NyiNya (ZinkZink) (20 books)

NyiNya rated a book 1 of 5 stars

Eater's Digest: 400 Delectable Readings About Food and Drink
by Lorraine Bodger

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Whether you want a decent reference book or simply an entertaining book about food, culture and eating habits, this book doesn't cut it. It's chock full of stale tidbits culled from other sources.

Open the book to any random page and you'll find somet...more Whether you want a decent reference book or simply an entertaining book about food, culture and eating habits, this book doesn't cut it. It's chock full of stale tidbits culled from other sources.

Open the book to any random page and you'll find something you've seen dozens of times before. Take page 42, for instance, where our diligent researcher points out that rice pudding, mashed potatoes and cinnamon toast are comfort food. Good info for those who thought these comprised Nouvelle Cuisine. On page 55, we are informed that apples, bananas and oranges are among the most popular fruits in America. Page 69 reveals that lettuce, cucumbers and watercress are low in calories, while the following pages warn that goose fat, lard and duck fat are not. Page 73 provides a real shockeroo: an entire box of filled chocolates contains many calories (and so does an entire strawberry cheesecake...no wonder my diet isn't working). Page 89 pulls the curtains back from the Secrets of Sugar, advising us that granulated sugar is grainy, while powdered sugar is powdery. Page 110 gives us a list of yellow foodstuffs, in case you were wondering what color yellow squash and yellow cake might be, or thought that lemons and bananas came in assorted designer shades.

Page 127 tells us what a latte is, pages 128 and 129 provide the disturbing news that potato chips are a favorite kids' snack, while bitter foods and something the author describes as "soggy yogurt" are not. On pages 140 and 141, we are told that parsley is a good choice for garnish, and ketchup, mustard and relish are popular condiments. But wait, there's more. Other revelations include: T-Bone steaks are generally enjoyed by most people who like steak; chopped celery may be added to tuna salad; cleaning the oven is an unpopular pastime; mashed potatoes are not usually found on pizza; Genoa salami comes from Italy; the Japanese eat miso soup for breakfast; minced ham, peppers and onions are good in an omelet. Page 197 lists such unusual stuffed foods as grape leaves, cabbage and mushrooms. We are also warned that the mushrooms called Death Cap and Death Angel should not be eaten. Drat, there goes my dinner menu. This book and its "information" are so ridiculous, I began to think it was a parody.

Beyond the silly lists, author Lorraine Bodger also takes the time to give us brief essays. One of these explains that crepes and blintzes are quite similar, another tells us that breast milk is good for babies. My favorite essay, which appears on page 286, deals with Food Safety Away From Home. Blodger advises us that all restaurant kitchens are dirty. "If you saw the inside of most restaurant kitchens, you'd never eat out again." She comes right out and warns us: "Don't eat sushi in restaurants." So where do we go? The bus station? She also lets us know that those specials at the top of the menu are the restaurant's revenge on clientele, comprising "the chef's fervent desire to unload the eighty-two pork chops and 12 pounds of crabmeat that didn't go over too well last week."

Get the picture? This could have been written in two hours by anyone with access to Google. Save your money. Buying this book will just leave a bad taste in the mouth.(less)

NyiNya rated a book 1 of 5 stars

End of Days
by Robert Gleason

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This mishmosh of a novel takes too long to get started, meanders around for way too long, and never goes any place. New age claptrap, a little rip off of Stephen King, a demented nun with a Ming the Unmerciful complex, a heroine whose hairbreadth esc...more

NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars

The Joys of Excess
by Samuel Pepys

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For most of us, Pepys diaries are a bit of a slog. Fascinating in part, slow going and endlesss in others. These excerpts give you all the flavor of life in the 17th Century, but none of that long wait between courses. I've always thought that one of...more

NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars

Ghost Wave: The Discovery of Cortes Bank and the Biggest Wave on Earth
by Chris Dixon

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If you spend any time sailing along the California coast, you may have heard about The Cortes Bank. It lies just past Catalina Island. Not a big patch of ocean, but one that boaters view with respect. It's where the giant waves live. Rogue waves are...more If you spend any time sailing along the California coast, you may have heard about The Cortes Bank. It lies just past Catalina Island. Not a big patch of ocean, but one that boaters view with respect. It's where the giant waves live. Rogue waves are known to occur randomly, and certain coastal areas are known for impossibly high surf. But the Cortes Bank is different. In the middle of nowhere, in the open sea, huge waves, some reaching 90 feet high, are formed...and they're not an anomaly, they're a regular event. Listening to tales of the Cortes Bank while relaxing on deck is the sailing equivalent of sitting around the campfire and listening to stories of those two hitchhikers and the guy with the hook. Guaranteed to make the hair on your arms go all feathery.

