Benita’s Big Bad Book Pile 2020

Charlas2020 ROOT CHALLENGE

Únete a LibraryThing para publicar.

Benita’s Big Bad Book Pile 2020

1benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 11, 2021, 1:29 pm

Once again I will attempt to rid my shelves of books that have been sitting around for a very long time. I had a super successful year of ROOTing last year, so my goal for this year is 60 books off my shelf. The books I will be reading will be anything purchased or added to my list before December 31, 2019. The eligible books can also be recorded books. I will add titles to this posting when I finish them and a short review below as I get time to write it. I will be leading the Lackberg/Leon Mystery challenge and will participate in the Non-fiction category challenge led by Suzanne. I will also monitor and participate in the British Author Challenge and the American Author Challenge when I can. Using these challenges was an effective way for me to get books off of my shelves so I am going to continue to use them as a motivation tool in the coming year to move books off my shelves. I decided it is the year to get the Harry Potter books off my shelves and out of my hair, so I plan on listening to the Harry Potter series this year.

I will use this first spot to index my ROOTS for the year.

1. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski - January 1, 2020
2. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner - sound recording - January 2, 2020
3. Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing by Merve Emre - January 13, 2020
4. Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist by Michelle Morgan - January 17, 2020
5. Blood From A Stone by Donna Leon - January 27, 2020
6. Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J. L. Chestnut, Jr. by J. L. Chestnut, Jr. and Julia Cass - January 30, 2020
7. Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff - sound recording - February 1, 2020
8. Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire - February 2, 2020
9. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan - February 7, 2020
10. Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde - February 9, 2020
11. Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion - sound recording - February 9, 2020
12. Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel - February 13, 2020
13. Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield - February 17, 2020
14. Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama - sound recording - February 17, 2020
15. Through a Glass, Darkly by Donna Leon - February 22, 2020
16. The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum - sound recording - February 23, 2020
17. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire - February 24, 2020
18. Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire - February 28, 2020
19. Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan - March 5, 2020
20. Tidelands by Philippa Gregory - sound recording - March 13, 2020
21. In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire - March 13, 2020
22. Lost Boy by Camilla Lackberg - March 16, 2020
23. Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington - March 18, 2020
24. Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner - sound recording - March 23, 2020
25. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - March 25, 2020
26. Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America by Liz Carlisle - March 29, 2020
27. Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor - March 30, 2020
28. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor - April 1, 2020
29. Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon - April 5, 2020
30. Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - April 5, 2020
31. 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman - April 8, 2020
32. Masaryk Station by David Downing - April 11, 2020
33. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez - sound recording - April 12, 2020
34. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata - April 13, 2020
35. Amarcord - Marcella Remembers: The Remarkable Life Story of the Woman Who Started Out Teaching Science in a Small Town in Italy, but Ended Up Teaching American How to Cook Italian by Marcella Hazan - April 15, 2020
36. When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago - April 17, 2020
37. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan - April 18, 2020
38. Icarus by Deon Meyer - April 20, 2020
39. Memory by Philippe Grimbert - April 25, 2020
40. Trackers by Deon Meyer - April 28, 2020
41. Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman - sound recording - May 2, 2020
42. Six Square Metres: Reflections From A Small Garden by Margaret Simons - May 3, 2020
43. Packing For Mars: Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach - May 5, 2020
44. Girl of His Dreams by Donna Leon - May 8, 2020
45. Blue Fox by Sjon - May 9, 2020
46. Fellowship of Ghosts: A Journey Through the Mountains of Norway by Paul Watkins - May 11, 2020
47. We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor - May 13, 2020
48. For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor - May 16, 2020
49. Blood Safari by Deon Meyer - May 17, 2020
50. Heart of the Hunter by Deon Meyer - May 20, 2020
51. Sea of Ink and Gold - The Reader by Traci Chee - sound recording - May 23, 2020
52. Dead At Daybreak by Deon Meyer - May 24, 2020
53. All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor - May 27, 2020
54. Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer - May 31, 2020
55. Buried Angels by Camilla Lackberg - June 1, 2020
56. Dead Before Dying by Deon Meyer - June 3, 2020
57. Paris: A Love Story by Kati Marton - June 5, 2020
58. Chaperone by Laura Moriarty - June 9, 2020
59. Aeronaut's Windlass Cinder Spire's - Book 1 by Jim Butcher - sound recording - June 11. 2020
60. Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam by Eliza Griswold - June 16, 2020
61. How To Live Safely in A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu - June 18, 2020
62. Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder - June 21, 2020
63. Wikkeling by Steven Arntson - June 22, 2020
64. About Face by Donna Leon - sound recording - June 24, 2020
65. Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - June 25, 2020
66. Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander - July 3, 2020
67. Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas - July 11, 2020
68. Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo - July 13, 2020
69. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - sound recording - July 15, 2020
70. Regency Years: During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern by Robert Morrison - July 22, 2020
71. Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff - July 28, 2020
72. Land of the Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer - sound recording - August 1, 2020
73. Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto - August 4, 2020
74. A Question of Belief by Donna Leon - August 10, 2020
74. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills - August 11, 2020
75. Pax by Sara Pennypacker - August 17, 2020
76. Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinken - sound recording - August 19, 2020
77. Young Elites by Marie Lu - sound recording - August 24, 2020
78. Library Book by Susan Orlean - August 26, 2020
79. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - September 5, 2020
80. Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho - September 6, 2020
81. King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner - sound recording - September 7, 2020
82. Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear - September 8, 2020
83. Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar: Evolution's Most Unbelievable Solutions to Life's Biggest Problems by Matt Simon - September 9, 2020
84. Ice Child by Camilla Lackberg - September 15, 2020
85. Liar's Candle by August Thomas - September 22, 2020
86. Control of Nature by John McPhee - September 28, 2020
87. Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon - October 1, 2020
88. Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization by Lars Brownworth - October 5, 2020
89. Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson - sound recording - October 5, 2020
90. All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater - sound recording - October 12, 2020
91. Beastly Things by Donna Leon - October 23, 2020
92. The Girl in the Woods by Camilla Lackberg - October 26, 2020
93. Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman - sound recording - October 31, 2020
94. Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - November 8, 2020
95. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal - sound recording - November 9, 2020
96. Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart - November 19, 2020
97. Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse by Stanley Meisler - November 20, 2020
98. Heavenly Tenants by William Maxwell - November 21, 2020
99. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson - November 26, 2020
100. Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero by Nancy Schoenberger - November 29, 2020
101. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez - November 30, 2020
102. The Toll by Neal Shusterman - sound recording - December 5, 2020
103. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whallen Turner - December 8, 2020
104. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen - sound recording - December 12, 2020
105. Last of the Light: About Twilight by Peter Davidson - December 17, 2020
106. Golden Egg by Donna Leon - December 28, 2020

2benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 28, 2020, 8:43 pm

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. This YA novel has been on the shelves of the library since 1996 and I have never read it. Thanks to a BB from Ronnie that called my attention to it, and the serendipitous find of the recorded version on the YA shelves at the public library I listened to it on this trip back to Alabama.

This is a very well written novel. It is much better quality than many of the adult fantasies that I have read in the past two months. It has an exciting plot that had at least one twist I never saw coming. It is full of action and adventure that would appeal to boys. It would make a great read aloud.

I can’t wait to listen to the rest of the books in the series.

3connie53
Ene 4, 2020, 3:10 am

Welcome back, Benita! Happy ROOTing.

4rabbitprincess
Ene 4, 2020, 8:27 am

Welcome back and have a great reading year!

5Jackie_K
Ene 4, 2020, 8:41 am

Welcome back! I picked up a few BBs from you last year, so I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get any more this year!

6MissWatson
Ene 4, 2020, 12:40 pm

Great to see you back with us. Good luck with your ROOTing!

7benitastrnad
Ene 6, 2020, 11:10 am

Last Wish by Andrej Sapkowski. This is the short story introduction to the new Netflicks series that is set to replace the Game of Thrones in the male fantasyland world of TV series. I have to wonder how this most juvenile of fantasy series ever came to the attention of series TV executives? Compared to some of the wonderful YA fantasy that I have been reading in the last few years this is poorly written and poorly plotted. However, since it is the short stories and not a novel I will read the first novel and in the series before I pass judgement on the overall quality of the series. However, I would recommend that any fantasy reader, skip this book and start with the novels. Surely, they are better written and translated better?

8benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 17, 2020, 5:04 pm

The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist by Michelle Morgan has an intriguing title, but no substance. The author never really delivers on the promise of the title. The author does go into detail about why Marilyn Monroe broke with Twentieth Century Fox and formed her own production company, but it does not detail why that production company broke apart or how it really worked. Instead it became more of an apologetic for Marilyn Monroe's life, but it never dug down into the why's of her behavior. It has presentations of being a scholarly work with end-notes and a bibliography, but it never backs up its arguments in a definitive way. It is what I would call it a lightweight work of narrative nonfiction.

9benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 30, 2020, 10:22 am

Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing by Merve Emre

I finally finished reading Personality Brokers by Merve Emre which I had started for the November 2019 nonfiction challenge on creators. This was a good book, even though it doesn't seem to have been because it took me almost three months to read it. (I read it only during lunch hour at work)

This was a biography of the two women who designed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - MBTI. Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers were a mother daughter team. It was the brainchild of Katherine Briggs and the earliest versions of it were created in the 1920's. Briggs thought it was based on Jungian theory and she carried on a correspondence with Jung for years until he finally told his secretaries to stop replying to her letters. In the 1940's Isabel Myers, Katherine's daughter started carrying the torch for the MBTI and it was she who created the test in its final forms, marketed it aggressively, and didn't live to see its success. Today the MBTI is a 2 Billion dollar a year business.

The book is a scholarly work that is hampered in its thorough coverage of the subject because the author was denied access to the private papers of Briggs and Myers. Even though the papers are in the possession of the University of Florida, the Center For Assessment of Personality Type controls access to them and they deny almost all requests for access. The author essentially debunks the validity of the test and lays bare the fact that this test is just another feel-good test that doesn't really test for anything. It was interesting reading and makes you wonder how so many people could fall for this test and think that it really does tell you who you are. I do have to admire the determination of Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs in designing and marketing this test and in persuading millions that it works.

This title was listed as a New York Times Critics Best Book of 2018 and an Economist Best Book of 2018.

10benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 30, 2020, 10:24 am

Blood From A Stone by Donna Leon

This is book 14 in the Guido Brunetti series and it has a very open ending that is unusual for the author. The ambiguity at the end just brings home the problems that the world is having regarding immigration and the fact that sometimes life doesn't wrap things up neatly for us. There are no easy answers. Another, big part of this novel, is Guido's fight with his family regarding attitudes about people who are "other" and with his fellow employees in trying to see justice done. Then there is the big concern about his fellow employees that he has endangered by his stubborn instance on the pursuit of justice - or at least that is the way he sees it.

11benitastrnad
Ene 30, 2020, 3:52 pm

I finished my second book this month for the Nonfiction challenge. Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J. L. Chestnut, Jr. by J. L. Chestnut, Jr. and Julia Cass won the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award back in 1991. It is a riveting read and should be required reading for anybody who moves into, or lives in Alabama. The book is told in the first person from interviews that Chestnut gave to Cass when Cass was assigned to write a story about the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on Selma, Alabama. The book covers the years 1945 up to 1989. Chestnut was the first black attorney to practice law in Selma and he remained a civil rights activist all of his life. He was one of the members of the community voting committee and was on the committees that planned the marches and other civil rights activities in Selma throughout his life. He was very politically astute and understood many of the strategies that the white community took to keep power in their hands even though the white population of the county in which Selma is located is only about 40% white. Chestnut died in 2008 and it is sad to see that he did not live to see Obama elected president. I am sure that he would have had a rollicking good time with that ultimate expression of Black Power.

Throughout the book Chestnut's vivacious personality and flamboyance comes through and writing it in the first person allows that individuality to shine. The historical events are momentous and changed this country forever and as important as those are, it is the story of this one man who spent his life defending his people from injustice that captures the reader. It is clear that Chestnut did not seek monetary gain and fun loving as he was, his passionate defense of his people and his fancy lawyering (as we say at home) is another window into the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the ordinary people of the South.

This was a wonderful book and deserves any and all accolades it got.

This book is still in print in paperback, and even though it is 423 pages, it reads fast.

12benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 3, 2020, 10:08 am

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff was another in his male fantasy fantasy series Nevernight. It was action packed, but it sort of is predictable. It was exciting to listen to, and I had fun with it. Not a title to make you think, except to realize how much of the Roman Empire, or perhaps any empire for that matter, was built on the concept of slavery. I will listen to the third one in the series. It just came out in September, but it is not in our collection or that of the public library in the sound recording at this time. Another one to request from ILL.

13connie53
Feb 4, 2020, 4:26 am

>12 benitastrnad: I still have to read that one. Glad to hear it's entertaining.

14benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 4, 2020, 11:59 am

Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

I wanted a quick easy read and this book was it. At 170 pages, I read it over the weekend. This is one of a series in the very popular Twisted fairy tales sub-genre of Fantasy. McGuire is proving herself to be an up-and-comer in the fantasy world, and this was a short no-brainer type of book for me. Mind candy. It was also interesting in the spin that McGuire put on the characters from fairy tale worlds and how she pictured those worlds. Then there was imaginative imaging of placing those characters in a real life now setting by asking the question "What would have happened in the world of today if these young people disappeared into the worlds of their fairy tale or nursery rhyme and then suddenly reappeared?" What McGuire came up with was a not quite horror world for some of the characters and a true fair tale world for some others. Then she put them all together in a boarding school where they are trying to come to grips with the new reality of the real world. The whole thing works and is very entertaining. Considering that I didn't really like the previous book of McGuire's that I read all that much, this one was good.

