101 Books to Read Before You Die discussion
What are you reading?
Dark Places by Guillian FlynnA divorcee and her two young daughters are brutally murdered in the middle of a winter night on a small farm in the Midwest. Seven year old Libby, the youngest child, survives by hiding on the property. Fifteen year old Ben, the oldest child, is convicted of the murder, in part on the testimony of Libby. Twenty-four years later, a random invitation to be a paid guest at a true crime fan club, prompts Libby to revisit her memories and the people who would have been near the family at that time. The story unfolds in alternating chapters, Libby’s actions in the present and Ben’s and the mother’s actions on the day of the slaughter. Maybe it was the disturbing subject of the novel or the unvarying bitterness of all the characters, but I found myself at an arm’s length from this book through out my reading. Using three point of views in rapid alternations added to my lack of connection to any individual or narrative line. Although the author hinted at a range of emotions, especially in the mother, a sense of despairing bitterness overwhelmed and smothered any more subtle feelings. Frequently I found myself doubting the plausibility of certain events, particularly in the more contemporary sections.
Bridge To Terabithia by Katherine PatersonI usually do not enjoy children’s books. I read this as part of a challenge which included a book from the WBN list outside of my comfort zone. Although this did not convert me into a fan of kiddy lit, I was able to recognize the merits of this book. It handled some difficult topics in a sensitive manner. Had I read it as a 10 year old, its intended audience, I would have probably loved it.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian BarnesWow! I can’t recall the last time a book took my breath away. I never expected such power from such a slim volume. The writing is gorgeous without being flowery. The emotional depth is incredible while being understated. The story leaves the reader with so much for rumination.
Watership Down by Richard AdamsBecause I have consistently encountered this title on lists of required high school reading or best books recommended alongside adult titles, I assumed I would be reading an adult novel. But, these adventures of anthropomorphic rabbits in search of a new home, was written for and seems intended for children. I could see this as a children’s classic next to titles such as “Charlotte’s Web” and “Jungle Book”.
Israelis and Palestinians by Bernard Wasserstein
I, too, have seen that title on many different lists ( I have it on my TBR shelf too) good to hear your perspective Irene!
Finished the final book in the Giver series
3 stars!We're reunited with some of our favorite characters from this series, and I'm relieved to say that we finally get this story resolved.
Here is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Visionist by Rachel UrquhartThis novel is set in a unique setting. Charity, an adolescent girl, has spent her entire life in a New England Shaker community. With little knowledge of the world beyond that utopian compound, she is developing into the ideal Shaker. Polly arrives at that Shaker community with her baby brother, fleeing a life time of brutal abuse and molestation at the hands of her alcoholic father, abuse that is escalating into the real threat of murder. Being Charity’s first peer, they become close friends and offer Charity her first experience of doubt. Polly is immediately identified as a “visionist” by the ecstatic religious group, but she is hiding secrets she is terrified of divulging. Simon is the fire inspector who investigates the fire that consumed Polly’s farm house, killing her father and allowing the family to escape the violence. He also hides secrets and lives in fear of a tormentor. These are the voices that tell this story. The characters and plot are sufficiently complex to hold interest, but the author does not appear to trust either her tale or her reader. She conveys her story with a rather heavy hand, spoon feeding the reader every necessary nuance and only what is necessary. We are left to discover nothing on our own, to savor any moment of revelation or celebrate an unexpected insight. I never felt I knew these characters; they were simply described to me, never really introduced. There were many interesting themes that were only superficially explored.
This Boy’s Life by Tobias WolffHonest, engaging memoir of the troubled adolescent years of this well regarded author.
Finished
last night!! What a heartbreaking look at the world of the intellectually-challenged... 4 StarsMy review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So I just finished reading The Wasp Factory. I found it well-written, but dark and profoundly disturbing in a way that did not sit well with me.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm GladwellThe information was well organized, clearly presented and thought provoking.
The Secret History by Donna TarttRichard, the narrator of this book, shares with the reader the events of his junior year of college, events which both defined and revealed the characters of his close circle of friends. This is a masterfully rendered novel. An intimacy was created with me, the reader that immediately engaged me in the story. The details are carefully chosen to create vivid characters that shift incrementally. The longing, the stress, the ambition, the loss, every movement in tone is viscerally experienced by the reader. Tartt gave us characters that I should have despised, but, despite myself, grew to care for.
Finished
4 StarsUrsula Todd is reborn time and time again. She gets to relive her life until she gets it right. A concept that most of us have only thought about...
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthyThis is a “coming of age” novel for the lone cowboy audience. The spare writing evoked the lonely, barren landscape. The emotional understatement captured the reserve and solitary nature of the characters. Although the author captured characters and setting quite well, the sparse style kept me at a distance. This was a world with which I had no connection as I began the book, and I never found a foot hold by which to climb into the story.
Finished
3 Stars!!Lovely little book, filled with heartbreak and humor. I listened to this one and loved the narrator's Irish accent and the antics of the characters!
Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Life After Life by Kate AtkinsonThis novel reminded me of the felt board manipulatives used to teach phonics and fractions when I was a child. Move the wedge from here to over there and the equation changes; add an “e” at the end of the word and the sound is altered. Ursula is born and born again and again outside of London in 1910. From a still birth on her first attempt, through childhood accidents, the 1918 influenza epidemic and so on, Ursula dies from one cause after another, only to be born again to the same life, with one small detail altered to allow her to bi-pass that particular situation in this subsequent life. I found the story tedious, more like a parlor game of “how will Ursula die” than a compelling narrative. Her life never captured my interest. The movable elements had the insubstantial feel of those pieces of felt that could so easily be shifted to create a new word or fraction in my elementary classroom.
Sacre Bleu by Christopher MooreThis story of a shape-shifting, sex-obsessed muse and her demonic pervert partner who drew their life energy from the harvesting and peddling of a particular blue pigment which altered time for the artist using it was, in my humble opinion, ludicrous. The humor struck me as adolescent, not in the least funny.
Traveling Mercies by Anne LamottThis is a combination of spiritual memoir and spiritual essays. The book opens with the author’s account of her spiritual journey from atheist to religious curiosity to gnawing spiritual yearning to liberal Christian faith. As she makes this journey, she moves through drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, bulimia and desperation until she finds a home in a loving community of faith. The remaining three quarters of the book is given to short essays that mine ordinary experiences for spiritual insights. Her humor prevents this from slipping into sugary piety or self-pity. Although the spiritual lessons she shares are far from novel, her ability to relay them embues them with a freshness that invites the reader to see time-tried wisdom with new eyes.
Finished
3 Stars.A mother comes to terms with her daughter jumping to her death from the school roof, only that she gets a strange text saying that she didn't actually jump...
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig LarssonAlthough I enjoy the characters in this series and find the unraveling of the conspiracy thread interesting, I can find that thread a bit hard to follow at times and the characters improbable. The rapid jumping between scenes was confusing. Several times, the repetition of details became tiresome.
Mod
Finished
3 stars!WWII- Canada- U-Boats- A double suicide- A German Student- Toboggan Making-- all the makings for a great audiobook, filled with some unexpected twists make for an entertaining listen.
my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Burial Rites by Hannah KentAgnes, a 34 year old housemaid, is convicted, along with two accomplices, of murdering her employer and his house guest, then burning the farm to the ground. As she awaits execution, she is sent to live on the farm of an insignificant government servant. Initially greeted with loathing and fear, her broken presence and the gradual unfolding of her story shifts their attitude toward her. This is a beautiful narrative of the impact people have on each other. Although the reader was treated to powerful moments, it felt somehow incomplete. We see last minute gestures of compassion, moments of tenderness, but there are gaps in the moments leading to them and the lingering effects are never hinted at. There was also something a bit too predictable, too made-for-the-Hallmark-network about the universal transformation.
The Space Between Us by Thrity UmrigarSera, a middle-class Parsi woman, and Bhima, her long-time house servant, share an intimacy forged over years of household drudgery and the disappointments of marriage, the anxieties of motherhood, the fears and hopes of being a woman in India. Despite what commonalities might connect these women, a greater chasm divides their lives; the illiterate, slum-dwelling Bhima is not permitted to drink from a mug in Sera’s house or sit on any of the furniture, only the floor. As tragedy once again shatters Bhima’s fragile hopes and Sera is forced to look at the destructive potential which she and the members of her family hold over Bhima and the rest of the under class, the true depth of that chasm is made starkly obvious.
Finished
3 stars!Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor, 1960's Hollywood movie making, a ruined actress, and a crack of Italian coast... I wanted to love this one more than I actually did.
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's NestI'm currently working on my fifth or sixth re-read of the book. Originally, I had read the Millennium trilogy just before the fervor had taken up here in the states. My first reading of it, I was initially overloaded by the sheer amount of characters and what I took to be improbable events and characters. Despite that, it concludes in a way that was quite satisfying to me. Too bad there hasn't been, and will never be a true sequel to the trilogy due to Larsson's most untimely passing... The ending alludes to what seems to be at least another two or three books he had planned out.
Finished
4 Stars!!1930s East Texas, high racial tensions and a serial killer on the loose... Quick, fast paced mystery, I would recommend!
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Sunset And Sawdust by Joe R. LandsdaleSet in rural east Texas during the Depression, the book opens with Sunset murdering her abusive husband with the gun she takes from his holster during one of his beatings, at the same time a tornado is slamming into their house. Within the week, this misogynistic community has appointed Sunset the constable to fulfill her husband’s term, has hired a newly arrived drifter to serve as an additional deputy to ensure her success when locals need jobs and the mother-in-law who is grieving for her only child has become Sunset’s biggest supporter. Needless to say, I did not find this particularly realistic. This felt as if it were intended for a made-for-television movie with its abundance of dialogue, easily depicted action, a feel good ending and a plot that works best if one is zoning out. I would have preferred it had the author used several hundred fewer genital inspired similes, had occasionally resisted the temptation to use a vulgar term to describe some action or object. This went beyond conveying the tough atmosphere of the place; it was potty-mouth to no purpose.
