Karin's pbt 2016 Reading Challenges aside from monthly tags

[Karin]

Shelfagories:

13. Place you want to visit Queen Lucia by EF Benson finished January 25, 2015

[Karin]

Okay, I realize that I don't have all of this on GR, so here goes:

The categories are:
1. A book with more than 750 pages Winter
2. A classic romance Pride and Prejudice
3. A book that became a movie or tv show Room
4. A book published this year Probability for Kids
5. A book written by someone under 30 Mariana
6. A book based entirely on its cover A Sound Among the Trees
7. A mystery or thriller An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
8. A book of short stories
9. A nonfiction book Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
10. A popular author's first book Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
11. A book that won the Pulitzer Prize after the year 2000 All the Light We Cannot See
12. A book more than 100 years old
13. A book set somewhere you want to visit Queen Lucia
14. A book set in the future Into the Shadows
15. A book with magic Fairest
16. A book you own, but have never read Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church
17. A book that takes place in your hometown House Calls by Float Plane: Stories of a West Coast Doctor
18. A book written by an author with your initials Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan ★★★
19. A play Eurydice
20. A collection of short stories Faulty Predictions
21. A microhistory
22. A translated book The Red and the Black
23. A book published by an indie press Brown Bottle
24. A book about an indigenous culture Twelve Bar Blues
25. A graphic novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (has 50 photographs tied into the book)
26. A book published the year you were born
27. A book set during Christmas or other winter holiday A Prayer for Owen Meany
28. A book with non human characters Paw and Order
29. A book that scares you. Parable of the Sower

[Karin]

Fairest by Marissa Meyer
★★★

In this prequel to the Cinder series we follow Levana from the age of fifteen for a number of years, learning her backstory. Some of it we know from other books, but in case you are new to the Cinder series, there’s not really much I can tell you without spoiling those books, especially the first one. Suffice to say that it starts with the death of her parents and her older sister’s ascent to the throne of Luna.
Although I took out both the book and the audiobook from the library, I ended up listening to the entire thing. The audiobook performer does a great job of capturing Levana, but there is nothing likable about this twisted woman (that is not really a spoiler, since the is the chief antagonist throughout the Cinder series), despite the feelings and trepidations she may have. I liked this, but didn’t love it. It’s not required reading for the series, and I strongly recommend that you wait and read it after you read Cinder and Scarlet at the very least. I’m glad I read it after I read Winter, but given that there is a preview of Winter in it, you can read it either before or after; either way you’re going to know at least something about the last book you read.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
★★★

Jacob finds his grandfather dead in the woods, clearly attacked by some sort of beast. Jacob sees a monster, but naturally that couldn’t be, and since he was told tall tales by his grandfather all of his life, he is sent for therapy to recover from his shock. But after finding something very interesting left for him by his grandfather, he is soon begging to go to Wales to meet someone who has been writing his grandfather. He goes, along with his dad, and this is where things really begin to become peculiar. Jacob finds the remains of the orphanage his grandfather stayed in during part of WW II, and in it, a chest of some very odd old photos. The plot thickens, mysteries no sooner seem to be answered than they become all the more mysterious again. Jacob might be contemporary, but a good deal of this book is set in 1940 as well.

I enjoyed the characters, particularly Jacob, and found it easy to relate to him. I loved the photos, but I have always enjoyed photography, and particularly like to view old black and white photos in art museums. Riggs wrote the story after seeing photos, and they tie in beautifully. The writing is fine. So why just a like and not four or five stars? Without giving out any spoilers, I’ll put it in one word—paranormal. I am not keen on paranormal books as a rule, although I used to read more. There were a few other things, but again, no spoilers. I liked the characters enough that I am considering reading the next book in the series.

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
★★

Like so many others, I greatly enjoyed the Narnia series when I was growing up. I read it for fun and had no idea that it was a Christian allegory until I was an adult. While my daughters enjoyed them (one has read them at least four times) they disappointed me somewhat as an adult. However, I have tried a few times to read other books by Lewis, but this is the first one I’ve made it all the way through. To be honest, what kept me going is that this will be part of a book discussion with some old reading friends. I read a chapter per day as if it were a school assignment.