Chris Dixon takes us into the heart of the Cortes Bank and shows us what it's like not just to face the monster, but tweak its nose.

All surfing is madness. Surfers sit on their boards, legs dangling in the water, looking just like dinner to every circling shark...and that's before they start doing the dangerous stuff. There are so many ways to injure, maim, cripple and kill yourself on a surfboard, it almost beggars the imagination to understand why some surfers seek to up the ante. But they do...in the form of giant waves. Waves so high you could hide an apartment building in one. The only sensible part is that, for the most part, giant wave surfing is done close to shore, where (in theory) help is close at hand. The surfers who choose Cortes Bank are surfing in the open ocean. They are tempting the pelagic sharks, giant ocean-going predators, as well as the little maneaters who cling to the shoreline, not to mention fate. If they are churned to the bottom by countless tons of water collapsing above them, they aren't likely to come up again.

The world has two kinds of people in it: Surfers and people who wish they were. Dixon's book gives those of us who watch and envy those slender figures sitting out where the waves form a chance to live in their skin for a few magical, terrifying, exhilarating moments. There are minutes on end when I lost track of time and place. I was there, I could smell the ocean, that magical clean briny scent, I could feel the cold wind on my face and feel the stinging spray, the chill of the water. Bobbing on my surfboard, butterflies in my stomach, waiting to be elevated higher and higher and higher before sliding down, down, down...it's as close as I'll ever get to the experience, which fills me with relief and regret.

Ghost Wave takes you out there to the Cortes Bank. Dixon tells us the history and background of the area, and shows us just what it feels like to challenge Poseidon and whatever other gods and monsters inhabit that haunted piece of ocean.

If you surf, or only wish you did, this book is a thriller, an e-ticket ride that will leave you breathless and exhilarated.(less)

NyiNya rated a book 2 of 5 stars

The American Heiress
by Daisy Goodwin (Goodreads Author)

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Another entry in the "Buccaneers" genre, "The American Heiress" is something of a hybrid. Edith Wharton meets Harlequin Romance. Daisy Goodwin really, really tries to capture the flavor of "Custom of the Country" -- oh boy, does she try. You'll also...more Another entry in the "Buccaneers" genre, "The American Heiress" is something of a hybrid. Edith Wharton meets Harlequin Romance. Daisy Goodwin really, really tries to capture the flavor of "Custom of the Country" -- oh boy, does she try. You'll also find plot twists reminiscent of Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters. But not in a good way.

The aptly named Cash family is rich beyond imagining. They buy houses, castles, paintings by Rubens, jewels, and 'the world's largest motor yacht' the way you and I buy socks. Cora Cash, 18 years old and a Raving Beauty, is the title hunter du jour...but author Goodwin can't quite make her heroine sufficiently mercenary. She leaves that to Mommy Dearest, a cold-blooded nouveau riche, beautiful but--in true Grand Guignol style -- hideously scarred and forced to cover half her face with veils. Mrs. Cash is determined to find daughter the best Titled Husband money can buy. Papa Cash is a minor character whose only purpose is to sign checks and provide an arm for the ladies to clutch when walking in to dinner.

The book gets interesting briefly when the Cash Family arrives in London and Cora gets some Buccaneer Boot Camp training from an American woman who makes her living teaching rich Philadelphia heiresses not to eat their peas with a knife or scratch where it itches. I'd like to have read more about the life of this enterprising woman and her unpolished gems...because once Cora gets her degree in Social Climbing and finds her impecunious but handsome duke, the story starts to tank.

Cora and her future husband have a cute meet...she falls off of her horse, he rescues her. Shades of The Torn Bodice Romance!

They get married, Cora makes some missteps in society...but there is no drama. Sure, some of the titled Brits are a tiny bit mean to Cora and take advantage of her American naivete, but heck, they're just jealous! Sure, Cora's husband keeps disappearing...either going fishing and missing his own wedding rehearsal or trotting off with the the British Heir Apparent on a trip to India and forgetting to tell poor Cora when he returns. And then, of course, there is A Major Complication. But not to worry, this is a love match and hubby's shenanigans keep getting explained away. Goodwin is obviously trying to cast a shroud of mystery around the duke, first making us suspect he is an evil fortune hunter, adulterer and a cad, and then quickly taking it back. She plays this card over and over and over again, imagining, no doubt, that she is whipsawing our emotions and keeping us on the edge of our seats. In fact, she is sending us off to see what's on television.

