NIV First-Century Study Bible

I've read/skimmed my fair share of Bibles in the past. I thought this Bible would be a nice edition to my collection. I write in my Bibles, so I have a tendency to run out of margins or coloring on the pages.

I got this book as an eBook. While the text is the same as any NIV, this Bible incorporates lots of different studies for words and text amongst other things. There is a lot of different learning tools that can be utilized in this Bible.

The only downfall I found with the eBook was that it took forever to load. I tried it on three different things: my phone, my tablet and my Nook Color. They all seemed to load very slowly, sometimes not at all and all I got was the spinning wheel of death. While having an eReader or eBook is nice and handy, I much prefer to have a real, solid book in my hand. There is something more appealing to me. I would have loved to seen this Bible in physical form.

The Woman Who Would be Queen

I'm a sucker for Ancient Egyptian history and have been since I was a child. When I found out this book was available to review on Blogging for Books, I didn't hestitate to grab it up.

I have never read anything really on Hatshepsut or from Kara Cooney, so I was excited to dive in. At first when I started reading, I was a little worried that this was going to be nothing more than a romance/fiction from the styling of the first chapter or two. But eventually, it got more into the "real" stuff and explained the reign of Hatshepsut.

I found this book very easy to understand and follow. Sometimes, authors use jargon that isn't familiar with an audience who is interested in learning about it on a more plain level. While there was still scholarly information, it was still easily understood. While I know a little about Ancient Egyptian life, I tried to come from the angle of an person who does not understand this amazing society of ages past. And I found it to be very easy to percieve. I would recommend picking this up if you are interested in learning about one of Egypts greatest pharaoh's and women.

Barracuda

I like to read. I like to try to read other genres and branch out. I'm usually scared at first because my attention span sometimes gets the best of me and I find myself thinking about other things as I'm "reading" the words on the page. This leaves me "thinking" that I'm reading a book when in reality I can't remember things that happened on the pages. Sometimes I stop reading a book because of this process beacuse I feel like I'm not engrossed enough.

It was slightly different with Barracuda from Christos Tsiolkas. I was brought in by the words on the page and quickly became engrossed in the storyline. Barracuda is thought provoking, psychologically challenging, and definitely something that I normally would not have read before. I'm glad that I took that leap and dive in.