The two stars are not because Lewis was unable to write or articulate his thoughts, because he certainly did. However, as a memoir of his journey to atheism and then to Christianity, a subject of keen interest to me, it ended up having little appeal. It was more of his educational and intellectual journey through his youth, punctuated by descriptions of life away at different schools, until he became a Christian. Of course, it’s another example of a brilliant intellectual coming around from atheism to Christianity, something so many feel is impossible, but there was little to tug at my heartstrings or to empathize or sympathize as much with him as I would have liked to given so many of his circumstances. Perhaps it’s because he write it when he was will into his fifties and was so far removed, but I think perhaps it may have been because he was not ever given to having many friends when he was growing up, nor did he really want them most of the time, and those he did make were usually as intellectual as he was.

That said, Lewis had some interesting insights at times, but what I found irksome was that girls and women tend to only appear as the odd relative hosting some sort of gathering (his mother died when he was very young) almost another species, or were referred to in light of erotic passion not being a substitute for joy, or how lack of girls in the area led to increased pederasty in public school and how it affected or was affected by the social hierarchy (that’s the term he employed for that) or other things equally bereft of any recognition of women as humans with a capacity for intelligence.


Probability for Kids by Scott A. Chamberlin
★★

When I saw math, I was excited; math is a big deal in our house, and my eldest is now a math major in her junior year of college. We did plenty of math, and I fit our curriculum to each of our children’s needs. When I saw Prufrock Press, I was even more excited. After all, this is the press that gave us Philosophy for Kids one of our favourite books back when we homeschooled. But when I saw those dismal words “Aligns with Common Core Standards,” and then, inside, that Chamberlin is a Mathematical Educator, my heart sank. Nevertheless, I read every single page, hoping to find anything good, wonderful and commendable, and I did; it brought this rating up an entire star from what I give the entire mathematics philosophy of the Common Core, to two stars.

The Pros – the activities in this book are well described, have excellent leading questions for teachers (whether in brick and mortar schools or at home) to help guide students in creative problem solving, and cover the six main areas of probability.

The Cons
First, these assignments are based on activities that have worked for gifted and talented students and are designed for students with strong math skills. I can see this working for gifted and talented students who enjoy math and for other strong math students who enjoy being creative. However, and this is a big however that virtually every mathematical educator I have met with one main exception has agreed with, there is no such thing as any sort of math learning method that will work for all math students, and this is certainly no exception to the rule.

Second, at no time, before during or after are students permitted to be taught algorithms. For those of you who have spent a good deal of time away from school, algorithms (an algorithm is a procedure or formula for solving a problem) are what mathematicians, engineers and people who actually use math in the real world use. Why? Because they work and because they save a great deal of time. While having students explore ways to figure out how to solve problems first can help them better understand what they are doing, this book has been designed to be used in three different age categories, including high school, so when are they supposed to learn proven, time saving algorithms?

Third, I think there is so much emphasis on always being creative, that the word is going to lose its meaning. I am a big fan of creativity; my math loving eldest writes stories and draws, my other two aspire to be musicians and have various creative abilities. But there is no way that all three of them approach math with creativity, despite a strong foundation doing that with them when they were younger. The fact is, it didn’t always work, and if my three children weren’t able to learn all their math exactly the same way, what about classrooms of children?

However, if this book were used for the stellar activities and then students actually got to learn the alogrithms at some point, then I think this could be used effectively in some teaching situations.

Mariana by Monica Dickens
★★★

Mary Shannon has gone away to brood while her husband is at war in WW II. During a storm she hears on the radio that her husband's ship has gone down; frantically, she tries to telephone to get news, but her line is down. During the long night, she remembers her life from about age 8, and it is part coming of age and part becoming her own person. This is the second novel by Monica Dickens, the great- granddaughter of Charles Dickens, and she said that it was semi-autobiographical.


Part of this book gripped me more than others. I did root for Mary, even if she was often self-centered; I think that is a natural part of most children's development, and if she didn't get out of it as early as many of us think she should have, just look around at how many self-centred teens and early twenties people there are today.


As far as women authors went, Monica Dickens was only outsold at that time by Daphne du Maurier, however, her work hasn't remained as popular over time. I haven't read du Maurier for years, so can't give a good comparison as to why, but I do think it's a shame she's so little known now. I didn't love this book, although I suspect that when I was younger I'd have liked it more.


Faulty Predictions by Karin Lin-Greenberg
★★.5

This is a group of short stories set in the US, and the title of the book is also the title of one of the stories. And, to be fair to this review, it’s hard to win high points from me in a collection of short stories since in fiction I am first and foremost a novel reader. If I were to rate the stories individually, the stories themselves would get between 1 and 5 stars, but for the overall book 2 ½ stars. There were more 1 and 2 star stories than 4 and 5.