One of the subplots involves Cora's mixed-race maid, a girl who is born into Southern poverty, goes North and achieves a measure of success as a lady's maid. This too might have been an intriguing little side road, but was not sufficiently explored. I'd have liked to read more about how she adapted to the comic opera pomposity of Downstairs Society, the rigid hierarchies and rules maintained by the servants of the upper classes, and how she fared as woman of color, personally and professionally. That would have been a better book too, I think. Cora's part of the story has been told many, many times before, and better.

I'm giving the book a Fair rating, even though I didn't enjoy it very much. I think it will appeal to genre readers who don't want cynicism, irony, unhappy endings or originality to interfere with their enjoyment. The American Heiress is not a horrible book for the genre, it just doesn't go anywhere and takes too long on the journey. I kept wishing good old Undine Spragg would show up and kick some butt.(less)

NyiNya rated a book 4 of 5 stars

The Invention Of Lefse: A Christmas Story
by Larry Woiwode

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Cold, barren landscape, an empty larder, and a cast of characters who aren't exactly warm and cuddly doesn't seem to be a recipe for a delightful holiday book, but The Invention of Lefse pulls it off.

The setting is bleak. Any icy December in the cold...more Cold, barren landscape, an empty larder, and a cast of characters who aren't exactly warm and cuddly doesn't seem to be a recipe for a delightful holiday book, but The Invention of Lefse pulls it off.

The setting is bleak. Any icy December in the cold, dark Norway of the 1890s. Religion was harsh, the climate was harsh, the rocky soil and cold, barren coast lines were harsh. And to add to the festivities, food shortages were reaching famine level. This is where and when our story enfolds.

Told from the perspective of Mette Iverdatter, a 13-year-old farmer's daughter, we are taken into the small holding of a farmer who has to face the reality of failure. They are out of food, out of fuel, and have very few options left. One of them, pretty much the only one, is to rely on the mercy of Mette's maternal grandparents. The family is about to pull up stakes and head over to the river and through the woods...whether for a decent Christmas meal, or for a longer period, Mette isn't quite sure. For any reader wondering why the family is so loathe to visit the grandparents for the Christmas holidays, the first view of Grandpa explains everything.

Mette's grandfather is not the stern and loving Grandfather of Heidi's world. No warm twinkle melts the icy stare in his gimlet eye. An outspoken man, toughened by a hard life and little given to frivolous gestures of warmth or kindness, he is disgusted with his daughter and son in law for having 3 daughters and no sons. Foolish thing for a farmer to do. Who's going to help him far the land. Girls are just extra mouths to feed, and Grandfather makes it plain he resents having to waste food on these useless creatures.

Still, the holidays are coming and Mette hopes for the best. Like all children, her dreams are not based on what's practical or possible, and we all know she's in for a dreadful disappointment. But while dreams may be fragile, children themselves are made of tougher stuff. They are adaptable and able to surmount unpleasantries--often better than adults. And sometimes, even in real life, dreams do come true.

The book, which was so realistic and unsentimental up to this point, enters into dangerous territory at this point. It never descends into Cratchit Family bathos, however, and ultimately remains true to its pure and uncompromising voice. We see that there is love, even when it's not obvious, and realize that people who find displaying emotions difficult don't always lack them. After all, this is a Christmas story and you can't have a Christmas story with a bleak ending. So wishes do come true...sort of. Things work out...sort of. And when there isn't even a loaf of bread to put on the table for your Christmas dinner, sometimes...like the loaves and fishes...you can take a little of this, throw in some left over potatoes, mix it all up and it's Lefse!

This lovely and for the most part uncompromising book deserves five stars -- but with one caveat: it's so derivative, you will swear you saw it first in Heidi or Little House on the Prairie or My Antonia. But still, in the spirit of Christmas, and because it is so hard to find Christmas stories that are uplifting but not sappy, Five Stars.(less)

NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars

The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank

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NyiNya rated a book 4 of 5 stars

V is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone #22)
by Sue Grafton

read in October, 2012

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After waiting for V for such a long time, perhaps I expected too much. V is for Vengence is mediocre at best. Still, a mediocre Kinsey Milhone book is not that bad, so if you are a died in the wool fan, you won't miss it no matter what the reviews sa...more After waiting for V for such a long time, perhaps I expected too much. V is for Vengence is mediocre at best. Still, a mediocre Kinsey Milhone book is not that bad, so if you are a died in the wool fan, you won't miss it no matter what the reviews say. I know I couldn't pass it up.

