Category: Books

Some good and not-so-good (cough*Twilight*cough) went on this month. Yay for spending more of the month at home rather than at work.

Finished
Map of Ireland. Stephanie Grant
Hard to read but lovely (and short) fictional story of a girl (who likes girls) from Southie during the busing crisis of the 1970s.

Twilight. Stephine Meyer.
Wow. Probably the worst writing I’ve read this year, and I don’t consider myself a picky reader. The story line was interesting and kept me reading to the end, but the main characters’ real ages (17 year old girl and 90-something man) was a bit pedophilistic for me. That said, I may read the second book to see 1) if the writing improves, 2) if the plot line gets worse or better.

CatSpeak. Bash Dibra with Elizabeth Randoph
How you cat talks to you and you can talk to your cat. Good advice on training and good illustrations.

The Whole Pet Diet: 8 Weeks to Great Health for Dogs and Cats. Andi Brown.
I’ve been reading a lot about creating your own pet food and I really like this book. In it, you spend eight weeks making small changes that supposedly make for a much healthier and happier cat. Or dog.

In the Woods. Tanya French.
After reading The Likeness I eagerly looked forward to this book which is the first book. There was quite a long queue at the library for it. I wasn’t disappointed. I enjoyed the main character, to my surprise not the main character from The Likeness but instead her partner. The plot line moved rapidly and I enjoyed not only figuring out whodunit, but also the main character’s relationship with his partner. A book I made time to read.

Shutter Island. Dennis Lehane.
After I finished this book I really hated it. I felt manipulated by the plot and annoyed about all the tension I had built up in the process of reading it. It doesn’t help that I tend to absorb books while reading and dissect them later so I never saw the plot twist coming. Still, creepy setting, good main characters, clever plot. This is probably an average book but I didn’t like it so it gets one star.

New Moon. Stephanie Meyer.
In the second book, I figured out my main problem with this series. I find Meyer’s writing style incredibly distracting, but in New Moon I discovered that when Edward is around, her writing style gets worse. Without Edward, her writing style is the annoying drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet. But when Edward appears the pipe breaks and bad prose gushes onto the page. I also realized that I DON’T LIKE EDWARD CULLEN! He’s moody and arrogant and boring. Yay that he is very smart and incredibly good looking etc. etc. etc. Despite those very surface things, he ultimately bugs. I think Meyers still hasn’t fleshed him out as a character unlike Bella or (the vastly superior to Edward) Jacob.

It may have to do with temperature preference, but I would choose a hot-blooded werewolf over a cold-marble vampire any day.

Midway through the book I thought, “Dammit, she’s got me again. Her interesting plot line has triumphed over her bad prose.” But by the end I was so annoyed with the bad prose I had no interest in the rest of the series.

The Road. Cormac McCarthy.
When your life is pared down to a survival level–shelter, food–what would your days contain? Like other McCarthy books the prose was easy to read, but the story itself was hard. One of those books I will be thinking about for the next week. There is a movie, but I will not see it. Some images were hard enough to view in my head. I don’t need to see them in their cinematic glory.

I Capture the Castle. Dodie Smith.
I saw this movie when it came out in 2003 and enjoyed it. As I was buying books this summer for my trip, this was remaindered at Powell’s and I grabbed it. However, I only recently picked it up and what a treat! The narration is absolutely sparkling and there are many funny scenes. The plot does an excellent job of chronicling family life–although this family is a bit odder than others–and also falling in love for the first time. The prose does an excellent job of painting pictures of an English village, a manor house, and 1930s London. The characters are well developed and likable through their quirks. Recommended.

Run Faster from the 5k to the Marathon. Brad Hudson.
Not really a book for beginning runners, but for people who have some idea what their 3K, 5K, 10K, Half-Marathon and Marathon pace is. I am not one of those people, but I like his message about not being a slave to your training plan. He also discusses how people are built to run many miles, but not super fast, or are super fast, but don’t run many miles as well. The book includes many training plans.

Started but did not finish
Real Food for Cats. Patti Delmonte
Recipes for your cat’s food that don’t come from a can.

Think Like a Cat. Pam Johnson-Bennett

Lamb in Love. Carrie Brown.
I enjoyed The Rope Walk earlier this year and was sad that yet another of Carrie Brown’s novel didn’t move me. I couldn’t get in to the main characters and set the book down.

Not quite dead. John MacLaughlin Gray.
Normally I like a nice historical fiction about real characters you think wouldn’t meet. However, I did not like this, and gave up on it.