Now on to book 2.

15benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 13, 2020, 7:14 pm

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan I found this book confusing to read and almost gave up on finishing it - twice. After the first 50 pages I almost Pearl Ruled it, but since it was for my real life Book Discussion group and felt obligated to give it more of a chance. It was the winner of the Carnegie Award for Excellence in Fiction on 2018, so perhaps I had to high of expectations. I found the book to be emotionally distant and never connected with it. The book started slow and stayed that way for the majority of the story with the last 150 pages providing a good lift. It was those last 150 pages that redeemed the book for me. I would go so far as to say that the reason why there were several copies of this title on the shelves at my local book store was that people who bought the book never managed to finish it, or they didn't find it that good of a novel so they chucked on to the next person. In the end it was an average novel with little impact on me as a reader.

16benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 13, 2020, 7:19 pm

Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde. This is the first in a series that is being published by Tor.com. I enjoyed this short story and will read the second in the series as soon as I can get it from Inter-Library Loan. The author provides a good premise and some good writing. This could make a good novel someday, but in the meantime, it is a good novella.

The premise is that jewels talk and if you can't shut out the voices you are influenced by them to do things that are not good for you or anybody around you. Therefore, you have a lapidary who can bind and control the jewels through the cutting and setting of the stones. The stones have power to disguise, defend, enhance and amplify power, and alter mood. This is what drives people crazy if they can hear the stones talking to them all the time. Hence, the need for the lapidary to control them. I found the idea very intriguing and the author delivered enough in this novella to make me want to read more.

17benitastrnad
Feb 10, 2020, 2:05 pm

Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion. This is one of the worst books I have listened to in a long time. Really stupid plot. It is all about male mid-life crisis and marital infidelity with lots of musical trivia thrown in. I am glad I got it free. If I had paid for it, I would have been angry.

18connie53
Feb 11, 2020, 3:26 am

>17 benitastrnad: Awful! I hope your next one will be much better.

19benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 13, 2020, 7:08 pm

Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel I finished reading Monuments Men today during my lunch hour. It was good, but I didn't think it was great. I think it tried to cover too much territory and tell to broad of a story. I would have liked it better with a little more detail and more focus. However, I do think it told a story that needed to be told and given its copyright date of 2010 it is a good lesson in what can be accomplished by an army in saving the heritage of people if they do some advanced planning. Armies don't need alot of people to save culture and heritage. There were 350 men in the Monuments detail in the Allied armies and they did so much. Think was 350 people could have done in Iraq back in 2003.

I have not watched the movie made from this book, but I did see the European film Rape of Europa that was based on a book. This told the story of the work done in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, which Monuments Men only touched on. Since I don't have a DVD Player or have streaming capabilities I might have to wait until I go home and can watch Monuments Men with my sister.

20benitastrnad
Feb 17, 2020, 1:39 pm

Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield. I have been doing a Tor.com novella reading binge this last week. This is the fourth book from them that I have read this week. I had to get it through Inter-Library loan. This was a well developed novella and the sequel to it is already out. That is sort of the reason why I got it now. Time to get it read before the next one comes out.

This one is set in 18th Century England and comes complete with highwaymen, automatons, and disappearing coaches. It also features dual and sometimes triple timelines and different characters from the stock usually found in this kind of story. I am not sure I will read the sequel but it is a short fun read.

21benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 24, 2020, 12:02 pm

Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama This was a quiet story about the mistakes made by a middle class family living in Quoncho, China at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. In 1956, Mao sent out a notice that he wanted to hear what the populace had to say about the Party. This self-criticism was called the Hundred Flowers campaign. When Mao didn't like what people told him, he opened up "re-education" camps and had these letter writers imprisoned in them. It was a foretaste of the much more destructive Cultural Revolution ten years later, but at the time of the events of this story, nobody would have known that. I liked this story and the recorded version was well done.

22benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 24, 2020, 12:03 pm

Through a Glass, Darkly by Donna Leon This was book 15 in my read through the entire Donna Leon oeuvre. This book was a bit different in that Guido managed to wade through the corruption of the Italian police system and get his man. Along the way, the reader gets to learn about the polluting problem associated with the making of the beautiful glass on the island of Murano.

23benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 24, 2020, 12:09 pm

Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum I would have liked this book much better if I had read it instead of listened to it. This turns out to be the kind of book that you can't listen to effectively due to the content of the book. Essentially it is about computer modeling, and that is a complicated topic. Probably too complicated for me to understand without a written copy beside me. Fortunately, Tuscaloosa Public Library had a hardcopy of the book, so I was able to read the last 5 chapters of the book. Immediately it made more sense to me.

The book reveals how the weather forecast is made and it turns out that it is made by a bunch of computers. In Europe those computers are owned by the EU and in the U. S. the computers are owned by the Weather Company. The Weather Company gathers all of the data sent in by the U. S. weather satellites, that are paid for by the taxpayers. The information is free, but the Weather Company, gathers the information, runs it through its computer simulations, and makes a forecast that it then sells to most of the TV and radio stations in the U. S. as well, as Facebook and Twitter. Sounds like another Lexis/Nexus scheme, or Michael Bloomberg Reports, where one person gets rich off of the money the rest of us donate in the form of taxes.

24benitastrnad
Feb 25, 2020, 11:48 am

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire. This is the sequel to Every Heart A Doorway. This book explores the characters of Jack and Jill who were two of the main characters in the first book. Jack and Jill are the Jack and Jill who went up the hill. The book is a mashup of many literary tropes. There is the mad scientist, the evil vampire and his attendant village and castle, and the willing and unwilling victims. The entertaining part is the way in which the author has mixed and matched them and come up with refreshingly new.

This is a TOR book, and it continues the tradition of innovative science fiction/fantasy that comes from this publisher.

25benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 29, 2020, 9:51 pm

I finished book 3 in the Wayward Children series. Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire. This one was different than the first two, but it featured some of the same characters as were in books 1 & 2. It was nice to read more about them and what caused them to be at the school for Wayward Children. I have started book 4 but will pause it while I read some other books for the next week.

26benitastrnad
Editado: Mar 5, 2020, 9:23 pm

Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan

I love Egan’s work. His love for the wide open spaces of the American West shows in all of his work. This book is about the big forest fire that ravaged a huge area of three states in 1910; Washington, Idaho, and Montana and a big part of British Columbia before it died out. At that point the U.S. Forest Service was still a nascent organization and had powerful opponents in the U.S. government who happened to be representing the very states that were devastated by this fire. The idea of making land “public” was antithetical to these Representatives and Senators and they did everything in their power to kill the Forest Service and the idea of National Parks, Forests, and WIlderness Areas. The very idea of conservation of any natural resources was anathema to them. This book is about all of that, as well as about the fire itself.

I think this is one of the books I have had or the longest in my LT account and I don’t know why it took me so long to read it. This is great reading!

27benitastrnad
Editado: Mar 30, 2020, 1:55 pm

In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire. My rsding through the titles in the Wayward Children series continues with book 4. This one was good. It was much better than book 3 with much more folk and fairy tale lore included in the plot. The author has returned the reader to one of the characters in book 1 and given us the backstory on that important person. Howeve, the ending of this novella was weak and should have been punched up. Even so, it fulfilled the purpose of entertainment and continues the story.

28benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 5, 2020, 10:57 am

Tidelands by Philippa Gregory

I have enjoyed Gregory's historical fiction over the years and when I read the review for this new series I put it on my TBR list. My local Barnes & Noble selected it for the March meeting of the Sunday Book Club, so I went to the public library and grabbed it off the book shelf and off the recorded book shelf. I ended up listening to it and really liked this book. The narrator was fantastic and the plot was fascinating and rich with details. Gregory concentrates on the lives of women in all of her books and this one is no exception. In this book, she deals with the lives of the very poor. How does a single woman with children make do in the trying times of the the 1648 revolution in England? Along with the upheaval politically, the heroine must deal with the religious upheaval. Since she is a midwife most of the local people believe she is a Wise Woman and this leads to trouble with the new religious standards of the day. To add to her woes, she finds love - and love with a man who must keep his love clandestine. All this leads to trouble with a capital T.

I really liked this book and think that it will make my Best of the Year list. I can't wait to talk to the other book discussion members about it - provided the local Barnes & Noble reopens when this is all over.

29connie53
Mar 18, 2020, 4:08 am

Your reading is moving along nicely, Benita. How are you doing in these days of corona?

30benitastrnad
Mar 19, 2020, 11:10 am

>29 connie53:
Staying calm and carrying on. Life as usual.

31benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 5, 2020, 11:06 am

Cadaver King and the Country Dentist by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington

I read this book for the LT nonfiction challenge. The February theme was "Heroes and Villains." This book was about the villains. The book focused on the state of Mississippi and the Office of State Coroner. In short, Mississippi didn't have one and this allowed two men to bilk the state out of millions of dollars, keep Jim Crow in play and the status quo intact when it came to the legal system in Mississippi, while allowing two unqualified men to put people in jail using fake science.

It seems I have been doing some reading in "fake science" topics for some time and this book adds to the list of books calling into question the beliefs in dubious science and downright bad science. In this case the bad science is now embedded in the legal system and once again the system works against the poor. Not only is this a class issue but in Mississippi it is a race issue. This book should make people all across the US cry and carry on to our legislatures and national government about the built in racism in our legal system. These laws must be changed!

I got this book at Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee when I visited that book store in 2018. I got to hear the authors give a book talk on this title and so naturally I had to buy it. This is a must read title.

32benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 5, 2020, 11:17 am

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I read this book for my real life Book Discussion group. This was to have been our April book. It is a retelling of the Illiad done by a Classics professor. This book concentrated on the life of Achilles and incorporated several different sources into the story other than the Iliad. The result is a cohesive and coherent tale of one man and the man that he loves above all others. The author also fleshes out the story by raising the role of Patroclus and Briseis and makes them into integral parts of the story. The other part of the story that becomes of paramount importance is the hatred between Achilles and Agamemnon.

I liked this book, but I was surprised to find that the public library did not have it and the UA copy was checked out. There were few cheap copies of it on Alibris and I ended up getting it through ILL.

33benitastrnad
Editado: Mar 31, 2020, 11:30 am

Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America by Liz Carlisle

I enjoyed Lentil Underground. I read it for the Nonfiction Challenge for March which was "Food, Glourious Food."

I have found the "news" so disturbing that I had to quit watching it - especially in the mornings. Instead I put on some music on the CD player (remember those?) and read for one hour. Then I get dressed and start my work-at-home day. Since I started doing that my live has gotten so much better.

In case nobody noticed it the title of the book is a pun. Lentils are a legume. They do some work producing seeds we can eat above ground where they take nitrogen from the air and fix it in the soil and it becomes a natural fertilizer. This happens underground. Underground also refers to social, cultural, and political movements that take place under the surface of established protocols and procedures. In this case the book is about a small group of Montana farmers who bucked the system and established "organic," "natural," farming and in the process changed laws about food all across the US. I found it comforting to learn that there are people who are willing to challenge the status quo and in the process move policy forward, or backward, in this case for the good of mankind.

34benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 5, 2020, 11:27 am

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

I started reading this series back in 2016 when I read a review. I read this book because I am now reading through the TOR.com novellas and this series is published by them. This is book 2 in the series and in this novella Binti takes Okwu home to her Sub-Saharan ancestral lands. Binti returns because she feels that she needs to go on her initation pilgrimage in order to cleanse herself and to help her deal with her PSTD. She not only has mental issues to deal with she has to deal with the physical changes that accompanied her union with Okwu's life forms.

The story incorporates much of African folklore in a unique way that many YA's will find of interest and this series is very appropriate for that age group. I found the novella to be very reminiscent of Nancy Farmer's Newbery Honor book The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm. Good stuff for a library that needs diverse books.

35benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 5, 2020, 11:47 am

Lost Boy by Camilla Lackberg

This is book 7 in the Hedstrom/Falck series. I read it for the Lackberg vs. Leon mystery read along that I host here on LT. I confess that I had sort of lost interest in this series but then one of my fellow readers on the thread reminded me of the good things about this series and that post renewed my interest. She made me see it through different eyes. Even though I had figured out the "mystery" part of the plot, what I looked at differently was the description of the lives of the characters and the descriptions of the daily life of people in Sweden. This is a snapshot into a way of life that we don't often get to see and that is probably the strength of the series. My thanks to my fellow reader for her insights and her encouragement to continue to read these books. She reminded me that the reason we are reading these and comparing them is to gain this kind of insight as well as to be entertained.

The plot of this book centered around more domestic violence and who murdered a major drug kingpin back in Stockholm. This murder tied in with a local murder. Once again there were distractions in the form of flashbacks to a historical situation that I found distracting and unrelated to the modern story, but given the books other strengths I can overlook those bits.

36benitastrnad
Abr 1, 2020, 1:38 pm

Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor. This is book 3 in the "Binti" series and it is a bang-up conclusion - a bit implausible. But then, it IS science fiction and therefore speculative by its very nature. What is important is that the author made me care about the characters and curious about what would happen next. That is a win win.

This novel is heavily based on African folklore and mythologies and it also taps into tribal allegiances and longstanding prejudices that have a historical basis. The setting is clearly Sub-saharan Africa and the fighting between tribes of that region - what most people would consider to be internecine warfare. Reading between the lines in this series is important, as is a basic knowledge of the region and its tribes.

