Great Books I've Read This Year

Summer is a great time to read and if you love to devour books like I do, you're always on the lookout for a new list of great reads. My goal this year is to read 100 books and I'm well on my way with 64 completed. I usually have a hardcover I read at lunch, an audiobook I listen to as I work, and a different ebook or hardcover for the evening reading hours - so I usually have 3 going at once! I should easily reach my goal of 100 in the remaining four months of the year 2016. Not all the books I've read have been great so I filtered out my favorites that I would rate a 5 star.

Here you go!

Title	Author
The Guilty (Will Robie, #4)	David Baldacci
Giovanni's Room	James Baldwin
Far From True (Promise Falls Trilogy,  #2)	Linwood Barclay
The Sense of an Ending	Julian Barnes
Off The Grid (Joe Pickett, #16)	C.J. Box
Night School (Jack Reacher, #21)	Lee Child
Among Thieves: A Novel	John Clarkson
The Crossing	Michael Connelly
The Pocket Wife	Susan H. Crawford
The Gangster (Isaac Bell, #9)	Clive Cussler
Evicted: Poverty + Profit in the American City	Matthew Desmond
The Life We Bury	Allen Eskens
White Oleander	Janet Fitch
The Mare	Mary Gaitskill
The Cuckoo's Calling	Robert Galbraith
Sh*t My Dad Says	Justin Halpern
Our Souls at Night	Kent Haruf
Rules for a Knight	Ethan Hawke
Before the Fall	Noah Hawley
Trespassing Across America: One Man's Epic	Ken Ilgunas
Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window	Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
The Girl in the Spider's Web	David Lagercrantz
Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter	Kate Clifford Larson
The House of Secrets	Brad Meltzer
Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov
Forty Thieves	Thomas Perry
Pollyanna	Eleanor H. Porter
Judgement Cometh (Joe Dillard, #8)	Scott Pratt
Crimson Shore (Agent Pendergast, #15)	Douglas Preston
Extreme Prey (Lucas Davenport, #26)	John Sandford
Salt to the Sea	Ruta Sepetys
The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon, #16)	Daniel Silva
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks	Rebecca Skloot
Brooklyn	Colm Tóibín
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival	John Vaillant

 Bookmark this page until you've read them all!

30 Day Weight Loss Results

A month ago we stepped off a cruise ship after a long holiday weekend of lazing around and eating lots of yummy, fattening food. We each gained several pounds that needed to come off so our clothes would fit better and we would feel healthier. Here's a picture of us at St Johns USVI where we went on a nice catamaran and snorkling excursion. This is the "before" picture.

This is us each five pounds heavier, the "before" photo UGH

At first we kept up our regular meal plan of a carbohydrate rich breakfast of raisin bran with a banana, or homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal. But the problem was we were hungry for a morning snack about an hour later. Recently, the past couple weeks we've made turkey bacon for breakfast, alon with zuchinni patties (shredded zuchinni, parm cheese, egg beaters fried in a pan) Snacks in the morning are protein snack bars, cereal bars, almonds, beef jerky, fresh cut up melon or berries. Then lunch is a lettuce salad with chicken and veggie toppings, along with a nonfat yogurt for dessert. After work, we have a small snack of hummus or corn salsa on chips, then dinner is usually something from the stockpile like fish, pasta, rice or pork and of course frozen veggies steamers. Oh, and a couple beers. But no night time snacks, no eating after dinner for me.

our lunch salad, and a yogurt

I track my food and exercise using the MyFitnessPal app on my smart phone, If I am trying out a new exercise I track it live with the CardioTrainer app which uses a GPS to calculate steps, miles, calories, time etc so I know what it's all worth (It's a 2 mile trip around Busch Gardens). I try to eat about 1200-1400 calories a day, and burn up 400 to 600 calories with exercise (biking, walking. treading water in pool) each day. On Fridays and Saturdays, I may go out to eat (love those buffalo chicken wings!) so my calories can jump to 2000 per day. But my activity is up too so I think it evens out.

 I also read a diet book I checked out from the library (an ebook) The Adaptation Diet by Charles A Moss, which outlined a basically low carb diet with other ideas too. I've implemented some of the ideas, like eliminating anti inflammatory pills like Aleve or Advil because they cause a "leaky gut". I've pretty much cut out bread, and corn products and potatoes. I've cut back on drinking beer and we've never been sugar lovers, so sweets are easy to ignore.