The book doesn't put Kinsey in the best light. She spots a shoplifter at a department store and rushes to notify security. The shoplifter's body is found at the bottom of "suicide bridge" a few days later, and the dead woman's fiance hires Kinsey to find out if it was suicide or murder. The plot is more complex, but I don't want to be a spoiler. What is kind of odd is Kinsey's morphing into the Avenging Angel of department store security. She goes after the dead woman's partner (including following the teenage daughter around with absolutely no purpose and no resolution...it's like part of the book Grafton stuck in and forgot about). Even when the client fires her, she can't stop following the woman and causing trouble for innocent bystanders. Suddenly she's Police Inspector Javert, obsessed with bringing Jean Valjean to justice. It seems like a big head of steam to get up over something that's not murder or kiddy porn. Yeah, shoplifting is very bad, it costs consumers a lot of money, as we learn because Kinsey keeps harping on it and pouring out statistics, but get a grip Kins. And Get a Life.

The best parts of Grafton's books are those all-too-rare glimpses into Kinsey's personal life. There are none here. Henry, her handsome 90 year old landlord is away again, taking one of our favorite characters off the board. Rosie, who is a gifted if eccentric cook in some books and an awful one in others, is at her worst here. How does she keep the restaurant going when she serves only pigs feet and mutton heads to white suburban middle class clients? Sometimes Sue Grafton can be a bit formulaic, with her descriptions of the all white interiors of those houses in Horton Ravine where the rich ladies with the softly highlighted pagesboys live. You know, the ones with the pale grey wool trousers and the white silk blouse with sleeves rolled to the elbow, showing off the cartier tank watch. Oy already. But in this book, she departs from this script and I was surprised to find myself missing it!

There are subplots aplenty. We have police informants, blackmailers, crooked cops, and a mafioso and his mistress. He runs the shoplifting operation and while Kinsey is hell bent for leather to nail the poor little worker bees, she restrains herself when it comes to Mr. Big. Read the book (you know you will no matter what I say) and see if it doesn't seem a little farfetched to you at the end. Anyway, we get another peek at the handsome and wealthy Police Officer Cheney Phillips with his cashmere sweaters in soft browns and beiges, but he's mostly annoyed with Kinsey and there does not seem to be any spark on his side. She is still cutting her hair with the toenail clippers or whatever, so maybe that explains it. She's a grown woman in her mid 30s. The gamin look doesn't work very well past age 15. By this point, she probably looks either homeless or demented. Plus it seems she has gotten smaller in this book. In earlier novels, she was 5'6" and weighed 118 lbs. Now She is noticably smaller...the word 'vulnerable' was bandied about. Okay she was never amazonian, but not a pipsqueak either. Is Sue Grafton hoping for Julia Roberts to do the movie? Is there going to be a movie? We also meet a lovable burgler and his Dumb Dora With a Heart of Gold ex-hooker wife, unfaithful wives and two-timing husbands, trampy secretaries, moles, family mysteries, family secrets, family murders, jealous brothers, secret passages and the kitchen sink.

V is for Vengence is supposed to give us a look into the high-tech world of global shoplifting. Well, it doesn't. We learn a little, that one booster can pick up a nice load of merchandise, that it is competitive arena and rival gangs fight for territory. There are different levels of operation, from the actual lifters to people who remove tags and sort the loot...which includes everything from drug-store brand skin care items to baby formula, as well as clothing, others who transport the stuff, and warehouses where it is bundled onto pallets and shipped worldwide. And we learn some buzzwords too. It's just not that interesting.

None of it makes this book work. I hope Ms. Grafton is not running out of steam this close to the finish line. I hope we get more of Kinsey's personal life and love life. Where is Robert Dietz, anyway. Has he forgotten Kinsey completely. Heck, at this stage I'd even take that poor sap Jonah Robb back for Kinsey's sake. I'm pretty sure she has not had a romance for at least 3, maybe 4 letters of the alphabet.

By the way, do other readers get frustrated withe the books' setting in the pre-internet/pre-cell phone world? Poor Kinsey schlepps to the library to do research, instead of googling. She needs to use pay phones when she's out on a stakeout! I'll bet there are younger readers who can't imagine living in so primitive a world.