The Woman Warrior. Maxine Hong Kingston.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I haven’t read this and even more embarrassed to admit that I started it and put it down early on. I just slogged through the grim landscape of The Road and I wasn’t ready for the opening scene. I’ll pick it up later.

Did not even start.
The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness and the Creation of Roget’s Thesarus. Joshua Kendall
Did you know that, among other things, Roget invented the log-log slide rule? I was researching the slide rule and checked this book out thinking it would have a bit about that, and that is exactly what it had: two paragraphs.

Homecoming. Bernhard Schlink.
Sometimes the sentence “translated from the German” doesn’t really pull me in. I never even opened this, though it sat near my chair for three weeks.

Here’s my problem with Twilight: 17 year old girl falls in love with 17 year old vampire boy. Fine. 17 year old girl falls in love with 110 year old vampire in the body of a 17 year old boy? Kind of icky. There were a lot of lover-as-father/paternalism things within the second half of the book that kind of weirded me out. I might read the second one to see if that goes away, but I might not.

Also, I felt like there was so much undercurrent of denying your primal urges in that book. The whole set up of falling in love with someone who could theoretically kill you if he smells your intoxicating scent too much was very repressed. Almost like a closeted lesbian in a religion that doesn’t recognize homosexuality would write. Hmmmm. And! At the end of the first book it is very clear that she wants to become a vampire too so she can be with her beloved. The whole changing yourself completely to be more like your help-mate doesn’t square with my independent figures in a relationship world view.

Summary: Twilight not best book to read from a feminist perspective.

On the other hand: I thought about the plot for many days.

Finished
He, She & It.
Marge Piercy.
Another futuristic tale from Piercy concerning a woman, her son and a robot. I love how Piercy imagines the world mid-century. I hope it isn’t like that, but you never know.

Outlasting the Trail.
Mary Baumgardner O’Brien
I grew up on pioneer tales and read a lot of Oregon Trail novels. For some reason, I can’t think of a single adult novel about the Oregon Trail published in the last five years. Either the pioneer stories lend themselves better to children’s literature or our frontier ancestors are not in vogue right now.

This tale is based on the true story of a woman whose husband sets out happily for California, dragging his wife and family along. Not far into the journey, a major depression sets in, leaving him argumentative and unable to pull his weight. His wife Mary must step out of her sphere and ensure the family gets to California.

The story was pretty interesting, but I was skeptical of a lot of the thoughts put in the main character’s head by the author. They did not seem authentically eighteenth century to me.

The Importance of Being Kennedy.
Laurie Graham
This book was a delightful, breezy tale of the Kennedy clan with a Kennedy nurse as the main character. The book takes a dim view of Rose Kennedy and a dimmer view of Joseph Kennedy. The story was enjoyable and the narration was breezy and funny at times, too.

The Annotated Secret Garden.
Ed. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzman
Though I felt the annotation in this book was lacking at points, I always enjoy this story.

Pet Food Nation.
Joan Weiskopf
Why you probably don’t want to feed your cat or dog commercial pet food. My guess is, that if you read this book, you will start looking for other sources of food for your pet.

Dishwasher.
Peter Jordan
Dishwasher Pete has a book! The story of Pete’s quest during the 1990s to wash dishes in all 50 states. Jordan’s writing style is entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny at times and caused me to question the nature of success and how we define work in this country. Highly recommended. He also loves Portland.

10 Days in the Hills.
Jane Smiley
Unlike Celebutantes, this is an enjoyable novel of the Hollywood world. I enjoyed the plot device Smiley used to keep nine people in the same house for ten days, as well as the various characters. There is a lot of sex in this book and I found the scenes well written, much better than your average romance novel. The book is nice and thick, it makes fabulous beach read material.

I am America and So Can You.
Stephen Corbet.
I broke Corbert’s hard and fast rule to purchase the book, not get it from the library. Fans of the show know how funny this book is. Non-fans will enjoy it too. I read this in dribs and drabs over six weeks and there was much to chortle about. The side notes in the margin were particularly ingenious.

Bringing Down the House.
Ben Mezrich
The true story of how a group of MIT students successfully counted cards in Las Vegas and won millions. When this book came out and the author was promoting it I was fascinated by the story. I forgot about it for a few years, until the movie based on it premiered this summer. Reading the book, I can hear the conversations the producers must have had to make the story more “Hollywood.” I enjoyed both the book and the movie, though if you are going to indulge in only one, I would recommend the book.

