Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 21
September 17, 2014
Review: The Alchemist
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was in the mood for another meaning-of-life book, so did some searching and The Alchemist came up on several lists. I saw reviews on Goodreads from people who found it life-changing and from people who hated it. I guess I’m in the middle. It wasn’t horrible, but I didn’t really learn anything, either.
The constant references to “personal legend” and “treasure” came to seem like prayer beads Coelho was clicking off in my mind, as if sayin...
September 9, 2014
Review: The Reader
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is an interesting story about the generation of Germans who came along immediately after World War 2 and how they dealt with the sins of their parents and the guilt of their nation. The Nazi crimes are personalized in the character of Hannah, a woman in her late 20s or early 30s when she rescues 15-year-old narrator Michael from his vomit on the sidewalk.
Michael and Hannah become lovers, and he becomes obsessed with her. Then she di...
August 30, 2014
Review: Gabriel’s Story
Gabriel’s Story by David Anthony Durham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Despite a rather slow start and Gabriel being a pretty unlikable character in the beginning, this ended up being a coming-of-age Western novel that I really liked.
It begins with Gabriel, his brother Ben, and their mother traveling to the Kansas plains to meet up with the boys’ new step-father. Gabriel resents his mother remarrying and the move west. When his father was alive, Gabriel believed he was on track to become a rare thi...
August 5, 2014
Review: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss
Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss by Peter Criss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Maybe sometimes it’s better to not learn too much about your heroes. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been a KISS fan since 1976, when I was 10 years old. Granted, I didn’t know what most of the songs were actually about, but I liked the way they sounded. Of course, I’ve known for decades that Peter and Ace were kicked out of the band because of drug abuse. But I had no idea about so much of what Peter reveals in h...
July 13, 2014
Review: Siddhartha
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading The Life of Pi I wanted another book with a spiritual theme but a non-traditional philosophy. Well, non-traditional by Western standards. Siddhartha had been needling me for a while, but I thought I’d already read it back in my college days. I was wrong. Not sure what I read back then, but it wasn’t this.
For most of this book I didn’t find the moving story or inspirational prose I was looking for. There was too much narrator t...
July 3, 2014
Review: Black Sun Rising
Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I give up. It’s taken me three months to get 53 percent through the e-book. I’d kinda like to know how it ends, but I just don’t care enough to keep slogging through. The setting was pretty interesting at first, but now it seems clunky. I liked the warrior priest when he was introduced, but now I’m sick of his whining. The quest … meh. It’s time to move on to something I actually want to pick up and read.
June 12, 2014
Review: Life of Pi
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It’s billed as a book to make you believe in God. That sounded intriguing, and I enjoyed the film adaptation, so I decided to give it a try. I think this is one that is going to have to sit on my mind for a while before I really make a final determination about it, though.
I liked it, although it started off very slow and seemed to lack any kind of direction. Pi was always interesting, though. His quest for knowledge of God kept me going there...
May 25, 2014
What a week!
On Tuesday my first grandchild was born. On Thursday I held a departing senior while we cried on each other. On Friday I printed a contract for a three-book deal with a top small press publisher. Today I watched a man I’d just met cry as he read a speech at his daughter’s wedding, where I officiated.
How was your week?
I’m still processing some of what happened this week. Some of it, I think, may be transformative and will need to be digested and maybe posted on its own later. For now I’ll just...
May 8, 2014
The Smiling Mexican Girl
I started a long blog post about one of my students and her father who came to Oklahoma from Mexico and the only English word he knew was “wetback.” He heard that word a lot at first, but overcame the odds and now owns his own business in Oklahoma City. But the more I wrote, the more it felt like I’d already written that story here. Just to finish a summary I already started there, the girl explained that the reason she always smiles is because of an early memory of a Christmas when she knew...
May 5, 2014
Review: Watership Down
Watership Down by Richard Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Watership Down is one of those books that helped shape my entire worldview. It came to me, like so many of my favorites, during the horrible years we call junior high, when I would escape into books and was lucky enough to be in an advanced reading class taught by Virginia Atchinson, the librarian at Longfellow Junior High in Enid, Okla. Watership Down, Johnathan Livingston Seagull, and The Book of Three proved to be some of the most im...