Anyway, let's wait for the next one and hope W does not stand for Wasting our Time.(less)

NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars

Apricot Jam: And Other Stories
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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We all have those inner albums of mental photographs taken at some moment of emotional impact, some event that knocks you out of your comfort zone and on your ear...Kennedy's assassination, the launching of the first Sputnik, 9/11. I remember where I...more We all have those inner albums of mental photographs taken at some moment of emotional impact, some event that knocks you out of your comfort zone and on your ear...Kennedy's assassination, the launching of the first Sputnik, 9/11. I remember where I was when I read the last words of Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" -- words so cold and so bleak, they are not just devoid of hope but a great black hole where all hope dies.

Apricot Jam is evocative of that power. Solzenhitsen lulls us with simple story telling until we find outselves standing with our toes at the edge of an abyss, looking into the dark, and trying to find a reason to lean backwards. The stories are not nearly as powerful as "A Day in the Life," where we survive just one day in the thousands that Ivan Shukof will survive. But all the short stories here point in the same direction. What do we learn from Ivan, that wily zek, who doesn't give up and doesn't compromise his humanity? What precept is to be discerned when ordinary souls don't succumb to despair and just keep struggling and slogging onward? Not a one. Zip, nada, nothing. The only moral here is: Struggle all you want, retain your noble soul. That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee. Deal with it.

These short stories don't have the unforgettable impact of "Day," the reader is not left sucker punched and on the canvas; but like Solzenitsyn's greatest books, they have that same powerful simplicity and beautifully wrought sense of loss and hopelessness -- but without any trace of pity or pathos. Apricot Jam gives us that sense of claustrophobia and futility, of swimming upstream, that must be the daily burden carried by all intelligent people who live under a repressive regime.

There is a dry humor at work in the stories...Solzhenitsyn always adds an ironic twist. In Apricot Jam, he uses a literary device he terms "binary" to reinforce the irony. People and events from the past show up to complicate the present. There is an interconnect among the stories and a sting in the tail. Readers of O'Henry will be familiar with the process.

When he went back to Russia in 1994 and did a victory lap around what used to be the USSR, Solzhenitsyn had to be laughing to himself. The champagne and brandy soaked receptions with glad-handing petty Moscow bureaucrats who were his former judge and jury, the back-slapping commissars in Irkutsk and Vladivostok who, a few years earlier, were running the Gulag, not the Trans Siberian Railroad, must have been amusing indeed. But these stories show us that he wasn't buying their dog and pony show. One can imagine a little hardness behind the eyes whenever the writer clinked glasses and toasted "Na Zdrovie" to one of his former captors.

One last word re translation: It's possible to read The Gulag Archipelago or the Cancer Ward in one translation and come away with completely different vignettes than would someone who read a different version. "One Day in the Life" seems to have the fewest major discrepencies. The quality of translation here seems to be good. Much of Solzenhitsyn's playfulness with words and syntax appears to be present.(less)

NyiNya rated a book 4 of 5 stars

After the Snow
by S.D. Crockett

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Our fifteen year old hero, Willo, lives in a dystopea that might be similar to the way most people lived during those dark years of European history. Scrabbling to survive, scraping a meager existence off of an unwilling land, with families forming t...more Our fifteen year old hero, Willo, lives in a dystopea that might be similar to the way most people lived during those dark years of European history. Scrabbling to survive, scraping a meager existence off of an unwilling land, with families forming their own little tribes united against all outsiders...and all outsiders posing a threat. Government is shadowy and threatening.

The story takes place in Wales, some time after a new ice age has decimated the population and turned cities into a horror show where survival of the fittest has devolved into survival of the most brutal. Religion has been reduced to totem worship (Willo wears a dog's skull to help him as a hunter), and goodness is pretty scarce on the ground. The harsh realities of life turn survivors into scavengers...upon the environment and one another.

Willo's family are "scragglers," who escaped from the city and its oppressive government and lawlessness to take their chances in a frozen and inhospitable wilderness. Apparently the oppressive government frowns on this and one day Willo comes home from tending his animal traps and find them gone. No explanation is offered and Willo doesn't seem all that curious. They could have been "disappeared" by the government, rounded up by those who trade in human flesh, who knows. Willo consults his totem...the dog in his head... and heads into the city where he hopes to find some alternative to the endless emptiness and loneliness of life in the wild.

Bad idea.