Started but did not finish
Math Equals: Biographies of Women Mathematicians and Related Activities.
Teri Perl
More research about Mary Somerville brought me to this book, by the same author who wrote Women and Numbers. This book is written for the middle school/high school level and the Discovery Activities are more difficult. A well-done book, I may return to it in the future.

Woman and Numbers: The Lives of Woman Mathematicians Plus Discovery Activities.
Teri Perl
Research about Mary Somerville for a paper in my Historical Topics in Middle School Math. This book is suitable for late elementary school/middle school students and includes fun math activities after every famous woman mathematician.

Women in Mathematics.
Lynn M. Osen.
Well-researched articles about a variety of women mathematicians.

The Usbrone Complete Book of Chess.
Elizabeth Dalby
I can’t play chess. I know how the game works, but I have no understanding of strategy. I checked this book out in an attempt to change that, but then had no time to actually learn anything from it. The book is written for children, thus making a good introductory book for any age. It is vividly illustrated and has links to every lesson to reinforce your learning.

Slide Rule.
Robert Scaffold.
My next paper topic for the Math class.

Quintet.
Douglas Arther Brown.
I dated a guy who was the oldest of a set of triplets, and the three of them fought all the time. This fascinated me, and I wondered if that had to do with the fact they were too crowded in the womb, or family dynamics or other influences. So I was interested in this story of triplets, but the plot didn’t hold my attention. And usually I like books with alternating narrators and letters.

Did not even start
A History of the Logarithmic Slide Rule (very long title after this)
Florian Cajori
It was written a long time ago and skimming the introduction I found that the entire book is built on a false premise. I was supposed to read the addendum first, then read the book. It seemed too much trouble so I just didn’t bother.

Graphic Aids in Engineering Computation.
Randolph Hoelscher and others.
More books for slide rule research that I didn’t actually read.

The Slide Rule Handbook.
James Own Perrine.
And even more books for research.

Finished
Washington In Focus.
Philip Bigler.
I really enjoyed this book. It was short enough to not be an overwhelming history and long enough to feel as if I had a basic understanding of the city. It also pointed me to a few sites I am interested in seeing such as the Zero Milestone.

The Likeness.
Tanya French.
What a fabulous book. This is the second book by French, but I read them out of order and now have the first one on hold at the library. It is a very long queue. I was so excited by the premise of this book I kept telling anyone I could engage in conversation. “I’m reading the best book!” I would begin and give a short synopsis. “Ooooooh!” was always the excited reply. This is a thick book and chores were ignored, bedtimes were missed and I thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading it. Even if you are not a huge mystery fan (I consider myself a moderate-to-cool mystery fan) this book is worth the read.

Real Food: What to Eat and Why.
Nina Planck.
A really great book that clearly makes the case for eating, as Michael Pollen would say, like our great grandmothers did. Read this and find out why you will benefit by eating full fat dairy, chicken skin and other lovely things you have been avoiding for your “health.”

Wild Fermentation (Zine).
Sandor Ellix Katz.
The hold list for Katz’s book Wild Fermentation is very long so in the meantime I read the short zine that was a precursor to the book. If you can get your hands on it, this might be a good stepping stone to the fermented foods world.

Daytrips Washington D.C.
Earl Steinbicker.
A great book with not only journeys out of town in DC, but a few walks that take you around the town. I’ve marked a few of the trips for my own trip to DC. This would be a good book for people who live in the DC area and have a lot of visitors. The book could be innocently sitting in your home, and perhaps your visitors will take themselves off on a journey and leave you to cook dinner in peace.

Started but did not finish.
Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under.
Michael Patrick MacDonald.
I loved MacDonald’s All Souls when I read it years ago, but it had been too long and I couldn’t connect to him in this book.

Our Sometime Sister.
Norah Labiner.
I read a few pages of this book but nothing grabbed me so back it went to the library.

The Invention of Everything Else.
Samantha Hunt
This is the kind of book I usually love–historical fiction about something I know little about–but there was a vague sense of foreboding that I couldn’t shake and so this novel went back to the library.

The Structure House Weight Loss Plan.
Gerard J. Musante
Yet again I break my solemn vow to not check out any more “lose weight” books.

