Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Fictional Couples in Books

At first, I wasn't sure I could think of very many fictional couples but it turns out as my mind wheels get moving this morning, I can! So, today's topic from Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and the Bookish is Favorite Fictional Couples in Books. Here's my list:

1. Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility - This is one couple that I root for right from the beginning as Colonel Brandon is introduced and I hope for Marianne to "see" him. There are a lot of ultimate couples(many will be naming one from P&P which I agree with too) in Jane Austen's works and that is such a credit to the way she can write about love, relationships and all of its natural complexities.

2. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter Series - I loved the enchanting progression of this naturally unfolding relationship in the HP series.

3. Chris Nielsen and Annie from What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson - This whole relationship is so complex and intricate which is hard to explain.

4. Mick Webber and Cara Jones from Pickup Games by Marcia Mickelson - This is a fun modern-day romance that might be unfolding at an office near you. So true to our day.

5. Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney from The Scarlet Pimpernel - A classic example of how much do we really know about the one we love?

6. Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind - One of my favorite, although confusing, relationships that made me feel deeply to tear me up emotionally.

7. Fred and Holly from Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote - I love the way the narrator (dubbed "Fred") slowly realizes how much he cares for Holly but her reaction to his affection may deny her what she had been looking for all along.

8. Forrest and Jenny from Forrest Gump by Winston Groom - I love the ideals that Forrest romanticizes about Jenny from the beginning but their relationship path was anything but an easy path. An example of how individual choices can affect love life.

9. Irene and Young Jolyon from The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy - After so much tragedy on both accounts, it's wonderful to finally have a unique and happy love relationship here.

10. Aragorn and Arwen in The Lord of the Rings - I love the whole triangle of Aragorn, Arwen and Eowyn actually. I liked all characters and felt I could feel what they each hoped for in love.

Teaser Tuesday(16): Between the Wingtips: The Secret Life of Birds

My teaser:

Some egrets catch fish by spreading their wings, probably to shade the water surface to prevent distracting reflections - if you have ever tried to count your toes underwater when the sun is shining, you will know the feeling.

~Between the Wingtips: The Secret Life of Birds Photographer: Brutus Ostling Text: Magnus Ullman

My thoughts:
I love learning about birds! This non-fiction book is filled with photo's and information on a variety of birds. It's very beautiful!



Hosted by: MizB of Should be reading
*Anyone can play ~ Find your current read, share a quote from a random page plus do tell what you're reading.
*Remember, you are always welcome to share your teaser in the comments as well.
*For more details be sure to look up how on the links above.

One of my favorite gigs: Dewey's Read-a-thon Cheerleading

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.”

~Elizabeth Hardwick



It's coming up and time for one of my favorite gigs during the year. I love signing up for cheerleading those who read in Dewey's Read-a-thon. It's scheduled for Oct. 9-10 this year. It's a 24-hr. read-a-thon just like in the good old high school days when I did this type of reading marathon with my friends. Now, that I'm older with more responsiblities I'm only able to sign up as a cheerleader at this time. I do love to read the blogs and let them know that I'm rooting for them. Not to mention, I'm able to get a few more ideas for books for my ever-growing TBR list on Goodreads.

Go, readers, Go!

Top Ten Tuesdays: Favorite Book Quotes

Ilustration by John Howe

How could I pass this one up?! I can't because I really love quotes especially from books! Head on over to The Broke and the Bookish to look at even more great quotes!

Here are some of mine and I'm sure that I have even more tucked away but 10 will be fine for today:

1. Marguerite suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, though she was more admired, more surrounded, more f^eted than any woman there, she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon this earth. The Scarlett Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

2. "We sit in the middle of the cafeteria, a fish bowl crowded with minnows,
guppies, tetras, mollies, and angelfish. Sharks circle their prey.
Lesser spiny eels bump their noses against the glass, looking for the
exit. Bits of fish flakes and strings of poop dangle in the air.
Lime-green algae slicks the floor." pg. 105, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

3. Pg. 21: He laughs again. Why does he do that? He is more curious than I am. "You're a tough critic, Jenna Fox. I create art because I need to. It's just something in me. Like breathing."
How can a pine serpent be in him? Especially one that will not last. "This will be gone by tomorrow." ~The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

4. Algernon: I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It ... is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde

5. “You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity.” Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Brontë

6. “Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she(Mademoiselle Reisz) said. ‘The bird that would soar above the level of plain tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted and fluttering back to earth.’” ~The Awakening by Kate Chopin

7. There's a kind of tenderness that's only possible in the predawn hours, a blue-gray, lonely tenderness that comes from dim lights and sleepiness and immense quiet. A kind of tenderness and a kind of hope. I've always found it hard to feel angry in the half-hour before the sun comes up, ....(pg. 187) ~Love Walked In by Maria de los Santos

8. ...the thing is you can get used to anything you think you can't, you
want to die but you don't, you can't, you just are Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

9. It is not only the white man who breaks the sixth commandment…. Evil and ugly things have been committed against the will of God on both sides. The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter

10. The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

*What type of quotation is your favorite? I love ones that are thought-provoking and give me a reason to commit them to my memory.
Thanks so much for reading my Top 10 today!

