Starting March 20, and ending on June 21, I'm holding my Spring Seasonal Reading Challenge for any and all interested in participating! The winner of Level 2 will be awarded a point by me (unless, of course, I win it!). For those who have not participated in my previous challenges, I'll put the rules below, but it's really quite simple.

To sum the rules up quickly and briefly, a Level 1 challenge is four books, a Level 2 challenge is six books (please list the books here), they must fit into the categories provided, and the first to complete each level wins! Also, no books under 150 pages are allowed. When you finish the challenge, just post here to let everybody know, and please feel free to discuss with us your opinions of the books you read for this challenge throughout the season. And if you ever need any help choosing books or understanding the rules, or if you have any ideas you'd like to share for future categories, feel free to contact me either on the forum or by email.

Thanks for joining, and I hope you have fun! :-)

The categories:
1. Read a book by author Sandra Brown.
2. Read a book with the first letter of the tite being "E".
3. Read a book that was also a movie.
4. Read a book with a land formation in the title. (Prairie, mountain, plateau, hill, valley, etc.)
5. Read a book by an author from your home state.
6. In memorium to the sad loss of the Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Baily Circus, read a book about a circus. (If you can't think of any, I can give you some recommendations, as I have read several good ones.)

My choices:
1. Rainwater, by Sandra Brown
2. The Eye of Heaven, by Clive Cussler and Russell Blake
3. Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton (I've heard so much about it, that I figured I'd give it a try.)
4. The Gates of the Mountains, by Will Henry
5. Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish, by Grace H. Kaiser
6. Struggles and Triumphs, by P.T. Barnum

I will again be reading 4 books for the challenge. I am going to have to stay on top of this challenge. None of the books are under 300 pages and at least one of the authors requires me to pay close attention so I end up going slower when reading her (Toni Morrison).

1. Hidden Fires, by Sandra Brown
3. The Devil Wears Prada, by Lauren Weisenberger (Never saw the movie)
4. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier (I don't suppose this one could count for #3 and #4? LOL) I saw parts of this movie but not start to finish.
5. Paradise, by Toni Morrison

I'd love to know your opinions of Hidden Fires when you read it. What kind of book is it? The Sandra Brown I picked is a Depression-era historical fiction book.

cocoGerman said she also writes mystery. Apparently she has delved into different genres. Looking forward to what you think about the one you are reading.

I am finishing a non-challenge book, The Woman who is always tan and has a flat stomach: and other annoying people. It's comical. I will start the Spring challenge with Hidden Fires.

I hope you enjoy the book, Honibabi! :-)

I started on Rainwater, and it's one of those books that is very hard to put down, so I'll probably be done it pretty quickly. It's very good, but I see a little bit of historical inaccuracies in it, such as the main character calling the doctor at the slightest thing. During the early 1930s, people were more self-reliant, and they did not turn to the medical profession unless something was a dire emergency. Not an elderly gentleman falling out of his bed with a thump in the middle of the night, like in this story. As a fictional book, however, history aside, it is a captivating novel.

I am about half way through Hidden Fires. Per usual, I like Brown's male characters more than her female characters. I like this story far better than Best Kept Secrets. It is a page turner despite some of the situations that have me rolling my eyes. Will probably finish over the weekend.

I saw on goodreads that Sandra Brown had several YouTube videos about Rainwater if you are interested in looking them up, Daisy.

I likes the male characters better than the female characters, too, in Mean Streak, but in Rainwater I liked both and only disliked the antagonist. Brown seems to be a true master of the "plot twist". Both books had several unexpected turns to them, and had twist endings, which I enjoyed. I got rid of Mean Streak, but Rainwater is not only a keeper but one I'll be rereading some time in the future. It was comparable to A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, which was surely Brown's goal because she mentions the book frequently in it. It had a bittersweet ending that actually brought tears to my eyes!

Thanks for the info on the YouTube videos, that does sound interesting. :-D

I will start Paradise, by Toni Morrison next.