Finished
4 Well deserved Stars!!1960's North Carolina- Social worker Jane meets 15 year old Ivy Hart and her family who live in a shack on a big Tobacco farm. Eugenic program ran rampant- where the government sterilized young women and men to curb reproduction by those that were thought of as "feeble-minded"
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth SlossThe narrator of this novel is recording the story of her life for her daughter. The arc of the story runs from high school in Pasadena in 1958 to young motherhood in New York in the mid 1970s. The theme that seems to connect the characters is the deleterious impact of dead dreams and shallow lives on the financially comfortable women of that era. This seems to want to explore the relationships between women. But, rather than the portrait of mutually supportive friendship, we are given mother-daughter, friend-friend connections that isolate. There is several intense moments, some raw passages of self-awareness. But, there are also pieces where the dots did not feel connected, situations with explosive potential that seem to disappear too easily, expressions of tremendous rage, frustration, self-destruction that are not given adequate build up.
The Returned by Jason MottAll over the globe, people who have been dead for five or so decades are appearing. The “Returned” arrive at the age of the time of their death, with no memory of what they experienced in those years since their death. Yet, they express no confusion or disorientation at the changes in the world or in the people still alive. The initial joy of reunion and desire to help these newly returned shifts into fear, hatred and violence toward these strangers. The idea behind this novel had potential which was never realized. The fantastic plot required vibrant characters to make it credible. But these characters were not consistent; they felt more like stage props which moved and acted at the service of the story line.
I just finished
4 Stars!!!I have to admit-- I was hesitant about reading this series, as I loved the Hunger Games, and at first I thought this was just another dystopian series... But, I couldn't be more wrong and I'm so glad I finally read it! Now onto the next one...
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Mod
Yes, I think we fit into a somewhat large group with those thoughts! Glad that I read it! Anxiously awaiting the second book!
Finished
3 Stars!I listened to this one on audiobook-- Each chapter was narrated by different characters and jumped back and forth in different times. 3 brothers growing up on a farm in upstate New York. One morning, one of them is dead, and the other two are left as primary suspects...
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks to Alana's suggestion, I'm reading a variety of novels at the moment. Eragon, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. So far, they're all spectacular reads!
Finished
4 Stars!!Oh, another great Jojo Moyes' book! She has a gift for creating real characters and situations where you fall in so hard that you HAVE to keep reading to find out what happens!
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Sacred Hunger by Barry UnsworthThis powerfully disturbing story of greed and vengeance, of misplaced ambition and moral blindness, of a mid-18th century shipping family involved in the slave trade and the crew and slaves of that ship is well written, rich in details and unsettling in theme.
Finished
-- 3 stars!Fell in the middle with this one, not sure exactly what I just read...
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Mod
Yes, but my favorite of hers still has been
:) Can't wait for you to try her out!!
Mod
What are you thinking of "Quiet?" I found it fascinating and validating, though I questioned some of it.
Alana wrote: "Josh wrote: "Thanks to Alana's suggestion, I'm reading a variety of novels at the moment. Eragon, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and..."I do find it quite intriguing. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it's certainly full of interesting anecdotes thus far. I'll certainly let you know more the further in I get.
Finished
- - 3 solid Stars!!!Enjoyed this, at times it dragged a little bit for me... If you're into fantasy and trilogies, this is for you :)
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Finished!!
-- 4.5 Stars!I really loved this one!: 1911- Coney Island, carnivals of the weird and mysterious, the Triangle Factory Fire, and two broken souls destined to be together...
My Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Finished
-- 3 Stars!Two sisters- complete opposites, find themselves pushed together on a journey to uncover what actually happened to their mother... Quirky, whimsical, fun.
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
1Q84 by Haruki MurakamiA fitness instructor who moonlights as an assassin, a math teacher who ghost writes on the side, a secretive religious cult, an alternate universe filled with magical realism…. This is a difficult book to summarize. Despite the fact that I am not a fan of magical realism, that I find it nearly impossible to turn off my questioning rational mind to accept the alternative reality, I found this book surprisingly enjoyable, if not totally satisfying.
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The 30 year old protagonist of this novel appears to be living a fairly normal life in its opening pages. Then, inexplicably, his wife walks out of his life and a number of rather odd people walk in. The action meanders through dreamscapes and strange interactions. I do not enjoy magical realism; I simply do not understand it. I could not make sense of this book, its lengthy tangential subplots, its fantastical elements.
The Time of Our Lives by Tom Brokaw
In fewer than 275 pages, this famous journalist tries to solve the problems facing the U.S. A., from education reform to bipartisan rancor, from care of veterans to redefining the role of grandparents. The reader is also provided with abundant details about his home design, his daughter’s lives and his parents’ history. This book was repetitive, shallow and amateurish.
101 Books to Read Before You Die
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I love the way Garrison Keillor tells a story. But, I can not tap into the humor when I read it on the page. I read this one as part of a challenge around the list of books for WBN.