Tuesday, November 27, 2012
January Voting
Ok let's try this again... I didn't hear back from any of you so I am just going to reuse our first December set of choices for January. For your considerationi again here are our 2 choices for the month of January. We will vote through Monday, December 3.
Matt and Liz Logelin were high school sweethearts. After years of long-distance
dating, the pair finally settled together in Los Angeles, and they had it all: a
perfect marriage, a gorgeous new home, and a baby girl on the way. Liz's
pregnancy was rocky, but they welcomed Madeline, beautiful and healthy, into the
world on March 24, 2008.
Just twenty-seven hours later, Liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and died instantly, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited. Though confronted with devastating grief and the responsibilities of a new and single father, Matt did not surrender to devastation; he chose to keep moving forward-- to make a life for Maddy.
In this memoir, Matt shares bittersweet and often humorous anecdotes of his courtship and marriage to Liz; of relying on his newborn daughter for the support that she unknowingly provided; and of the extraordinary online community of strangers who have become his friends. In honoring Liz's legacy, heartache has become solace.
Like his masterly, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David
McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. It
is both a riveting portrait of an abundantly human man and a vivid evocation of
his time, much of it drawn from an outstanding collection of Adams family
letters and diaries. In particular, the more than one thousand surviving letters
between John and Abigail Adams, nearly half of which have never been published,
provide extraordinary access to their private lives and make it possible to know
John Adams as no other major American of his founding era.
As he has with stunning effect in his previous books, McCullough tells the
story from within -- from the point of view of the amazing eighteenth century
and of those who, caught up in events, had no sure way of knowing how things
would turn out. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, the British spy
Edward Bancroft, Madame Lafayette and Jefferson's Paris "interest" Maria Cosway,
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, the scandalmonger James Callender, Sally
Hemings, John Marshall, Talleyrand, and Aaron Burr all figure in this panoramic
chronicle, as does, importantly, John Quincy Adams, the adored son whom Adams
would live to see become President.
Crucial to the story, as it was to history, is the relationship between Adams
and Jefferson, born opposites -- one a Massachusetts farmer's son, the other a
Virginia aristocrat and slaveholder, one short and stout, the other tall and
spare. Adams embraced conflict; Jefferson avoided it. Adams had great humor;
Jefferson, very little. But they were alike in their devotion to their country.
At first they were ardent co-revolutionaries, then fellow diplomats and close
friends. With the advent of the two political parties, they became archrivals,
even enemies, in the intense struggle for the presidency in 1800, perhaps the
most vicious election in history. Then, amazingly, they became friends again,
and ultimately, incredibly, they died on the same day -- their day of days --
July 4, in the year 1826.
Much about John Adams's life will come as a surprise to many readers. His
courageous voyage on the frigate Boston in the winter of 1778 and his
later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits that few would have dared and that few
readers will ever forget.
It is a life encompassing a huge arc -- Adams lived longer than any
president. The story ranges from the Boston Massacre to Philadelphia in 1776 to
the Versailles of Louis XVI, from Spain to Amsterdam, from the Court of St.
James's, where Adams was the first American to stand before King George III as a
representative of the new nation, to the raw, half-finished Capital by the
Potomac, where Adams was the first President to occupy the White House.
This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social
issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition,
friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above
all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the
most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love
by Matt Logelin
Just twenty-seven hours later, Liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and died instantly, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited. Though confronted with devastating grief and the responsibilities of a new and single father, Matt did not surrender to devastation; he chose to keep moving forward-- to make a life for Maddy.
In this memoir, Matt shares bittersweet and often humorous anecdotes of his courtship and marriage to Liz; of relying on his newborn daughter for the support that she unknowingly provided; and of the extraordinary online community of strangers who have become his friends. In honoring Liz's legacy, heartache has become solace.
by David McCullough
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds
the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent,
often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence,"
as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his zeal for the
American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United
States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was
learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and
whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love
stories in American history.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
December's Book
December's book is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
We will start voting for January's book Monday, November 26th.
For January's voting would you like to vote on the books I originally posted for the month of December or would you like me to randomize our list again and have two all new selections? Leave your thoughts in the comments here.
Also, we haven't had any new books added to our list lately. I have added one or two that have come across my path but I don't want you guys always stuck with my choices. If you have any books you'd like to read then let me know so I can add them to our list.
Happy Reading!
We will start voting for January's book Monday, November 26th.
For January's voting would you like to vote on the books I originally posted for the month of December or would you like me to randomize our list again and have two all new selections? Leave your thoughts in the comments here.
Also, we haven't had any new books added to our list lately. I have added one or two that have come across my path but I don't want you guys always stuck with my choices. If you have any books you'd like to read then let me know so I can add them to our list.
Happy Reading!
Friday, November 2, 2012
December Voting, AGAIN
Sorry everyone that the voting for December has been so crazy! As if changing the choices wasn't bad enough, now the poll doesn't seem to be accurately tracking the votes. That is why I changed the poll host. Hopefully this one should work without a problem. For those of you that had already voted, I apologize. Please could you cast your votes again. We want to make sure they are counted.
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