Top Ten Books I'm Thankful For

Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and The Bookish.

I am going to choose books that for some reason either made me learn or feel something that I'll never forget and that I am thankful for whatever it was.  Books that really made something happen or change in my life.  I'll post a picture along with one sentence or so with each book to tell you why I'm thankful for that book.

 1.

I am thankful to this series because for a while, it brought me and one of my younger sisters really close.  So close that when she moved to New York City, I had to go visit her when the last movies were coming out, because we had the tradition of seeing them at the midnight premieres for each one.  It also led me to get my first tattoo, the cover of Twilight.

2.

I am thankful that I read this and then fell in love with JLA, and so then I had to sign up to go to the NOLA Storycon in 2016 so I could meet her, which meant I also decided to try to read books by the new authors that would be at that convention, which meant I fell in love with some of my now all time favorite authors like Samantha Young and Jay Crownover.

3.

This was the first book I read by Maggie Stiefvater, which made me fall in love with her books. Then, because I loved her books, I went to see her when she came on tour to my town, and I also ended up meeting and finding two more favorite authors:  Brenna Yovanoff and Tessa Gratton, because they happened to be with her on tour.  Because of that, when I got to go and see them all again at BEA one year, my picture of seeing them got picked by a publisher to put in a biography of Maggie, and now I have a published photo!

4.

This book was one of the first e-galleys I ever read from Netgalley.  I then looked up the author on Twitter and followed her, tweeting to tell her how much I loved her book. When I went to visit my sister in NYC as I mentioned above, she followed my tweets, and I asked if I could possibly meet her somewhere and get an autograph. She was so awesome that she did a crazy thing and met this crazy fan and we ended up going and getting a drink and talking for a long time!  It was one of the neatest experiences of my life!

5.

I read this book in college, while I was working on getting a degree in Earth Science Education.  I really remembered my earlier love of dinosaurs and fossils during this time.  My parents found an article in a newspaper about the museum where this paleontologist worked at the time, and that they let people come work on their dig, well, for a price.  My parents ended up paying for me to go spend a week there, as a college graduation present.  Another of the greatest moments of my life.  

6.

This series.  I just loved it so much!  I couldn't stop reading!  It is the reason I got my 2nd tattoo.  


7.

Okay, this might be a little silly of a "thank you", but this book gave me my all-time book boyfriend.  It was Daemon Black, who is till one of my top 10 all time, but Mal is # 1.


8.

My #2 all time book boyfriend is Nate, and this is another author I'm glad I read because of getting to meet her at NOLA StoryCon, because I thought she was another one of the coolest authors ever.


9.

I'm going to pick this one because it helped me to feel like I should get back to writing the romance I had started several years ago, as well as giving me the inspiration for the one I started last November that I need to finish!


10.

I'm going to pick this book because I loved it so much that I decided to read it with my group of students in the class that we had no curriculum for.  It is really one that I enjoyed getting in depth with them, and caused me to decide to go ahead and get certified to teach English, which in turn I think helped me with finally getting to be a school librarian.


So, can you think of any books that you are grateful for?

Book Review 53: How to Build a Dinosaur by Jack Horner

I first learned about Jack Horner when I was in college, then Central Missouri State University, now called University of Central Missouri. It was either my sophomore or junior year, I think the first time I took Invertebrate Paleontology. I say first time, because my first teacher was a horrible teacher. I had a C, he lost my final, which I felt like I'd done really well on, and told me I had a D. Since that was in my major, I had to re-take the class. I'm glad in a way that I did, because the my 2nd teacher was an awesome teacher and took me on my first "real" fossil expeditions. But I digress. It was about this time that the book Jurassic Park was a big hit, soon to be followed by the movie. My infatuation with dinosaurs was rediscovered. Around this time I asked for a book I'd heard about called "Digging Up Dinosaurs" by Dr. John Horner for a Christmas gift. Dr. John Horner is Jack Horner. I soon was to the point where I couldn't get enough nonfiction science books on dinosaurs and paleontology. My family of course noticed this, and the awesome college graduation gift I received was based on an article my step-dad found in the Kansas City Star my Senior year of college. In Montana, Jack Horner had a camp funded through the Montana State University where anyone who came up with the money and got signed up in time could come and work on an actual dinosaur dig. I got to go spend a week doing this the summer after I graduated. I still remember it all vividly, sleeping in a teepee. The pitch blackness at night, except for how bright the moon in the sky was. Being in a desert, yet wearing a sweatshirt on a July morning when we first went out to dig.

The money people pay for this, is one way they continue to fund their digs. And if I could, I would pay to go every year. I loved every minute of it. Except maybe for the bathrooms, and vegetarian dinner night. :-) A year ago, a new book came out called "How to Build a Dinosaur" by Jack Horner again. I asked for it last year as either a birthday or Christmas gift, but just wasn't quite in the mood to pick it up and read. I've kind of been in a nonfiction slump other than a few weight loss memoirs last spring. A couple weeks ago 60 Minutes did a story on Jack Horner, and basically what this book is about, and I remembered that book sitting on my shelf. I was also waiting for the final book on my Mark Twain nominee list to be available to check out at the library, and so was looking for what to read. And so I picked this up, and was again drawn right back in to this world I wish I was a part of every day of my life. Dr. Horner wants to create a Chickenosaur. Birds have been declared the descendents of dinosaurs, and so using a chicken and changing some things in its embryological development is where Dr. Horner sees us going.

Obviously there is much more to the book than I've laid out here, but I'll leave it open for others to read and enjoy. I will leave you with a quote Dr. Horner includes in this book by George Carlin. I'm not always a Carlin fan, due to some of his political comments, but this one sums up my views on global warming, and other environmental issues, as well as bringing to light the attitude that scientists in the geology field, which I equate myself with, have towards all these same things.

"Way over 90 percent of all the species that have ever lived on this planet - ever lived - are gone. They're extinct. We didn't kill them all. They just disappeared. That's what nature does. They disappear these days at the reate of twenty-five a day. And I mean regardless of our behavior. Irrespective of how we act on this planet, twenty-five species that are here today will be gone tomorrow. Let them go gracefully. Leave nature alone." - George Carlin

I actually have a few more reviews to do, but in the sense that I'm getting tired of typing, I'll come back and fill them in another day.