On part of the jacket is written, “Lin-Greenberg provides insight into the human condition across a varied cross section of geography, age, and culture.” I’d say yes, but biased. At times the insights were quite excellent, particularly when dealing with things I suspect are closer to Lin-Greenberg’s own experiences, but one of the reasons I’ve given this two stars through all of it there is a clear bias toward liberals tending to be kinder and more giving and conservatives selfish and bigoted. Perhaps because I don’t ascribe to any set political group and therefore have a different bias, I’ve seen all four of those traits across the board, although not necessarily in all people. I suspect Lin-Greenberg has as well, but these are the characters she has chosen to write.

If you are a fan of literary short fiction, you may well like this book more than I did. To be honest, I chose it for a reading challenge that included reading a book by an author who shares my first name. Since I am neither a fan of thrillers (Karin Slaughter, who may be an excellent writer, but that’s not my cup of tea) nor romance novels (I found more than one of those) and Lin-Greenberg is the first I found where I thought I might find a closer match.

[Karin]

Agenda 21: Into the Shadows by Harriet Parke and Glenn Beck
★★★.5 rounded up to 4
Emmaline and David made it out of the oppressive compound at the end of the first book, having rescued Emmaline’s baby, Elsa and a young boy named Micah. On the lam, hungry, they need to find a way to survive as they run from the authorities. David’s parents, John and Joan, manage to escape early in this book and even though they don’t know where David and Emmaline went, they have a good idea, so deliberately try to leave clues to distract those in pursuit of them. Steven is the Earth Protector in charge of the manhunt, nasty and angry for being forced out to do this one more time since he’s become used to his now easy life.
This sequel was almost as good as the first one was, and I suspect that part of the problem for me was that it’s been too long since I’d read it so had forgotten a few people and events. As with all dystopian novels, the situation created is on the extreme side, but it’s not as unbelievable of a scenario as are some fictional dystopias. I hope there is another book, because I really would like to see what happens next.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson started ☊ finished in print
★★★★.5

Major Pettigrew, sixty-eight and a widower, has just learned that his younger brother has died of a heart attack when Mrs. Ali, a Pakistani widow and shop owner, rings the doorbell because he has forgotten to leave the newspaper money for the paper boy. When he becomes rather faint, she holds him up, comes in to make him some tea and thus begins a friendship between the two as they find they have common interests, such as literature. His relationship to his sister-in-law is somewhat strained, and questions arise as to the intentions of his late brother over an antique rifle that was supposed to be given to Major Pettigrew. But over all of this, the developing friendship, and the possibility that it just might end up being more, envelopes the loneliness of Pettigrew

What makes this story a 4.5 rounded up to a 5 is the writing, the pacing, the endearing qualities of Major Pettigrew and the fact that the secondary characters are developed, albeit interpreted through the Major’s eyes. At once we can see what he thinks of his son but also get a glimpse of how is son probably thinks even if, naturally, we can’t really know any more than we can really know what anyone else thinks. Simonson, who hails from England, captures the area and the attitudes of people in towns such as Pettigrew’s, well.

Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn
★★★.5

Chet and Bernie head to Washington, DC because Bernie is interested in seeing his girlfriend, Suzie Sanchez. Chet doesn’t mind, he likes Suzie and besides, she keeps snacks for him in her car. However, Chet soon finds out that all is not well when they get there. One of Suzie’s sources is murdered and this strange bird with no eyes that no one else notices keeps coming by. When he’s not distracted by thought of food, the scents of members of the nation within a nation (aka dogs) and other doggie things, Chet is tuned into what the humans around him are saying and doing, even if he doesn’t always quite understand what they mean.

I read this because my teen son chose it for me for a holiday gift. To be honest, I expected absolutely nothing from this book, since it’s not something I would normally pick up. However, it did give me some laughs. The story is nothing brilliant, but Quinn does a nice job of writing from the POV of a dog, and if not totally believable, it was doggie enough to be quite fun. I may add this series to my roster of light, funny books to read when I want to give my brain a rest.

Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson
★★★.5

Emmaline (Lucia) Lucas is the undisputed queen of Riseholme during the roaring 20’s, and everyone knows it. She and her husband, Peppino, are close, and her next closest friend and ally is Georgie; while some think they flirt, that couldn’t be further from the truth, but he is definitely her go-to friend and confidante. As the neighbourhood becomes wrapped up in an Indian guru after Lucia snags him away from Mrs. Quantock, Georgie’s tall, strapping sisters bicycle in for a month’s stay after sending their dog and things by train, turning poor Georgie into a mess with their dog, whom he is certain is vicious and their rambunctious ways. Just at about the same time, his friend, the opera singer Olga Barcely, married to a different Georgie, but who hasn’t changed her name, comes to town, and then such a commotion as people race to be the first to see her and have her over. When Olga unwittingly offends Lucia, things go far from well, and poor Georgie is caught in the middle, and in the meantime romances begin to blossom among some of the local singles.
This is a delightful novel about the goings on of a small English community and the splash a newcomer makes. Light, fun, humourous with some glimpses into human nature and a wonderfully surprising amount of grace and compassion from someone you might not expect it from (but which of the characters I won’t say). I hadn’t even heard of this series until one of my Shelfari friends said she was rereading it and that I really must try it. I am planning to read the rest of the Lucia novels, but no more than one per month so I can savour and enjoy them without getting tired of them. This wasn’t so stellar I’d give it five stars, and it lost another half star because of a few little things, such as the odd time Georgie and Lucia talk in baby talk (perhaps this was done more among friends in the 1920s, but since that was before my parents’ time, I have no idea.)

Winter by Marissa Meyer
★★★.5

Winter is still slowly going mad from not using her glamour, Scarlet imprisoned as a pet, Cinder, Cress, Kai, Wolf, Thorne and Iko on the ship they escaped in when Winter opens. But Levana is still plotting, and after glimpsing just how loved Winter is, devises a plan to take care of Winter once and for all. As we all know will eventually happen, they all end up on Luna, endeavouring to overthrow Levana and end her nefarious reign to save Lunars and Earthens alike.

This is the longest of the three books, and while the writing level remains consistent, it is not only over twice the length of Cinder, it is more than 260 pages longer in hardback than the next longest book, Cress. I really didn’t think everything in that extra length (in various parts of the book) was necessary for a great end to this tale, and in between times of really enjoying this story again, I got bored or distracted, which is why it’s 3.5 stars, not 4.

[Karin]

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
★★★
NB: not only does one of the nine chapters focus solely on one Christmas, events from that Christmas are pivotal to the plot and storyline. Plus, there is quite a bit about 2 Thanksgivings and also about New Years Eves.

This novel of sorrow and humour, isn't just the story of Owen Meany, but also of his best friend, John Wheelwright who narrates it. The book starts when they are eleven and in the first chapter Owen accidentally kills John's mother, although they are able to remain friends. It then covers many parts of the next 35 or so years in John's life.

Owen is unique. He is tiny, has a highly unusual voice and is extremely bright. He also, for much of the book, evidently knows the date of his death and what he's doing (this is not a spoiler). He has a driving faith that there is a Christian God, but he's neither pious nor zealous for the religious life. Much of this novel covers the events surrounding this vision of Owen's, but also how he and John both navigate the trials of youth and education, the pitfalls and joys of love, and how Owen helps John find out who he is and what he's good at. It is also, regretfully, rather political in the later parts, and I was not interested in hearing about Ronald Reagan and other issues of the time when this novel was being written.

The writing is strong, and Irving does an excellent job of filling out his characters. I liked this somewhat better than the only other book of his I've read, The World According to Garp, but I certainly didn't love it.

[Karin]

A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner ★★★

Susannah Page was a young woman during the civil war, her great granddaughter, Adelaide is ninety in the twenty-first century, and Marielle is her new granddaughter-in-law who has just married her grandson-in-law Carson Bishop four years after he became a widower. Marielle moves into the family home Susannah inherited and soon becomes swept up in Adelaide’s superstitions regarding the house and the superstitions of one of Adelaide’s friends that Susannah’s ghost haunts the house because apparently Susannah was a civil war spy. As Marielle settles into her new marriage and her role as mother to Carson’s two children, she works on sorting out the past tragedies and trial of the women of Holly Oak.

The characters are likable, the writing is fine, and I liked it, but it’s not the sort of novel I find particularly gripping now. It is labelled Christian fiction, but there really wasn’t much Christian about it other than that a few of the characters appeared to have faith a few times.

