July Book Club

Want to know a great way to ensure a horrible night’s sleep? When you wake up in the middle of the night, repeat the following over and over again in your head: “I need to get back to sleep. Go to sleep.”

Your mind will then surely reply, “No! Let’s play! Here are 5,000 things you should think about for the next two hours.”

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well last night. I was wide awake for far too long in the middle of the night. Not so fun. Eventually I fell asleep, but I was rather restless. Any plans for a kick-butt circuit workout this morning went out the window, but I did manage to check a pretty solid upper-body workout off the list.

Burnin’ arms!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was awfully yellow.

I made a batch of hummus scrambled eggs with yellow squash and onion, served with a toasted Alternative sweet wheat bagel topped with mozzarella cheese.

Plus a cup of coffee on the side to give this sleepy girl some energy.

July Book Club

It’s time to vote on the book we’ll be reading for the July PBF Book Club!

Just in case you’re new around here, this book club is a virtual book club that anyone is welcome to join. Over the next three days we’ll vote on a book from the three books noted below and I’ll announce the winning book on Monday.

On August 1 I will post my review of the book along with discussion questions for participants to talk about in the comments section of the post. If you’re a blogger and post a review of the book on your own blog for the book club, be sure to email me a link before August 1 and I’ll include it in the post in a roundup of book reviews from other bloggers!

Now let’s get voting.

Taken from your recommendations on the PBF Facebook page, the three contenders for the month of July include:

• Wild by Cheryl Strayed

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.

At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone.

She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

• Defending Jacob by William Landay

Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.

• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry’s fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz realizes he has guided Henry’s career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets.

 

[polldaddy poll=6369849]

Of Possible Interest

• How to Eat Raw for One Day (FitSugar.com)
• Three Workout Mistakes and How to Fix Them (FitBottomedGirls.com)
• Yummy Meatless Meals (Health.com)
• My Guest Post on Gina’s Blog (Fitnessista.com)