Teaser Tuesday(15): Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

My teaser:

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:-"Day, its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.

~Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, pg. 279

My thoughts:

I found this book at a thrift store and I loved its vintage quality. Can you imagine paying only .45 as the going rate for this book at one time? On the inside, it seems that this book was printed in 1968. Plus, it's true on the cover as it's One of the world's great love stories.


Hosted by: MizB of Should be reading

*Anyone can play ~ Find your current read, share a quote from a random page plus do tell what you're reading.
*Remember, you are always welcome to share your teaser in the comments as well.
*For more details be sure to look up how on the link above.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Books I'm Dying to Read!

Keep in mind that naturally I have a very loooooong TBR(to be read) list and it's a challenge to choose only 10 from so many choices. Plus, as a bonified bibliophile I'm always on the lookout for more! So, I'll put my Top 10 choices down of ones that have been on my mind recently.
Remember, if you'd like to read more Top Ten choices or participate in making a list of your own, check out The Broke and the Bookish for yourself.

1. Evermore by Alyson Noel - At times, all it takes is a little background information from the author herself to get you excited about reading a book! The only secret I keep/is immortality. ~Emily Dickinson

2. Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, Book 1) by Cassandra Clare - I absolutely love the cover of this book! Plus, it is set in Victorian London and I love that era. Magic is dangerous--but love is more dangerous still.

3. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - I'm sure I'm cheating a bit here because I've read about the first 5 pages already but I haven't had time to immerse myself in this book yet. I'm dying to see how things will end and I have to admit I'm a bit afraid of how it will turn out too. Whereas Katniss kills with finesse, Collins writes with raw power. -Time Magazine

4. Bink & Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Alyson McGhee - I enjoy reading her books and so do my children. This fun new book is a collaborative effort and should come out later this month but it may take some time to get my hands on one. Funny, ebullient ... two friends, three adventures.

5. Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd - I've been hearing all sorts of great things about this book! As you know, I love Jane Austenish stuff so this is right up my alley. This is a superb retelling of the Jane Austen novel in which the house at Mansfield Park becomes the scene of one murder after another.

6. The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason F. Wright - After I heard Jason F. Wright speak once at Time Out for Women, I've been a fan of his books. I look forward to this one! To the teachers who believed.

7. Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl - I know very little about this book but I like the premise and the fact they collaborated to write it. So cool! In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

8. Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey - I'm always so excited to start a new year of reading in a local Classics Book Group I attend. This is the first book choice of 2011. I happen to like Westerns once in a while and this seems like pure classic. Perhaps more than any other novel, contributed to the concept of the American West.

9. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed - This book will most likely take me a long time to read but I hope that it will be very interesting. With penetrating insights for today, this history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s presents unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth century.

10. Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach, Jud Newborn - Ever since I read The Silenced by James DeVita I have been interested about Sophie Scholl. I haven't found the time to read this version of her story yet and I'd like to. "We will not be silent! We are your bad conscience!" they exhorted the German people to stand up and fight for freedom.

Let me know what books have been on your mind and what you've been dying to read in your comment! Too bad, making and finding time to read all I want can be a complex project of itself but I'm content to keep trying! Eventually, I'll make progress, read and learn something in the process which makes all the difference. Reading is so worthwhile.

Also, if you're interested in book blogs like I am be sure to check out Book Blogger Appreciation Week going on this week! You'll find lots to read from these amazing book bloggers and enjoy reading their blogs in the process. Be warned: reading book blogs can become addictive! ;)

Teaser Tuesdays(14):Evermore by Alyson Noel

My teaser:

"Normally, I'd do anything to avoid a place like this. A place so congested with the random energy of people, their bright swirling auras, their odd collection of thoughts."

My thoughts:

I had to choose this quote after feeling the crowd of people from last night's energy! You see, I feel so lucky that I was able to attend a book signing event at the BookPeople in Austin, TX. I heard Alyson Noel speak and hearing her story of how she came about writing this book convinced me to buy it! I hadn't realized that she would be there so I hadn't thought of buying her book. I can't wait to read it! It was so nice to meet her even if only for a couple of minutes. I love how she signed the words "peace*joy*love" in my book too. I wish everyone the same. Thanks for reading my teaser today!

Introduced to me by: Bookworm Barista
Hosted by: MizB of Should be reading

*Anyone can play ~ Find your current read, share a quote from a random page plus do tell what you're reading.
*Remember, you are always welcome to share your teaser in the comments as well.
*For more details be sure to look up how on the links above.