[Karin]

Twelve Bar Blues by Patrick Neate ★★★★

Although at first I thought this was going to be a five star book and it won the Whitbread Fiction Prize, it ended up being a four star read for me, but was still very good.

This story is structured like a 12 bar blues (twice) with a prelude and a coda. Although most of it is set in the early and late in twentieth century, some of it is much, much earlier. It's a true blues story; poignantly tragic with some beauty interspersed here and there, and a story involving fate, tragedy and sorrow. It is set in Africa, New Orleans with smatterings of things in England, New York and Chicago. It interweaves the history of the origins of jazz in much of the part of the story about Fortis (aka Lick) and even includes some fictional scenes with some real jazz legends. It involves witch doctors, chieftains, prostitutes, singers, pimps, and of course Lick with his cornet. But his nickname doesn’t necessarily arise from where you think it might.

Given that this was Patrick Neate's debut novel, I think it’s possible that he has written better novels following it. Whether or not I read them won’t depend on whether or not he can write; he certainly can. Rather, it will depend upon whether or not they are all as tragic as this one.

Recommended.

[Karin]

Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl ★

Sarah Ruhl has reimagined the myth of Orpheus though the eyes of Eurydice. You may wonder why a former thespian such as I disliked this so much. It’s simple; it smacked so much of the theatre of the absurd we used to do so much of back when I was a teen. I thought it was rather cool when I was a teen, but tired of it quickly. I wouldn’t like the most brilliant production of it. Nevertheless there are some stellar quotes on the back cover, selected from reviews from such periodicals as the New York Times and the New Yorker.

So, if you loved the theatre of the absurd (if you are old enough to remember it or are familiar with it somehow), or love weird plays or just love Sarah Ruhl’s work, then by all means, take a gander at this. I am sure there are people who love this. It’s a good thing this is so short, so I was able to force myself to read it for a group read. Now that I’m done, I’m glad I read it so I know what it is. Give me the original Orpheus any day of the week over this one, and I can’t say as I’m big that sort of thing as I used to be, either.

[Karin]

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler ★★★★

No one will be more surprised than I was that I enjoyed this novel at four stars; I read it for a group read, and at the beginning was sure it would rate no more than two stars. For one thing, the premise is not my cup of tea. For another thing, it took me quite some time to root for the protagonist, Lauren, since I didn’t warm up to her immediately. For the final reason, it was written in 1993 and set about ten years from where we are now, so already this won’t happen as written, because things would have to be different even now; it is usually a bit irksome to read novels like that, at least for me, although sometimes it can be rather interesting to think back on why someone would think that and set it now.

The book is set from 2025 to 2027 inCalifornia. Society is rapidly turning to anarchy; drought, poverty, a police force that charges fees to do nothing of any value, lack of education, jobs, a drug that turns people into pyromaniacs, murder, rape, starvation; virtually nothing is good. Lauren lives with her father, a Baptist minister, her step-mother and her younger siblings in a community that has been walled off to keep out arsonists, looters, rapists and so on. Her father still has a job as a college professor as well. From the start of the novel, Lauren is developing her own religion (this book goes from shortly before she turns 16 to the age of 18) and plans to help who she can even though she can see things are only going to become worse.

When her community is finally destroyed, she sets out on the road north from her neighbourhood near Los Angelos, with the one other survivor of her neighbourhood she sees. In addition to the struggles all are having, she suffers from hyperempathy, which means she feels both the pain and joy of others around her, making survival much more difficult since she will buckle with the same pain as that of an attacker she is fending off. There wasn’t anything about this book I would actually call science fiction, but it may be that later on in the series that will happen. But then, Octavia Butler didn’t set out calling her fiction scifi, either.

This book failed to get five stars from me due to the reasons I first thought it would get only two. But several things brought it up, not the least of which is that Butler could certainly write well and spin a story that kept me reading longer than I’d planned. The protagonist may be a teen, but this is not a young adult novel. While it is not extremely graphic, it still shows the brutality of many and doesn’t euphemize any of it.

[Karin]

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by PD James
4 stars

Cordelia Gray, age 22, shows up to work one morning to find her boss, Bernie Pryde, dead by suicide; he has chosen this over suffering through cancer. While she’s handling this sorrow and the details, she is hired to find out why Cambridge dropout Mark Callendar has killed himself. The man who hires her is his father, and it doesn’t take Cordelia long to realize that murder is the far more likely cause of Mark’s death.

