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I finished Jane Eyre last night. The moment I picked it up, I had a very difficult time putting it down. I even resorted to bad mom things like turning on Curious George so that I could read my book. If you have not read this book, you need to read it. It is sooo good – way better than The Time Traveler’s Wife or whatever else you might be reading - yeah, that good! I can’t believe I’ve never read this before!

I picked up a couple of other books from Barnes and Noble yesterday (well, Joel picked them up for me). I had a gift certificate waiting to be spent. These books won’t be as fun to read as Jane Eyre, but I’m still excited about them. I got Birthing from Within and Taking Charge of Your Fertility.

Also, I’ve got a question for all of you who have read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Is this a fun read? Like, do I want to bring it with me on my relaxing trip to Florida? Or should I bring something else? And if you think I should bring something else, well, what do you recommend?

I love, love, love to read - but don't read as much as I'd love to.

Over my Christmas break, I read the book “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. In my opinion: good, but not great. Basically the author spends 4 months in Italy, 4 months in India, and 4 months in Indonesia. She just went through a very rough divorce and is trying to find herself, her spirituality, etc. I think she is an incredible writer, which is what got me through the book. I liked her adventures and some of her insights, etc. However, it got a little too “me, me, me” focused. Some of it caused me to roll my eyes and some of it seemed overly self-serving.

Now I am reading Jane Eyre. I have seen the movie, but have not read the book and Rosemary gave it to me for Christmas. It was a nice accompaniment to the tickets Joel bought me for Christmas to see Jane Eyre at the Guthrie Theater in March. I’m completely wrapped into this book – and it helps that I can barely remember the movie, so I don’t remember what happens. However, I’m nervous that reading the book so close to seeing the play will cause me to not like the play. We’ll see what happens. I haven’t been to the new Guthrie yet, so I’m sure I’ll love it even if the play doesn’t meet the book’s standards.

I finished The Time Traveler's Wife and liked it a lot, but I can't say I loved it. There were a couple elements to it that made it difficult for me.

[Unknown LJ tag] I definitely had to suspend some disbelief. I always wondered how he knows for sure that he is in present time - especially when he is sometimes returns within days of the time that he left. Maybe he's still future or past Henry? Stuff like that kind of got to me.

I feel torn about the whole Clare thing. I can see some feminist arguments that her whole life was basically planned out for her by some guy. Of course, Clare chose to wait for him. The thought never bothered me until after Henry died. I thought it was a great love story, still do think it's a great love story. It shows the intensity of the love that Clare chose to wait for Henry, trusting and believing in it. But it makes me sad that Henry died when Clare was only 37 and she continued to wait for him. I wonder if she wouldn't have been better able to move on if only she hadn't known that someday she would see Henry again.

So much is left to our imagination, though, so who knows? Maybe she did move on. Perhaps she did remarry, but I highly doubt it.


I would definitely recommend the book to many people. And I will probably read it again myself. It was good enough that it was hard to put down, good enough to read again ... but not perfect, in my humble opinion.

I loved it. I loved Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I loved the whole series. I actually read the first book for my young adult literature class in my junior year of college. From that point on, I was hooked. The 6th book was released on the day that we were flying home from London - about a week after the London bombings - and I really got caught up in the whirlwind of that book release. It was something light hearted to grab onto when everything else in the news was all about all the deaths that had just happened. I bought the book in the airport and had a great read on the plane ride - let’s just say I wasn’t the only person on the plane weeping about Dumbledore’s death.

It’s so great to have something like a book to connect so many people. How did she do it? How did she write a book that people of EVERY age read? Parents, kids, grand-parents, the whole lot. I’m so incredibly impressed by the author J.K. Rowling, she has written a series that I believe will be loved by generations, and I look forward to reading it out loud to my own kids.

( Harry Potter SPOILERS behind the cut. Please do not read if you haven't read the book! )

I could probably talk about this for a long time, and I’m sure some of you are wishing I would shut up already. I’d love to talk about some of the themes of the book, but I’m still kind of trying to wrap my head around it all. I’m open for dialogue if any of you other HP fans want to talk about it. This series has really moved me. I’m not kidding. I’m a huge fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter has outdone it, in my opinion. In some ways, you can’t really make comparisons and the Chronicles of Narnia will always have the childhood connection to them for me that HP won’t have. But, Harry Potter is better and that’s that.

