I had to stop many many times while reading The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trealease to take notes. I have a ton of books I want to check out myself and an even longer list of my kids, but that is just the icing on the cake. The real prize of this book is all the supporting details that let a parent who already reads to their children know that what they are doing is important and will help their children to learn to read sooner and then become life long readers for the joy of reading, which is a great gift to give your children. I found a love of reading after college and I only regret that I didn’t find it earlier! This is a great book. If to don’t read to your kids, get this book. If you do read to your kids get this book!
Tonight we read Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel which was a recommended by a parenting magazine.
Beauty and the Beast: Friends are Sweet is a book Samantha found at the used book store, and she has had me read it to her on several occasions. She really enjoys the story. You can hear her audio review below.
The last book is a look and find that Samantha read her self called Animals.
Tonight Samantha and I finished Jake Drake: Class Clown by Andrew Clements. We laughed hard at this one and want to check out the other Jake Drake novels. We also started Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel. You can hear Samantha’s review below.
I wanted to get this out quickly so, I’ll update the post with more information later. The audio review that Samantha did is below, just click on the play button.
The following is the list of books that I completed in 2014. I have had several goals in mind while reading through these books. I have been, since around 2010, working through a list of books from BBC. They stated that only 6 books on their list had been read by most. I’m trying to cover everything on the list. So, many books I read will be from this list. I also participated in a summer reading challenge from our local library, so I read 20 books in the month of August alone, which is much more than usual. Lastly, I’ve read many books because they are part of a series I had previously begun. Also, some books on listed below as recommendations from friends and just because I thought I would enjoy them.
I encourage anyone interested in reading to check out goodreads, a wonderful website that keeps track of the books you have read as well as those books you want to read. It is also a social site so you can discuss the book you are reading with others.
I’ve done posts like this for the last 5 years. Here are a few of the others:
My most read author was William Shakespeare, but my highest average rating went to A.G. Riddle a relatively new author
My favorite way to read was via Kindle
I preferred Fiction in 2014 to non-fiction.It consisted of 70% of the books I read
Within Fiction I read mostly classics (40%) then, Science Fiction (23%)
Within Non-Fiction, my reads were more diverse
The longest audio book I listed to was Les Miserables at 58 hours
Total audio book listening time was 224 hours or 9 Days
Total pages read (kindle, paperback and hardback combined) was 12,210
The longest book I read was a photography book called Earth from Above: 365 Days (792 pages), which is a photography book, if we exclude “picture books”, then the longest book was The Atlantis Gene at 488 pages
The shortest book I read was To Build a Fire at 32 pages
Most of the books I read were published in 2014
The oldest book I read was Prometheus Bound written in 480 BC
It took me over a year, 455 days, to complete Les Miserable’s
Some books sit around longer than others: I put Heir to the empire on my to-read shelf on January 17, 2008 and didn’t read it until November of 2014, 2,488 days (6.8 years) after I put it on my self
I rate science fiction the highest within fiction. Within Non-Fiction I rate business books the highest
Listened to How Google Works by Eric Scmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg in the car with my wife. The book was read well by the speaker, not great, but okay. As for the content of the book, it seemed pretty good a lot the same as Bold. Take bigger risk for bigger reward, etc. Lots of emphasis on hiring and how important it is (duh). Some great ideas and good things to keep in mind. But nothing Earth shattering. I liked the possible interview questions to use as we were interviewing at the time I listened to that section. Good timing!
This book was a recommendation from the departments vice president. She also listened to the book on her commute to and from work. The book had 9 tracks and it went really fast when we remembered to plug it in and listen to it. My wife and I both agreed to listen to more business books for our drive now. This should help me put a dent in my reading list.
Beauty and the Beast: Friends are Sweet