The search Cordelia undertakes reveals surprises, twists, elements of danger and all that you’d want in a well written murder/suspense/mystery/thriller novel. True, it doesn’t rush through things at a breakneck speed designed to give one nightmares after staying up all night reading it, but it doesn’t need to do so. The writing is at once simple and well done; moving along at a clip that does speed up at times, naturally, or it would merely be a cozy mystery. Since it is written in the 1970s there are no cell phones or electronic tracking means, which is such a refreshing change. I like Cordelia and am strongly considering reading the next one.

[Karin]

Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan ★★★

Chloe is feeling the effects of a slightly strained marriage and the discomfort of her son, Marshall, bringing home a new girlfriend who is part of an odd group of a small religious sect who has sent her to college on scholarship. Marshall has been searching for some kind of faith—any kind, really, since he saw his friend die at age twelve. But the entire family is thrown into a nightmare when Marshall’s girlfriend, Ava, sneaks peanut butter to Chloe’s younger daughter, Meghan while out on a boat and Meghan goes into severe anaphylactic shock with only one epiPen along; not enough to make it back in time, she ends up in a coma.

We see the family struggle with two points of view; Chloe’s in first person, and Marshall’s in third. There are praises for this novel from writers such as Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean) and Sarah Gruen(Water for Elephants). I think, though, that Tasha Alexander (Only to Deceive) says the most helpful thing, and I’m merely summing it up; this is a book for fans of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve.

[Karin]

The Red and the Black Stendhal ★
This is a classic, but I certainly don’t care for it. There isn’t one likable character, I found the plot and story far less than stellar and, frankly, other than good grammar for the era, couldn’t find one redeeming point in this book other than that, once done, it was finally over. So why, then, bother to read it at all given that I’m long past school? I chose to read it as a group read, and having never read Stendhal before, thought I may as well give it a go. I didn’t read this exact copy, and while I understand that the translator of the library copy I read, Charles Tergie, might not be the best translator of this work around, there is nothing any translator could do to fix the worst parts of this for me.

Naturally, at least one person I know is likely to love this novel or at least like it, and, as always, there is nothing personal about disagreeing on novels such as this. After all, not everyone needs to like a novel’s character to enjoy it. They might like the psychological aspects of it, or appreciate points about it that did nothing for me, and given that this is literature and not something involving human rights or safety and so on and so forth, they are entitled to enjoy it. But, honestly, Julien is so unlikable; at one time brilliant in certain ways and on another so doggone shallow, egotistical and self centred, not to mention rather manipulative at times, with absolutely character growth of any value whatsoever that I just didn’t like him, nor based solely on this novel, could I form any good opinion of the author. Don’t even get me started on the inane character Madame de Rênard or the other women who came into Julien’s life. Based on this novel alone, Stendhal’s understanding of women appears to have been extremely limited and superficial. There wasn’t one woman in the lot I could like.

However, if you frequently love books I hate, try it and see what you think. If you are passionate about nineteenth century French literature you might love it. I’ll stick to authors such as Victor Hugo. For sure, Hugo tended to ramble and lecture, but at least he knew how to create characters we could get behind and root for passionately.

[Megalion]

Karin wrote: "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by PD James
4 stars

Cordelia Gray, age 22, shows up to work one morning to find her boss, Bernie Pryde, dead by suicide; he has chosen this over sufferi..."


Intriguing. .... curse you.

[Karin]

☊ All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr ★★★★★+❤❤❤
When Marie-Laure Leblanc, born with congenital cataracts, becomes blind at age six, her father, locksmith at the museum, builds her a detailed miniature of their neighbourhood to allow her to memorize it by touch, although it takes a couple of years of outdoor practicing with him turning her around three times at various points and telling her to find their way home before it really clicks. Werner grows up in an orphanage with his sister, Jutta. Frau Elena, a Huguenot, tells them stories in French daily. He is tiny for his age, a mechanical genius who repairs and makes a simple radio work for he and his sister to listen to. One day they come across a fabulous French radio broadcast about science and they are mesmerized.

The Nazis ascend to power, and less than a year until Werner is to be sent to work in he local mines, his mechanical genius is discovered by a Nazi officer when Werner is called to repair a radio no one else locally has been able to fix. Werner, naturally, fixes it, and at fourteen, desperate to avoid working in the very mines that killed his father, he ends up being sent to a brutal academy for Hitler Youth. Throughout the rest of his schooling and career, warning words from his sister continue to haunt him as he increasingly begins to question what they are doing, yet has always been someone who does what is expected of him.