I think I’ll read The Eye of Heaven, by Clive Cussler, next. I’m looking forward to it, it’ll probably be good.

Haha, reading all of Cussler's books is actually my goal. He wrote 76 books so far. I own 58 currently, and I've read probably about 3/4ths of them. XD I want to get (and read) all of them some day. It's hard to do, because he comes out with like 5 or 6 new books every year! LOL

Good luck reading all those Cusslers! I collect Johanna Lindsay. She writes historical romances and I just love her. I have not read all her books but she doesn't come out with new books quite so often. I have read about 40 of them. I am still on the look out for some of her very early ones, but I have two bookshelves of her. Just fun characters and stories. I have to start her books when I have nothing else to do because I just can't stop once I start. LOL.

Hope you are enjoying The Eye of Heaven.

Thank you! Good luck on your collection, too! And so far, The Eye of Heaven is quite good.

You make a list of the books you want to read for the challenge, numbered according to the category the books fit into, like I did in my first post. And then you post the list here, and then you try to be the first to finish all the books on it. If you choose to do a Level 2 challenge (6 books), and are the first to finish it, then you win a free book point! (And since I'm the only other Level 2 participant, you have a very good chance, haha.) If you can't decide on a book for a particular category, you can write TBD (to be decided) and fill it in later.

As you read the books, feel free to share which books they are and what you think of them, and maybe a bit about them if you'd like.

If you ever need any help with anything about this challenge, or help choosing books for it, feel free to contact me and I'll do what I can to help.

By the way, I'm almost done Eye of Heaven. It was a great book.

Still working on Paradise :)

@ Stacy, hope you have fun! :-D

Alice in Wonderland is on my reading list for eventually. Einstein's Beach House sounds interesting. I look forward to hearing your reviews, Stacy.

Dr. Frau is quite good so far, and is somewhat reminiscent of James Herriot's books, only it's a lady doctor treating the Amish farmers, rather than a male veterinarian treating the English farmer's livestock. The writing style even has some similarities, and the characters in both stories have equal amounts of personality.

Honibabi, I wish you the best of luck in finishing your books on time. There's still plenty of time to go, though, so it still looks quite promising. :-) Glad you're enjoying the book!

Stacy, that is very interesting, and quite astute of you to point it out. I do remember hearing about that somewhere before, although today, as you say, it is usually taken at face value as a children's story book. Many classic "children's" books are actually like that, I hear, and have double meanings for insightful people.

I've heard of that, too. I always thought it interesting. There's a good book about that that you'd probably be interested in, called Stories of Lost Israel in Folklore by Rev. James B. Haggart. It's about how many fairy tales (Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, etc.) are based on Bible stories retold so that their children could better remember them.

Thank you very, very much for this information. It's quite interesting, even fascinating, to read about the origins of such deeply engrained rhymes and ditties.

Daisy, you are moving right along as usual! Glad you like your choices so far.

Stacy, did you figure out books 5 and 6 yet?

One of my favorite books growing up was a collection of Mother Goose stories so I am familiar with many of the popular short tales. I used to love reading that book.

At one of my jobs for Halloween my unit was the "Twisted Fairy Tales of Mother Goose". It was great. We had: Mary Ate her Little Lamb; Mother Hubbard with Body Parts in her Cupboard, Jack be Nibble, Jack be Quick, Jack Caught Fire Jumping over the Candlestick and several more clever twisted tales.

I just finished Dr. Frau, and I really enjoyed it. What she says about the Amish and Mennonite families in PA, and the way they live, is quite true to life. I've read "Amish fiction" where everything was a mass of confused stereotypes, but since this book is basically just the author's memoirs with the names and places slightly changed, it was much more realistic. I actually know some families that are much like those discussed in the book. And what she said about how even though the Amish and Mennonite families work hard for their money and often don't have very much, they are very generous people and often show up at the doorstep bearing gifts like produce, baked goods, fresh meat, etc., is also quite true. My one complaint about the book is that, even though I have the "Revised Edition", it is so full of typos and misspellings that at times it can even be hard to read.