Symbolism is also important, especially the use of color. Blue for things dealing with the desert tribes (Berber?) Red, orange, and pink for the sedentary village people.

This is a good coming of age story. The great questions of "who am I," and "what am I" are questions that most teens ask at one time or another.

37benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 5, 2020, 11:56 am

Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

This is book 2 in the Queen's Thief series and I love this series. Great stuff in here. Plots that twist and turn. Characters who are subtle, smart, and damaged. All of which makes this series a delight to read. I can't wait to start on book three! But that will have to wait until I can get to a library.

In this book Eugenedies and Eddis get involved in the internal affairs of the Queen of Attolia. In the end Eugenedies becomes engaged to the Queen of Attolia and it is a love match as well as a political match. This volume is full of despicable, proud, and arrogant men who think that they are entitled to run everything just because they are men. The underlying theme of this volume is independence. Independence of thought and action. There are also lots of feminist themes such as women can rule effectively and make decisions based on rationality. Their effectiveness does not depend on their beauty, but on their brains.

I listened to this book and the narrator was outstanding. He has just the right touch of disdain and snobbery in his voice that he makes all of the characters come alive in different ways. This is family entertainment to the max for those long car trips.

38benitastrnad
Abr 5, 2020, 12:05 pm

Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon

This is book 16 in the Guido Brunetti series and I read it for the LT Lackberg vs Leon mystery read along. This is one of the first books I entered into LT back in March of 2008 when I joined LT. I got the book at ALA Midwinter in 2007 and it is a signed copy.

This title is a bit of an anomaly in the series. It is not about a murder but about an attempted murder and the attempt doesn't happen until the last part of the book. The mystery is all in the preceding chapters. It is also more threadlike than some of the previous books in that there are separate investigations going on that end up being connected but were not intended to be so when the investigations started. It is only when Brunetti finds a name on a list that he connects the two investigations into a single one. Then he makes a mistake and tells a person in one investigation about what has happened in the other one and then that person makes the connection and jumps at the chance for vengeance.

I really enjoyed this entry in the series and buzzed through it in three days. Of course, my new policy of not watching the news in the morning helped. Instead I am devoting one hour a day to reading without the TV or the radio on. This should enable me to get lots of books off my giant TBR shelves. At least, I have high hopes.

39benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 11, 2020, 11:09 am

Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

I almost Pearl Ruled this book. I had read 400 pages in it and it was still not very interesting. I had purchased it because it was highly regarded by several people on LT. I thought that the collective wisdom had made a mistake on this title because it was boring and I just could't get into it. But, I decided to trust the collective wisdom on this one and stay with it.

It finally took off! The last 350 pages were bang up great fantasy and adventure. The Gentleman Bastards are now among some of my good fantasy titles. However, I will tell everyone, that this book starts out slow and stays slow until you are about 400 pages into the 720 page book. Most people probably aren't going to wait that long for it to get good.

The story is about a gang of swindlers who make tons of money in confidence games that are complicated and twisty and don't kill anybody. In the end the book is really about the consequences of revenge. It is full of great characters. I probably will read more of this crews adventures, but not right now.

40MissWatson
Abr 7, 2020, 6:51 am

>39 benitastrnad: Thanks for the review! I also acquired this on the favourable reviews from fellow LTers and got bogged down. Now I know it's worth persevering.

41benitastrnad
Abr 9, 2020, 5:40 pm

>40 MissWatson:
Glad to hear that I wasn't the only one who struggled with it.

42benitastrnad
Abr 9, 2020, 5:49 pm

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman was read for the LT Non-fiction Challenge. The April category was books about immigration, emigration, and nationalism. This was book was not the one I had selected to read for this month, but since the library was closed I had to make due with what was here on my shelves or checked out.

This was an easy book to read. It is basically five chapters about five different families who all lived in apartments in the building at 97 Orchard Street in New York City. This building was built in 1854 and eventually became the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The five families selected start with the first family to live there and one of the last families to move out in 1942. Each of the families left some documentation of their existence, but the main thrust of the book was about the food and food culture that each brought to New York City and how this changed the foodways of NYC and eventually the entire country. There were some recipes included in the book, but the book was not a recipe book. It was about what the people ate, how they procured that food, and how they cooked it. There was also a great deal of immigration history in the book. Details like who immigrated first, how many of that nationality immigrated and where and how they settled in NYC. There was even details on the food eaten on the ships that carried the immigrants. This was a good general history book.

43connie53
Abr 11, 2020, 4:08 am

>39 benitastrnad: This is a book I've read too and gave it **** and I've read part 2 and gave that ****1/2.

So it gets better!

44benitastrnad
Abr 12, 2020, 12:34 pm

Masaryk Station by David Downing

This is the 6th and final book in the John Russell series by this author. I have had it on my TBR table for about 2 years. I still had the purchase slip in it from August 2014 when I purchased it at my local Barnes & Noble store. I had intended to read it long before this, but it languished on my TBR table for about 2 years.

In this book our hero and heroine are finally married and living in Berlin where he works as an interpreter for the American Intelligence offices and as an agent for the Soviets. The time is in 1948 just before the Berlin Crises and Berlin is not a divided city. Russell is asked to ferry various Russian defectors to and from Berlin and at 50 he is getting to old for the job. He is also getting more and more disillusioned about the people that he is being asked to "rescue." This is a good spy yarn and was great relaxing reading - perfectly suitable to take my mind off of the stupid quarantine and move it somewhere else.

This is the last book in this series with the author taking the hero back to his WWI days in a series that he is calling the Jack Russell series. I don't think I will follow him there because there are plenty of other mystery spy thrillers out there to read, but I would be happy to recommend this series as well as the first series to other readers of the genre.

45benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 16, 2020, 10:16 am

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

I finished listened to this book. I picked this book because I had the paperback edition of it on my shelves and I had a used copy of the recorded version so I could listen to it in my car. I also wanted to read this book because Alvarez is one of those authors who got caught up in the American Dirt brouhaha back in January. Alvarez gave American Dirt a positive review. Alvarez is a political refugee - sort of - from the Dominican Republic. Garcia Girls was written in 1991 and is the fictionalized account of the experiences of her family.

I liked this book. It is not this authors most recent but it was what I had on my shelves right now. It is written in three parts and each part covers a different timeline in the life of her family, starting with the sisters in their adulthood first and ending with them as young children living in the Dominican Republic. I listened to most of this book and each sister had a different narrator which worked very well and fit the structure of the book. It might even have enhanced the interpretation of the story.

The book is about the problems of assimilation that children of immigrants have when they come to this country. In addition to the normal misunderstanding and cultural sociological conflicts with parents and the normal problems between parents and teenagers, there was an added economic layer that was a factor in the book. The family was quite wealthy in the Dominican Republic and regularly traveled back and forth to New York City where they shopped in high end stores. When the father was involved in a political revolt against the dictator Trujillo the entire family was forced to leave and became political refugees. Once in New York they were no longer among the wealthy class. Even though the father was a medical doctor in the Dominican Republic he was not granted a medical license in New York state because he did not finish medical school education in France and did not have a recognized degree. This drop in status was a source of contention between the sisters and the parents and contributed greatly to family discord.

This is a work of fiction but the author makes it clear in the author notes at the end of the novel that this is a fictional account of many family events. She also tells that when the book was published her mother read it a refused to talk to her or acknowledge her for ten years after the publication. The author does not say what was the problem and merely states that her mother had an adverse reaction to the novel. Like most novels of this type this is basically a coming of age novel and is filled with warmth, familial love, and humor. The author has an accessible writing style that makes this a book that can be read by teens and adults alike.

When the libraries reopen I am going to try to find her newer novel In the Time of the Butterflies and see what the differences are between the authors work of 1991 and that of a few years ago. This novel is not a work of heavy duty thinking dealing with philosophical ideas of great import, but it is enjoyable reading. In light of the recent controversy the notes at the end of this edition (written in 2011) provide better insight as to the author's life and thoughts about writing than does the novel. I would say this is enjoyable reading, but don't expect earth shattering insights about the Latino experience of the majority of Latino immigrants in the U.S.

46benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 2, 2020, 10:56 am

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. I enjoyed reading this novella. It was quirky and full of offbeat humor, like many of the Japanese books I have read. This one was a book about a well educated woman who finds her bliss in working in an anonymous convenience store. Unfortunately, her family and her friends don't understand her contentment with the job or her affinity for the work. They also don't understand her lifestyle. She starts doing things to make them happy and that make her appear "normal" to them. The results are really funny and revealing about a persons inner character. There is also lots of food for thought in this small volume about modernity and our modern lifestyles and expectations.

47benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 16, 2020, 4:04 pm

Amarcord - Marcella Remembers: The Remarkable Life Story of the Woman Who Started Out Teaching Science in a Small Town in Italy, but Ended Up Teaching American How to Cook Italian by Marcella Hazan

Yes. That is the full title according to the catalog record from the library, and that in the front of the book, but LT doesn't seem to recognize it. Oh well! There you have it.

This book isn't going to win any writing prizes. It is an autobiography and it shows. It isn't exactly a tell-all, but I does dish on cookbook author and editor Judith Jones because Hazan clearly believes that Jones didn't do enough to promote her cookbooks and played favorites with other cookbook authors. I am also surprised at how much wealth and privilege there is in this book. Like Julia Child, Marcella Hazan had well-off parents. She was a college graduate and even had a PhD in Biology from the University of Bologna. She and her husband moved around in post-war Italy living in what were even then expensive apartments and even doing renovations. I realize that it was her husband who had the money, but at times it shocked me how easily they moved back and forth not worrying that much about money. Her fame and fortune came from the fact that she was in the right place at the right time, and friends with the right people. Even though the book didn't make Marcella Hazan into someone I would particularly like to meet in real life, I ended up admiring her for all she did for food and culture in both Italy and the U.S.

48benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 17, 2020, 8:15 pm

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago. This book has been on my reading list for a long time. Since 2011 because it was on a list of required reading for a course in the College of Education. Even though it took me a long time to get to it, I enjoyed this book very much and only took two days to read it. I thought that Esmeralda was a very ill behaved child, and that in some ways she was spoiled even if her family was desperately poor. The writing was extremely well done and the author told her story in a strong compelling voice that takes you right into the life of the poor and the scared immigrant. In some ways it was like be grabbed and shaken by the voice and the reality of the situation as if the reader was a rag doll. It was so good that I immediately put the second and third parts of this authors life story on my TBR list. So I knocked on off the list and put two on. That's how it goes when the author does a good job.

49benitastrnad
Abr 20, 2020, 12:07 am

I finished Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan late last night. It was gloomy. I wanted it to be more hopeful - like the work of Richard Russo and it just didn't seem to be. However, O'Nan can certainly set a scene! His powers of description are very very good. Not only in writing about the setting, but in getting the attitude of the people so well. Manny is just terrifically done. You know that he is one of those people who just wants to please and genuinely puts others first. His powers of forgiveness are front and center. This was a powerful short read. O'Nan is a very good writer, even if I like Russo better.

50benitastrnad
Editado: Abr 21, 2020, 10:30 am

Icarus by Deon Meyer

I just finished reading Icarus by Deon Meyer. He is a detective thriller author from South Africa whose Benny Griessel series Paul and I have been reading and following for a few? years. (not sure when we started reading them.) I have enjoyed all of his books. This latest one was not his heart thumping usual book, but it was a very good methodical entry in the series that allowed some of the secondary characters in the series to shine. This one was written in a different kind of style than what the author usually does, and it did keep me guessing about the ending and the outcome. There were lots of twists and turns in this one and the author kept me going down the garden path for some time, before I figured out who-done-it.

What intrigues me about this series is that they are written in Afrikaans and translated, so as a reader, you get a different kind of insight into South Africa.

If you are looking for a different kind of murder mystery series, (which you probably aren't because your shelves are full of books from other authors that you want to get to) I would put this author on your radar. These are good ones - but there are so many good ones out there waiting for me to read them. (sigh) 😔

51benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 2, 2020, 11:00 am

Memory by Philippe Grimbert. This novella is one that I have had on my shelves since 2008 and is one of the first titles I entered into LT. It is one of the pieces of literature that is illustrative of the current French angst about the unresolved issues of WWII. In this book, the author examines what happened to his family and why they did what they did. The repercussions of the decisions made in the 1940's and their long after effects are the meat of this book. The author writes with a gentle ominous style that conveys the angst of the past and the present. Excellent atmospheric writing.

52benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 28, 2020, 8:45 pm

Trackers by Deon Meyer. I finished reading Trackers last week and really liked it. I loved the puzzles in it. I never saw the end coming as it did. Frankly, as I was reading I wondered why the last part was even in the book, because it didn't seem to fit. Then in the last 5 pages the appearance of Lemmer was like an astroid hitting the earth. LOVED THIS BOOK! I loved it so much that I ordered the remaining three titles by Deon Meyer that I don't own. I do have to say that I did not order Fever. It holds no appeal for me and smacks too much of that awful Cormac MacCarthy book that others have loved. It just isn't my cup of tea, so that one I will skip. But books about smuggling Black Rhinos, diamonds, and people, I want more!

53benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 14, 2020, 11:14 am

Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman. This was a recorded book that I listened to in my car. This was not Neal SHusterman's best work. The narration on this book was excellent but the content fell down. The plot was predictable and while the subject matter was original and imaginative the way it was presented was very formulaic with no surprises. The ending was well done, but it got lost and rambling in the middle.