Just before the Nazis reach Pari, Marie-Loure and her father leave their apartment, forced to go on foot when no train arrives, and end up in the home of her reclusive great uncle Etienne, who hasn’t been right since tragedy struck when he was serving in WW I. With them they are carrying something which may or may not be one of the most valuable items from the museum.

This is not only an exquisitely well written and crafted novel, but the audiobook narrator is perfect for the book. Part him, part, I expect, due to the director of the recording, but he captures the feel of the writing and the story. He wisely refrains from trying to make women sound like women, but uses more subtle means of conveying who is speaking and it works marvelously. This is perhaps the best newer book I’ve read in a long time.
Highly recommended.

[Karin]

Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church 3 stars

Kenda Creasy Dean, an Associate Professor at Princeton, examines the results of a massive study done from 2003-2005 called the national Study of Youth and Religion, as well as the assertion by others of the rise in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism in place of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other faiths, although very much primarily focused on traditional Christian groups along with Mormons--a feel good type experience. That it wasn't riveting is evidenced by the fact that I first started this book in 2014 and only went back and actually read the entire thing because it was part of a book reading game, and yet it's a topic I'm actually interested in.

This book has a fairly narrow target audience; those interested in the religious faith of American teens. It was interesting that Dean didn't even understand that at least one of the churches she discussed at length isn't even trinitarian, and she stated from the outset that that was her bias. While there were some interesting parts, and a few places that were very interesting, overall I can't say that it was stellar.

[Karin]

Brown Bottle by Sheldon Lee Compton
3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

This is a gritty novel revolving chiefly around Wade "Brown Bottle" Taylor and his nephew Nick. Wade earned his nickname as a long time alcoholic, and now he's trying to save teenage Nick from going further and further downhill with drinking and other substance abuse. There is nothing glorified or pretty about the depiction of these issues, but rather a more honest, blunt approach.

It's a book that started rather slowly for me and was hard for me to get into at first, as neither of these people was easy for me to learn to like and/or root for in any way, but it's one of those books that gets better as it goes on. The last third of the book was where I had a hard time putting it down to finish the next day. I have to admit that if I hadn't won this book with the agreement to participate in an author discussion, I probably wouldn't have read very far, and that would have been a shame because Compton can write, and write well. And I do not always give a positive rating to books I win for reviews, because that's not honest.

This is a book by an Indie press, so there are some typos that in no way ruined the story and it's always great to support Indie publishing companies, recording labels, etc.

[Karin]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ★★★★★

The book is, as always, 5 stars and a heart. But this audio recording narrated by Flo Gibson is 1.5 stars. TERRIBLE!. 1. her voice, while fine, was too old and gravelly to tell this story of young lovers. 2. The expression was not always particularly good, and this is the third audiobook of this I've heard. 3. She's a New Yorker, so was only able to do a mid-Altantic accent.


I listened to this for an Olympic reading game, or would have scrapped it for a print version, but my reading time was limited as I'm also reading print books for this.

No book summary, but who has never heard of P & P and doesn't know anything at all about it?

[Karin]

4 starsHouse Calls by Float Plane: Stories of a West Coast Doctor by Alan Swan

Let me make one thing perfectly clear; this is mainly a regional history and memoir published by an indie press that focuses on books by and for British Columbians. That said, there are others who might find this interesting, but it is written like many of the books my husband likes--for people who like regional history, anecdotes and so on by authors who aren't necessarily writers, but have lived experiences professional writers haven't. For this, it deserves four stars.

I'll admit to having some bias; I was born in one of the hospitals in this book, and this doctor was one of the ones there during my dramatic entry into this world (not in this book nor is it about that sort of thing), when they had to fly in specialist by plane due to the weather being too rough to fly my mother out. But there was so much I didn't know. The primary focus of this book is on when Alan Swan was out of the area, flying or boating to remote logging camps, etc, in the 1950s and 1960s, and then his four years later on travelling to the northern parts of the province to see patients among a number of northen BC first nations people. There are parts about local friends and other things.

So, if you are from BC and interested in this sort of history, or you like to read about frontier medicine or, since this is a bit later, medicine in remote or very rural places, then this might be for you. But this is not James Herriot, regaling you with amusing anecdotes.