Bookin' It Thru Life

This was my favorite book of 2018.  I found myself riveted from start to finish.  The book is set partially in Minnesota, my current stomping grounds, and I found the author's perspective on my adopted home state touching.  The rest of the book was set in the Amazon and echoes of Marlow's journey up the Congo abound.  Its a love story (of sorts-Marina and Mr. Fox's "love story" is not one I'd want to be a part of but it feels just messy enough to be realistic)...but not just romantic love, but love of colleagues and of children and of a people and of places...its a coming of age story...with some science fiction and some politics thrown in for good measure. Our heroine describes herself as " profoundly suited for Minnesota " which, being a transplant to Minnesota, I found profoundly funny.  " Instead of growing up inquisitive and restless, she had developed a profound desire to stay, as if her center of gravity was so low it connected her dire

Have you ever been charmed by something? I mean, to the point where it made you smile, and laugh, and maybe tear up, and you just can't put your finger on it but the delight is present and accounted for?  Well, this book charmed me.  The premise was nothing to write home about...aristocrat spends his life under house arrest in a hotel in Moscow.  OK, so what...his pals come to see him and he gets a lot of room service?  Nope, not even close. This book clocks in at an impressive 453 pages of delight.  From the first page I was captivated and did not stop being thrilled until the end.  I am not one to balk at long books (the longer the better, bring it on) but this one did not stop being great for even a single page in between.  The writing is a little dense so if that's troublesome, you may have to stick it out until you fall into the rhythm.  But once you do, oh, the joy! I'm no historian, not of American history and certainly not of Russian history so I will admit to g

I can’t think of when I have been as pleasantly surprised by a book.   On the heels of State of Wonder which I loved, loved, loved, I stumbled on The Thirteenth Tale and was certain it would just be another book to read.   Boy was I wrong.   It had all the trappings of a generic Gothic novel with none of the hype that comes with the classics…spinstress bookseller living in her father’s house is called away to assist a mysterious recluse with a cryptic request.   See what I mean?   I almost skipped it,  deciding without even reading it that it was not worth my time!  And in addition to the story, the WRITING about READING oh my dear friend, the way this author writes of reading was astonishing, as if she looked into my very soul and wrote of what she saw! The following is an annoyingly long passage from the book but I have to include it in its entirety because its so strikes a nerve:    Of course, one always hopes for something special when one reads an author one hasn’t rea

My mom actually recommended this book to me ages ago.   I believe two of my sisters said they had enjoyed it too.   For whatever reason I had not sought it out.   Alas, one day, there I was at Half Price Books exchanging 10 boxes of old books for $22 and considering that quite a deal (the box contained a decade+ old tax treatises from my Arthur Andersen days, multiple baseball recruiting books from the late 90s/early 00s (what do you even do with   those things when they are new???), crappy novels that I bought for cents at various sales and probably only barely enjoyed (lots of “Eh” and “Don’t Bothers” in that batch-I kept all the good books),   a stack of baby name books, a bunch of no longer relevant self help books (nope, not mine, they just showed up … I HATE self help books would not cop to owning or reading one if you tortured me) so I was just happy to have them out of my basement).   In any case, while they were logging everything in I wandered and there T he Devil in the Wh

This was at the top of the list of books I was looking forward to this year.   Others include the next installment of Game of Thrones which apparently is never going to happen ( by the by, I think that’s fine…an author in my opinion doesn’t owe his readers anything.   In case you are not up on your GOT fandom, there is a whole contingent of fans who are furious with him.   He gave us a bunch of books, hours and hours of reading (years for some people...his books are crazy long), he worked with the GOT show runners at HBO to wrap it up…I mean, part of the process of writing is seeing what happens to and with the characters…if its all been mapped out ahead of time and you have to head in a certain direction, I can see why he is like no, that’s not for me.   I feel a little bad for those readers who scorn tv because the HBO version is FANTASTIC and they are missing out and I also kind of hope the books last centuries and our tv technology may be outdated before I retire so that's u

I have wanted to read something by LeGuin for a while but just had not stumbled on the right book. Daniel picked up one by her (Wizard of Earthsea) and I asked him to pass it on to me when he is done but he is still making his way through it so its not hit my desk yet-should be a 2019 read.  This one I picked up in NYC at Strands when we were there for Hamilton; I wanted to buy a book to support the store and it was on a "recommended reads" shelf so I took the bait. First, I did not realize that her books were as old as they are.  This was published in the 80s.  Conversely, Le Guin is supposed to be one of the early female fantasy writers so if I had really thought about it I would have placed her writing in maybe the 50s or 60s.  Not so.  It apparently took a while for female fantasy authors to make it.  I am sure there are whole thesis devoted to this topic and since I am a tax accountant and not a literature post-doc, I'm not going to get into it. The book reminded

Got this recommendation off some list...its about a first generation youth growing up in the US and his immigrant parent's efforts to live and raise their child in a new country.  As coming of age books go its pretty standard fare; as an immigrant story its also nothing out of the ordinary.  But to be clear, this is not really my normal genre so there is probably a whole audience to whom this book was aimed who enjoyed it very much but I found it a fairly typical book about the life of a young man.  Yeah, sure, he was first generation and yeah, his experiences were influenced by that background, but I didn't find anything particularly standout about his life-I mean, we are all just getting through it the best was can, aren't we?  Rating:  #5 Good Enough