When civilization fell apart, it fell apart so completely that no vestiges were left. Even memories of how things were have been eradicated. No one is rebuilding, no one is combing the libraries for books on how to use solar power to warm things up, develop cold resistant crops, or remove an appendix. Humanity just scavenges whatever is handy for immediate needs, for food and shelter and clothing. We don't see many signs of the world that came before. There must be millions of vehicles rusting away on every street, but only the government makes use of them. Instead of developing alternate fuel sources, the citizenry just lug their bundles on their backs. Virtually none of our vast technology is available or of interest to the average survivor.

Compared to the ease with which books like the "Hunger Games" series allow us to suspend belief, After the Snow has several toe stubbing moments where we just shake our heads and say "No way." And the dialect spoken by Willo -- a kind of Dystopian Futuristic Welsh-Influenced English -- wears thin after a while. After all, translators of Anna Karenina didn't feel it necessary to make Vronsky and Anna sound like Boris and Natasha. Willo's colorful jargon is more annoying than illuminating, and a little would have been sufficient. After a while I was telling that dog in his head to sic him.

Still, the book deserves four stars. For young readers who may not be so analytical, it provides a very different experience from the usual end of the world as we knew it epic. It's challenging to read, somewhat thought-provoking, and provides an important glimmer of hope. Who wants kids thinking the future is hopeless? Let them believe we are not destroying it faster than we can fix it.

For what it's worth, Far North by Marcel Theroux is a much better book, his frozen dystopia is more realistic and interesting, his villians more believable, and his big, lumbering heroine -- whose cloddish appearance belies a very find mind -- is one of the best and most original characters in young adult fiction. Far North is classified YA, but has enough substance to appeal to adults.(less)

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NyiNya rated a book 1 of 5 stars Eater's Digest: 400 Delectable Readings About Food and Drink by Lorraine Bodger	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Whether you want a decent reference book or simply an entertaining book about food, culture and eating habits, this book doesn't cut it. It's chock full of stale tidbits culled from other sources. Open the book to any random page and you'll find somet...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:48pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 1 of 5 stars End of Days by Robert Gleason	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This mishmosh of a novel takes too long to get started, meanders around for way too long, and never goes any place. New age claptrap, a little rip off of Stephen King, a demented nun with a Ming the Unmerciful complex, a heroine whose hairbreadth esc...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:44pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
For most of us, Pepys diaries are a bit of a slog. Fascinating in part, slow going and endlesss in others. These excerpts give you all the flavor of life in the 17th Century, but none of that long wait between courses. I've always thought that one of...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:41pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars Ghost Wave: The Discovery of Cortes Bank and the Biggest Wave on Earth by Chris Dixon	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
If you spend any time sailing along the California coast, you may have heard about The Cortes Bank. It lies just past Catalina Island. Not a big patch of ocean, but one that boaters view with respect. It's where the giant waves live. Rogue waves are...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:39pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 2 of 5 stars The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin (Goodreads Author)	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Another entry in the "Buccaneers" genre, "The American Heiress" is something of a hybrid. Edith Wharton meets Harlequin Romance. Daisy Goodwin really, really tries to capture the flavor of "Custom of the Country" -- oh boy, does she try. You'll also...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:35pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 4 of 5 stars The Invention Of Lefse: A Christmas Story by Larry Woiwode	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Cold, barren landscape, an empty larder, and a cast of characters who aren't exactly warm and cuddly doesn't seem to be a recipe for a delightful holiday book, but The Invention of Lefse pulls it off. The setting is bleak. Any icy December in the cold...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:33pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nov 01, 2012 08:31pm
NyiNya rated a book 4 of 5 stars V is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone #22) by Sue Grafton read in October, 2012	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
After waiting for V for such a long time, perhaps I expected too much. V is for Vengence is mediocre at best. Still, a mediocre Kinsey Milhone book is not that bad, so if you are a died in the wool fan, you won't miss it no matter what the reviews sa...more
Nov 01, 2012 08:06pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 5 of 5 stars Apricot Jam: And Other Stories by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
We all have those inner albums of mental photographs taken at some moment of emotional impact, some event that knocks you out of your comfort zone and on your ear...Kennedy's assassination, the launching of the first Sputnik, 9/11. I remember where I...more
Aug 27, 2012 02:34pm · see review
NyiNya rated a book 4 of 5 stars After the Snow by S.D. Crockett	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Our fifteen year old hero, Willo, lives in a dystopea that might be similar to the way most people lived during those dark years of European history. Scrabbling to survive, scraping a meager existence off of an unwilling land, with families forming t...more
Aug 27, 2012 02:25pm · see review

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