It has been a long time since I’ve been captivated by a book and I miss that a lot. I learned that I really do have time to read, even though I always say I don’t. So I went to the library today and checked out The Time Traveler’s Wife. thesynergizer has been nagging me to read it. :-)

I did finish Harry Potter. I loved it. And of course, wept. I'll write more about it later.

Sarah, do you want to borrow my copy? I'll warn you before posting spoilers. Don't read them, it's much better not to know what happens.

Don't worry, I'm going to talk about Harry Potter, but not even really about the book. I'm not even halfway through the Deathly Hallows. My goal is to finish by Friday - earlier would be better because I'm so nervous about accidentally encountering spoilers that I'm really driven to keep going. Plus I could hardly sleep last night because of something that Ron did right before I put the book down last night. It had my mind going a mile a minute.

Anyway. What I'm here to talk about is my experience at church yesterday. Rosemary was very hyper/energetic in the service and so Joel decided to take her to the nursery and allow me to stay through the service. We sort of take turns with that because Rosemary can't be left in the nursery alone yet. It's just too traumatic for her and the people watching her, because of course she usually ends up crying/throwing up.

Anyway. I actually really enjoyed the service. I was sitting there amazed because this is the second service in a row that I felt like I was learning something and like the pastor was doing a good job getting his message through. Then he started talking about sin/conviction. And, you guessed it - the subject of Harry Potter came up.

Gar. In years past, he has expressed his distaste for the series and it's bothered me, but I've chosen to ignore it. It's too big of a mountain to deal with or care about. I used to hide my HP books when Joel's family would come over and even regrettably sold the first 5 books in the series at a garage sale because I felt bad for hiding them all the time. That was about 3 years ago. I have since become very disappointed in myself for selling the books, determined that I am not going to hide the ones I have, and also determined that I will not hide the fact that I read them AND greatly enjoy them. The subject hasn't come up with Joel's family and I have also decided I'm not going to be the one to bring it up. But I will stand up for myself when the time comes.

Tangent aside, it's bothered me that my pastor has said what he's said about Harry Potter - just like some of the political views he has expressed have bothered me. I think I've talked about it in here before, right? I have chosen to just shrug it off. I do love this church, I don't see it as being my home church forever, but I love it and I don't want to leave it out of anger.

I felt a twinge of anger at what he said ... because he actually said that if you can sit in a church and not see the spirit of darkness surrounding the HP books, and not feel convicted about it, then you don't have the spirit of Christ in you. So, of course anger began to rise up in me. But I choose not to feed that or allow that anger to grow. Instead I just feel ... sad.

It's sad to me how "christians" (and I use that word loosely) can allow themselves to so easily label something as "bad" without even really understanding the subject. Instead, they just blindly jump onto the judgment train without knowing. I personally want to know how he can see a spirit of darkness around something that is causing millions of people worldwide to turn off their TVs, put away their video games, and actually read.

I would feel differently if this was a modern-day, practical guide to witchcraft and wizardry. You know, something that was actually attempting to teach the world how to murder and hurt other people. But this is FANTASY and FICTION. A part of life that is so important, especially to children who are learning and growing. And more importantly, it shows the classic struggle of good over evil. Harry has a great heart and a good set of morals, despite having been raised by a family that could care less about him.

It makes me sad that these "christians" want to take imagination, pretending, fantasy away from us and label it as "bad." It's not bad, it's important. It's a major element in development, it's what allows people to function creatively as adults. It's so GOOD in so many ways.

It's also so hypocritical to just focus on HP as the bad book. What about the magic and witchcraft in the Chronicles of Narnia? What about Lord of the Rings?

Deep breath. I'm sure I'm not the only one of you who has encountered this. I'm also fairly sure there are some of you who think it's bad. I think you're wrong, plain as day. And I don't think your argument is valid if you have not read the book, but have only read accounts from other people who haven't read the book who think it's wrong.

And I'm not friends-locking this, because I have nothing to hide.

All right, Harry Potter fans. I know some of you are cooking and mixing in preparation for the GREAT RELEASE tomorrow. I did a google search on "butterbeer" and got about a million different recipes.

So, what are your recipes?

Like most of you, I intend to start reading the latest Harry Potter this weekend. I, however, am probably not going to finish it as fast as most of you. So if you could please, pretty please with a cherry on top keep any spoilers behind a cut, I would really appreciate it. Either that or I'm going to have to avoid the internet until I'm done with the book.