Bookin' It Thru Life

I last read this book in college and there are three (count them-3) copies of this in paperback on my bookshelves downstairs.  I distinctly remember buying it, losing the first copy and having to buy a second copy, and then magically finding the original.  My recollection is that I left it at the soccer field and someone picked it and returned it to me a few weeks later.  Where the third copy came from who can say???  In any case, this summer I left my Nook somewhere between my sister's house in Maryland, BWI, the beach house, the beach itself, my other sister's house in NC, RDU and MSP...I know I was reading Pride and Prejudice on the plane on the way to Maryland and I know it did not make its way back to Minnesota so its anyone's guess where in between the darn thing disappeared.  I hadn't acquired a new Nook yet so I was "stuck" reading things that are already in my possession which is fine because I love my books.  But I digress from my rev...

I read this knowing that I liked the Harry Potter series and I love her Galbraith's Cormoran Strike series but outside of those, could she really write?  I should have known that the answer was yes without having to read a book to be convinced.  This novel is a one-off unrelated to anything else she has written and the back cover of the book claims its her "first novel for adults"...I beg to differ, Harry Potter is NOT just for kids, but that's a quarrel I have with the book jacket writer, not with Rowling.  You can read a summary of the book somewhere else but a quick hit on what the back cover says is this:  a man is dead and his place on the parish council is up for grabs.  Let the machinations ensue.  That not inaccurate per se but really, like any good book, this is a story about families and relationships and the complications that come with both, set with a backdrop of ambition and failure and privilege and desperation.   I fl...

Josh needed a book to read for school.  I have an entire bookcase in the basement full of young adult/old children's books.  Granted, the majority of these are my old Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew books, two copies of Wilder's Little House series, various versions and copies of Harry Potter (hardback, paperback, old and in between), L'Engle's entire collection, the CS Lewis books and so on and so forth...but there are also various books the kids bought over the years from the Scholastic Book offering (yes, they still have those) including this gem which seemed right up my almost 5th grader's alley.  We read it over the summer (yes, I still read to him at night and will continue to do so until he kicks me out-sharing books with my kids is one of the things I enjoy about being a parent, going all the way back to Boynton's But Not the Hippopotamus books of their infancy) and he loved it.  He wanted to read the sequel right away but some other book jumped in line th...

Oldie but goodie?  Maybe.  Sort of.  Not really.  I apparently read this back (or at least started this book) in either college or more likely high school as the book has my maiden name written on the inside cover in a pretty youthful scrawl.  But I don't remember much about it other than that it was indeed about vampires and it fit into the gothic genre which I was super into in my younger days.  I don't recall any opinion on liking or not liking it.  I suspect I read this when I was on my Wuthering Heights/Frankenstein/The Moonstone/Jane Eyre/etc. etc. kick back in the day.  Rereading it, I can see all of the vampire tropes which other writers have used with such success.  As I proceeded through the book, though, I realized why there was a bookmark stuck halfway through when I picked it up-I don't think I ever finished.  This time around I did wade my way through but it was not easy-even for me, who g...

I've written before about my affinity for the bargain shelf at B&N...you win some, you lose some.  This little diversion was somewhere in between.  Told from the points of view of two couples vacationing in Italy, its part the latent unraveling of the two marriages, part psychological thriller, part mystery...I had low expectations and it exceeded them so that's something.  I also read it in like a day and half so that's also a tick in its favor-no wasted time.  As chick lit goes, it was pretty satisfying.  As literary candy?  Not so much.  If you have the time and the inclination and its cheap (or free!  check out your library!) go for it-there are worst ways to spend your time.  Looking for the one book you want to read in the next few months?  You can do better. Rating:  #5 Good Enough

Michener-ever a favorite.  He educates, he entertains, he is timeless.  That said, Alaska was not at the top of my list of his books.  The formula was the same...here is the earth and how the land was formed; here are the early inhabitants and the trials and tribulations that made them both unique and ubiquitous; here are some early people you can relate to who contributed to the evolution of the place; here is how things progressed up to the modern day.  Somewhere around 75% of the way through the book I started to lose interest and he never really brought me back around.  At 1,073 pages that's quite a slog to get through when you are not engaged.  Slog I did as much because I had no replacement book picked out as because I really wanted to finish this one.  Still, I am glad I read it.  As always, I learned something and will try to retain the information for use in Jeopardy-like challenges.  Here are some things I learned which ...