My opinions vary widely, being that I am a Bohemian type of a gal. Yes yes, I'm middle age...but I still think young! The good part about it all is that having age on my side has allowed me to look diversely at issues and I'm all about the Biography and non fiction (I like to call them True stories). I believe that everything and everyone is yet but another vast part of the billion dollar richness of the world we live and grow in.

I do love a good fun fiction, especially mystery, but I leave most of that reading to Queenie D! Give me a story about a woman who has lived and thrived in the changing Eras of our history and I'm hooked and it'll definitely make my book club list!

Perhaps this comes from the constant "historical" trips I took with my parents as a child. Growing up in the Washington DC area provided a wealth of historical trails to march. And not the just the museums, buildings and art galleries - Let's not forget all those little off the beaten path places like the Three Sister Islands near Georgetown, or the Octagon house which is known unofficially as the second white house.

When reading and absorbing a true story...I read read read...and usually have to add another book to my book club list that follows up on that person's life or the other personalities connected to that specific time period or person. When all is "said and read" I get sad to leave my characters. It's as if they have traveled thru time and joined me for awhile. Always with a Biography, I want to go and touch what they have touched or stand where they have stood - physically!

After reading Alice Roosevelt Longworth by Carol Felsenthal, I had to traverse down to DuPont Circle and stand at #2009 Massachusetts Avenue just to close my eyes and feel where she had lived. (When I was little I had to keep touching the doorknobs at Mt. Vernon....the home of George Washington...just cuz I knew he had touched them.)

Although Biography is my book of choice for a book club list, I enjoy a great mystery, Spiritual, and stories of specific events in time.

Ahhh, I also have to admit, I enjoy a lot of chick Lit...:) YaYAAAAAA!

I love a good book club list....that's what drove me to create this website, along with my daughter, Queenie D. I hope to travel through some awesome adventures with you!!!

Queenie B's Book Club List

I started this site with a goal in mind - to create a book club recommendation list for both current popular reading titles as well as old favorites, in hopes of helping the book club members of the world choose great reads for their meetings. If you aren't in a book club and just want to hear some thoughts on a book you might want to read, this works for you too!

So a little background on me. I am not only a lover of books but a lover of school as well! I have a degree in English and a Master's in Education and I've been teaching English for the past eight years, first in middle school, now in college . I fell in love with Green Eggs and Ham, then moved on to The Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins at a very early age. From that point forward I became determined to "read every book in the world" as I used to tell my Grandfather. For a while in college I thought I was succeeding. Boy was I naive! But my goal remains.

I moved home to Maryland with my husband in 2007 to have our first baby boy. Although life was good in Florida, we wanted to raise the baby around family so home we came!

And when I say home, I literally mean home because we moved in with my parents so I could raise our son in his first year of life without putting him in daycare. Now that he's going on four, and our newest addition, a daughter is six months, I'm back to teaching and we've moved out on our own. We miss living with Grandma and PopPop but are glad to have our own space!

I've clicked through lots of book club sites over the past couple of years and always ended up feeling frustrated because they would rarely ever give a decent opinion about an actual book. I could possibly come up with some vague ideas but not a real voice, a real opinion from someone like me who had actually read the book. I didn't want to hear back of the book summaries, I wanted a juicy but solid judgment. Since I never really found that, I decided to make a book club recommendation list myself.

As far as what type of reader I am, I would have to say I'm a lover of ALL books! I've only put three down in my life that I can think of without finishing them the first time around. Those were I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb (who I usually love!), Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (which I ended up reading a year later for my book club!), and Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. As you'll see if you like my reviews and decide to follow up with me, there aren't any specific reasons for not liking these books - they just didn't speak to me at the time. I truly believe that any book deserves a second chance and I fully plan to give them one at some time in my life!

I won't lie - I choose fiction over nonfiction every time! (But I promise to try to maintain some balance on my book club recommendation list!).

I read to escape, to become part of the story. When I'm finished a book I'm TRULY sad because I feel as if the characters have become my friends. I just can't get into nonfiction that way but I will still read it if a subject grabs me.

I'm looking forward to reading with you!

Queenie D's Book Club Recommendation List

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