what I've read so far this year...

I'm not sure why I was thinking about this the other day but I was.

From the bottom up:

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
Alex got the book as a Christmas gift. A friend had let us borrow their copy of the first book and we both really enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed this one as well (and was pleased to see that the ending leaves an opening which surely means that there will be more books in this series).

Hatchet
This was one of my picks from last year for the book club Jeff and I do together each year. I don't know what happened to me last year but I didn't read half of the books from our book club (perhaps more). I'm trying to catch back up since Jeff read almost all of them last year. Okay... about this actual book. I really enjoyed it... so well written, you really believe it actually happened. We both thought Alex might like the book, however, there are references to the mom having an affair which leads to his parents' divorce... not sure Alex is ready for that.

The City of Ember
We rented this movie a couple of weeks ago for Family Movie Night based on the recommendation of the guy at Blockbuster. We really enjoyed the movie. We decided to see if the movie was based on a book... it was and it just happened to be in at our library. I read this last week and again, really enjoyed it. It is quite a bit different from the movie... not quite as scary. The book gives you more details as to some of the secrets behind the creation of the city of Ember. There are more books in the series, so I might check those out as well.

Inkheart
This was the first book we read in our book club this year. This year we decided to take a step and expand our club a bit. We included Alex this year for one book. So, starting right after Christmas the three of us started working our way through our own copies of the book. It took me about a week, Alex about a month and Jeff about 2 months to get through this book. I have to say, that although I ended up liking the book, I was disappointed in it. I had high hopes for it... but it was hard to get into and it just didn't grab me the way some books do. There are other books in this series, but I honestly have no desire to read them. As for including Alex in our book club... it went really well! It had always been fun for Jeff and I to be reading the same book at the same time so we could discuss it, but it was really special for Alex to join in on our conversations this time. I think we might include him in a couple more next year and hopefully within the next couple of years, Clara will join us as well.

Into the Wild
I had expected this book to be a quick read as it is a relatively short book. However, it seemed to take me forever. I have loved every other Jon Krakauer book I have read, but this one, I just couldn't get in to. He did a great job explaining some of Christopher's past that lead up to him going out "into the wild"... but I just couldn't get my head around it. I've heard I should see the movie though... so I will soon.

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
Okay... so I haven't read this book but I am reading it. It is one of Jeff's picks for our book club this year. So far I find it very disturbing... I am extremely uncomfortable reading it. Perhaps Jeff gets it more having gone to Catholic school (most of the 5 star reviews on Amazon seem to be written by former Catholic school students)... but so far I'm not sure I get it.

In addition to these I also borrowed these two from a friend:
44 Scotland Street
Espresso Tales
I enjoyed both of these as light fun books to read. There's nothing terribly deep about them but you really begin to "know" the characters and want to know what happens with them and they have nice sized chapters that make it easy to pick up and put down again. There are other books in the series that I think I may pick up at some point.

Okay... I think that's it so far! I'm not counting books I've read aloud to the kids in this list.... just books I've read on my own. I've never kept track of how many books I've read in a year before, maybe I'll try to keep track this year.