This book seems to have good advice. I tend to do better on three meals rather than the “many small snacks” philosophy that seems to reign right now. My “many small snacks” tend to become “many medium sized meals.” It makes sense to plan out your food day and stick to your plan, I just chafe under those requirements. Also, their “low fat” plan doesn’t jibe with my current direction of food and eating and so I ignored that part. (I know, I know, my pick and choosiness is one of the reasons I am trying not to read “lose weight” books anymore).

Celebutantes.
Amanda Goldburg & Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper
I really tried to like this book but could not. It doesn’t help that the women who wrote the book actually come from the Hollywood world they write about. The world they describe seems filled with horrible people that I would rather not spend my time with. So I closed the book and didn’t.

Did not even start.
I started everything I checked out this month.

Finished
My Life in France. Julia Child
How Julia Child became Julia Child. I floundered a bit after college and it was at that point I began to seek out stories of how people found their life’s work. At the same time, I began to look for examples of people who were not “wunderkids” but instead took awhile to achieve great success. Julia Child’s story fits both of these categories. Born the same year as my grandmother she was a very old maid when she married. The writing of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” took many years and spanned several countries. Her zest for life is apparent on every page, as is her love for cooking, her husband Paul and France. After reading this books I can safely say that if more of us were like Julia Child the world would be a better place.

Miracle at St. Anna. James McBride
Read in preparation for the release of the movie–which did not get good reviews and so I haven’t seen it–this is another fast paced story by McBride. When Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood had their words over black soldiers serving in World War II last year, did you long for a fictional account of four black soldiers serving in Italy? This is your book. It was well written and one of those books I ignored chores for.

The Monsters of Templeton. Lauren Groff
My favorite kind of book. Fiction that takes place in a transparently real place. A mystery. Alternating narrators from different periods in history. Some slightly supernatural elements. Delightful characters. Picking up this book was a joy. Write more books Lauren Groff. Please. I will read them.

Started but did not finish
Eat Fat Lose Fat. Mary Enig & Sally Fallon
I’ve taken a solemn vow to stop reading “lose weight” books. However, I checked this out because Sally Fallon wrote Nourishing Traditions which outlines the food philosophy I am learning more about: naturally raised meats, soaked whole grains, traditional fats, organic fruit and vegetables. However, reading Nourishing Traditions is a bit overwhelming. This books is a more gradual introduction to the philosophy, it is just disguised as a weight loss book. Good recipes, too.

Washington D.C. Off the Beaten Path. William B. Whitman
This is a great book for people like me who have visited Washington DC, and maybe want to see something beyond the usual.

Washington Schlepped Here. Christopher Buckley
I started my research for the trip with this book, but set it aside as a “for later, if ever” read because it is chock full of not-really-true information. It probably would be funny for people who are more familiar with Washington DC.

Things I’ve Learned From Women Who Dumped Me. Ed: Ben Karlin
The stories I read in this book were good, but the book arrived at a time I was awash in books and got shunted aside.

Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home. Kim Sunee
Do you ever read memoirs where you think, “What, exactly is this person’s problem?” This was that kind of book for me. Because I could not connect with her level of pain I set this book down.

Washington DC for Dummies. Tom Price
A nice basic “how to do DC” kind of book.

Did not even start.
Yoga Therapy for Overcoming Insomnia. Peter Van Houten and Gyandev Rich McCord.
This book also became lost in a tidal wave of books that arrived at the library. It looked quite good, though and I may check it out again.

I’m writing this in November, so memories of August are a bit hazy. I’ve pieced together the following from my notes. I remember not reading much in August, which is strange because I had two weeks off. I think I had a backlog of magazines to catch up with. So three books isn’t fabulous, but any book read is a happy thing.

Finished:
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Michael Chabon
I love how Chabon creates entire alternate universes. His settings really come alive. What struck me as I was reading this book, is how much the story line mirrored all of the Patrick Kenzie/Angine Gennaro novels by Dennis LeHane. And I’m not just saying that because I was obsessed with them this summer. Summary: Rouge central figure disregards establishment practices and sets out on his own to get to the bottom of things and find The Truth. Central figure is also hopelessly in love with female character and is a better man with her then without her. The difference between this book and the LeHane series (aside from plot line details) is the setting–Boston vs. Alternative Universe Jewish Alaska–and the fact that knowing a bit of Yiddish probably helps with the Chabon book.

Song Yet Sung. James McBride
Follows the lives of residents of the Maryland shore during the time of slavery. Will our main characters make it to freedom? I’ll let you find out for yourself. My favorite part was McBrides’ description of “the code”, the network of messages slaves passed along through laundry, the blacksmith and others. It was fascinating.
(This review is very Reading Rainbow-eqsue)

Prayers for Rain. Dennis LeHane
And I finish the series for the second time this summer.