I'm now reading The Gates of the Mountains. So far it is quite good, one of the best Will Henry books I've yet to read. It is a historical fiction novel about the little-known life of a real life man who made the famed journey with Lewis and Clark, but who disappeared from the records before the expedition was complete. No grave can be found with his name on it, and he was never recorded as seen again. Will Henry fills in the gaps with what he thinks might have happened to this mysterious man.

And, I have really no clue how so many typos got in there. I wonder if they have a "revised revised edition", haha.

Glad you like the book so far! What is it about?

I am so glad I re-read this book. At the end it was like coming out of a dark tunnel and into the light. I couldn't stop thinking about it and ended up having trouble falling asleep.

The dark tunnel is the history and stories of so many characters as they try to build a town and life safe for ex-slaves but end up falling into the same pitfalls the human race eventually falls into. Fear, male ego, a sense of superiority and judgement of things we don't understand lead to a tragedy that exposes the real people within. There is a religious/spiritual element that lifts this book up in classic Toni Morrison style. The spirit that so many cultures believed in but modern religion calls evil. She talks about Piedade which I thought was an African goddess, but it is the name of a Portuguese town (where one of the characters was saved from) and surname which means pity, godliness, compassion and mercy. There is a strong message that that women are Piedade and are on earth to save it. I love the way her female characters are so realistic and how she documents the the great secret strength, importance, weakness and ultimate enlightenment that so many women experience on their journey through this world.

Toni Morrison weaves in so much symbolism in the style of John Irving that you just have to do your best to interpret it. Her writing style takes so many turns and she constantly references previous parts of the book without clear identifiers and future parts of the book that you really have to pay attention.

I feel like I have to share the following piece: "Billie Delia was perhaps the only one in town who was not puzzled by where the women were or concerned about how they their bodies disappeared. She had another question: When will they return? When will they reappear, with blazing eyes, war paint and huge hands to rip up and stomp down this prison calling itself a town? ...A backward noplace ruled by men whose power to control was out of control and who had the nerve to say who could live and who not and where; who had seen in lively, free, unarmed females the mutiny of the mares and so got rid of them."

I thought the book was OK until everything came together in the final 20 pages or so and I LOVED it.

Daisy - I have never read a book plagued by typos and grammar errors. How does that even get published??

Stacy - I love off-the-wall sense of humor so I will be putting Eistein's Beach house on my reading list.

Honibabi, I'm so glad that you liked the book so much! That's awesome. And thank you for the in-depth review and the excerpt. :-D Very interesting-sounding book. And, I don't know how it got published either, but don't let the typos discourage you from reading the book; it was still great. :-)

So far, The Devil Wears Prada is lighthearted and funny. I think it will be a fun and easy read.

That's good that you're enjoying the book!

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Gates of the Mountains, and it is still very good, but perhaps a little more "fiction" than it is "historical". For instance, I doubt if in real life that William Clark and Sacajawea were in love with each other but held apart by her marriage to the Frenchman Charbonneau (I think that was his name) and his baby inside her... it seems like a little bit of "author license" to me. But I was reading it for enjoyment anyway, and it is plenty enjoyable still. :-)

So, how are Einstein's Beach House and The Devil Wears Prada coming along? Still enjoying them?

Stacy: Thanks, Happy Mother's Day to yourself (if you're a Mom)! :-D

It's actually published by Good Books, a little Pennsylvania publisher. She might be involved in it or have founded it, though. Often authors who self-publish create their own publisher. And Kaiser is/was from PA, so it would make sense if that's the case.

I heard that P.T. Barnum is closing a few more traveling Circus' this month I believe. They are the last circus to travel by train. The end of an error.

I have fur babies and am a proud Aunt. I spent Mother's Day hanging with my mom doing some shopping. We live about 1.5 hours apart so we often meet at the outlets between us for shopping and lunch. Happy Mother's Day to both of you.

