Books Books are more Books!

When I'm not playing with my camera, editing pictures, working with students from AMOR or actually at work I'm usually reading. The other day before our staff prayer meeting before youth group on Wednesday nights we started tlaking about what everyone is reading... someone mentioned we should start a book club so we only read what we know is good and don't waste our time on stuff that isn't. Who knows if this is something we will really do but I thought I'd post what I've been reading and my thoughts about them. Let me start with this though my reading choices go through phases and my current phase is

anything for fun with no real effect on my life.

The first book is "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay. A friend gave me this book moments before I left for Africa in October. Let me just tell you while this book is fantastic you will probably cry during the entire thing so reading on an airplane full of people probably isn't the best choice. This bookis about two women whose lives intertwine. It isn't a true story, however, it is based on thetrue event of the 1942 roundups of Jewish people in Pairs. One of the women suffers through the roundup as a child while the other studies it for a magazine article. I'm not normally a fan of books that make me cry but this one was worth it!

The second book is "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult. This is the first of her books that I've read and I really enjoyed it! This one was also recommended by a friend. The book is about a boy (Jacob) that has Asberger's which is on the Autism Spectrum that is obsessed with criminology. It is written from the view of the mother, brother, Jacob himself, and two other people. I work with kids that have Autism so this book really struck home with me. Great read for people that don't really understand the lifestyle of people on the spectrum. The actual story line was not what I was expecting, it was a nice surprise so I'll let you be surprised too!

The third book is "Between a Rock and A Hard Place" by Aron Ralston. This is the book about the mountain climber that had to cut his own arm off after a boulder fell on it and he needed to escape. Let me just tell you that this story is crazy! Not only did he stay awake for 127 hours, he drank his own urine, he video taped himself saying goodbye to his family and he hiked miles after he amputated his own arm. I'm pretty sure that I probably wouldn't have been able to do any of that! Awesome read I highly recommend it! Little rough reading the actual amputation but gave me a new perspective on how important life is and how worth living it is!

The fourth book "Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich is my current read. So far so good. Facebook is something I use almost everyday (working on changing that to not as frequently) and the story behind it is intriguing. I haven't seen the movie "Social Networking" yet but I will after I finish the book.