Started but didn’t finish
Firefly Lane. Kristin Hannah
This books suffers from what I call the “Mork and Mindy Syndrome.” This syndrome, named by me, came about in fifth grade when I was reading a novel and the main characters discussed watching Mork and Mindy the night before. The 1985 me was confused as to how they could be watching that show at night as it was not currently on the prime-time schedule. The 1985 me eventually figured out that when the book was written, Mork and Mindy was at the height of its fame and it would make sense for the characters to discuss it. The end result was by mentioning one detail that would become dated with time, the author pulled me out of the universal setting where I related best to the characters and instead set the book, for no good reason, in the late 1970s when I was very young. I see this happen a lot in novels set in the present day. In my view, the good ones manage to describe the activities of the characters so the book could be happening over a large period of time. The bad ones mention a fleeting pop-culture reference (i.e. The Aniston Haircut) that ties the story unnecessarily to a particular year.

With that explained, I can say that I lost several hours of my life on this book and I regret that I can’t go back and choose not to read it. The very long story, about two friends, one who becomes a famous TV journalist and the other who becomes a housewife, spans several decades and the author seems to think the best way to show the passage of time is to mention both sweeping events and hair and makeup styles. Also, when I quit 3/4 of the way through I could tell exactly where the plot was going. Usually I will read to the end to see if I am right, but the Mork and Mindy effect was so large in the book I couldn’t stand it any longer.

On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm. Michael Ableman
I read most of this book which was a great illustration of suburbia encroaching on rural land. It has lovely pictures.

Attack of the Theater People. Mark Acito
This book picks up with the same characters we met in How I Paid for College. Alas, it had been too long and the writing was so full of life–Acito practically vibrates with energy when you see him in person–it was a bit much for my slothful vacation self. I put it aside for now.

Didn’t even start.
There wasn’t a thing I brought home this month that I didn’t at least begin.

8 books, which is not super fabulous considering that I was on vacation for at least 14 days in July. Also, much re-reading of the Lehane books took over the summer. After I finished them the first time, I couldn’t get into any other books, so I just started over with the series.
Just for fun, let’s limit my summaries this month to 1 sentence each.

Finished:

10 books! I read 10 books in June! This was due to several factors. My awake-two-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night insomnia seems to have returned, thus giving me more hours to read, though less actual sleep and an overall grumpiness that I don’t recommend. Also my class ended June 10 or somewhere around there. That left more time for recreational reading. Thirdly, I fell in love. Have you ever started a relationship and suddenly the need for sleep diminishes? And you don’t really want to do anything except spend time with the person? And you want to know everything about that person? That happened.

I am not afraid to say that I am in love with Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. I am not afraid to admit that before the month was over I had purchased all five books by Dennis Lehane where they appear as characters. I am not afraid to tell you that not only did I stay up late reading said books, but was happy when I awoke in the middle of the night–more time to read. I am not afraid to tell you that I finished the last book in Hungary and bided my time until I got back home at which point I opened the first book in the series and started reading again.

I’m not really a mystery fan. I’ll read them every once in awhile, but not often. For some reason this series and I were meant to be.

Finished
Niagara Falls All Over Again. Elizabeth McCracken.

The Secret. Rhonda Byrne.

Helping Me Help Myself. One skeptic, ten self-help gurus, and a year on the brink of the comfort zone. Beth Lisick

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austin. Syrie James.

A Drink Before the War. Dennis Lehane.

Darkness Take My Hand. Dennis Lehane.

Sacred. Dennis Lehane.

Gone, Baby, Gone. Dennis Lehane.
Yes, indeed I read it in May. But I didn’t know it was book 4 of 5. So now I am re-reading it to preserve the order. Plus, it’s a very good book.

Prayers for Rain. Dennis Lehane.

Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs. Chuck Klosterman.

Started but didn’t finish.
Ship of Fools. Katherine Anne Porter.
I was too lazy to even get into this novel to see if I would like it.

Budapest. Paul Murphy.
I got this book from the library so I could tell one of my friends all the sites she should go to when she visits Budapest this summer. It’s a small book, but has good overview information. The maps are a bit lacking, so I wouldn’t actually take it on a trip.

Didn’t even start.
Anything for Jane. Cheryl Mendelson.