I think I will be close finishing, AGAIN! Darnit.

Stacy, it's great you liked the book so much. It currently looks like I might be getting a copy of Appel's newest ebook, The Mask of Sanity, in exchange for a review, so I'm excited about that. I'll let you know what I think of it when I read it, for sure! Have you heard of that book yet? I don't even know if it's hit the shelves in book form yet. Here's part of the description of it from LibraryThing:
"On the outside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a pillar of the community: the youngest division chief at his hospital, a model son to his elderly parents, fiercely devoted to his wife and two young daughters. On the inside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a high-functioning sociopath—a man who truly believes himself to stand above the ethical norms of society. As long as life treats him well, Balint has no cause to harm others. When life treats him poorly, he reveals the depths of his cold-blooded depravity."

Stacey, I looked Appel up and have put a few of his books on my reading list on goodreads.

Stacy, I'll certainly tell you when I read it. I'm supposed to receive it via email any day now. :-)

Chugging along with Devil Wears Prada. I always seem to be "chugging along" lol.

We are nearing the end. Good luck finishing to both of you and enjoy the holiday weekend.

I am sure you are thinking about the next challenge, Daisy. Can't wait for the categories!!

@ Stacy, yes, I hate it when the program autocorrects completely legitimate words into weird ones. And as to the next categories, I usually keep people guessing until about a week before the new season starts, so y'all will be able to check 'em out then. :-) I'm glad you liked The Silent Land. What was it about? Was it historical fiction or nonfiction?

I finished reading Struggles and Triumphs yesterday, but forgot to post here when I went online. Duh. XD Anyway, it was quite good, although a little slow-moving in parts. I found it very interesting that Barnum made his millions on the American Museum, and retired a wealthy man who never needed to work again, but got so bored of not doing anything that he formed his travelling circus as something to occupy his time with. I hadn't know that; the famed circus almost never existed!
I'm starting on my next (and last) book, Jurassic Park, sometime today or tonight, in all likelihood. What do y'all think of Crichton? I think I read somewhere that the fathers of modern fiction are the Four C's: Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, and Michael Connelly. I'd like to test that theory sometime by reading books by all of them, because I own at least one book by each of them, although Cussler is the only one I've actually read before. What do you guys think? Have either of you read the Four C's?

I am open to reading books by them for sure. There are just so many good books and author's out there. Would Crichton be on the list if it were not for the movies???

I don't know if he'd be on the list or not, I've never read his books before so I really couldn't say. But somebody must have liked the books, for the movies to have been made and to have become so popular, right?

So, when I see a movie, "based on the book by"..., I try to avoid it until I read the book never trusting that the movie is as true to the book as I want it to be.

I may not finish this challenge on time. I am slogging through The Devil Wears Prada but spending more time in the yard or at work now that summer is here. I like it. I just like the warm weather better. LOL. I am traveling at the end of the month so I am hoping that I can finish The Devil Wears Prada in time that I can finish Cold Mountain on the plane. I will be late but I will finish my books!

Daisy, I definitely want to know what you think about Million Dollar Baby. I have the movie but haven't watched it. I want to know if you suggest the movie or book first ;)

Cussler is actually my absolute favorite author of modern days, for somewhat similar reasons. His books have a lot of cutting edge technology also, some of which it quite fascinating. His in-depth talk of quantum computers, complex satellite imagery that can see the ocean floor, underground mag-lev (magnetic levitation) trains, holographic computer-generated images, and things like that (some of which he wrote about before they were commonly known about or understood) always interests me. He’s been writing since the ‘70s, and he still manages to crank out around six books a year on top of his TV show The Sea Hunters, which is pretty amazing considering he’s getting up there in age. He really set the pace for a lot of modern day action/adventure novels with his combination of new technology, pieces of history interwoven in the story, intense fast-paced action scenes, plausible scientific explanations for incredible phenomena, humor woven in, classic cars mentioned, etc.