The plot could be summed up as Teen Big Sister Over Achiever and screw up younger brother are home alone when disaster strikes. Nurdy neighbor comes to the rescue. All of them flee to head for greener pastures and end up having adventures caused by their stupid mistakes and lack of experience. The whole time you are screaming "where are the parents" and "this is unbelievable." Yes, it was unbelievable.

On the upside, it points to a very under appreciated problem around the world. Lack of water and lack of conservation of water. This is a very timely topic packaged and written badly. My verdict - don't waste your time, unless you are trapped in your car and need something to listen to.

54benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 3, 2020, 12:52 pm

Six Square Metres: Reflections From A Small Garden by Margaret Simons. I have been reading novellas since the first of the year. It started because TOR.com has been publishing an outstanding lineup of titles that are novellas, so I started out reading those. That project expanded to other novellas and short books I have had on my shelves for a long time. I am trying to read one short book (under 200 pages) every weekend. This morning I finished reading Six Square Metres: Reflections From A Small Garden by the Australian gardener and author Margaret Simons. It was 120 pages in length. I started it Friday night and finished it this morning. It was perfect for reading outside because we have had some perfect weather here in Alabama this weekend. It has been sunny and in the 70's. Perfect for outdoors activities. It is going to get much warmer today and tomorrow and then rain is forecasted, but for today it was perfect on my patio. I had the sun, my plants look good (just planted them this weekend because it was the first weekend we could legally go shopping) and I drove the four blocks to Starbucks and got a hazelnut cappuccino. When I finished the book I was sorry because the reading and the setting was so pleasant, only marred by the barking of the neighbors dogs. But other than that - perfect.

I would recommend this book to any gardener. It is full of bits of gardening wisdom and just general essays about life - of people and snails.

55benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 14, 2020, 11:26 am

Packing For Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach. This book was for my real life Book Discussion group. It was our May selection. Everybody in the group liked this book. It was an easy read. Roach is a very approachable author and she tackles subjects that are of interest to the general public. The book is full of questions that people would like to ask but are afraid to because of the delicacy of the subject. This includes questions like how do you pee in space? What do you eat? How do you bathe? The answers to all of the questions are in the book. They are delivered in a humorous tone in simple terms. What more could you ask for in a science book?

In my more disparaging moments I would call this book "science lite." I don't think that is fair, but for me the book didn't go in depth enough is some areas and too much in others. I am not into scatology and that is one area that this book went into depth on. Perfect for fourth grade boys. Boring for me.

56benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 14, 2020, 1:43 pm

Girl of His Dreams by Donna Leon. This book was one of the first books I entered into Librarything back in 2008. I got a signed copy of it from the ALA summer conference in Anaheim, California back in 2008. I read it for the LT Mystery read along challenge Lackberg vs. Leon. This is book 17 in the series. I only have 9 more to go to catch up with the author.

Like so many other Brunetti books, this one does not have a clear resolution but it doesn't have a clear theme. Once again the subject is the ill treatment of immigrants into Italy. Under that is the problems that millions of tourists bring to Venice. This includes the shortage of housing for local residents, deteriorating transportation for workers, the disappearance of infrastructure stores such as groceries, and the over abundance of trashy tourist stores and eateries. "On his way towards Campo San Giacomo he noticed packages of pasta, bottles of acute balsamic, and dried fruit on stalls that had formerly sold fresh fruit ... Gianni and Laura had closed their fruit stand and gone years ago, ... How long would it be before the fruit market disappeared entirely and Venetians would be forced, like the rest of the world, to buy their fruit in supermarkets?" p. 13. This passage reminded me of the cook and chef Marcella Hazan who moved to Venice with her husband and lived there for 20 years because of the abundance of fresh food.

All of this contrasted with this quote from early in the book, "Brunetti answered with his best smile, remembering a poet who had once said that it was a good thing the causeway existed, for Europe would have been isolated." pg. 97. It was clear from this book that self-sifficient Venice is no more.

57benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 14, 2020, 1:56 pm

Blue Fox by Sjon. This is an Icelandic morality tale. It is my novella for the weekend and clocked in at 128 pages. The setting is rural 19th century Iceland. An educated Icelander returns to settle his parents estate and takes on the care of a girl who has Down's syndrome. They develop a friendship and he takes on her care until her death. It is not until her death that we (the reader) discover the reason for the detailed description of a fox hunt early in the book. This is a well done short story.

The art work on the cover is outstanding. It wasn't until the day I entered this book into LT and I quickly glanced at the cover and say that, what I had thought was some kind of folk art done in blue was actually a well executed wood cut of a fox. This was one beautiful artful cover.

58connie53
mayo 12, 2020, 5:01 am

Hi Benita, I hope you are fine. I see the reading goes well.

59benitastrnad
mayo 12, 2020, 10:39 am

>58 connie53:
I am reading like a house afire! Yes, it is going well. There have been some interesting books in the mix, but most of them have been short. I am working on getting rid of all the short books out of my collection. It started because of the TOR.com novellas and has continued to lots of other short books - (books under 200 pages). I have included nonfiction works in the mix as well as fiction so I can't call them novellas anymore. Hence, the short books moniker.

60benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 12, 2020, 6:02 pm

Fellowship of Ghosts: A Journey Through the Mountains of Norway by Paul Watkins

I read this book for the May NonFiction Challenge - comfort reads. I love reading travel books and this book is not only a comfort/travel read it is the culmination of a years long project! I have been reading through the entire title list of the National Geographic Directions series. I started reading these books back in 2009 - before I realized that they were a series. When I discovered that they were a series, I decided to read all of them. I decided that I would not binge read through the series but would read through them whenever the mood struck me. It has taken me 11 years but I have completed the published title list with this book. There are actually three more titles listed for this series but they were never published, so this one is it.

I may have saved one of the better ones for last. Fellowship of Ghosts: A Journey Through the Mountains of Norway by Paul Watkins might be the best one in the series. Watkins writing is very descriptive and combined with his knowledge of hiking and the European habit of trekking it makes for a delightful read with just the right amounts of adventure, history, and romance of the road. One of the things he does very well is bring in previous travel writing about hiking the mountains of Norway. Most of this writing was done in Victorian or Edwardian England and he made those mad Englishman come alive as he followed their footsteps in some places.

Some of the best passages in this book are those about the sense of place. Watkins manages to evoke the stillness, timelessness, and the absolute wonder of these glacial mountains. He communes with the place, the animals, the plants, and the ghosts of Vikings, soldiers, and wanderers and trekkers, as well as some of those he meets along the way.

For anyone who likes travel books I highly recommend this series, and I highly recommend this particular title. It is a bit longer than previous books in the series, but it is so well written that I never noticed.

61benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 14, 2020, 11:38 am

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. This book was perfect quarantine reading. It was full of adventure, science, and cultural history. It had heroes and villains. It had victims and leaders. It had tension and humor in spades. It is space opera at it's best.

This book has an original plot and, while the writing was rough in the beginning, it smoothed out and took the reader on quite a ride. It was filled with offbeat references to cultural touchstones from the 80's, 90's, and oughts that kept the reader on her toes. I found myself marking things to look up on Wikipedia just to find out what they were. When I did that I found myself laughing out loud.😁 Some of the references were just so cool. And offbeat. For instance, Mulder. I racked my brain for most of day trying to remember where I had heard that name. I was determined to remember on my own without resorting to my friend Wikipedia. When I finally remembered it, I got a good laugh and now I wonder when Scully will show up. I am confident that she will.

Taylor's series is one of the success stories for a self-published book. The three Bobiverse books became a hit and that is rare for a self-published series. My guess is that Taylor is under contract with Amazon as the distributor and so you will have to get them through Amazon.

I checked on WorldCat and there are about 150 libraries in the U.S. that have a copy of the first book in the Bobiverse series. Most of them are public libraries. You could probably get it through ILL (Inter-Library Loan) if you don't want to purchase it, but with so many libraries closed it might be hard to get. When I first heard about these books, I caved in and purchased the first two titles from Amazon. I will be ordering the third title from Amazon soon.

62benitastrnad
mayo 16, 2020, 9:17 pm

For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor. I buzzed through the second book in this series in three days. This is great space opera and book 2 was just as good as book 1. I have all of the same comments to make about this book as I did the first one. No second in series slump here, and not all goes well with the Bobs. Now they have run into outside interference. Space may be big, but is it big enough for everybody.

With this book I started keeping a written list of all the terms I looked up in Wikipedia. It was fairly extensive. I wonder what terms and topics I will have to learn about in book 3?

I had to order the third book from Amazon so will have to wait to read it to find out what happens.

63benitastrnad
mayo 19, 2020, 1:21 pm

Blood Safari by Deon Meyer. This is book 1 in the Lemmer series that so far is a duopoly. Like all of Meyer's books characters from one book often appear in another book and Lemmer has made an appearance in several of them. I read these books out of order so I know how this story ends, but reading this book was great good fun. Meyer certainly can write an thriller with the best of them.

This book takes place in a different part of South Africa - the northwest - in a area called the Karoo. This is a semi-arid desert with abundant wildlife. The primary wildlife being addressed in this book was Vultures and the poaching of them. All of this gets tied into a missing persons case and like so many of Meyer's books at heart it is a spy thriller. How all of these elements are tied together is the good ride that author takes the reader on.

These books are so much fun to read and perfect escapist literature for quarantine reading.

64benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 21, 2020, 11:06 am

Heart of the Hunter by Deon Meyer is the second Zatopek Van Heerden book and the first Thobela Mpayipheli book. It is another wonderful quarantine read. It is another excellent thriller written by this under appreciated author. In this book Thobela takes on a delivery job for an old friend and is chased across South Africa by the South African Intelligence Service. Along the way he becomes a sort of folk hero and gets help from unexpected events and people. The book is full of action, plot twits, romance, and humor. The scenes with the biker gangs are hilarious, as are some of the scenes with the police vs the army. Another great book from this author.

65benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 2, 2020, 4:45 pm

The Reader by Traci Chee. This is the first book in a trilogy titled Sea of Ink and Gold. This novel is written as a story within a story. I listened to the recorded version of the book and so it took me some time to figure that out. I am glad that I brought the print copy home with me while we were under quarantine because I would have had a harder time figuring out what was going on without the print copy. It is a good literary device, but it often doesn't work well in the recorded format. This recorded version was very well done, but even at a top level, at first the book was confusing. The addition of some audio queues would have been helpful for the listener.

The book is about the power of words and how we create stories about ourselves and our purpose. This is a book with lots of fast paced adventure and is a swords and sorcerers fantasy to ride the waves with the best of them. It has pirates, authors, and magic aplenty. It has villains who aren't really villains, but do bad things anyway. On top of that was the excellent quality of the recording. I most certainly will read the others in this series.

66benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 2, 2020, 4:59 pm

Dead At Daybreak by Deon Meyer. This is the first book in the Zet Van Heerden series by Meyer. However, all of Meyer's books have reoccurring characters in them so this is not the only book to feature VanHeerden. This is the second of Meyer's books to be translated for the U.S. market. This is another one of Meyer's murder mystery/spy thriller crossover novels. This one goes back into the 1970's and the various guerrilla wars and mercenary wars that were going on in Southern Africa at the time. Blood Diamonds, the CIA, large amounts of cash and a string of murders in Capetown are the events that are tied together in this book. The murders are done by the same person or persons and they are all linked to a small group of border patrol soldiers who end up with a great deal of U.S. currency. This book was written in South Africa during the wind down of the Cold War and the politics of it show. That does not mean it is dated. As a thriller it is first rate. Meyer shows that his first books are as good as his last one.

67benitastrnad
Editado: mayo 28, 2020, 3:30 pm

I finished book 3 of the Bobiverse - All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor and I enjoyed each one of them. I don't think that this trilogy suffered from the sequel slump problem or the wimpy ending problem. I thought it ended just right. I know that other readers have said that they had trouble following all the Bobs all the way through and that the story line got scattered. I didn't find that to be true. The main plot lines of the story, and of the main Bobs, carried through and I was able to understand that Howard was not Bill. Because they weren't exactly the same, or same same but different, as are all members of a family, I found them all to be believable. The science of the books remained strong throughout the series and in the end it was the science that carried the day. It is the science in the books that was so amazing. This was a good series. And lots of fun. The series never took itself too seriously. Even with all the science, sociology and philosophy in it, things never bogged down.

This series turned out to be perfect quarantine reading.

68benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 2, 2020, 4:14 pm

Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer is the first of a trilogy of children's books based on the old Norse sagas and the Saxon poems, such as Beowulf. This is a long book for being a children's books. It is 459 pages, but it has simple language and the plot lines are easy to follow. It takes many of the incidents from the old sagas and poems and puts them into a more linear chronological order that makes it much easier for children to grasp. However, that also means that the adventures are not in the same order as the classical versions the stories. The stories that are included in this book will be appealing to children as it has conflict, positive resolution, adventure, and a bit of magic. It is clear to an adult reader that Jack's development as a bard is one of the major driving forces of the book, but that won't be clear to children. For children this will be a voyage of discovery that they can take alongside Jack.

It took me some time to get into this novel, but as popular as Norse mythology, thank you Neil Gaiman, this series is worth taking into account when doing some lesson planning for grades 3 - 5.

69benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 2, 2020, 7:01 pm

Buried Angels by Camilla Lackberg. This is book 8 in the Erica Falck/Patrik Hedrstrom series and I read it for the Lackberg vs Leon mystery challenge. This was a long book at 474 pages, but it read fast. Of course, for me, all books are reading fast these days. I am literally on a reading roll!