Little, Big by John Crowley Ugh, what a slog...can't get through it at all.  Can't even quite figure out what its supposed to be about.  Ostensibly about a family through the generations and their odd relationship with the strange place they call home but I can't quite figure out if its supposed to be historical fiction or a love story or fantasy or a fairy tale or a ghost story or all of that at once?  I'm maybe half way through and I just don't know that I'll ever get much farther.  Note that the writing is great but the story...just not grabbing me.  Would love to know someone else's opinion on this...is it worth keep going?  Does it ever really pick up the pace? Or would I just be wasting more time I don't have??? Rating:  DEFI  (didn't even finish it)

Not that great.  The first book in a trilogy, I started the second one and about half way through but don't know that I will finish...its a better than average fantasy novel but certainly not anything that stands out from the pack.  Characters are ok (Dug is sorta admirable/Lowa is sorta interesting/little Spring is sorta cool), story lines ok (but really, would it be that easy to become queen??), world building ok (Julius Ceasar's Rome is one setting and its both over and underdone), writing ok if your not too much of snob about it.  If you're a fantasy fan and are looking for your next fix its certainly worth checking out.  If you are a general reader who dabbles in fantasy, or a reader who doesn't generally like fantasy, don't waste your time. Rating:  #6 Bearable, Just Barely.

I read this book first in 3rd grade...or rather, my third grade teacher read this to me.  I still remember sitting in her classroom waiting for her to read the next chapter to our class.  Teacher friends, don't ever think you don't impact your students...you do, even 40 years later!  This year I read this book to Josh and we really enjoyed it.  Not going to describe the book except to say that I had forgotten Mrs. Frisby's youngest daughter was named Cynthia and I had also forgotten how desperate the escape from Nimh was and that only two mice made it out, the rest having been lost in the desperate attempt to flee.  There were whole other parts of the book I had forgotten which I was pleased to revisit as if for the first time.  Josh and I looked forward to bedtime every night so we could find out what happened next and I'll admit I was even a little miffed when Jason put him to bed one night and read a chapter without me so that I had to play catch up... Highly recom

Oldie but goodie...I loved this book as a kid, I loved this book as a teenager, I loved this book in college and I love this book now... one of my all time favorites.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend. If you haven't read it in a while, I suggest you drag it back out.  I hate to even try to describe it but here goes...its a coming of age book set just before, during and after WWII on a small island on the Chesapeake Bay which in conjunction with Micheners' Chesapeake will forever inform my sense for what this part of the country is like even though I've been there half a dozen times myself.  Louise's angst is both uniquely hers and broadly applicable to every teenager in the world.  Her love-hate relationship with her sister, her complicated feelings for her best friend, the family's tolerance and care of an aging, wasting elder-it all still resonates deep and true with me today.  I'm trying to convince my daughter to read this book and she simp

So Josh had to read an "award winning book" for a book report and he picked this one.  However, he forgot to bring the book home over the Christmas holiday so I ordered it on the Nook.  Since it was there, of course I had to read it.  I had no idea what to expect other than a book that would be assigned to a fourth grader.  I was pleasantly surprised, and in one way just plain surprised, by the  book. The title references the fact that the main character lives on Alcatraz Island and the inmates (including the most famous Capone) do all of the islander's laundry as part of their daily activities.  Moose's life was surprisingly complex for a kids book, specifically because his older sister has a form of autism in the days before autism was a "thing" (the book is set in the 1930s).  Moose is often "saddled" with his sister as part of his daily responsibilities and part of the story is how he deals with her in the context of his immediate family, his

Last Patchett I read...least favorite of the bunch...though I still liked it.  They made a movie out of this but honestly, though I think its on Hulu, I have not been inspired enough to watch it.  The book is loosely based on a hostage situation that happened in real life.  In the novel, a group of people who gathered at a birthday party to listen to an opera performer are taken hostage.  Unfortunately, the main target did not show up so the terrorists settle for a different group of people who, along with the opera singer, end up being held for an indeterminate period of time.  I thought the author's analysis of their response to the situation insightful.  I thought that the introduction to and deep dive into the hostages and the terrorists alike was great. The hostages, on observing an act of bravery:  " Each asked himself if he would have done the same and each decided the chances were good that he would not. "  On thinking of how desperate and pitiful her life had b

Same Patchett run...slightly less thrilled with this one.  I had high hopes, and the description seemed right up my alley...family dynamics and intrigue, an ill-gotten book source...but it did not quite pan out.  I mean, I liked the book just fine but I think I probably should have given it a rest in between her novels because I just kind of petered out on this one.  #4 / Liked It

So I was on a bit of an Ann Patchett run this winter.  I just loved her State of Wonder so much I was inspired to read everything else I could get my hands on.  T he Patron Saint of Liars was pretty good, though the descriptions of the book don't do it justice.  I thought it was very much about a woman (Rose) who just goes through life without ever really deciding exactly how or why she is doing what she does.  She's not deliberately cruel but she is cruel nonetheless, to her first husband, to her mother (who she actually does love) to her child , though that seems to be more indifference than cruelty...she is not a bad person shes just a "drifter" on the sea of life.  I found the setting compelling, the characters enjoyable and the story kept me wanting more.  The writing was, of course with Patchett, great. Solid #4 Liked It