Books - Quarter 1

Yes, I have been a big slacker...I have not been reading (in addition to blogging)...

Since my move I have been too busy to do any crafty projects.  Just unpacking and cleaning - lots of cleaning.  Hopefully I get back on track soon.

Since Christmas, or even earlier, I have not even read much.  When I visited my family over Thanksgiving, I brought a book up with me.  It took me until January of this year to finish it.  I've just been too busy to read.

The one book I finished in the first quarter of 2013 was:

1. This book was a bit dragged out in the middle part, as usual for Stephen King.  I think that is why it too so long.  I finally had to hole myself up on a Sunday in the house and finish it.  It starts off by telling a bit of history of a group of guys that grew up together.  During middle school, they befriended a kid with downs syndrome, Duddits, by saving him from the local bully.  Duddits had a special gift that can show the way (for lack of a better term).  This talent and his association with the other guys lead to each of them possessing a special mental gift.  The mental gifts show themselves at times and it prevents them from developing real relationships with people as they grow up.  They never formed friendships like they did in middle school.   During their childhood, they visit a hunting spot in the middle of nowhere in Maine with one of the fathers each year.  There is a dreamcatcher in the cabin.  They experience unique times together in the cabin.  They continue to meet once a year at the cabin, even though they have lost touch with each other as they are adults.  Fastforward to them as adults: They take their annual hunting trip to the cabin.  One of the days, they encounter a lost, unwell hunter in the woods and bring him back to the cabin to give aid.  This man has something very wrong with him and this starts the tailspin of everything going out of control.  There is an alien inside this man and it came from an alien aircraft that lands in the woods and pretends that it has come in peace.  The government thinks they know better (that the aliens do not come in peace) and want to annihilate it and all the beings in it.  The government then quarantines the entire area that encompasses the cabin and wants to kill every living thing in it.  One alien takes control of one of the hunting guys and sends him on a suicide mission to kill the government people and to want to eventually kill Duddits. The surviving main characters mentally work together to make it out alive and save Duddits.  Leave it to Stephen King to take a hunting trip and turn it into the end of the world, fighting off aliens.  It was a good read, but way too long.  I know Stephen King likes, not loves, to build each character, but sometimes it gets dragged out.  I give it 3 out of 5 thumbs up.

That book was like 700 or something pages long.  Ugh.  But, it was good.  I took equally as long to read my next book, so you will have to wait until summer to get the next list.

I found a great used book store:  The Bookstall in Brandon, FL. 

They will take your used paperbacks and give you store credit for them.  They even rent out best seller hardcover books.  Downfall is that they do not take hardcovers as used books.  In the past, I have brought in books, they look through them, select what they can sell, give me a small percentage of the cover price in store credit and I go down the street and donate the rest of the books to the library.  The library has annual book sales and the main branch in downtown Tampa has a bookstore that is open the first Sat of each month.  Everyone is happy: I get rid of book-clutter and get credit for more books and the library can sell my donated books.

Back in Mass, there is a used book store: Readmore Books.  Old, dusty building with books probably older then me in there, but they would take books for store credit and such.  I cold spend hours in there.  I am happy to have found better than equivalent to my "Readmore Books" in Brandon.