This murder mystery is once again set on an isolated island in the archipelago in and around Fjallbacka. This one involves a boys military school, the death of a child in the present, and the disappearance of an entire family in the past. This is all usual plot lines for Lackberg. She tends to have dead children and parental grief front and center in many of her books. In this one she falls back on the grief drives the parent over the mental stability line. She also has Erica, once again being a Nosy Nellie and Patrik the long-suffering husband and policeman, but these are common murder mystery tropes, so I can handle it. All-in-all, this murder mystery was fairly standard fare. However, even though I had an inkling early on of whodunit, the author still threw a few twists into the plot. For that she gets kudos.

70benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 4, 2020, 12:47 pm

Dead Before Dying by Deon Meyer. This is the last of my TBR books on my list of Deon Meyer titles. It was published in English in 2006. It was turned into a TV series in South Africa and apparently the TV series is going to be released here in the U.S. in June 2020. I hope somebody from LT watches it and reports on whether it is any good or not. This was more of a straightforward police procedural than many of the other titles written by Meyer. It was suspenseful and even though I guessed at whodunit about half way through the book, it was still fun to read about how they got there. The story of why these people were targeted as the victims for the serial killer was interesting, because even though I knew, or thought I knew, whodunit, the why was in question. Having all the pieces put together was a fine tangle of plot lines. Another enjoyable quarantine read.

71benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 4, 2020, 12:36 pm

Paris: A Love Story by Kati Marton

This book was a disappointment for me. It had good reviews, but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Kati Marton was married to Peter Jennings and then divorced him and married Richard Holbrook. Yes, that the diplomat Richard Holbrook. She lived a live of privilege and luxury with houses in Washington, D. C., New York City, and in Paris with the majority of her time spent in Paris. I thought the book was going to be about her life with Richard Holbrook. It wasn't. It was about her life. Which was OK, but I thought the whole memoir had a self-serving tone. I should have invested the reading time in George Packer's book on Holbrook.

72benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:11 pm

Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
I read this book for my real life book discussion group. We read it because I recommended it after watching the PBS movie that was made from it that starred Elizabeth McGovern.

The book was set in Wichita, Kansas and New York City. It was about a housewife, Cora Carlisle, who came to Kansas on a Orphan Train. She was adopted by loving parents and married well. Unfortunately, her husband turned out to be gay and this was a great heartache to her. She met Louise Brooks who was a budding dancer and thespian who became an early movie star. Louise won a scholarship to go to New York City to study modern dance at one of the premier modern dance studios in the country, but her parents wouldn't let her go without a chaperone. Cora stepped up because she wanted to go to New York City to try to find her parents. Louise and Cora managed to harness their frustrations with each other and develop a relationship and Cora managed to find her birth mother. In the end, both returned to Wichita. Louise went on to stardom and Cora brought a lover and his daughter back to live with her in her husbands home.

The plot seems implausible to modern readers but I can easily imagine such things happening in a town like Wichita. The author of the book hails from Lawrence, Kansas where she teaches in the KU Creative Writing program. This gives her knowledge of the various cultural aspects of life in Kansas around the turn of the 19th Century.

Addendum: The Book Discussion group like this book. Everybody read it. The author was our guest on our Zoom meeting and only a failure of the technology to allow people to come into the Zoom meeting marred the meeting. Rina McCormack knew the author and she invited her to meet with us. It worked out well and the three of us who managed to get into the Zoom meeting had a good time with her.

73benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:17 pm

Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
Butcher is best known for his paranormal urban fantasy series. This title was published as a YA novel. It turned out well - in my opinion.

This is steampunk at its best. Think Horatio Hornblower in Zeppelins and in the air instead of naval warfare in the 18th century on the high seas. The author succeeded in world building and even though this was a hefty book at 630 pages the action never flagged. It had a bit of everything that makes a great novel. It had interesting characters, a twisty turning plot with multiple threads, a bit of sappy romance, adventure, great battle scenes, and cats. The last might have been the most important ingredient in the story. This was a rip roaring great adventure.

74benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 17, 2020, 4:47 pm

Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold

Basically this book is a travelogue, albeit, a travelogue with a social consciousness and a religious and educational agenda. Educational in that she seeks to inform the public that there are reasons why there are reasons why religious based conflict is happening and that it is based in history, the nature of the religions, and in economics. The author uses the clash of the religions to inform - not to inflame.

Griswold is the product of a deeply religious upbringing and she brings this sensitivity to this work. The book sets out to explore the area of the world inside of the ten degrees north and south latitudes from the equator. This is the area of the world in which Christianity and Islam are in constant contact with the results of that contact oftentimes being violent. Griswold explores the reasons for these conflicts and comes to the conclusion that most of the conflict is historical use of religion to provide clear boundaries between the two religions. Added to this potent mix of historical resistance to proselytizing and expansion is mass migration caused by global warming in the case of Africa, and the population explosion and the resulting loss of resources in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Add to both of these the ready availability of arms and the willingness of both religions to see conversion to one or the other religion as an imperative and the result is violence and political domination of scare resources. Simply put, it is often a matter of survival to belong to one religion or the other. Faith has little to do with it.

This was a hard book to start but an easy book to finish. At first it seemed dull and academic - another one of those tomes that we all should read, but can't find the time to concentrate on it. Fortunately for the reader, the text has natural dividing lines that create shorter chunks of reading material, giving the reader time to ponder and process that material. As I read and accumulated some background knowledge I began to see how the problems faced in the various countries built on each other forming a division, oftentimes in the same country, that empathy and compassion can't seem to cross. Both of those emotions are, according to the tenants of both faiths, pillars of their Faiths. The book takes the time to reveal the part that economic development and oppertunity, or the lack thereof, plays in this constant conflict. This economic disparity is commonly caused by political maneuvering by the person, or persons in power, and in some cases, not caused by the lack of resources. It is simple corruption and the desire to remain in power.

75benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 18, 2020, 10:55 am

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles You

This was one of the most self-pitying, whiney, agonizing pieces of navel gazing I have read in years. I only finished it because it was a short novel and I kept thinking that the science fiction part of it would come into play and it would be worthwhile in the end. It didn't. How under god's blue sky did it get good reviews?

This is not a work of science fiction. What it was is a novel about grammar - present, past, and subjunctive tense. If the author had paid as much attention to the story as he did to all the fancy wordplay it might have been worth reading. But I doubt it. Basically, it is a novel about father son relationships and the trauma of being an immigrant and the child of an immigrant. In particular what I resent was the authors constant reference to being poor. They weren't. They lived in a house with a garage and had a car. That is not poor. This was self-serving self-justifying claptrap. Enough said about this poor excuse for a book.

76Bcteagirl
Jun 19, 2020, 10:34 am

"This was one of the most self-pitying, whiney, agonizing pieces of navel gazing I have read in years."

Yes, but did you like it? :) Thanks for the review. I remember the name being interesting, you may have just saved me some time!

77benitastrnad
Jun 19, 2020, 11:11 am

>76 Bcteagirl:
No. It was a waste of time. I wouldn't bother reading it - unless you like painful self-pitying types of novels.

78benitastrnad
Editado: Jun 24, 2020, 10:59 pm

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder

This book is part sociology, economics, political statement, travelogue, and RV'ing. It is mostly about RV'ing nd the necessity of the lifestyle that has become known as "wonkamping." Workampers are people who live in their campers, RV's, trailer homes, vans, and cars. Most of them are the working poor. They move around the U.S. following seasonal work. This work ranges from working for National Park concessionaires, to agricultural harvests, to working for Amazon from October to December during their Christmas rush season. The largest employer, by far, of workampers is Amazon. The journalist/author follows one workamper for several years and writes about her experiences on the road with no steady income, no health insurance, and no social security checks. The author explore the reasons for the growing numbers of people who live this way and finds that it has become a way of life for thousands since the Housing Crisis of 2007-08. In fact, the housing debacle and health crisis account for the largest number of people forced into wonkamping.

There is no doubt that the roots of much of the homelessness of the many people profiled in this book is economic and founded the Housing Crisis and the following recession of 2007-08. The continued failure of wages to keep up with housing costs is another part of the problem. A third part is the lack of affordable housing. Builders keep building huge expensive houses that most people can't afford to purchase. Gentrification of many housing areas is also a part. The last piece of the puzzle is the rise of the Gig Economy. More and more jobs mare moving to part time or seasonal work. But the real reason for the wonkamping phenomena is greed. Greed on the part of banks and big business like Amazon. Workampers will work very cheaply.

79benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:22 pm

Wikkeling by Steve Arntson
This book was an ALA Notable Children's Book when it was published and I have always been curious about it. I decided that working at home was the perfect time to read it. I expected it to have much more of an African American folk flavor because I thought a Wikkeling was a folk figure in African American folk tales. It might be, but that was not the focus of this book. In this book the Wikkeling was a creature that fed on technology. The novel was set in a dystopian society in the future and was squarely aimed at Middle Grade readers. I think this would make a good read aloud for teacher's to use in the classroom, but the very nuanced allusions to race and ethnicity might be missed by Middle School students. But perhaps I underestimate these readers.

This novel has mystery, wonder, secrets, a villain, and a cat.

80benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:41 pm

About Face by Donna Leon
I read this book for the Leon vs. Lackberg mystery challenge read here on LibraryThing. This is book 18 in the Guido Brunetti series by Leon. Once again, Leon returns to a criminal theme that she has used often in this series - toxic waste dumping in Italy. After the evils of excessive tourism, environmental degradation and deliberate pollution are her favorite subjects. It must be bad enough that she has a right to keep hounding on this problem and using her books as a way to bring attention to the problem.

This book is about a young woman married to an older man who murders her the young lover forced on her in order to save the life of the older man that she loves. Wow! That is a tangled web. And it is. As usual, in the end, Brunetti is left to simmer in his cynicism and anger.

I listened to this book, and it worked well as a recorded book, but I think I like to read these better than listen to them. Unlike the Hillerman books that made great recorded versions. However, it might have been this book. Maybe others in the series are really good sound recordings.

81benitastrnad
Editado: Sep 6, 2020, 1:43 pm

Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
This is book three in the Barcelona Quartet. Zafon died of colon cancer in June 2020 and since I had this book close at hand I decided to read it and the final book as soon as possible. This is another novel, like the first two, that has a noirish feel to it. This novel is set in the 1950's Barcelona and is full of the secretive atmosphere of quiet desperation and subliminal terror that filled the population of Spain under Franco. It is about love and revenge . The novel replays the plot of the "Count of Monte Cristo" with dire results and consequences. I will read book four before too long as I am curious as to how the author wrapped this up.

82benitastrnad
Jul 4, 2020, 12:31 pm

Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander is such and important book! I simply don't understand why more people haven't read it. The reasons for so much of what has happened to America (excepting the police brutality and violence of the last few weeks - because that has been centuries in practice) is in this book. The turning away from traditional anchors (pun intended) and the wrecking of institutions is all in this book. The author makes no bones about it - the blame for much of what has happened in the U.S. is to be found in the economic theories of Milton Friedman and his great disciple Ronald Regan. Profitable small manufacturing operations like Anchor Hocking and its dependent company towns are the victims and through there downfall that of the former employees of those enterprises. This is a much better book than Hillbilly Elegy.

This one was a rare 5 stars for me.

83benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:39 pm

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas
This is book seven and the final entry in the Throne of Glass series. Like the previous entries this one was a barn burner, but was also a disappointment. The first 700 pages of this book were great. The book should have ended there and the author should have taken time to write a good final installment. Instead she opted to create a climactic battle that wasn't because the real climax was about 200 pages previous in an earlier battle. Even so, this was a great good read and at 1,000 pages (well 999) it was worth the time to read. I was so anxious to read this book that I preordered it from Amazon. Why didn't I read it when I got it? Oh well, everything in its season.

The author has already started another series. This time aimed at adults (and Throne of Glass wasn't?) and I have that book ready to read ASAP.

84benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:45 pm

Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
This was one of my "short" books for my short book/novella project. It was published by Tor.com and is part of their diversity efforts. At 120 pages this was a little gem. This is the first book by this Vietnames author and she delivers a wonderful fairy tale/folk tale that is romantic with enough violence to be edgy. The novella draws on Southern Chinese and Indochinese folk tales, myths, and legends that are mashed and twisted into a wonderful modern fantasy.

85benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 20, 2020, 10:47 pm

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
I wanted so much to hate this book because it is so darn popular, but I just can't. I LOVED this book. What a story!! What great characters. A book full of friendships, relationships, love, and kindness. This is historical fiction at its best.

This work of historical fiction covers the years 1923, just after the end of the Russian Civil War, to 1955 as the Cold War is heating up. It is full of historical fact and fiction and in the end is a wonderful feel-good novel. I can see why it is so well liked.

86benitastrnad
Editado: Jul 22, 2020, 11:17 pm

Regency Years: During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern by Robert Morrison

I read this one for the Nonfiction Challenge for July. The category this time was "Britian's Long 18th Century." This book covers the 20 years of the Regency period in British history. Roughly the years 1800 - 1820. This book was a social, cultural, political, and military history of those 20 years. It is a comprehensive history and is not a deep dive into any one subject. It is a broad overview that gives the reader the picture of what was happening in broad brush strokes. I found it rather dry and academic despite its catchy title.

87benitastrnad
Jul 22, 2020, 11:19 pm

I will be starting my second selection Portrait of A Woman in Silk by Zara Anishanslin tomorrow. This one is focused on Britain and the Trans-Atlantic trade from 1730 to 1800. This will be a different kind of focus than my first selection for this challenge.

