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May 10
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Sarah
gave
 
to:
Wolves of the Crescent Moon (Paperback)
by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Sarah by:
Saw it at the bookstore
recommended for: people who like stream of conciousness, people interested in Arabic culture and locales
read in May, 2008
Sarah said:
"Do identity crises always happen in bus stations? Wolves of the Crescent Moon follows that mental wanderings of a man who has found himself at loose ends after losing his latest job. He goes to the Ryadh bus station to catch the first bus to who kn...more
Do identity crises always happen in bus stations? Wolves of the Crescent Moon follows that mental wanderings of a man who has found himself at loose ends after losing his latest job. He goes to the Ryadh bus station to catch the first bus to who knows where and ends up spending the night in the waiting room with his thoughts.
Turad lives at the bottom of the social order in Saudi Arabia. He's neither educated, skilled ot smooth enough to be successful in the big city. Yet, he's not cheap enough to compete with foreign workers who will tkae the worst jobs, so he is stuck in the margins. He is angry and confused and trapped.
While sitting in the waiting room, he remembers stories people have told him, memories of his own life and he makes up stories about people he sees in the bus station (well, who hasn't done that. That's how I spend my time in airports; watching people, guessing their life histories and inventing new ones for them). Mohameed's writing style has a way of blending Turad's imaginings and what really happens in the book, so that sometimes one is confused about whether something is really happening or not.
The stories that Turad tells (and imagines) gives the reader a glimpse of what Saudi Arabian culture is like rather than just the land of black chadors and huge palaces. I found it interesting and enlightening. However, I found the stream of conciousness style a little confusing and I had trouble focusing on what I was reading. Also, although it gave me a glimpse of a real person in Saudi Arabia, it didn't give me enough background or context to get a full picture of what I was reading about....less
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May 06
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Sarah
gave
to:
A Train to Potevka (Paperback)
by Mike Ramsdell
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Sarah by:
Saw it at Costco
recommended for: People who like to read about Russia, adventure stories and spy stories
read in May, 2008
Sarah said:
"The core adventure story of this book (escaping from the Russian mafia in Siberia) is quite good but the author is not a practiced writer and there's a lot he could have left out. For example, the lectures on what was wrong with communism and how th...more
The core adventure story of this book (escaping from the Russian mafia in Siberia) is quite good but the author is not a practiced writer and there's a lot he could have left out. For example, the lectures on what was wrong with communism and how things came to be are not necessary. I mean, after all, I think the failure of almost all of the communist regimes is a testament to that fact. In addition, the author gives more autobiographical information than is necessary.
This would have made a great short story or a good screenplay but the best parts ar enot long enough to make a compelling book....less
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May 05
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Sarah
gave
to:
The Grave Tattoo (Hardcover)
by Val McDermid
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Sarah by:
My mother
recommended for: People who like historicla mysteries or the English countryside
read in May, 2008
Sarah said:
"Val McDermid is that author of the books upon which Wire in the Blood (on BBC America) is based. I am a big fan of Wire in the Blood, so I thought I would try this book. It is completely different from wire in the Blood.
Wire in the Blood is a...more
Val McDermid is that author of the books upon which Wire in the Blood (on BBC America) is based. I am a big fan of Wire in the Blood, so I thought I would try this book. It is completely different from wire in the Blood.
Wire in the Blood is a cop drama with a forensic psychologist/profiler. It's very psychological and thriller-like. The Grave Tattoo is much more of a traditional mystery with some Lake District, William Wordsworth and modern teenage gangstaness thrown in.
Someone tramping though the Lake District, finds a 200 year old body and Jane Gresham decides that it's Fletcher Christian (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame), that Wordsworth had written an epic poem in defense of Christian and that she's going to find it and become famous, get tenure and have a career. Along the way, Jane befriends a 13 year old girl from a housing project in London and old peopel start dying.
This was a good book but McDermid's ending was little optimistic and some her her story devices were too obvious. In addition, the book seems a little light on history. I found that I was not convinced that Jane was right and I felt as though I should believe in her mission too. Lastly, the book was pretty slow and sedate until the last 80 pages, so the thriller part came as a surprise and disrupted my sedate reading experience....less
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May 03
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Sarah
gave
to:
Gatsby's Girl (Hardcover)
by Caroline Preston
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: Fitzgerald fans
read in April, 2008
Sarah said:
"Caroline Preston has an easy going and pleasant writing style. In addition, she lets her readers into Ginerva's character well enough that even though she is an unbelievably self centered girl, you end up liking her a lot. She reminds of those peop...more
Caroline Preston has an easy going and pleasant writing style. In addition, she lets her readers into Ginerva's character well enough that even though she is an unbelievably self centered girl, you end up liking her a lot. She reminds of those people who such a joy to talk to at dinner parties because they have witty observations and are quite clever but you can't have a real relationship with them because they are too self absorbed.
