- and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
from amazon.com, click here: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

Fiction. Paperback from Scholastic. Published in 2003. Purchased at Barnes & Noble.

Fifth book in the series.

Publisher's summary:
There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it's haunting Harry Potter's dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror?

Harry has a lot on his mind for this, his fifth year at Hogwarts: a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher with a personality like poisoned honey; a big surprise on the Gryffindor Quiddich team; and the looming terror of the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams. But all these things pale next to the growing threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named –- a threat that neither the magical government nor the authorities at Hogwarts can stop.

As the grasp of darkness tightens, Harry must discover the true depth and strength in his friends, the importance of boundless loyalty; and the shocking price of unbearable sacrifice.

His fate depends on them all.

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
from amazon.com, click here: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

St. Augustine in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern

Non-Fiction. Audiobook from Blackstone Audio. Published in 1997, recorded in 2005. Purchased at Audible.com

Steve got this audiobook, and it sounded mildly interesting to me, so I gave it a listen. The author seemed a bit hostile towards Augustine, but then I feel hostile towards him at times, too. I was just hoping for a better representation of the man, including also some things that he had done that were good. I suppose this author doesn't think that there was much good in Augustine - he certainly picked examples from Augustine's work that were pretty silly. As an aside, I did learn an interesting tidbit about Augustine's mom: her name was Monica, and Santa Monica California is named for her. As to this book, a quick easy read on Augustine, but I wouldn't recommend it as an only source on the man.

Publisher's summary:
Augustine's struggles with sex and a domineering mother, followed by his spiritual crisis and conversion to Christianity, detailed in his Confessions, ultimately led him to his major contribution to philosophy: the fusion of the two doctrines of Christianity and Neoplatonism. This not only provided Christianity with a strong intellectual backing but tied it to the Greek tradition of philosophy. In this way Christianity managed to keep the flame of philosophy burning, however dimly, through the Dark Ages. Augustine also produced important philosophic ideas of his own, including theories of time and subjective knowledge that anticipated by many centuries the work of Kant and Descartes.

In St. Augustine in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of St. Augustine's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from St. Augustine's work, a brief list of suggested readings for those who wish to delve deeper, and chronologies that place St. Augustine within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: St. Augustine in 90 Minutes
from amazon.com, click here: St. Augustine in 90 Minutes

I Told the Mountain to Move by Patricia Raybon

Non-Fiction. Hardback from Salt River. Published in 2005. On loan from the Cascade Public Library.

I saw this book advertised in a magazine and thought I might like to read it. I wasn't sure I wanted to buy it, so I checked our library web site and discovered that I was able to get it through the interlibrary loan program.

Some books on prayer leave me a bit irritated. I've never been to impressed with books that seem to me to be telling the reader that if they just follow steps 1, 2 and 3 then God will answer all of their prayers. So, it is always with a bit of trepidation that I open a book on prayer. Fortunately, this book was nothing like that. Patricia Raybon is obviously a woman who has done a lot of reading on prayer as the book the liberally sprinkled with quoted wisdom from writers like Richard Foster, Oswald Chambers, and Andrew Murray (plus many others). Written in a narrative style, for the most part the "bits of widsom" flowed smoothly into the story. There were a couple of times when it seemed like she was gone off on a tangent and I wondered when she would get back to the topic at hand, but it was not bad at all. There is much to deliberate on in this book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Publisher's summary:
Raised in a strict, church-going family, award-winning writer Patricia Raybon was shocked to find herself struggling in adulthood with a lifeless marriage and an unsettling distance from God. She set out to rebuild her prayer life, searching for a connection that would transform her household and impact others. But as her prayer journey took off, life interrupted with a mountain of hard, personal challenges. Suddenly in the "school of prayer," the Christopher Award-winner and popular college professor found herself not only on her knees praying, but at her desk--writing this powerful, inspiring, funny, personal, brave, redemptive account of her quest to rediscover, in the midst of modern-day challenges, God's greatest lesson on life-changing prayer.

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: I Told the Mountain to Move
from amazon.com, click here: I Told The Mountain To Move