Well, I'm pleased to report we have each lost five pounds in a month with this plan. DH doesn't bike like I do, so his plan includes less exercising, but men lose weight easier anyway. And the wonderful thing is, this lifestyle is frugal. There are no special foods, or pills, or drinks needed to lose weight. It's good old fashioned healthy diet and exercise. It's a lifestyle that can endure and be long lasting, with occasional treats that will not sideline your efforts because overall a healthy lifestyle can sustain the bumps in the road.

When we lose 5 more pounds, I'll post an "after" photo. Stay posted.

How To Find Amazon Prime Lending Library Books

If you have Amazon prime, you probably are aware of the benefit of getting one free "prime eligible" ebook per month of your membership. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find books that fit into this category unless you apply a few filters. Here is an easy way to browse the free "lendable" books. These thousands of books can be borrowed using any Kindle device, but they are not transferable to other devices such as Ipads, Smartphones or PCs. There are no due dates, the book remains on your device until you return it. You can not "check out" a new book until you return the previous one.

1. Go to Amazon and make sure you're logged in. In the search box, select the drop down arrow and select the BOOKS department.

2. Then scroll down and select Prime Eligible. You must be signed into your Amazon account for this selection to show, if you don't have prime, you won't see this choice.

3. Then select Kindle Edition from one of Formats.

This will show you all the Kindle books that may be borrowed on your Kindle for free. Now to actually check out the book you must do this through your Kindle device.

So, to make this easier when you are on your Kindle, I browse the books I want on the computer, and then put them on my ebook wishlist that I created. Then when I am on the Kindle, I just click the shopping cart and go to my ebook wishlist and check out the book that way.

Good Luck and Happy Reading!

Frugal Reading

In case you're interested in reading a bit more this year, here are a few great books I've read just this week.

• Bitter Brew - William Knoedelseder - a great non fiction personal story about the rise and fall of Anheuser Busch.
• The Painted Drum - Louise Erdrich - fiction story about an indian drum that heals sickness
• The Black Box - Michael Connelly - fiction, a Harry bosch mystery solving LA crime
• Presumed Guilty - Jose Baez - non fiction about the Casey Anthony trial as perceived by her lawyer

I love to read and read hundreds of books a year. But the only book I've purchased is an ebook called Moneyball for $0.25 from Amazon (which is a great nonfiction story). All my books are either hardcover or ebooks from the library. I also have gotten over 800 books this past year free from Amazon. This website publishes free ebooks every day, and I usually get one a day. I only pick books with a rating over 4.6 out of 5, and with over 20 reviews. The free ebooks I have read from these selections have all been excellent, including An Unproductive Woman and Butterfly Forest.

 

Did you know you can lend Amazon books to others as well? Its really simple to do, just select the book in your Kindle account, and send an email with the link to your friend and they get the book for 14 days before it is automatically returned to you.

 

My point is that reading is a very frugal worthwhile activity. It keeps your mind sharp, and provides entertainment where ever you are. My ebooks can be loaded onto my smartphone so they are with me all the time, or they can be transferred to my Kindle or Ipad if that's what I prefer.

 

If you haven't hooked up with your local library online, why not do it today?

In Tampa, the local site for the HIllsborough county library is HERE.

Amazon Kindle Fire $139 TODAY ONLY

Amazon has the Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi (Refurbished) priced at only $139 with Free Shipping as the Gold Box Deal of the Day. This is the best price I have seen so far!

 

If you've been on the fence, now is the time to get it. You can select the "gift"option if you don't know what Amazon account you'll want to link it too.

 

Each Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire is a pre-owned Kindle Fire that has been refurbished, tested, and is certified to look and work like new. They come with the same one-year limited warranty as a brand-new Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire: great for web, movies, apps, games, and more. This offer is valid today only, March 29, 2012, when sold by Warehouse Deals. Offer good while supplies last. Limit 5 per customer.

Start Over, Finish Rich - free download TODAY ONLY

Today only! WalletPop readers can download Start Over, Finish Rich: 10 Steps to Get You Back on Track in 2010, the latest book from best-selling author David Bach, ABSOLUTELY FREE. Read an excerpt here, or click HERE for your free download!