Journal Entry: Reflection of 9-11

It’s hard to believe that it has been 9 yrs. since that fateful day. I don’t always realize it but I am still affected by the experience, by the emotion that seized me as I watched a plane dive into the World Trade Center on TV. At first, I was driving down the Interstate listening to the radio after taking my husband to work. I heard what I thought at the time was a commercial for a movie and I remember thinking “That sounds like a bad movie, I don’t want to see it.” At the end of the segment, it was repeated so it dawned on me that it was news not fiction. It worried me. I rushed home to watch TV news. Up to this point, I was curious how an accident like this with a plane could even happen. I had to find out so I trusted what was being said on TV. Safe in my home, I tuned in and in just a very few minutes another plane hit a second huge tower in New York. I was stunned. How could this be real? I already wished that it wasn’t. People - real people were dying even jumping to their deaths. It scared me. I was gripped with a feeling that I couldn’t shake that my husband would eventually be deployed to war. This was real. It wouldn’t be something that an American President would be able to ignore. Life around me was changing. Tears still well up in my eyes, even now, as I truly think of the magnitude of this day and what has happened in my life since which in comparison to those lost is insignificant. I will never forget.

*This picture above was taken when we welcomed our husband/dad home from his deployment in Iraq. (Nov. 2005)

Random Supplement to Words I Love

On Tues., I filled out my top ten words which was so much fun to think about. Now, I've been seeing lots of words everywhere that I like. I also found more quotes to supplement the words I originally chose for my first list. So just for fun, here's a few of those findings:

Ability:

In a search for the words uncanny ability, it brought up a story about a cat who fortells death in a nursing home and funny piece from SNL from the famous Tina Fey portraying Sarah Pallin.

Persuasion:

"You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you certainly have no right to concern yourself in mine."
- Chapter 56, Pride and Prejudice, ~Jane Austen

“The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.”
~Terry Pratchett

“In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance”
~Thomas Jefferson

“Advertising isn't a science. It's persuasion. And persuasion is an art.”
~William Bernbach

Love:

A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay -
Love isn’t love
'Til you give it away.
~Oscar Hammerstein, Sound of Music, "You Are Sixteen (Reprise)"

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." ~Albert Einstein



"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." ~Henry David Thoreau

"Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once never forgotten, never let it disappear." ~John Lennon


Fantastic:

"Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment the universal.”
~Oscar Wilde

“One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”
~George W. Bush


Thinking about my favorite words has been a fun exercise for my brain. As you can plainly read, it's been a bit humorous too. :D Be sure to find a reason to smile or laugh today!

Top Ten Tuesday: Words I Love

Since I love words and quotes so much I thought I would combine the two today for The Broke and the Bookish Top Ten Tues.: Favorite Words. Here’s my choices which may be subject to change on any given day but for today these are the words that came immediately to my mind that I love, especially the way they sound!

1. Ability ~ " 'I never cheat at cards.' It was true, if one ignored his uncanny ability to keep track of every card in a deck. Some people didn't."
p 10 "A Hellion in Her Bed" by Sabrina Jeffries (ARC) Found in Teaser Tues. at In the Hammock blog.

2. Ludicrous ~ “I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm.”
-Mike Tyson

3. Intensity ~“Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity such as I cannot derive from other realms.”
Albert Einstein

4. Lovely~I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
~Ogden Nash, "Song of the Open Road," 1933

5. Influence~The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years. Most people believe that aging is universal but there are biological organisms that never age.
Deepak Chopra

6. Fantastic~“Until we're educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.”
Bill Gates

7. Truth~"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
- Chapter 1, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

8. Imagination~"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment."
- Chapter 6, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

9. Persuasion~“Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.”
-Aristotle

10. Deceive~"It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us."
- Chapter 24, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Now, it's your turn - think about your favorite words and share them with me!

Teaser Tuesdays(13): Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Introduced to me by: Blue Duck Book Reviews
Hosted by: MizB of Should be reading


My Teaser:

"Sure enough, the safe is open wide-but it's not entirely empty. Inside is the bracelet, its gold and diamonds looking even brighter against the ugly gray steel of the empty safe."

pg. 161 in Unwind by Neal Shusterman


*Anyone can play ~ Find your current read, share a quote from a random page plus do tell what you're reading.
*Remember, you are always welcome to share your teaser in the comments as well.
*For more details be sure to look up how on the links above.

A Quote About Art

Recently, I went to two local Art museums and I saw this quote on the side of a building close-by one of them so I snapped a picture. I enjoy thinking about this essence that it seems to be relating about Art through this quote. I wonder how you might relate or what you may think of this quote. I'm curious so let me know.
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