Another insight from Preston is that Ginerva has no idea what kind of person she really is. There are moments when she admits to being self centered but she has plenty of good reasons why she's not a terrible person. I htink most self centered people are really liek this and they don't understand why people turn against them.
This book is a fictionalized version of a woman whom F. Scott Fitzgerald had dated when he was in college. She si everything he wants to be and yet she's out of his reach because she doesn't love him. Her perosnality and choices lead to drama in her life but she comes out in much better shaoe than Fitzgerald did because she believed in herself whereas Fitzgerald didn't. Of course, she believed in herself because all she truly cared about was herself.
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Sarah
gave
to:
The Rossetti Letter (Paperback)
by Christi Phillips
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: people who enjoy exotic locales
read in April, 2008
Sarah said:
"This book was a fun read but the two conflicts were too easily (and happily) resolved. There is a contemporary plot and a historical sub plot. The historical plot promises lots of intrigue, some of which is done well. However, the intrigues are no...more
This book was a fun read but the two conflicts were too easily (and happily) resolved. There is a contemporary plot and a historical sub plot. The historical plot promises lots of intrigue, some of which is done well. However, the intrigues are not quite played through. The contemporary plot offers some romantic intrigue which does not get intense or interesting enough. In addition, the characters are a little plastic.
There is some wonderful Venetian scenery and there is a sense of Venice as it once was. Truthfully, I bought this book my parents went to Venice and I was jealous, so I wanted to read books about Venice. This one sufficed.
It was a decent first effort and maybe will improve with more books but it was not the best book ever....less
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April 06
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Sarah
gave
to:
The Secret of Lost Things: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Sheridan Hay
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2008
Sarah said:
"This book is about lonliness and greed and how those things keep us apart from others. When I bought it, I thought it would be more of a literary thriller than it is. The plot synopsis mentions a lost manuscript by Herman Melville but that's really...more
This book is about lonliness and greed and how those things keep us apart from others. When I bought it, I thought it would be more of a literary thriller than it is. The plot synopsis mentions a lost manuscript by Herman Melville but that's really just a plot device to bring out the worst in people and there's very little real mystery.
The protagonist is a young, naive woman from Tasmania who arrives in New York with mo fmaily, no money (to speak of) and little education. She gets a job at a used bookstore where everyone is out for himself and each person is misfit in some way. Although one would think that being misfits would bring people together, in this book, it pushes them apart and hardly anyone has the energy or the ability to care for anyone else.
This divisiness becomes more pronounced when the manager of the book store receives an offer to buy a lost Melville manuscript. To the manager, this manuscript is his avenue out of the bookstore and into retirement. As soon as word gets out about this offer, however, various people in the bookstore begin plotting agianst him in true Medieval royal court fashion and the young protagonist is caught in the middle.
The Secret of Lost Things was a fairly good book however, I think it would have benefitted from more analysis of the characters and their motives. Maybe there were too many misfits and not enough space to analyze how these people ended up together and why their shared isolation did not bring them together. ...less
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Sarah
gave
to:
Zigzag - The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman (Paperback)
by Nicholas Booth
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2008
Sarah said:
"This is the second book that I read about Eddie Chapman and this one was quite sympathetic to him, seeing him as a lone warrior against hypocrisy and the establishment. I'm sure that most of the authority figures in Chapman's life (including his mas...more
This is the second book that I read about Eddie Chapman and this one was quite sympathetic to him, seeing him as a lone warrior against hypocrisy and the establishment. I'm sure that most of the authority figures in Chapman's life (including his masters at MI-5) were skeptical of his motives and his way of life. After all, Chapman had been an army deserter and a thief before he became a Nazi spy and then a double agent. However, Chapman was self centered and adapted circumstances to his adventurous and relaxed view of life.