(By now you’ve both probably guessed why I switched books, and which authors will be featured in my up-and-coming challenges. ;-D)

That book The Summoned King does sound interesting. It’s good to see more people writing and reading Christian fiction, when so much other fiction is on the verge of trashy. :-)

Honibabi, I know exactly what you mean about movies vs. books. I remember as a child reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Have you ever seen that movie? It doesn’t even have the same BASIC storyline, or even the same characters really, and it is almost unrecognizable from the children’s story. I also saw the movies Raise the Titanic and Sahara, which were both based off of the Cussler books of the same names, and they are both very different from the books. After seeing the movies, Cussler was reportedly so disappointed with them that he swore to never let any of his books get made into movies again. An example of one of the biggest discrepancies in Sahara: the sidekick Al Giordino in the books is this burly Italian guy with dark hair and dark eyes who’s “built like a tank”, while the guy portraying him in the movie is Steve Zahn, blond and sort of skinny and definitely nothing like the character in the book in looks or actions. Remarkably, I really enjoyed the movie, just for its own sake and not because of it being based off of the book.

The book Million Dollar Baby is actually a collection of boxing stories, only one of which is the title story which the movie was based on. I finished that story the other day, and it was very good. I liked it probably just as much as the movie. The movie was better in some ways, and the story was better in others. For instance, the movie has some extra characters who add color and personality to it, but the book goes deeper into the main characters’ background stories and their inner thoughts. For the most part, though, the story and movie were very similar, right down to the boxing trainer liking pie. I’d watch the movie first, and then read the book. Leastways, that’s what I did, and I enjoyed both. :-)

Have a great trip, Honibabi!

Daisy, I am not familiar with Mr. Popper's Penguins. It makes sense to embellish and add characters to create a movie around a short story and I don't think anyone is disappointed if the integrity of the story is there. To totally disregard the original story for entertainment is just crap! LOL

I guess I need to start looking for a Cussler book :)

Honibabi, I think you'll enjoy Cussler if you give him a try. :-D

I finished the last book today! It was pretty good, but really the best two stories were the ones used in the making of the film. Speaking of which, the movie is generally known to be based off of the story by the same name, Million Dollar Baby, but what is not as well-known is the fact that it was really two completely different short stories by the same author that were combined together that formed the basis for the movie. The other story was called Frozen Water, and it was actually from that story that the "colorful characters" I mentioned previously were taken. My favorite character was Dangerous Dillard Fightin' Philipo Bam-Bam Barch, called Danger, a slow young man who adds comic relief to both the story and the movie with his antics. I still laugh every time at the scene where he's staring intently at a frozen bottle of water from the water cooler a long time, pondering it, and then finally gets the courage to ask somebody, "How do you think they get that big hunk of ice through the little hole?" LOL

I have never read Christine, but that is a bummer about the car in the movie.

I am sure I will enjoy Cussler :)

Hey all, just wanted to let y'all know that my Summer Reading Challenge has just been posted! I'd love to hear what you think of the categories I chose. :-D

The Summer Reading challenge looks good to me, but I will have to find some books. Cussler is not in my arsenal, but I look forward to reading one.

I kinda suck at these challenges. LOL!

Glad you enjoyed the book enough to want to read the whole series. Did you get my email with the Apple eBooks in it, by the way? The author said to feel free to share them, so I thought that you'd appreciate them. :-D

No problem. I have them on a different device, but I'll try to send them to you again some time soon. :-)

Thanks. Good luck to you, too! :-D

I finished The Devil Wears Prada and enjoyed it. It was funny and realistic. I worked for a women who was so smart but yelled at staff often and publicly. It was a very political environment with a lot of pressure from local, federal, and advocacy groups, which I get, but she was out of control! I left after 3 months which really made her unhappy with me, but I just couldn't continue to work for her. There was no call for her behavior. As a supervisor, myself, there is just no need. I do have to say, though, after that I want to tell people how stinking good they really have it. LOL.

See you in the Summer Challenge.