88benitastrnad
Editado: Ago 12, 2020, 10:13 am

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff. This is the last book in the Nevernight Chronicles and it was a bang up ending. It ended up the way most of us wish that a series would. With a bang. Not a whimper. The heroine vanquishes the foes, settles the score, and ends up with an almost happy ending to her life. She does the right thing. The question that lingers is: What role Fate?

I like this authors work, and will read more of his stuff when and as it is written. He loves sex and violence, as do most men, and it shows in his writing. As long as he doesn't go overboard with it I will go along for the ride. This series was almost over the top and I am sure that Kristoff will cross a line sometime. until then this is a fantasy author to watch - and read.

89benitastrnad
Editado: Ago 15, 2020, 5:19 pm

Land of the Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer. This is book 2 in the Sea of Trolls series. This children's novel concentrated on old Celtic, Gaelic, and Germanic myths, legends, and folktales about fairies, goblins, and other creatures from fairyland and blended them into an adventure story full of symbolism and lore. The problem with it, is that it is going to take some guidance and teaching by some adults for children to understand it. But that is always the case with such books that are aimed at the middle grades. It is a great adventure story and good fun.

I listend to it and the narration was done by the incomparable Gerard Doyle. He is simply a great storyteller.

90benitastrnad
Editado: Ago 15, 2020, 5:12 pm

Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto. This was an excellent book in which the author attempted to answer the question of why the residents of the city of Amsterdam are so liberal. He explored many ideas about the city where liberalism plays a part and delved into the history of these ideas presenting his case carefully. These are ideas, such as the development of urban planning, the idea of home as a refuge where you and your family do things the way you want to do them, and the idea of group cooperation to get things built or create change in the system. There are short biographies of people all the way from Erasmus to Willem the Silent, through the modern era of Dutch reformers through the 1990's. The latter are people who lead the way for reform in gay rights to multiculturalism and reform of that idea. There are artists and villains aplenty in this history. This was an excellent work of social history and very easy to read. This one was the August selection for my real life book discussion group and everyone who read the book really liked it. They were all inspired to take a trip to Amsterdam as a result of reading it.

91benitastrnad
Editado: Ago 15, 2020, 5:26 pm

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills. This book is almost 20 years old, but reading it is a revelation. Wills book is actually a long essay that runs for 177 pages. The rest of the book is taken up with a discussion of the exact text of the speech, the history of writing the speech, the historical whodunit's about who has THE exact last copy of the speech, and then a fine discussion of Edwin Everett and the practice of speechifying and lecturing as it was done in the Nineteenth century. The book includes the entire text of Everett's speech plus that of Pericles as written by Thucydides. Wills believes that it is impossible to fully understand the speech that Lincoln gave if you don't have the context in which the speech was written and then delivered. I fully agree because words are a product of their time. I read the text of Everett's speech and that of Pericles as well. I even read most of the footnotes.

I imagine that when Wills wrote this book back in 1992 that it was revolutionary and the idea that Lincoln was backing up Everett's words and was fully aware that he wa giving the country an alternative view of the concepts of freedom, equality, statehood, and nationhood, was quite revolutionary. At times the book was dry and dull and at others it was enlightening with plenty of ah-ha moments for me.

I am not sure why I did not read this book sooner, but I am glad that I read it now and at this point in history. It has meaning for me in the present and in the context of these times.

92benitastrnad
Editado: Ago 12, 2020, 10:20 am

A Question of Belief by Donna Leon. (I hate it when you can't change the order of your posts.) I finished this book a day before I finished the Gettysburg Address book, but I can't change the order in which I put the posts into this thread, so ...)

This was another fine entry in the Guido Brunetti series. The happenings at the police station, the characters, and Guido's family are the only new things in this book. The amazing thing is how interested I am in this man's life after 19 books. Surely I should be bored by now? But, no! His life is interesting and all those daily happenings result in mysteries of interest to the police. This book involves a fortune teller, a gay man, and of course police and political corruption in Italy.

93benitastrnad
Ago 16, 2020, 7:40 pm

Pax by Sara Pennypacker is a middle grades children's book that I have wanted to read for some time. I brought it home with me in March and just now finished it. It was an easy read. It is a perfect children's book for middle grades. It is just long enough with plenty of white space no the page that makes it an easy chapter book for middle graders to read. The story is gripping with plenty of adventure, a touch of feel-good romance, nature, conflict - both inner and outer violent conflict, to make it very interesting and exciting reading. It would make a perfect read-aloud for this age group. I liked the book and will put it on my gift list for middle graders.

94benitastrnad
Ago 20, 2020, 11:38 am

Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinken is a middle grade nonfiction book about the attempt to steal Abraham Lincoln's body that was made in 1875. The plot was foiled and all the conspirators were caught and served time in prison. This was Sheinken's first book and it shows. It is simplistic and straightforward. However, considering its intended audience that isn't a real problem. It probably works very well for middle graders interested in history and stories of this sort. The major drawback, is that the language is stilted. Sheinken does much better in his later books. I listened to this book. It was read by Will Paton and he is very good. I think he should be reading all the westerns in the world. He has the perfect "out West" voice and accent.

95benitastrnad
Ago 25, 2020, 9:52 am

Young Elites by Marie Lu is not Lu's best work. This book bends sharply toward the melodramatic. It's first problem is that it is sloppily written. This shows in the prose, which is not tight, descriptive, or action-packed. Instead it is full of crying teenagers whose motives are never fully explained. This is one of those books you can give to people who have an insatiable craving for teen-aged angst and want to wallow in it. It would also be good for those who just love dystopian fantasy series. Others - steer clear.

96benitastrnad
Ago 26, 2020, 10:24 am

I finished my third book for this month for the Nonfiction Readers Challenge. The category was Words, Books, Language, and Libraries. I read Library Book by Susan Orlean. I had read Orchid Thief by this author and thought it OK, but this book was much better. Strangely, the author says that she wrote it after she had decided to stop writing books and concentrate on her magazine writing career. Because I am a librarian I didn't learn that much new about libraries, but I have to say that I am impressed with the way she put the history of the building (the Los Angeles Public Library - Downtown building) together with the history of the people who started the library and those who continue to work in it. There were some colorful librarians in LA and who would have known about them if she hadn't written this book.

I highly recommend this book for those who like to read narrative nonfiction.

97connie53
Sep 4, 2020, 9:55 am

Hi Benita. You have been reading a lot! And you have reached your goal of 60 books!

98benitastrnad
Sep 5, 2020, 11:11 am

>97 connie53:
This Covid Crisis has been good for my reading. I don't think I have ever read this much. and just finished another book today.

99benitastrnad
Editado: Sep 12, 2020, 4:05 pm

RIver of Doubt:Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. I am not a particular fan of Millard's writing. This is the second book by her that I have read. I think she bends towards the same problem I see in Eric Larson's writing - the tendency to create conflict when there is none, to insinuate that there was controversy when there wasn't, and making everyday life in the 19th century overly dramatic because it was so primitive compared to now. That said - I liked this book as much as you can like any book about an ex-president going through a mid-life crisis. I tend to have my own prejudices and one of them is that I have little sympathy for men and their mid-life angst. Get over it! Teddy Roosevelt was no exception. I suspect that Teddy felt the same about losing the election of 1912 as I did in November 2016. I didn't immediately take off on an ill conceived tour of the unexplored part of the planet, (Neither did Obama) in order to "get away from it all." But enough about the Big Guy who should have known better.

Millard has managed a great trick. She has written a novel and somehow connived to get it classed as something called narrative non-fiction. That in itself is an amazing feat. This book has plenty of amazing characters, natural disasters, and stupidity to make it into a great H. Rider Haggard book, er I mean great narrative non-fiction. There is no doubt that this is an exciting and easy book to read. Does anybody learn anything from it? But, it sure is easy reading and easy to keep reading. One adventure after another. Will he die or will he make it? It comes with built in melodrama that the author exploits expertly. Should she have done so? Yes, because she wanted to sell books. This kind of book sells. And it did.

By this time in this review you would forgiven if you think that I didn't like the book. That is not true. I liked the book. Millard was correct - it is a great story about ego and fallacy. The author did a great job of writing it up in a very readable format. What I ended up not liking was Teddy and his crew.

One thing I learned that is worth mentioning, was that the movement towards bringing justice and equal treatment to the indigenous people of South America is much older than I thought. That it was largely homegrown, that is conceived and supported by people who themselves were born and raised in South American and non-white, was a surprise. The progressive movement to treat indigenous people humanely was not only social and cultural, but tried also to be political. It is through this movement that the modern church in South and Central America had its roots. One can see the beliefs and practices of the current Pope had its roots in the work of Rondon and others in Brazil and other parts of South and Central America.

100benitastrnad
Editado: Sep 6, 2020, 12:41 pm

Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho. This book is part of my short books reading project for the year 2020. It is another one of the diversity books published by Tor.com. Cho is not a first time author, but this is definitely a novella so fits into Tor's plan for the Tor.com brand. This novella is rooted in the Tang Dynasty history and mythology, but it is set in a world far in the future, but it retains all the flavor of a Tang Dynasty fantasy. It is the story of two acolytes of the moon goddess who meet while both have joined a bandit gang. It was a very good reading interlude and a book I enjoyed. I will have to read the other novels by Cho.

This novella is published by Tor.com and is part of their diversity publishing efforts. It is based in Chinese myths legends and religion. It is set somewhere in the future, but it clearly has its roots in the wars at the end of the Tang Dynasty period in Chinese history. It centers around a pair of shrewd acolytes of a religious order devoted to the worship of the moon goddess. Both nuns have special talents and neither knows the other are devotees of the deity when they first meet. They both hook up with a roving gang of bandits for protection and the story develops from there. There is plenty of action leavened by romance and respect. The novella is well written with only a few awkward moments in the writing. This novella is a fine example of what a publisher can do when they seek out new and diverse authors and allow them to develop and find their voice and style.

101weird_O
Sep 6, 2020, 1:10 pm

Scanning your reviews. Good work. Two in particular set me on tacks.

>85 benitastrnad: Have A Gentleman in Moscow on the shelf (or in a stack). I should get to it. If you wanted to dislike it, Benita, but couldn't help but like it... Well, I should get busy.

>91 benitastrnad: Likewise, I have Lincoln at Gettysburg on shelf/in a stack. I asked for it, and I got it for a birthday. Started it and was run off the road by the chapter on Latin or Greek, or whatever it was. Dry is the word. But I do want to read it.

102benitastrnad
Sep 6, 2020, 1:34 pm

>101 weird_O:
The part on the philosophy and history of the kind of rhetorical writing Lincoln did is DRY! I found my mind wandering through it. I do think that it is important to help the reader/learner understand why the speech is so short and concise. The history about the Greek Revival in the U.S. enlightened me as to the fact that most people who read the speech would understand the context and therefore know what Lincoln was doing. I also found myself liking Edwin Everett's speech - which is printed in its entirety in the Appendixes. Lincoln was correct - there was no need for him to review what happened or praise it either because Everett had already done that. Knowing all this allowed me to understand that Lincoln was presenting a new philosophy/foundation for the NEW United States. I have to admit that it made me realize that as a person living in 2020 I live in that NEW U.S. that Lincoln presented in the Gettysburg Address that was created in the crucible of the American Civil War and that U.S. is a different place than was the U.S. of 1861. All of this helped me to appreciate the speech in a new way. I just wish more people got it.

I am not sure that the book would win any awards today, (because we have been spoiled by all the narrative nonfiction that is so much easier to read) but I bet in 1992 there were lots of people who appreciated the importance of the way Will explained the speech and a hundred years later the results of that speech.

I would encourage you to finish reading it, but be forewarned - it is dry and takes some concentration and study.

103benitastrnad
Editado: Sep 10, 2020, 1:15 pm

King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. This is book 3 in the Queen's Thief series and there is no let down in the intensity of the series. This has to be one of the best written and plotted series in the YA oeuvre. The plots of each of these books have been sophisticated, smooth, and sensible. By that I mean that the author doesn't soften the plot to make it easier to understand and each separate book builds on the revelations of the previous book. The reader is being lead along by his nose and loving it. This is the way series should be written. I am on to book 4 in the series and looking forward to the journey.

104benitastrnad
Editado: Sep 9, 2020, 11:25 am

Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear I also finished this book and was disappointed in it. I like to read mysteries and since the Covid Crisis hit I have been consuming them at a fast pace. I heard a blurb about this book on a webinar I did back in July and knew I had the book on my shelves.
The webinar piqued my interest and I thought it would be a good time to get the book off my shelves and read it. When the book was published it was highly touted by the Richard and Judy Show on the BBC and won the first book prize for the author given by that TV show, however, for me, the book fell a bit flat. I found it to be a standard police procedural and had a heroine that I didn't really like. Kinsella was whiney, spoiled, and very controlling. She acted like a typical spoiled brat throughout the book. The plot was fairly standard and there were parts of it that I liked. For instance, the fact that perfectly normal people can get hung up by doing stupid things or making bad decisions, but overall the plot and the characters were a bit humdrum for me. I did finish reading it, but by the time I got to the end, I didn't really care anymore and, most of all, didn't care whodunit. I think this book should have had serious editing. It was about 325 pages and it should have been about 50 pages shorter. The author has another book out in the series (Cat Kinsella) but I am not going to rush out to get it.

105weird_O
Sep 8, 2020, 2:16 pm

>102 benitastrnad: Thanks for the excellent report on Garry Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg. Forewarned I am; I'll approach my reading of it with a full canteen. :-)

106benitastrnad
Sep 10, 2020, 1:14 pm

Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar: Evolution's Most Unbelievable Solutions to Life's Biggest Problems by Matt Simon. I read this for the LT Nonfiction Challenge. The September topic is Science and Technology. This book is a series of short vignettes that the author originally wrote for the digital publication "Wired." He wrote and hosted a column titled "Absurd Creature of the Week." The author took these columns and compiled them into a book that won an Alex Award from ALA in 2017. The book is interesting and written in a breezy casual manner while at the same time full of biological information and evolutionary biology principals. It would really appeal to Middle School boys who love the gross and the spectacular. It entertained me while I was eating lunch for over a month.