Eddie Chapman found himself in prison in Nazi occupied Jersey when he decided to propse to the Germans that he work for them as an agent in England. The Nazis too k him up on this offer and spent a year training him in occupied France. They sent him to England where he promptly turned himself in and offered to be a double agent. The British took him up on this offer and he was a double agent for the remainder of the war. Whether Chapman was double agent because he was true patriot or because it was the smartest way to survive (and live well) during the war is unclear. Chapman's family and the author of this book would have use believe so. However, it is clear that his life pattern before, during and after the war show that Eddie's loyalty was Eddie.
This was an interesting book and a good contrast to the other book about Chapman (see Zigazg by Ben Macintyre)which was less sympathetic to Chapman. It was also fun from a James Bond point of view because Chapman was debonnair and elegant and much of what we ordinary people imagine spies are like....less
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March 26
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Sarah
gave
to:
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Hardcover)
by Bill Buford
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Sarah by:
colleague
recommended for: foodies, anyone who enjoys looking at life from a different angle
read in March, 2008
Sarah said:
"What I liked about this book was that it gave me an insight into a world that I know very little about. Although I come from a foody family and try to keep up on culinary issues, I knwo very little about the inner workings of a restaurant or about t...more
What I liked about this book was that it gave me an insight into a world that I know very little about. Although I come from a foody family and try to keep up on culinary issues, I knwo very little about the inner workings of a restaurant or about the psychological/learning process of the upcoming chef. I never realized before how driven these people are and how similar their experience is to artists.
What troubled me about this book was how narrow the author's experience was. This book is about a man who meets Mario Batali and goes to work in his kitchen. The experience sends him on a journey to discover things about cooking that invlolve spending considerable time in Europe, working for free in order to learn and embarking on a self education experience that only people with financial stability can partake in. What about young people from working class or poor families who have the same passions?
One thing I truly enjoyed about this book was that at one point, the author is making sausage with two Italians who begin singing as they are working. How many of us have brokeinto song was we worked? How many of us have seen our colleagues break into song? It sounds like such a wonderful thing and makes one wonder what it would feel like to be that happy at work....less
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Sarah
gave
to:
The Perfect Prince: Truth and Deception in Renaissance Europe (Paperback)
by Ann Wroe
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: people who like history or biography
read in March, 2008
Sarah said:
"This book was quite good although it was long and quite detailed. It is about a man who said that he was one of the princes in the tower whom Richard III imprisoned and (most likely) had killed. He appeared on the scene about 10 years after Richard...more
This book was quite good although it was long and quite detailed. It is about a man who said that he was one of the princes in the tower whom Richard III imprisoned and (most likely) had killed. He appeared on the scene about 10 years after Richard III was killed at the the Battle of Bosworth and tried to overthrow Henry VII and become King of England.
In the Middles Ages and the Renaissance, people believed that one's station in life was natural. Not just that one was born to it but also that your personality, values and general manner reflected your stattion and these things were more instinctual than learned. This young man who tried to convince the world he was Richard, Duke of York, was probably the son of a Flemish boatman, proved that manners ar elearned and that anyone with a good brain and a certain amount of determination can be as "noble" as the next guy. While some people believed in him because it was politically useful, it is also clear that many believed in him sincerely.
In the end, he was caught and that is a lesson to how it may be easy to copy the manners of the nobility but it is difficult to find the inner strength of character and purpose that a person who makes decisions which can mean life or death to others must have. Richard or Peter or whoever he was was not able to lead people into battle or make snap strategic decisions or stick to the path he needed to follow in order to be successful.
Wroe's writing is clear and accessible. It can be hard to hang onto all the details of the story but I find that to be true of Medieval and Renaissance history in general because there was always so much going on. She does well explaining things and also examining all the different angles of the issue. The other thing abotu her analysis is that she does not take anyone's motives at face value. She leaves it up to the reader to decide who Richard/Peter was and why he was such a phenomonon....less
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February 17
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Sarah
gave
to:
Gang Leader for a Day (Hardcover)
by Sudhir Venkatesh
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: People interested in social issues and problems
read in February, 2008
Sarah said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
When I read Venkatesh's feature in Freakonmics, I was interested in the way the gang business model followed the corporate business model and how these groups seemed to bw the antithesis of "the Man" but in reality they were just another version of "the Man." This comes through in Gang Leader for a Day too. It is also clear how exclusive, patriarchical and self serving they are as well - just like many large corporations.
In a way this book just proves that poorest of the poor just can't win. If they're not being pushed down by the institutions, government agencies and upper classes, then they are being pushed down by their local gang leaders. Apparently, it is no one's interest to help people get out of poverty. It is sad but, perhaps not surprising, revelation about class structure and the culture of poverty....less
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