107benitastrnad
Editado: Sep 30, 2020, 1:15 pm

Ice Child by Camilla Lackberg This turned out to be a fairly standard police procedural, but I am getting so that I like the digressions into the private lives of the characters. However, I do think that makes it more like a movie script than a book. But Oh well - there is only one more left in this series and then one to other series. This one wasn't as good as the last entry in the series, but it was good enough that I read it in five days.

108benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 1, 2020, 9:28 pm

Liar's Candle by August Thomas This title appeared on a list of books about Turkey and was said to be a thrill ride. It was OK. It is a spy novel thriller that showed promise, but in some places it fell flat. The bad guy was a cliche and I think that is why the book held few surprises for me. However, it was a great travel book as it starts out in Ankara, moves to a Syrian Christian holy site near the Syrian border. Goes on to Cappadocia, and ends in Istanbul. That is a great tour of Turkey.

109benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 1, 2020, 9:39 pm

Control of Nature by John McPhee is a 272 page book that consists of three essays McPhee wrote on man's attempts to thwart Mother Nature. They were initially published as New Yorker essays and gathered into this book. Two of the essays seem to highlight the folly of such actions and the third applauds the heroism, foresight, and organization of man while pointing out the futility of these efforts. It is amazing how relevant this 30 year old book still is for the reader.

The first essay is about the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana. The first point in the essay is that this river is really the Mississippi River - or would be if man left nature to make the decision. The floods of the 20th century have all been about the river finding the path of least resistance to the Gulf of Mexico and man's attempts to keep that from happening in order to preserve the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and the petrochemical corridor between the two. It is clear what McPhee and most of the residents of Louisiana think of this and they are at opposite ends of the scale. The Louisianans want to keep the river where it is so that they can continue to farm, fish, and carry on as close to what they think is natural as long as possible. In telling the story McPhee makes the folly of that line of thinking very visible.

The second essay is about a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1973. This was a continuation of the eruptions in the late 1960's that saw the birth of several new islands in the North Atlantic that included the famous island of Surtsey. In this essay, written at some point in the 1980's, McPhee chronicles the attempts of the Icelanders to save the harbor of their town and keep it from filling up with lava. What they did was cool the lava enough to change its course a few miles and thus save the harbor. In exchange they sacrificed half of the town to the lava. McPhee juxtaposes this eruption with that found on the island of Hawaii and the result is fascinating reading. The Icelanders are a pragmatic bunch and they know that there is a high likelihood that there will be another eruption that will probably destroy the harbor and they know that nature has all the time on its side, but for now they are content.

The third essay is an examination of the fire and mudslide disasters that plague the area around Los Angeles, California. There is a detailed description of the climate and the rainfall patterns. Included in this is an explanation of the infamous Santa Ana Winds and the propensity for them to dump millions of gallons of water into the San Gabriel mountains. There is a geological description of the San Gabriels and why they are the fastest growing mountains in the continental U.S. and how this contributes to the problem of cycle of fire and mudslides. There is also a detailed description of the plants that grow in the semi-arid desert, called the Chaparral. These plants keep the loose soil in place and keep the mountains from sliding. However, they are very flammable. The properties that keep them alive are the ones that make them susceptible to fire. The mudslides are the main thrust of this essay and the descriptions of the events being examined are riveting and full of interesting characters and ecological positions and so very relevant to the events of this last month.

110benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 14, 2020, 1:13 pm

Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon. This is book 20 in the Guido Brunetti series and I have to confess Guido is growing on me. I find his philosophical thought processes and digressions to be very interesting. This time around I also found my attention caught by the mention of a specific breed of Italian sheep dog - the Bergamasco Shepard. That lead me to explore Wikipedia about Italian shepard breeds. It was a very interesting digression. Brunetti's sense of right and wrong doesn't seem to have changed much, but he is becoming less forgiving and I wonder about that. On-the-other hand, he doesn't seem to hesitate to ask his subordinates to, like Signorina Eletra to do illegal things. I found Guido's lack of understanding and mercy for the old man in this book bothersome. I agree he was guilty, but he was a man in love. Guido should have been more understanding instead of so harsh. But it is just a novel and having him react the way he did made for a better story. Enough said.

111benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 5, 2020, 11:15 am

I stayed up late last night to finish Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilizationby Lars Brownworth and gave it 5 stars. This is narrative nonfiction in the style of Shelby Foote. It is just darn good storytelling. It is a blow-by-blow chronological overview of the history of the Emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire. It is NOT a work of academic history. It IS storytelling. It succeeds wonderfully at telling the story. It does get a bit polemic at times, but the author stays on-track and draws the reader unto the great drama of the rise and fall of civilizations. And what a bumpy ride that is. (we can all attest to that given the current times in which we live.) If you don't know anything about the Eastern Roman Empire (AKA as the Byzantine Empire) this is the book to read. It never gets into details and it keeps the story rolling.

Why I have this book is tied up with why I am on LT. Back-in-the-day, School Library Journal ran an end-of-the-year review of great web sites for school teachers and librarians. In about 2007, that review included the web site, and nascent podcast done by a high school history teacher, Lars Brownworth and his brother Anders. The title of the site and the podcast was Lost to the West. It was about a forgotten part of Western Civilization - the Byzantine Empire. Brownworth was teaching high school history in New York and became obsessed with, what he saw as the forgotten history of the Eastern Roman Empire. His brother Anders was interested in this new thing called podcasts, so the two brothers developed one of the first podcasts as a teaching aid. It was specifically aimed at helping high school teachers teach about a historical subject that they knew little about. I downloaded the podcasts and still have them on my computer and my iPad. A few years later Brownworth wrote this book - which was a bestseller. A few years after that he developed another podcast on the Norman's and the Norman kingdoms of Sicily and Naples and the critical role that the Normans played in the history of the European Middle Ages.

When the book was published I purchased it and got one for our library. I am finally reading it now because the subject of the Byzantines and the Ottoman Empire is the October topic for the Non-fiction reading challenge hosted by Suzanne. My next book for this challenge is Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe by William Rosen. I have read 20 pages in it and I can tell already that this is a more academic book in style and substance.

In that same issue of School Library Journal, in the same review section was a review of another new web site - Librarything. I thought that one sounded interesting as well, so I took a look and bookmarked it. I have been hanging around Librarything ever since.

As for School Library Journal. I hardly ever look at it now. I don't have time, and we stopped getting a paper copy of it, so I can't carry it around with me to lunch like a did in the past. Because of that I don't know about the new whiz bang stuff that might be out there on the internet. Something's lost and something's gained with every change. Not reading SLJ is one of the losses.

There was a short discussion over on Mark's thread about the use of the term Byzantine. It is controversial. Brownworth deals with it at length in his introduction. I have my objections about the term due to its modern conotations, but that is the term on which he, his editor, and his publisher settled on. He took care to tell the reader about the various arguments and terms and the reasons why this term was applied in this case at the front end of the book. As a reader, I choose to accept the term and read the book. That does not mean that I won't form my own opinions about the contents of the book, including the title. However, I have chosen to not let my own opinions deter me from learning about an aspect of history about which little is written on in the U.S. Particularly, a book that has turned out to be quite readable and enjoyable. It is by no means an academic work, but it was not meant to be. It was written for a popular audience and intended to give readers a broad sense of the scope and activity of this huge and amazing culture and political entity that dominated the area of the world that we now know of as the "Middle East" for 1,000 years. 190 pages into the book I would say that the author is meeting those requirements.

112benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 11, 2020, 8:19 pm

I finished reading Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson and really enjoyed it. I have watched as many of the episodes of No Passport Required on PBS as I can and have really enjoyed them over the years. As autobiographies go this one was a good'un. This is one chef with lots to say about cooking, restaurants, the restaurant biz, and how minorities do and don't fit into the picture. This was an eye-opener in many ways. I would not have considered this to be a book about diversity but it turned out to be. It didn't mince words and told me about one of the seamier sides of fine cooking and dining. Might be a book you would like.

I started this book I was surprised to see that I have all three of his cookbooks in my cookbook collection. I have never cooked a single recipe from them. I am not sure why. I need to rectify that. I think it might be exactly what Samuelsson described - a lack of education about spices and tastes because I haven't traveled enough. Samuelsson believes that Americans need to taste spices and foods that are grounded in the traditional foods from where they came, but they also need to try them in more adventuress foods. We need to educate our palates. I think this book will make me watch his TV shows in a different light. I would never have thought of this as a book about diversity but it is - in many ways.

113benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 14, 2020, 1:18 pm

All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater Stiefvater is a very popular YA author, and has several series to her name that kids like. I have only read her previous stand-alone novel Scorpio Races and really liked that one. It had a haunting mystical quality about it. All the Crooked Saints is not haunting or mystical. It is a teen romance. It is full of magical realism and therefore qualifies as a YA fantasy. It is set in the southern high desert country of Colorado and I can say that Stiefvater describes the countryside perfectly. The sense of the expanse of the country comes through strongly. This novel was also surprising. The hero and heroines were a surprise. The setting was a surprise. The use of Native American and Hispanic myths and legends was a surprise. The biggest surprise of all was the narrator. He was fantastic. He had great voices and made each of the characters come alive. I hope I get to hear him do another book. He made this story and kept me listening.

114benitastrnad
Editado: Oct 24, 2020, 6:57 pm

Beastly Things by Donna Leon. This is book 21 in the Guido Brunetti series. I read it for the Lackberg and Leon Mystery Readalong here on LT. As with all of her previous Brunetti books this one is very readable. I am continuously amazed at Leon's ability to get us into the inside of Guido's life and relationships with his family and his colleagues, solve a mystery, and do it all in less than 300 pages. Compared to some mystery authors her writing is spare. Her plots are simple, but I appreciate her ability to get a story told in such a short amount of words and still give me insight to her main characters. Good mystery. Good writing.

115connie53
Oct 25, 2020, 4:52 am

Hi Benita, just popping in to see what you have been reading. And that is a LOT!

116benitastrnad
Oct 25, 2020, 9:49 am

It doesn't seem like many because there are so many more I want to read. But sadly, I only have a limited amount of time.

117connie53
Oct 26, 2020, 4:34 am

>115 connie53: Hahaha. Very true, you can only read so much.

118benitastrnad
Oct 26, 2020, 8:45 pm

I finally finished reading Girl in the Woods by Swedish author Camilla Lackberg. This one was for the LT Lackberg Leon mystery read along. It is the December book, but since I had to get it through ILL (it came from the Urbandale Public Library in Urbandale, Iowa) I knew it would take a long time. I ordered it early for that reason and that was a good thing to do. I placed my ILL order on 9/22/20 and the book got here to on 10/13/20. It as due back to the loaning library on 10/16/20. I had to ask for a renewal and it was renewed until 2/20/21. What? Oh well, it is finished now and I am finished with this series.

I had a hard time finishing this big boy. It was 586 pages and that was way too long. It needed some editing. Lots of editing. I felt like the author threw everything including the kitchen sink into this murder mystery. It had every plot line and current news headline somewhere in the plot. If that wasn't enough it had some historical ones as well.

In general I have liked this series, but this book is one that I wouldn't recommend as it is one of the weaker entries in this series.

119connie53
Oct 27, 2020, 6:53 am

>118 benitastrnad: I agree with you about the length of this book. I had the same feeling about things thrown in. It could have saved at least 50 pages.

120benitastrnad
Editado: Nov 1, 2020, 12:32 am

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. This is book 2 in the Arc of the Scythe series. It is just as action packed as the first novel in the series. This book introduces two new characters who will be important to the story. I put in my ILL request for the 3 book in this trilogy so will find out how the story ends. One of the things I liked about this book was the author's clever use of historical and just plan famous tourist sites in this book. These are clever reimagines that were fun to read about. Basically this is a standard YA dystopian novel like so many series that have obsessed the reading public for the last 25 years.

121benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 2, 2020, 1:46 pm

Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I loved this book! This is the way to end a series.

Zafon died in May of this year from colon cancer and so I decided to finish up his "Barcelona Quartet" series. (See >81 benitastrnad:) This is the last book in this series and it caps the series nicely. It manages to maintain the dark and edgy not-quite-nightmare macabre quality of the previous novels. There is something sinister at the heart of all of these novels and the mystery unspools slowly throughout the series and the slow ratcheting tension continues in this novel. It was so spooky and sinister that I wondered if I should keep reading or quit because the plot was taking me to super dark and mysterious places. Knowing the history of Franco's Spain didn't help any. And knowing that dark history was at the heart of this series was another piece of the tension.

The novel introduces the reader to a couple of new characters while maintaining the threads to the previous characters and some knowledge of the plots introduced in the previous novels helps to fully understand this one, but it is not absolutely necessary. The author does a fabulous job of tying off in the loose plot lines from the previous novels so that the reader never gets that "what the heck?" feeling at the end. The author must have had a well mapped story arc and followed it. To his great credit. Just an amazing wrap-up to this series.

My only complaint about the novel is that the denouement is too long. This could have been shortened and it would not have damaged the core of the story at all. At 805 pages this novel is very long, but it wraps up all the loose ends and keeps the tension high while doing it.

For readers who like to read series this is a "must" addition to the list of fantastic series to read. I gave it 5 stars.

122benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 2, 2020, 1:50 pm

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal This novel was one of those feel good novels that I wished more people would read. It has everything in it I liked. Good food. Good characters with whom I could identify and most importantly that I liked. It also had fortune and misfortune - in equal amounts. The story starts out with the birth of a child and it ends with a mother coming to terms with her daughters life and the choices that were made along the way.

It is also a very Minnesotan novel. By that I mean that it is so honestly mid-western that I think people from other parts of the country may have a hard time relating to it. It is so true to the way people in the Mid-West and west think and act that it made me laugh and made me cry. It was simply a very good novel.

I listened to the recorded version of this novel and that was also very well done. It had a cast of characters with the two main readers who made the book come alive with their voices. This was a great job and will be on my best of the year reading list.

123benitastrnad
Editado: Nov 19, 2020, 10:44 am

Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart. Earlier this year I had watched a PBS American Experience episode about the Women's Suffrage movement and kept hearing about Alva Belmont. I knew that she was a society maven but when I learned that she was of the Belmont Clan who sponsored the famous horse race the Belmont Stakes I was really intrigued and wanted to know more. A quick trip to Wikipedia shocked me. Alva Belmont had been Alva Vanderbilt - and she was the foremost society hostess of the Newport, Rhode Island set!

I knew that I had this book in my collection because I had found it on a table display of books associated with Downtown Abby in a bookstore years ago, so I pulled it out and read it for the Nonfiction Group Read. The November theme was Group Biographies.

The biography is quite long. 512 pages of text and almost 100 pages of notes and index. It is a fairly standard biography but it chocked full of information about both of the Vanderbilt ladies. Alva was the most controversial and it turned out that I liked her better than I did Consuelo, partly for her courage and activism and partly for her chutzpah. She has been getting less than her due in histories of the Women's movement in this country and that needs to be rectified. If it hadn't been for her money and her position in society the Women's Movement would have certainly suffered many more setbacks and the right to vote would not have happened as soon as it did. Furthermore, Alva didn't believe that the Women's Movement should end with getting the vote. She thought that the fight for equality should continue. She was right, but she was defeated in that viewpoint.

Consuelo came across to me as more timid and definitely a spoiled rich girl. Her life, in particular after her marriage to the French society man-about-town, Louis Jacques Balsan, was the typical lifestyle of the rich and famous. She made a big deal of their escape from France in 1940 and never seemed to realize that it was only possible because she was rich and famous. There was much talk of her being such a gracious and pleasant hostess in her later years but to me she could be that due to her money and privilege.

Mostly, this book was a study in contrasts. Both women married for money and eventually both found true love so there is a bit of romance in the story as well.

If you like detailed biographies of interesting women this dual biography will certainly fill the bill.

124benitastrnad
Editado: Nov 22, 2020, 3:47 pm

Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.

125benitastrnad
Editado: Nov 21, 2020, 7:56 pm

I finished reading Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse by Stanley Meisler while eating my lunch at work today. (Friday, 11/20/20) This was not a long book - right at 200 pages, but it was chocked full of information about the Paris art scene from 1900 to 1945.

I read this book because a few years ago I read a book on the last years of Claude Monet's life and I was curious about what was going on around him in the Paris art world. I knew that Picasso was already a star but who else? Soon after I read a review of this book, and thought it might provide some answers. Then the November theme for the Nonfiction Challenge was Group Biographies and this book fit the bill. This book is truly a biography in that it is about individual artists but how they all related to each other and interacted with each other and together created what became known as the School of Paris.

I learned so much about the School of Paris and the artists who made up the school. This group of artists were mostly immigrants from all areas of Europe who came to Paris because of it was the center of the art world. Most of the artists who became famous during this time were Jewish and that caused all kinds of problems. France was still dealing with the fallout from the Dreyfus Affair, then came WWI, and all that with the issue of collaboration and anti-semitism. After that war the art scene in Paris thrived and then was slammed by the Depression and then WWII in which these same talented artists were hunted, chased from Europe or ended up dead. It was also interesting to me that the School of Paris was painters but the art scene was full of so many other artists. Sculptors, writers, dancers, and poets. It was clear that during the Interwar years Paris was the center of the art world. It must have been exciting times with so many tragic endings.

126benitastrnad
Nov 22, 2020, 3:46 pm

Heavenly Tenants by William Maxwell. Yes, that is THE William Maxwell. The editor of the New Yorker for many years and a prize winning author.

I have been doing some weeding in the collection at the library and found this title on the list of Newbery Honor Books from 1947. Since I read the letters of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell some years ago I have been interested in both of them as authors, but have read nothing by them - as of yet. However, when I saw this on the list of Newbery Honor Books, I decided to place an ILL request for it. WorldCat showed that there were plenty of copies in Alabama and so I had hopes that it would come before Christmas. Since the library has moved to the so-called Rapid ILL platform it has become very hard for me to get materials in a speedy manner. However, to my surprise, this one came in a matter of days.

This is not a story that has held up with time. Everything in it is dated, so for a reader today it can only be viewed as a work of historical fiction. But, that doesn't exactly work because it is clear that is not the way the story was written. It is a simple folk-like tale and not at all a memorable story that has stood the test of time. It does not fit into the modern fantasy fiction either due to the simplicity, so it really doesn't work very well. It might work for a storyteller but in the written format it just isn't going to cut it today. I am surprised that a story of this low of quality would be a Newbery finalist - even from back in 1947. I suspect that the Newbery committee was so pleased to have a famous author write a children's story that they gave an Honor award to him just for that reason.

127benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 10, 2020, 12:10 am

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. This title was my Book Discussion Groups December 2020 title. I approached reading this book with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. This was because I knew what it was going to be about and after living here for almost 30 I know that nothing is going to change in the American South because those who live here just don't see the injustices that are the legacy of Jim Crow. They think that they have made great progress and I just can't stand the self-righteousness. However, since this was the selection I felt that I was obligated to read it. I did and there was nothing new in it. In fact, it reminded me of Cadaver King and the Country Dentist that I had read earlier this year. (see post 31). The more things stay the same the more the books sound alike.

One part of this book that I did find revealing was the fact of our prisons becoming the defacto mental health institution. This is why I am for defunding the police. What our police need is training in social work and psychology not more guns and Humvee's. We need to be developing new institutions that are better able to handle the problems society faces. That is what we are not doing. This led us to a bit of a discussion about the Bryce Mental Hospital that was in Tuscaloosa. UA now owns this property but for 125 years it was the state mental hospital. It employed a man as a psychiatrist who turned out to be a charlatan. He was not a medical doctor at all, but he had testified in numerous Death Penalty cases and so far the state has not had retrials for any of those cases. Again, much like the situation in Mississippi in post number 31.

The book was an indictment of the Death Penalty system as it is in the Jim Crow South. It is also a statement about the Death Penalty in general. It is clear that Stevenson is against it and he brings a good case to bear in this book. This is a book that should be read by many. Perhaps it will open a few eyes, but I think it is a futile effort. I saw more discouragement than hope in this book. Not from the author, who is full of hope - but on my side, as a reader. I simply don't think that the South can change. The people who live here don't have the will or the means to make substantial changes.

128benitastrnad
Editado: Nov 30, 2020, 11:47 am

Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero by Nancy Schoenberger.

This dual biography covered the years of the cinematic collaborations of John Ford and John Wayne. It was not an extensive biography of either man, but rather a biography of the work they did together. The author is a professor in the English department of the College of William and Mary and so her focus was on how these two men created the American Western and along with it the myth of the American West as most people visualize it. The author went into the nuts and bolts of filming and of the vision of John Ford and how John Wayne executed it. It was clear throughout the book that the author's position was that Ford had the vision and Wayne was the vehicle Ford used to illustrate his vision of maleness and of the place of the American West in creating American manhood.

Throughout Ford's life he gathered big strong strapping males around him and is clear in all of his movies that he had a archetype of man. His friends illustrated this. He didn't like actors like James Stewart or Gary Cooper. He wanted big men. Men as big as the land. John Wayne and Ward Bond where his mens men. John Wayne owed his success to his training under John Ford. Even when Ford was not directing Wayne's movies it was Ford's vision and character that the audience saw.

Ford's sexuality is alluded to but the author states plainly that was not the reason she was writing this book. It was strictly about the friendship between the two men and how that translated to the screen. As a result this is a rather short book - 225 pages including the notes. Only at the end does she broaden out and include the last three films that Wayne made. None of the three were Ford pictures, but nevertheless, Ford was the creator of all three of them in that it was his character that John Wayne played in the three. I am sure that I will never watch any of these movies again without seeing the techniques Ford used to create his vision.

129benitastrnad
Nov 30, 2020, 5:54 pm

I Pearl Ruled The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. I read 93 pages of this 200 page novel and gave up. I don't like stream-of-consciousness books and if I had know that was what this one was I wouldn't have even had it on my TBR list. I simply don't understand why books like this are liked by so many critics and literature prize committees. Since so many people have liked it, I gave it a second try. No. Didn't work. I simply could not connect with what the author was doing or where the author was going. There are to many books out there to spend too much time on this one.

130benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 10, 2020, 12:15 am

The Toll by Neal Shusterman. This was another good ending to a series. This time the author managed to combine a dystopian fantasy with a science fiction novel and do it quite well. This was the last book in the Arc of the Scythe series and this was another author who managed to wrap things up in a plausible believable and character driven way that kept the story true. This didn't have weird endings or weird solutions to plot problems. This ending was thoroughly satisfying for the dystopian fantasy reader. The good guys stay good and the bad guys get their just desserts. Good job Shusterman.

131benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 10, 2020, 12:18 am

A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner. This is book four in the Queen's Thief series and it was as well written as the previous entries in the series. It was another plot driven novel where the twists and turns in the story are always there and provide thought provoking puzzling out. The main driver of the story is the friendship between Gen and Sophos. This friendship is tested and both young men show growing maturity in their decision making. They also grow into their leadership. Both also find love - and love returned.

132benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 14, 2020, 12:11 am

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce and I made it to the little abode in North Central Kansas on the Christmas Trek. It was great taking him along with me on the trip. He made a very good narrator of his memoir. I think I gained a greater appreciation for the story he is trying to tell and the essay about an artist having to have a fire in the belly was excellent!

I supposed for some people there might be too much detail but I would not be among them. I loved that level of explanation about his life and music. I appreciated his honesty and found some of his revelations to be intensely personal. Much more so than I expected. Overall, I was impressed.

I also think it has softened my opinion of Bob Dylan winning the Nobel for songwriting. I think this book has opened my eyes to the power of song telling as an art form. I say that even though I have long touted the virtues of Woody Guthrie and have tried and tried to get high school history teachers to use Guthrie's songs in classrooms, and I have to say I think I have failed in that endeavor. Or at least I don't know that I have succeeded. Springsteen has convinced me that Dylan is the successor to Guthrie, and perhaps it is possible that Springsteen is the successor to Dylan?

It goes without saying that I am recommending this memoir, Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen for those who want to learn more about American musicology and the socialite changing power of rock and roll.

Next up for me, should be a biography of Guthrie and one of Elvis. I already have the Peter Guralnick boigraphy of Elvis, Last Train to Memphis in my collection, so need to get to it.

133benitastrnad
Editado: Dic 19, 2020, 12:20 pm

Last of the Light: About Twilight by Peter Davidson I just finished the one book I wanted to get done this month. I had to get the book through Inter-Library Loan because our library didn't have it. It came from Boston College. Last of the Light: About Twilight by Peter Davidson was a poetic book. By that I mean, that it read like a poem or a piece of literature and was very descriptive.

I read a review of this book back in the summer of 2018. The reviewer said that it was a cabinet of curiosities, paintings, poems, and music about European regret and how the setting of twilight is the symbol for all this. The author quotes from poets from Sappho and Virgil all the way to A. E. Houseman. He also analyzes paintings, photographs, and other works of art that are set in twilight. He also discusses music that is set in twilight.

The book was amply illustrated and full of quotations and insights that backed up the author's take on twilight as being a state of being as much as a state of daylight. It was printed on heavy stock paper to allow for the inclusion of many works of art and chocked full of quotations from poems, essays, and memoirs where twilight played an important roll. The inclusion of these pictures was helpful as they helped to illustrate the setting and tone of the work.

It was a very interesting in-depth study of the concept of twilight that was poetic and challenging to read. This is a work about symbolism. At times I found it engrossing but it was more critique than I could concentrate on at this time. Even though it was not a long book, (260 pages) I was simply unable to give it my full attention at this point in time.

134connie53
Dic 25, 2020, 6:50 am



Happy Holidays from the Netherlands!

135benitastrnad
Dic 28, 2020, 12:22 pm

>134 connie53:
Thanks for the holiday wishes. A Happy New Year to you in the Netherlands. Maybe this will be the year I get to visit that country?

136benitastrnad
Dic 28, 2020, 12:28 pm

Golden Egg by Donna Leon. I started book 22 of the Guido Brunetti series late in the afternoon of Christmas Day and finished it this morning over the second-to-last batch of coffee I will ever brew on this old machine. I placed an on-line order for a new coffee pot right before I started reading this book.

Even though this is book 22 in the series I find that I am really enjoying this series more and more. There is a sense of kindness, compassion, and humanity that Leon brings to this series that, even though it is about murder, makes these books so easy to read. In this book, Guido investigates the death of a mute retarded man simply because he had seen the man around the neighborhood and was curious. Along the way he discovered a murder and solved it. Excellent book for the holidays.

137connie53
Dic 28, 2020, 12:34 pm

>134 connie53: That would be nice!